It’s you I Dream: Level One

An imagined augmented reality experience. (Part 1)

I dream we share a pillow.
I dream the smell of your shampoo.
I dream you back to me.
It’s you I dream. It’s you.

That refrain, the music, it seeps in, like it’s coming from inside your head, like you have no choice. You take the glasses off. It remains.

Later, waiting in the check out line, you slip the glasses back on. A flash of blinding light and then everything, everything is covered in snow. The rows of candy bars and tabloids, the displays of Dr. Pepper, the signs hanging from the ceiling above the aisles. Shimmering, pure white snow, like crystals and silence. The music swells. The voice, like a whisper, “It’s you, I dream. It’s you.” Then it’s gone. All of it gone.

Throughout the day, while sitting at your desk at work, while stopped at a traffic light, while waiting in the carpool pick-up line, you discreetly pull the glasses out of your purse and slip them over the bridge of your nose, the tiny microphones curling into your ears and you wait. You search. You listen. Nothing. No sign of the music, the voice, the snow.

And then you notice, while sitting in the carpool line, hanging on a rung of the jungle gym, you notice a jacket. A man’s jacket, heavy suede, lined with lamb’s wool, sleeve’s heavy, stained, dripping. The school doors won’t open for another five minutes. You abandon your car. You walk to the playground. As you get closer, the music begins, low at first. Then she screams in your ear, as if you are standing right beside her…

How dare you think you can
waltz in here and fucking
“dialogue” with me like
whoever’s most rational at
the round table of diplomacy
will win a fucking badge.

And then you see it, the men’s jacket dripping from the sleeves stained deep red, blood pooling on the ground. You gasp. You can’t help yourself.

You don’t win. You fucked up.
There is no fucking dialogue.
This is not my fault. You don’t get brownie
points for using your inside voice.
And it doesn’t matter how angry
I get or if I throw things or tear
the fucking house down, you
still go home empty handed.

You reach for the jacket. You touch your hands to ground, worn bare from children at play. There is no blood. You tell yourself, there is no blood.

God damn it, you are not
making this my fault. You’re
the fuck-up here. You are!

The jacket is gone, and the blood. You walk back to the car. Sound of soft sobbing in your ears. Tears forming involuntarily.