The dream started as dusk and dawn tugged equally at the night. While the dreamer shifted in his bed the stream at the end of the garden was specked with fine raindrops while the night creatures scurried to shelter. As the rain began the dreamer’s dream took form. The dream world shifted into focus as if it had always been playing out in his mind as if it was always there under the surface. As the sheen of water broke the dreamer tapped the bar and waited for the barmaid to notice him.
The dreamer shifted in his sleep, his brow creasing and his eyes moving under their lids in abrupt arcs. Around him the room was cool and his one foot sneaked out from under the sheets to seek out its comfort.
The barmaid noticed the dreamer and he ordered a drink, a single drink because he was alone and then he turned and sat in a curved seat that hugged the window near the door.
The dream-time shifted, picking out another moment with the effortlessness peculiar to dreams. She was suddenly sat there. The dreamer knew she belonged in the world of dreams. She was tall and broad-shouldered, with short hair and eyes of pale blue. She was not a traditional beauty but he knew this did not matter. Her smile was swift, hinting at hidden things and her wit brought a smile to his lips.
The dream replayed the memory, embellishing and re-editing it but essentially being true to what passed between them. The dreamer was oblivious to the changes; to the dreamer, it was simply his world.
She ran her hand through her hair, cut like a man’s, slightly longer on the top and shaved almost to her scalp on the sides. It was blonde, but dark enough that the sides of her head did not appear bald. Her friends were gone, and if he looked over to the bar he would be able to see them glancing over to them, but he did not care enough to look.
He only had eyes for her.
The dream shifted again, and they were walking upstairs back up to the main floor of the bar. Below was a pool table and a few arcade games and they had entertained each other with their inability to play any of them. She walked ahead of him and he watched her hips swaying under the glittering material of her dress. It was red and clung to her hypnotically. He turned to sit back down but felt her tug at his white shirt, her fingernails were painted black and he could feel the warmth of her fingers through the thin material.
He followed her through the door and she pointed.
They stood on a balcony, and below an empty storefront drew his gaze.
“There.” She said. Her voice was soft and barely above a whisper, but he heard her anyway. The rest of the world had muted itself, knowing its unimportance.
“Yes.” He said, leaning against the balcony rail, its wrought iron painted with the same black gloss as her fingernails. Her hand rested on his shoulder and a low electric charge moved through his body.
“I want to create a place where people like you would be at home.”
“People like me?” He asked and she smiled and nodded back through the doorway into the bar. His gaze followed her eyes.
Inside the bar was a kaleidoscope of light and movement. The dreamer’s vision blurred at the sight of it and his stomach clenched. He felt her fingers on his face. She turned him back to the night, the street quiet and the glistening of the stars above a pale shadow of her eyes. Her skin reflected the moonlight, the stars a halo around her hair.
“People like you.” She said and her smile broadened and broke into a grin. She moved away from the rail, and back towards the bar, sliding onto a bench seat outside the main door. The man slid in beside her and she nodded him closer and he obeyed.
“Closer.” She said and his hip brushed hers.
She smelled of strawberries.
“Any closer I’ll be on your lap.” He said and heard the nerves in the words, his voice moving through the octaves. He remembered his voice breaking as a boy and suddenly he was that boy again.
“Would being on top of me be such a bad thing?” She asked and he felt his cheeks heat, his eyes avoiding hers and she laughed the laugh of a bride.
The dreamer woke and for a moment the world was golden. The light that streamed between the drawn curtains was brighter and the blue of the sheet that covered him was the technicolour of a sixties movie.
Then the dream came to him and reality settled.
The colour faded and the dreamer covered his face.
The dream had died but the memory persisted, the dreamer woke but was still caught in the dream. He rose and avoided his face in the mirror as he tried to shave.
The dawn was still fresh enough that dew still clung to the grass. The man passed and walked into the town’s centre. His feet knew their path, his mind was busy.
He remembered.
He had gone with friends but they had left him one by one, being led away by fate rather than design until he was alone. Some saw friends they had not seen in an age while others saw faces they wanted to get to know, the man didn’t blame them, youth always seemed in motion.
He had bought a drink and found a corner to sit in, watching the sun dip towards the day’s end as he nursed the drink. He could hear the people moving into the bar behind him, sometimes catching their reflection in the glass as the darkening sky turned it into a mirror.
They wandered as ghosts, out of sync with the sounds they produced. Their laughter was hollow, and their greetings muddled.
He watched and drank his drink, the edge of the fluid an inch from the rim of the glass, then two, then four.
She walked in with three others, her dress glittering brilliant red against the muted backdrop, her view towering over those around her. As if drawn her eyes moved to his reflection in the glass and they saw each other. One of her friends glanced over and they gathered around the bar, their back to him.
There were rapid glances and sidelong looks. He sat and watched and his glass drained another inch.
Her shoes tapped a staccato rhythm.
“Hi.” She said to his reflection and when he turned he was not prepared.
As the dreamer walked the world around him was barely waking to the new morning. A car would pass with bleary-eyed passengers; a man stood on a doorstep in slippers and a dishevelled dressing gown, a woman behind him holding a milk bottle.
The couple watched the dreamer as he passed.
He turned left, and then right into the centre of the town. He skirted a pool of vomit and slowed his pace.
The bar was on his right, the balcony hanging from its second storey.
He saw the seat on which they had sat. It was worn down to the metal by the elements, in front of it the black-painted rail was rusted into bubbles of distended paint.
The dreamer stopped and stared.
It had been closed for years, and only the dreamer remembered it.
She had been the first woman who bought him a drink, and they had talked until the sky met another day. A barmaid had taken their empty glasses. Her face was tired and her expression was gruff, but neither moved until a stone-faced man had ushered them on. She had pressed a note into his hand at the door and as he read it she had slipped into the night.
The dreamer looked in his wallet at the tissue-thin paper. The folds folded to transparency, and the numbers were barely there.
He didn’t need to read them, he knew them by heart.
He took out his phone and dialled from memory.
As the phone rang he thought the thought that would never go away.
Had he been the dreamer or was he just part of the dream?