Don't Wake Me if I'm Dreaming Read Free

favorite baseball cap. We met nine and a half months ago at the University of North Carolina Tar Heels baseball game, which he happened to play for a couple years prior and coincidently was the same college from where I graduated. I didn’t know him at that time, but I had watched him pitch at several home games and knew his face. As fate would have it, years later we sat next to each other during a game. He desperately flirted with me, and I wasn’t about to resist the opportunity for much needed, and completely invited attention. We shared an instant and ample attraction. I considered him an impressive catch, but unfortunately, we’d go days without seeing each other. Between his time at the fire department, and working for his dad’s construction company, me at my office working random and long hours, and life, in general, we were lucky to see each other twice a week. On a positive note, the distance kept the zest between us very much alive. 
    Almost the moment I walked through the apartment door after work, I grabbed my laptop and continued my search of dreams. I found some relevant information, but nothing satisfying. More than anything, I wanted to know what caused them and how to make them go away. I stumbled over a passage during my search. ‘When eyes close to rest, the vulnerable mind enters a world of the unknown. It is a private and sacred place. It dreams of those time has lost, those who have left, and those desired most. Much of the encountered is often too discomforting to share, or too indescribable to explain. There, contrition, healing, new beginnings, and adventures beyond the extraordinary are found. Sometimes, it is also the ending of a long road leading to a door that longingly needed closing.
    What is not expected is to return to the places left behind after waking. Remembering little of a dream, if anything at all, but for some there is no escaping.’ “Huh.”
    The rest of the evening I forcefully refrained from dwelling over sleep, and despite a headache and near lethargic feeling attained from sleep deficiency, I kept myself busy with laundry and scrubbing down the bathroom before organizing the kitchen.
      Matt returned my missed call around eleven p.m., after returning from an emergency response to a cardiac arrest. He kept my brain occupied until the screeching of the smoke detector practically perforated my eardrums. I quickly hung up, sprinted to the kitchen, and wrenched the burner off. I tossed the smoldering and blistered pan in the sink, and waved the bristled end of the broom beneath the detector, fanning away the smoke until the bleeping faded to a penetrating echo. “Un-flipping believable!”
    After opening a couple windows, I looked at my clouded kitchen, sourly. It smelled horrible, and the pan was done for. I ran it, along with the trash, out to the dumpster and returned in search of the remaining leftovers that appeared to be stored somewhere other than the refrigerator. Looking around the kitchen, I considered the larder a moment before checking it. Sure enough, I had placed the leftover casserole dish of spaghetti on a shelf next to the misplaced quart of milk. I didn’t allow myself to be fazed by the reduction of my normal brain activity and carried on, successfully reheating a second helping of pasta, this time utilizing the microwave, for obvious reasons. I returned the apartment to pre-smoke order, and by the time I sat down to eat, I finally decided I was done, done with the day’s trivialities. Done searching the Internet for answers I wouldn’t find, done trying to avoid sleep, just done. 
    It was now past midnight, and I didn’t give resting my chin in the crook of my arm a second thought. Nor did it bother me to close my eyes, leaving my half-eaten dinner aside at the table.
    A couple of hours later, my eyes hadn’t yet opened, but I was completely cognizant, and still slumped at the table. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the kitchen lights and