Remembering the Dream
Memory February 16th, 2005
I slept fitfully, but he found time to visit in a dream about a bookstore.
We dated when I was eighteen. Darryl Cooper. 6′4″, red-headed romantic with a deep rumbly laugh and a smile that swallowed his face. I haven’t thought about him in ages, but he popped into my dreams this morning.
David and I walked through a Borders. I don’t know why I knew it was that particular store, because it didn’t physically resemble any Borders I had been in. But in the cafe (which was a waiting area for the restaraunt attached to it) Darryl sat, dressed in a black button down shirt, and black trousers, with longer hair than I remembered him having. Both of his ears were pierced and he wore thick rimmed black glasses. He looked dashing. Men sat in front of him on computers and I realized he was in a meeting. He waved, smiling that smile that I remember and asked me to wait a moment.
I moved to a counter where Wolfgang Puck was serving up little nests of pan-seared noodles covered in a creamy parmasean sauce and topped with broccoli (I know all this because I watched him make the dish for me). David excused himself, he was going to the art section and Darryl joined me, taking a plate and a glass of wine. “It’s so good to see you,” he said to me. I smiled up at him and realized I was really happy to see him too.
Then the alarm went off.
About
HAHAHAHA, isnt that how it always works? just when the dream gets good you wake up…
the alarm is obviously a bastard…
I know !! I hate it when I get interrupeted in a dream. I think alarms are imagination-killers. It’s funny because I can still remember the smell of the cafe, even now.
Yeah, the alarm probably woke you up right before you had a threesome with you ex-boyfriend (otherwise known as the other white meat.) and Wolfgang Puck on the coffee counter.
Wolfgang has a nice accent and all but I don’t dig the rotund chefs.
He can flambé my crème brule but he cannot shag me….
The other white meat was a lot of fun, I admit. But the three of us could have been boinking in the art section right next to Mapplethorpe!
Sometimes I think dreams are supposed to come to their natural conclusion without finishing the story. Even without the assistance of an alarm, the “good” dreams just stop and I wake up.
After all, if all our dreams were these little bits of reality with a beginning and end, how could we ever cope with being awake?
Considering the depth of my nightmares, I prefer the waking world to the sleeping one. Still, there are stolen moments with people long gone from my life that I would like to savour for just a moment longer, even if its just in my dreams.