In My Dreams

I had an epiphany last night. I dream in technicolor. So real I often wake and want to go back to sleep. Oddly after 18yrs as a C5-6 quadriplegic wheelchair user in my dreams I am never in a wheelchair. And so last night came my dream.

Soaking up the morning sun on a verandah adjacent to the main kitchen I noticed a blind girl also enjoying the sun on her skin. It was a popular seaside resort. The kind you want to take a tan home from. I skipped breakfast the next morning and waited quietly on the verandah. She coasted by on rollerblades to take her usual place in the sun. That’s dangerous, I thought.

The resort was high on a dead end road looking over 100 meters of treetops to a beach stretching endlessly in each direction. From the lookout the water was a greenish blue for first km then deep blue all the way to the horizon. The surf roared as it pounded the beach.

Inspired, I headed to the lookout on rollerblades and here she came in the other direction. Trying to impress I launched myself over a speed bump thinking, maybe she will hear me. She didn’t and after a short while at the lookout I headed back to the resort.

My pulse raced when I saw her still standing on the roadside. “Excuse Me?” she said. “Could you take me to the lookout?” “Of course” I said. Interlacing our fingers, elbow tucked inside mine, she gripped my bicep tight with her other hand. I looked down at her white sandals, “Little mud puddle here.” and she stepped clear over it.

“I’ve seen you at the resort.” I said. She replied, “Yes on the verandah. I could hear you sitting in silence.” My jaw dropped. How could she even know I was there? “This is one of my favourite lookouts. I had wanted to ask if you would come with me and let me describe it to you.” I said. She replied, “I imagine it as the end of the earth.” and kissed my shoulder gently.

Nothing I could describe would come near that. She showed me how to see the world in a whole new light. I hope to see her again even if it is just in a dream.