I had been sleeping for a few hours when I started to dream about doing laundry, because all my clothes and all my life needed cleaning. I opened the dryer door to take it all out but there was nothing inside. So I looked more carefully, inspected the inside of the dryer by climbing into it. Nothing. Somehow I understood that to find my things I would need to close the door. This way I could see the machine function, and if my things were going missing, I would see where. However, the door wouldn’t close behind me. I pulled it tight, shook it. It wouldn’t move. So I shook it more. Continued…

She drowns peacefully, in my dream, while I watch, standing over her with my shoulders above the surface. I beg her to come up to where I am, I motion to her, I even try pulling her. But there she remains, her hair floating weightlessly around her. She doesn’t believe in the water. She doesn’t believe that what we feel will hurt her. She doesn’t understand that she can’t stay where she is, that it’s dangerous, that she should trust me. Maybe she’s right; I’ve earned no such privilege. There is nothing for her to drown in except for the water line that I drew above her head. Still, she sits, unbreathing and content, and still, I stand, the opposite. This is the difference in living.

Last night I had a dream that I was the only one who saw the end of the world. And I didn’t want to wake from it.

I was out in a field with hundreds of other workers, picking berries or tilling soil or planting seeds, as was my job then. A tight, pulsing trail of fire leapt up into the sky, bright against the starlit backdrop. It swirled in a giant loop, burning so dominantly that there was nothing but absolute nothing in its wake. Slowly, the fire descended from the sky. I knew, somehow, that we were the last people on Earth, however long such a thing could be true and boasted about. Everything the fire touched was devoured – the field, the soil, all the workers that were standing around me, one by one, some not even aware of what was happening. The fire came for me last, slower than ever it moved. I stood there amazed, eyes wide open, staring with struggling confidence and hopeless curiosity. I watched it swirl in small circular patterns as it approached me. I just stared, and stared, and…

I must have rolled over, adjusted my pillow, pulled the blankets up.

My tea was nearly finished when the hail started to come down like a gentle rain of salt. I left the diner then to enjoy its soothing massage, and the sound of it on the pavement was like confetti falling to the ground. After I’d been out walking for some time, after I was at my most vulnerable, the hail grew; beads, marbles, eyes, fists, heads. I turned and ran down an adjacent street. There were gazebos full of people, women inside unmoving vehicles and men underneath them, and nowhere for me to hide. The sound of the hail on the pavement was like cannonballs breaking through, startling me with every crash. A voice called to me from a tall building and I ran towards it like a beacon. When I reached the building’s entrance, a woman that I recognized begged me to come in, as though I were doing her the favour by coming out of the storm. She sat me down and offered me tea and took my coat, which I now noticed had been worn through by the hail.

I looked at my arm, my hands, my body; bruised, bleeding, broken.

She came back to the room with tea that warmed me right through, making me feel healed instantly even though I knew better than to believe that. It would take longer to be well after what I’d been through. I sipped my tea and thanked her for her kindness. She replied with a polite smile;

Really, it was nothing. You’d do the same for me.

I could detect uncertainty in her voice and I knew that it was well-placed. Would I really have done something that kind for her, after all the years that passed by while I cringed at her memory? Still, I didn’t want to return to the storm, so I lowered my eyes and nodded to her. The awkwardness of the silence echoed in the room, from the walls and through the seat I was in, its reverberations shaking me first at the legs and then at my hands. My teacup trembled in my nervous hands but by the time I spilled it on my lap, it was cold and harmless. She looked at me, surprised, and wondered if she should get a cloth.

No, I don’t want to trouble you, I told her, it won’t be long until the storm lifts, then I’ll be on my way.

She looked at me, surprised, and wondered what storm I was talking about.

The hail, I said, and looked out a window, puzzled. There was no storm outside – not a single sign that there had ever even been one. I scratched my head and turned to her. She was holding my coat, waiting for me to step into it. I had insulted her and was now unwelcome. As I walked out the door, I looked up at the clear sky and wondered where the hail had come from, where it had gone. I tried once again to convince her that there had been a storm. She replied with a polite smile;

That must have been something else entirely.

I knew she was right. This time, she was right, and it all made sense. I thanked her for the tea and again for her kindness, and stepped out onto the pavement, where I heard my footsteps mix with the sound of confetti falling, and felt the soothing massage of salt once more.

In my dream, when I woke up, I was in a bedroom that only looked like mine. I knew it wasn’t mine, despite all the things that I recognized; my lamp by the bed, my discs on the wall, my heroes framed and scattered throughout. Where was I? Not my bedroom. It was my bed, my blankets, but someone else’s room. I was lost.

In my dream, when I opened the door, I stepped into dense jungle. There was chirping, squawking, roaring. I turned around, frightened, and the door slammed closed behind me, disappearing into dark green foliage. There was no way back but now I wasn’t as frightened. There’s no time for fear when you’re trying to survive. I climbed up the tallest tree with ease to look for a path to take, but as I reached the top – even from the peak of the tallest tree – there were still trees around me that were taller. I couldn’t see anything. Now, rather than keep climbing, I decided to swing from vine to vine, not knowing where I was or where to go, but at least I was moving. It’s always best to keep moving. You never know how lost you are until you’re standing still.

I think I see my life most clearly when I have my eyes closed.

