My bed grew softer and softer until I felt as if I was laying on nothing but puffs of cotton. I begin to sink lower and lower until the cotton cloud envelopes me. I can breathe and know that I am not in danger but that knowledge does not stop my fear. Then, as if all at once, I begin to float downward. It is slow at first and then faster, I'm no longer floating, I'm falling. I see scenes passing me, or I pass scenes of a girl’s life. I see her growing from a young child to a teenager.
I remember none of these scenes of youth, but recognize people, places and events as if I were there. Am I this girl? Am I the star of all these small movies? I continue falling, and though I have no idea how fast I am moving, I know that I am going quicker than I would like. But I am not afraid. It is as if I will never land, as if I am flying purposefully, but without knowledge of where I am going. And then, for the first time yet, I wonder... Where AM I going? I'm falling and falling fast, and now, only now, I am afraid. I panic, I cry and I scream. Not for the fall, or the landing, but I know I am asleep, which means I will have to wake up, and that is what is scaring me. When I wake up, where will I go?
Suddenly, I land. It is neither fast and jarring, nor slow, soft and easy, I am just on the ground. As if all I had done was jump up and land on my feet. I open my eyes, which I hadn't noticed were closed and I see someone. Or something. As my eyes focus, they, it, disappears and a tree is in their place. 'But it could not have been a tree.' I think to myself. 'There was hair, a curved waist.' I was sure of it. I thought. Even if what I had seen was a tree, the curves were different.
I walk up to the tree and feel it pulling me. I step under its branches and look up and down it's trunk. It couldn't have been whatever or whoever I thought I had seen, they were gone. I feel the tree pulling to me, or more accurately, I feel the tree pulling me to it. As I step closer, for just a moment, I see a woman I recognize standing in front of the tree, opening her arms to me for a hug. My arms open and wrap around the tree and I feel its warmth pulse around me, as it pulls me into it.
It is hot and dark in this tree, and as I stand taking in the warmth and the sweet sappy smell, the wind begins to blow. It is fierce and chilling and everything is telling me that I should get out of this wind before it becomes a storm, but I don't. Goose bumps rise on my arm and my teeth begin to chatter, but I still am not cold enough to escape this wind. It's blowing all my fears and worries off of my body, it seems. Taking away I deal with through the day. All of my stresses. I hear a voice on the wind, but cannot make out the words. It is so familiar, like the obscure song you hear in a movie, but don't really listen to until you hear it 3 weeks later on the radio
I follow the voice to a lake not far off. The wind has brought rain and now, I do wish for shelter from this storm. I am scared and cold and wish that I could just go home. I don't know how to get home from here. A cave maybe? My tree, where is my tree that shared its love and warmth with me? Why can't I just go home? Thoughts of home turned to thoughts of work. I don't remember what I do at work, or where I work, only that I don't know why I still work there. Quickly, my thoughts become dark and sour, and the fear of not knowing where I am going return. I sit on the cold wet earth and cry. This cry feels different. I feel as if each tear is washing away a tiny bit of fear and cleansing me. My heavy heart weighs less with each sob until it is so light I feel love radiating from the top of my head, pouring forth to everything around me.
The clouds blow away and the rain lightens, then ceases and I am left on the wet ground with the lake. I couldn't see it in the rain, but as I look ahead of me, I see how vast the lake is, as if it stretches on for miles. I stand up to survey the area around me, and don't even mange to turn around. The water is bight and clear. I see each pebble, rock and shell in the bottom of the lake. As the small waves settle, a shape begins to form.
Curves and hair like I thought I saw when I stopped falling. She is the same woman that wanted me to hug the tree as well. Now she is in the water? It makes no sense. I reach out to touch the water, to feel her, to know that she really is there and not just my imagination, but as soon as the tip of my finger touches the water, a single ray of light hits the water above her and she vanishes again. I look up to see the most amazing sunrise I've ever seen. The sky is filled with reds and pinks and oranges that I've never seen before. As I feel the warmth, I look around me and see that it is all vanishing, just as the woman did.
