Tonight is the night I escape. Away from my responsibilities and dead-end job. On this bed, I will leave this reality for a while. Where will I go once I drift to sleep? Will I insert myself into TV land? Is there an alternate reality where I get to hunt monsters with Sam and Dean Winchester from Supernatural, a world where I know my way around not only a gun but a car’s engine too? Would I appear in the world of Stranger Things, a world in which I worked with Steve and Robin at Family Video or played Dungeons & Dragons with Eddie? What if I didn’t arrive there and instead walked into the revolving door of movies? Would I fight alongside the Avengers or cause chaos with Deadpool?
Perhaps I’d skip the film scene entirely and dive into books? Is there a daydream where I live in the town of Forks and befriend a certain vampire? Would I fall into the world of Magnus Chase? The real question is, would I even visit the fictional realm if I escaped tonight? I can go anywhere I want, but is what I want better than what I need? What if I floated down memory lane and swam into a memory I could stay in forever? No time would pass, and I could experience it for as long as my magic holds on. Is there a cloud that I could fly to that would let me sit on my great grandma’s bed again before the cancer settled in? Could we sit in silence just so I could feel her love once more? I’d tell her everything and spill my guts until my voice evaporated and my throat burned raw. Could I go see my granddaddy and tell him about my little sister, who he’d love just the same as me? I could step onto my grandma’s floor, bubblegum pink and beige from the wear and tear, and sit down beside my gone-too-soon baby cousin. I’d bargain all my time to hear his voice again, calling my nickname and seeing his sweet smile.
If I couldn’t go where I’m needed, where would I go? I’d follow happiness and peace into the dirt, because after all the suffering, I deserve it all. Would I fall from grace to alter the past in dream reality? What if I made nine years into one year? Or to save myself further harm, one year to one month? Would I live a life of pain because of someone who claimed to love me all this time? What if my eyes glanced in the opposite direction of him in that dream? The dominoes would have stood still and unaffected by one missing piece. What if I scratch everything out and visualize the future? There are green vines draping across the trees, and my soulmate is at the end of the aisle. He’s smiling at me with happy tears glistening like diamonds in his eyes. The bedroom grows darker, colder, and a soft fan buzzes in the distance. Will I dream tonight, or will the void consume me here, too?
Elyssa Latham (she/her) is a woman of words, and reader. Elyssa’s works express strong emotions that people go through and get the reader to feel those emotions alongside her. She wants readers to take away that it is okay to allow yourself to feel and that you can craft art out of pain.
Featured image by Matt Foxx on Unsplash.