As I skated towards the net weighted down heavily with goalie equipment, I kept hearing the coach’s instructions repeated in my head.

“This is the most important game of your life. It has to be won. This is the most important game of your life. It has to be won.”

Over and over, his voice trickled through my mind. I reached the net and turned around and saw the other team waiting across the ice. They had no distinguishable facial features and they seemed inhumanly over-inflated, even though I knew they had to be men just like me. The whistle blew and they started coming at me, charging like hungry sharks swimming through the air. I looked around for my team, and there was no one. The first shot came hard, right to my chest, and I held on to the puck until the whistle blew. The next shot hit me square in the gut, but again I held on. Shot after shot was taken at me, each time harder than the last, all coming directly at me as if the only way to the net was right through me.

After a hundred shots, I knew that I was alone out here on the ice. There would be no teammates coming on in the next line change to help me. But I still have to win this game. It’s the most important one of my life.

So after the next shot hits me in the chest, nearly knocking me over, I don’t hold on to it. I drop it down in front of me and push it with my stick, around the other team, following behind it as quickly as I can. When I reach the other net, the goalie has a surprised look on his face. I can see it through his mask. I take a shot and it slides right between the goalie’s legs. Just like that, the game is over. I skate over to my coach to hear what a great game I played, and he’s already gone. My bench is empty, the entire arena is empty.

I was playing against myself the whole time.

Very early this morning I had a dream that I could see myself standing on a jagged precipice high above the ground. The sky behind me was swirling around in a wild frenzy making it almost hard to stand on the narrow space. There was a barbaric yawp that thundered towards me and after a moment I called after it. More came, one by one, always with a pause behind it and always like my own voice, waiting for me to reply – and my reply always had less presence the second time around. I could tell by how I moved on that cliff that I was imitating someone else. That wasn’t me standing there, calling like a man in distress, it was just the echo, and I had no idea where I really was.

When it started to rain, I started to look for shelter. The moon was coming out and it lit the streets better than the streetlights themselves did. The tall buildings overwhelmed my view, walking by them through alleys and between old stone houses. There were people filling the sides of the streets, all laying down and looking up, wearing enormous robes and blank white theatre masks. No one moved as I stepped around them carefully. I knew they were all alive, I could feel the air being pulled away every few seconds in one deep harmonious breath. I passed through the darkest alley yet, under the awning of a shop that was gathering the rain like a person collects memories, and came to a harbour by the ocean. There were fishing boats anchored out from shore and long wooden docks with masked people laying on them. The walkway by the water was wide, with many holes in the ground opened just enough to show the blank mask of someone underneath looking up past me. Once I reached the end of the walkway, I stopped. Even though it still stretched as far as I could see, I knew this was the end because the last mask was beneath me. Its gaze was hollow, indifferent, as if it was angry and sad and happy and loud and quiet all at the same time. Curious, I leaned over and grabbed the mask with one hand, lifting it off as carefully as I had been stepping around them. I put the mask on my face and looked down at the person I had taken it from only to see that it was just another white mask. We stared at each other with a mutual indifference, sharing the rain that was only now beginning to relent. I laid down to watch the last few drops splash in my face, all the while feeling angry and sad and happy that I had missed it all.

Last night I found myself in a hospital bed, my body wrapped tightly in bandages, in a large room whose walls were too far away for me to see. My mind was unclear, possibly still dizzy from whatever had happened to have ended up where I was, and I could feel myself still bleeding but from where I couldn’t tell. The sound of a door opening and closing echoed around me and I heard footsteps cutting the silence towards me, more than a hundred in all, one after the other, casual and deliberate. I was so far from wherever that door was, but in no time at all those steps were right next to me, although the body that they belonged to was nowhere in sight.

“Hello?” I asked without reply, repeating myself twice before I heard anything other than my own voice.

“Hey.”

I turned my head as much as I could, which wasn’t much at all. I recognized the familiar tone but there seemed to be no one from which it came. “I thought you said you weren’t coming.”

“No, I said nothing like that, and, as you can see, here I am.”

“Yes, of course,” I said. The bandages wrapped around me seemed tighter than they had even just moments earlier, especially one on my chest, that I could see was gradually turning from white to deep red. “Well, I thought you said I wouldn’t be here.”

“No, I said nothing like that, and, as you can see, you are.”

“Yes, of course,” I said. Clearly I was mistaken because now I remember that nothing at all was ever said, just subtle implications that I clearly misinterpreted. My chest was even deeper red now.

“Come, let’s go for a walk.”

I tried to turn my head and look at this person, but I could neither turn my head nor see anyone if I could. I was upset at these words and showed it in my reply. “I can’t walk! Can’t you see where I am? In this hospital bed, bleeding, my entire body wrapped up and waiting to recover?”

“No, I hadn’t noticed, and, as you can see, I’m well enough to walk.”

“Yes, of course,” I said, spitting out the last words in the conversation. The footsteps began again, the sound of them fading further and further away but not ending. I wondered if they’d quietly slipped out through the door or if they were just hiding in the corner, waiting to see if I’d join them or die from the wounds. I wasn’t sure myself, and the bandages on my chest turned no whiter.

My dreams lately are blurring the lines between imagination and reality, and the best sleep I ever seem to have is when I’m awake.