Walking On A Dream

• Isobel Dunbabin, Grade 11
• Short Story
• 2013

You step, trance-like, along the sand. Smoke fogs the air and its woody smell solidifies to taste as it hits the back of your throat. The evening remains warm after a blistering day. Children still splash in the shallows; adults admire the eucalyptus-bark sky and its ribbons of red, the whole vista hanging heavily over the horizon. It seems suspended, as though it is likely to collapse at any moment. Nature often mimics a movie's protagonist's mood; why should this not be the case in real life?
You are wandering amongst a multitude of walkers; each certain of their individual path as you stick to your parents' shadows. Parent's shadow. You wish it were the former; the worry wouldn't be so weighty, then. Autonomy of movement and of thought are achievable; the two in relation to each other are more than you are capable of in this instance. The clockwork creatures continue, absorbed in their own, routine lives. Enjoying the weather.
'Oh, hello! It's such a gorgeous evening, isn't it?'
Familiar feet, familiar face. You wince at her words.
'Yes, it's fantastic to have a proper summer for once.'
You resist the urge to comment and instead smile blandly. Polite, you can remain. Even if they don't care. Even if your skin is so numb, it feels as though you can't feel anything. Even if ice water sloshes darkly, heavily in your stomach. Even if your skull is stuffed with cotton wool and toothpicks prop open your eyelids. Not as brave as Odysseus, apparently, but then... who really could be?
'Where's David?'
Your eyes focus and you open your mouth for the first time. It isn't as gummed-shut as it had felt. But you are too late; stuck in slow-motion.
'He's helping down at his nephew's farm, near Dunalley.'
'Oh, yes, all that's so terrible, isn't it?'
Finally. Acknowledgement. You can live with the understatement.
'Yes, he called us up after he'd driven through. The whole town's just decimated, apparently. The school's gone, and the bakery...'
You used to stop at the bakery almost every time you went down there. To buy bread, or a sausage roll for your brother. Think Dunalley, think bakery: curved, corrugated, blue. Dunalley without the bakery? Well, as logic follows, obviously unthinkable.
The conversation has finished, both parties have moved away. You jog after your mother, simultaneously limply and solidly. The whole feeling is bizarre. Like bounding on the moon, decked out in a space suit. Or being underwater; lying on the bottom of the pool, blowing gossamer bubbles upwards. If you ignore your need for breath, that activity feels oddly safe. Like rising slowly out of sleep, cocooned in a warm blanket. Like you could stay there for eternity.
But you have no right, no right to feel this way. Were you huddling under a jetty whilst flames sprung up around, praying for your life? Were you watching your home, fifty years worth of memories, turn to literal ash? No, you were swimming, playing, sun-baking. Concerned only with getting a tan, enjoying the unexpected heat. You were luxuriating in life whilst others were fighting for it. You're being overdramatic. A teenage girl. But the whole thing feels so surreal; it all feels so surreal.
Walking on a dream, how can I explain?