The blinds resume their steady flowing position once the wind dies down outside, and the sudden brilliant glow that lit up the room dissipates back into shards of light peeking through the slats. One of the beams skimming through falls onto a picture pinned to the wall. A picture of a girl standing alone in a park looking at the sky with her hand shielding the blinding rays of the sun from her squinting eyes. Her hand points to something off of the picture with determination to catch someone’s attention, but also with an affectionate tilt of her arm. She is dressed rather shabbily, but comfortable. The clothes hang loosely from her slender frame, and her sweater is slightly off kilter, revealing one of her shoulders. Not one’s typical idea of a pretty girl, but beautiful in an unconventional and undeniable fashion. Even though the bright gaze of the sun burns her eyes and causes contortions in her expression, her smile stands out from beneath her hand like a red rose on a snow bank. No ordinary smile, but one that sucks the breath right from the lungs, one that mesmerizes in a single glance and one that cannot be ignored. Her stance is slightly crooked with her toes pointed inwards towards each other, pigeon-toed, giving the appearance of discomfort or nervousness.
Was the girl aware of her picture being taken, or was this a candid photo of a random stranger? The truth was that the picture was found lying on the street before anything could scar and distort its artistry, so nothing could be gathered about the background of the image. The only thing that could be learned from it was the writing on the back that said, “La petite fille, tu es tres belle…” What do these words mean? Was it a lover of hers or just a wandering admirer? These are questions that are almost impossible to answer in any accurate fashion and can only be speculated on. Is it possible to love someone just from a picture? From the image, a life is created that can be entirely inaccurate, but wholly satisfying. It is true that one can speculate much about a person’s personality by their body language, dress and appearance. For this particular “petite fille”, she is perceived to be of a lower-middle class background, she is demure and soft-spoken. She doesn’t have many friends because she doesn’t trust many people and fears their judgment, but she likes many people from afar. Her favorite pastime is to go to a park and watch groups of people converse or otherwise go about their daily lives. She likes to pretend that she is there, part of the group, laughing along with them because she lacks the fortitude to actually attempt to speak with them. Sometimes she is caught laughing along with them by passersby who take her for being slightly off balance. Most of her time is spent at home reading, where she can travel off to far away places, meet interesting people, and go on exciting adventures without ever needing to subject herself to the torment of leaving the comfort of her home. This is the story that has been created for the girl in the picture because it suits her, and brings comfort in the idea that there may be others who think this way, a mirror image and a companion.
Apparently this sudden upright position that has been assumed was a mistake due to the after effects of severe discomfort and loss of vision. Falling back to the pillow with a satisfying sigh as the visible world recollects itself, but just as quickly dissolves into a warm fluid dream state. Random encounters with people throughout a lifetime pass by in fragmented images giving incoherent messages that are never to be remembered, but hold the answers to all of the questions to be asked. Such a cruel joke placed on mankind, to be given all of the evidence, the facts, and the reasoning for every question imaginable, but to have it just out of reach because of the waking moment’s deletion of these mid-slumber awakenings. This could be compared to a physicist’s finding of her grand unified theory, and placing it strategically onto a chalkboard only to have it erased during the nightly cleaning. Yet the human mind is totally ignorant of the absorbed facts during the night and thus has no reason to dismay unlike the struggling physicist. Why does this seem to happen? When one is dreaming it can be called an out of body experience for many reasons. That seems too limiting though for it is almost like an out of world experience. The waking conceptions of time and space are thrown to the wayside and perhaps a hundred lifetimes can be lived in only five minutes of “real” time. This sort of thing is something a four dimensionally constrained brain could not possibly deal with other than in imaginative speculation without any real acceptance.
Perhaps there is something much more significant going on in dreams and the brain simply does not want it to be remembered out of some sort of fear. But a fear of what? Wandering through the dream like a lost child in the woods, so much information is thrown upon the already burdened soul that it is a wonder one mind could bear such a bombardment. Suddenly there is calm and all of the incessant voices cease, and the surrounding space dims to a complete darkness. A figure slowly makes its way out from the shadowy infinity glowing seemingly of its own accord. It is the silhouette of the pictured and framed female walking forward staring at her shoes and chewing her lower lip in concentration of some great mystery. She looks up and her lips begin to move forming the words before they are spoken. Her voice drifts out like a cool breeze on a summer afternoon, floating and making its way across the empty space, “Où es-tu m’amour? Pourquoi m’as-tu trouvé encore?” Placing her head back down in its contemplative position she turns and makes her way back off into the darkness, chasing her is futile because she exists somewhere far off and out of reach. Then there is nothing again, but solitary confinement in an endless void of nothingness. Some say this is what hell is like, no fire and brimstone, just endless nothingness and eternal contemplation in the absence of the creator. Such an idea would truly be a most unbearable torment due to the human need for companionship; even the most lonesome hermit would like to have someone around to exchange ideas with.
The desire for something to happen to end this silence is quickly subdued as the battery of information resumes, and those random images return. This scenario is almost like a brainwashing session involving taped eyelids and a screen projector, without any possibility for escape. No happy medium is ever reached in these dreams, two polar extremes continually occurring in intervals that seem endless. This makes sleep a most undesirable activity (or lack there of), but one’s eyes can only remain open for so long before they give way to the heavy weights hooked onto them with each passing moment. And then there is relief in the form of equally paced violent tonal bursts from the electronic alarm clock across the room beckoning to be shut off.
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