She doesn’t always know what the night will bring, but she’s always excited. Anticipating dreams that take her to places that hang faintly on the pathways and structures of her real world. The street she grew up on, but greener, so green, so lush. The houses look like cardboard in the moonlight, and she doesn’t talk in those dreams, but encounters people and adventures she doesn’t meet during the day. There’s nothing better in life than the lives she has every night while she sleeps.
So it’s a little odd to have a faint premonition of tonight’s dreams. The sudden awareness, there will be candy bars. Odd maybe even more so because she doesn’t really like candy bars that much. She dreams of miniature BLT sandwiches, and soups, but not candy bars. When she dreams of food at all.
She assumes it will be a Snickers. She liked those a lot when she was young. Slowly peeling off the chocolate coating, then peeling off the layers to eat one by one. Dissected candy. But it could surprise her and be a bag of Smarties, though that’s not a candy bar, is it? She ponders her options, and already has a faint sickly feeling of eating too much sugar.
The day passes like most others, following routines as the winter day gets dark so early, and even though she knows what’s coming, she stays up later than she should in front of the tv, waiting for enlightenment, maybe, or just for fatigue to announce itself. Finally, she gives up, and heads to bed.
Her dreams, what she can remember, are glorious. She meets someone she hasn’t seen in years, she’s ecstatic to reconnect and hug her friend. She sees trees, pines, so big and tall, taking over the sky around her. She meanders, in proper dream fashion, until she realizes she’s late and must figure out where she’s supposed to be. Late for what, it’s not quite clear, and she can’t get her phone to unlock so she can look up where she’s going. But it’s going to be wonderful, wherever it is, if only she can get past these aggravating holdups. She tries the phone again, and then again. She wanders the airport, for that’s where she’s appeared, hoping for a sign or someone who can help her find her way. She paces back and forth along the gates, watching people ready to travel, not really worried about her missing luggage. Well, until now, where did it go?
She won’t remember finding the candy bar, when she wakes up tomorrow. She grabbed it, dreamily nondescript candy, chewing on it while trying to get her phone to work, until she leaves it behind. She never does find where she’s going, and she’ll never know the candy bar, unwrapped and half eaten, left behind on a seat at the gate.
The candy bar wakes up. Aching, he rolls to one side, trying to process what has happened. Who was she? Why didn’t she talk? And why did she have to take such big bites, pulling him apart, as if he was giving her life, until she had enough and left him behind. Typical, he thinks. An aside in a dream of vagaries, missing the point. He has all the answers she needs. He could fulfill her quest, find her way out of the airport, he is sure of this. If only he wasn’t lying here, waiting for someone to throw him away. If only she had kept opening the wrapper, if only she had asked for help. The candy bar sighs. Life is better in dreams, he thinks, and tries to fall back asleep.
Worlds 