Across the Universe

9 AMY

BUT THERE ARE ALSO DREAMS.

Wonderful dreams. Beautiful dreams. Dreams of a new world.

I don’t know what it will be like. No one does. But the nightmares rarely touch the new world, and in my mind, it is always paradise.

It is a place worth giving up Earth for.

Warmth. I always notice the warmth first.

And in my dream, I wake up, and I’m home.

My grandmother makes pancakes in the kitchen. She always mixes just a squeeze of syrup in with the batter, so the kitchen is already filled with a sticky-sweet smell that reminds me of home.

Grandma looks up at me and smiles—

And sometimes I’ll lose the dream right then, because having Grandma again is the most unbelievable part of any dream—

She smiles, and it seems to make all her wrinkles disappear.

“Let’s go!” Daddy says. He’s dressed in sweats. He jogs a little in place, and his sneakers squeak on the linoleum. Then Mom runs up behind him in running shorts and a sports bra—

And sometimes I lose the dream there, because Mom never ran with me, it was always just me and Daddy—

And we start running.

And the new world spreads out around us as we run. It’s always beautiful. It’s the best parts of home made better. It’s sandy beaches where the sand doesn’t slip under our racing feet and the water’s gold, not blue. It’s cool forests with breezes that smell like lemons and honey, where strange woodland animals with soft fur play with us. It’s deserts with towering sand sculptures that offer us sweet water to drink.

The new world is always beautiful, always perfect.

And if I’m lucky, the dream stays here.

I’m not always lucky.

As we run, the path curves around. We start to circle back. And I see our house, a mixed-up house that looks a little like our home in Florida where we lived when I was young, but it’s brick like the one in Colorado, and Grandma’s on the porch, waving and calling us in.

And Mom leaves the path and goes to the house.

“Come on,” Daddy says, and he jogs up the steps of the porch.

But I can’t quit running. My feet won’t turn toward home.

I can’t stop.

I have to race, round and round, in a world that’s beautiful and serene and perfect.

I try to stop. I circle back to the house, and Mom and Grandma and Daddy are there, eating pancakes, and sometimes Jason’s there too, and my dog from when I was little, and my friends from high school.

And I can’t stop.

Because sometimes the dreams of the new world turn into nightmares.