Stuff of dreams

I have no idea yet how the story will start, or what will be in the middle: I do know this is how it will end. The names may change....

He walked in through the door of her fathers shop, just before closing. She was there towards the back, cleaning off the workbenches, brushing the small bits of wood, leather and metal into a bin with a small brush. She continued for a moment, unaware of him standing there behind her, watching.

A small smile turned up one corner of his mouth. She had changed even less than he expected. Her long dark brown hair, with hints of deep red catching the last of the sun like subtle fires hidden deep. Her smooth olive skin, the slender figure and soft curves of her, all still there. She stepped up on a short stool to brush off the top of a cabinet; and then like a feral cat she froze, aware of eyes on her. She turned her head and saw him.

“Hello, Marge.” he said softly. “It’s been a long time. You look lovely.” She stared at him for a long moment, unwilling or unable to speak. Her face gave away little after the first look of shock; but her eyes revealed the welter of emotions she fought to control. She turned away from him and began again to briskly clean off the cabinet. Her voice, when she finally spoke, was steady. “After all this time, you came back. No word, not a letter, nothing. Then you walk in as though it was yesterday.”

He leaned his staff inside the doorway, slid the pack off one arm and set it there as well. Carefully he began walking towards her. He could all but feel her emotions now, like heat radiating from her body. Anger, distrust, pain and betrayal…. and was there still, buried under all that… yes, there was. He moved closer and she stepped down quickly and moved away from him. She tried to hang the brush up on a small nail, placed a little out of reach for her. She had to stretch on tiptoe to hang it there. Her hands were shaking ever so slightly now, though her voice remained tightly controlled. “What do you want? Why are you here? Do you think nothings changed?”

Smiling again he stepped in behind her, letting his chest touch her back lightly. Marge went rigid as she felt him touch her. Knowing that she would know he was laughing a bit at the unsubtle innuendo, he reached over her shoulder and helped guide the nail into the small hole on the brush. He placed his cheek gently against hers, breathing in the warm smell of her as he did so, the scent of her hair and her skin filling him with memory.

“I’m here, little one. You have never, in all this time, been out of my mind. Or my heart. I’m home.” She relaxed against him suddenly, and he wrapped his arms around her and held her there. The first of many hot tears rolled down her cheek and onto his, though she made no sound at all. For the first time, she knew without a doubt he loved her. It did not matter if it was months or centuries, he would never leave her side again while she lived.


This was a dream I had this morning; powerful, emotional, evocative. I often dream of total strangers, perhaps taken from faces seen on TV, or passing in the streets. I sometimes dream about friends, rarely about former lovers, and even less often about current romances. Marge was my girlfriend in High School and for a year afterwards; we had a brief romance again three years after that. I have not seen or heard from her since. The woman in the dream was her, beyond a doubt. She looked exactly as memory says she did that last date. I was me, but not with the face or body I (ahem) usually inhabit. As sometimes happens, the "me" in dreams is not the physical me.