It can’t be more than a moment since my eyes closed. I was trying to move my feet. A sound like a drip of water in a pond sounded and I was gone. I woke up after another long dream. A dream of long dark hallways. There were doors on each side. Dark wood doors. The light was grey and blue, everything was illuminated, but there was no light. I don’t know how to explain the shade of the light, it was the color of moonlight in the mountain, but with the white color removed and the blues left in place. I remember the carpet on the floor, and not having shoes on. I could feel the fabric against my feet, and the feeling of the stiff cheap fibers. How can i remember that feeling if i can’t remember what the place was.
It reminded me of a hallway of a friends house when i was younger. It was the longest hallway i had ever seen, and i remembered thinking that the house on the outside didn’t seem long enough to have that much room inside. The rooms and house were always dark. The blinds always closed. Maybe i was back there in my dreams, remembering houses from my childhood. What if all of this remembering is me just thinking back. Why do these dreams keep coming, why don’t I ever seem to be all the way awake? I can’t be only dreaming of things and remembering things. It seems like i am stuttering awake over days and weeks and months. I seem like a series of random events. Like someone took a bucket of pictures or slides. Why do i remember slides. Slide shows, pictures of other peoples trips. I remember a barrel that someone had filled with old slides. Dead peoples memories, old photos of weddings and vacations. I looked through them for hours. Pulling up handfuls of someones most important moments. I remember that they were selling them by the pound. I stood for hours looking at slide after slide, and trying to piece together what they meant for the person who took them. Remember that this was once someones life.
What if this place is where I will be forever. Locked in place in this bed. Dreaming every night of things that have happened. What if this is the place where everything happens. I know i will wake up at some point, and jump out of bed. Jump into the day like i have so many times. But for now I just know that I am stuck walking down this dark hallway. So many doors to open, and so many that are already stuck closed. I know that this door and hallway dream is a clumsy way for my thoughts to resolve, and to know what I have passed by and already seen. My mind doesn’t care though, and doesn’t stop the dreams from coming. I can’t think that this is my world, and this bed and these dreams are the place where I live. I will wake up. I will find the things that bind me in place, and find a way past them.