I went to bed early and
upset and woke up at about 3:00 am after troubling
dreams. In the dream I recall, the ambient light in my living room was an odd greenish color (the color of the light in
forests after its filtered through the leaves). For some reason, the music from
The Piano was playing. There was a cup of hot
tea sitting on my coffee table, and I sat down in front of it, dumped in
cream and
sugar and watched the plumes of
smoke waft upwards. For some reason, I felt unreasonably
melancholy.
There was a knock at my door, I opened it and at the door was my friend Patrick; the first boy I ever kissed. I haven't seen him in three years, and he didn't look like he looked when I last saw him; he looked like he did when we were both fourteen and went to Magic Mountain, right down to the Metallica t-shirt and the black and purple shoes. I tried to hug him, but in my dream he wasn't material and my arms went right through him. He smiled at me sadly and offered me his hand. I was able to grasp onto this, and I felt a sudden wrenching. When I looked again, we were on the roof of a building in downtown Los Angeles, gazing at the city below.
I don't remember what he said to me, but his eyes were sad as he said it. He produced from nowhere a violin (Patrick doesn't play the violin) and began playing a sad, lovely piece of music under the night sky (which was remarkably starry, I've never seen it so starry in Los Angeles). He finished, told me not to let my heart get hard and vanished. I was alone on the rooftop, and when I looked again, the sky was no longer starry.