Ode To A Bygone Dream

• Morgan Crantock, Grade 10
• Short Story
• 2014

The only real question is whether to go forward or back;
Backwards into fearful surety or forwards off the beaten track.
It doesn't matter how hard we cling onto the past,
Because it's already gone, and we are left to outlast.

And then there was a waiting line, a zealous crowd and a spectral silhouette approaching from the side (?from outside?).

"You're wasting your time," the spectral figure declared.

"What?!" the dusty man challenged.

"In the waiting line...you're wasting your time in the waiting line. You don't even know what you're waiting for do you?" he said soporifically, angling his eyes downwards.

"Well...something good I expect! Look at all these people." He turned around to glance backwards. The waiting line stretched forth eternally. He quickly added ,"What are they waiting for? Do you even know?"

He answered, "I was waiting my whole life in the waiting line, you know."

"And?"

"It's a lie." He spoke so candidly and matter-of-factly that the dusty was abashed.

"What in the world do you mean?"

"People live their whole lives and die in the waiting line. The truth is, no one is waiting for anything really, they just want to think they are. In fact, I bet this bloody line just keeps on going around in circles, with people shuffling forwards to achieve rather the same spot they started off at."
"What are you trying t..." The dusty man was quickly cut off.

"That's the glory of life son; people are happy to wait for some vague promise of happiness. The only time they are truly content is when they commit themselves entirely to hope."

"Do you really believe that?"

"Well that's not important now, is it." He smiled reassuringly, familiarly, and spoke again, "Life's too short for the waiting line." His blue myopic eyes flashed as he grasped the dusty man's hand. A wave of desperation flooded his previously nonchalant face, "When you wake up, remember the waiting line."
.
.
A pasty white roof, an LED clock flashing meaningless red numbers, a screeching alarm; no nightmare was ever this bad. They say you remember your good dreams and forget your bad ones. By some Freudian logic, we are led to believe that our dreams are expressions of our fears, desires, and worries. Nevertheless, the not-so-dusty man had entirely forgotten everything good and bad about the previous night's dream by the time he stood up to take a piss. However in the mirror he did find something strikingly familiar in his reflection: dishevelled brown hair, an inconspicuous nose, an average build, and his blanched blue myopic eyes. Noticeably the latter [don't forget the...]. That night he had dinner with his girlfriend, an attractive woman, although it doesn't really matter. A song was playing in this expensive high class restaurant, although the restaurant didn't really matter. The song was "J'avais Revé". The not-so-dusty man glanced up for a second, admiring the nature of the song, and then returned to his conversation.
"I'm sick of feeling so ******* numb to the world."
"Have you had your medication?" (Like that would help!)
His voice compounded with an indignant crescendoing tone , "Yeah, and I still feel so drained all the time, like my life will amount to nothing at all, like I'm not even original!" He winced at the last one. She grasped his hand across the immaculate dining table. She said something insignificant and comforting; he was focusing in on the song in a daze;what had he dreamed of the night before?

Nothing's more important than the bygone dream
Lingering on the tip of our tongue,
But yet an irretrievable gleam,
To which we will have, and always have clung.


By Morgan Crantock (In Memory of a Close Companion)