The Dream

I can see the walls coming closer, my ceiling is moving down towards me.  My room is fast converting into a box.  With all my might, I try to push the walls away.  My palms start to hurt because of the pressure.  I struggle to stop the walls.  The faint light that used to visit my room is not to be seen.  This light was my friend, the tiny ray of hope that seemed to tell me that life hadn’t given up on me completely. I look around, but it’s nowhere to be seen.  All that remains is nothingness and darkness.  The darkness engulfs me, it frightens me, it seems to scorn and mock me.  The world I knew of a few years ago seems like a distant memory now.  The memory of happier times, when life was sane and fair; and light was by my side. It all seems unreal now…an illusion…

The room is small now.  The walls have not stopped moving.  The ceiling is still coming towards me, and is asking me the question that I have dreaded from a long time. “What went wrong? When did the light stop becoming my friend? When did I close myself to the world?  When did I become so hard and cold that nothing could touch me? What went wrong?  I seem to know the answer to the question, yet not know it.  The answer struggles to present itself to me.  I’m feeling suffocated and breathless now.  The walls have almost reached me.  I can’t move, or stretch. I can’t feel anything except numbness.  I am struggling to survive, to exist. 

I need to get out of this box.  It is a box now.  Not a room.  The walls and the ceiling are so close to me now, it can’t be called a room anymore.  I want to see the light, feel the breeze, listen to the sound of the birds, soak in the rain and watch the rainbow.  I want to walk in the cool green grass, watch the blue sky, hold a hand tight, and feel a heartbeat.  I want to break the bonds that surround me, and feel alive again.

“Anything but numb.”

I want to breathe, to feel, to live, to love.  I want to risk being open to life and its experiences.

“Anything but numb.”

Closed is dead. Numbness is nothingness.  It’s the absence of feeling anything. Numbness is bad. 

“Let me be free. Let me be me”, I shout and scream.  Tears roll down my eyes.  Hot tears. Tears of desire- the desire to be free. The desire to be me.

My alarm rings.  It has been ringing for a while now.  I open my eyes. My room is not a box.  Nothing has changed.  Thank God I’m alive, thank God I’m free. I can still feel, I’m not numb.  The light surrounds my room, leaving no room for darkness.  It was a dream, a dream that I hope I never see again.  A dream that masked the reality for a while.  A dream that made me wake up with the realization that it’s a blessing to be alive, to be able to see the light, to be able to breathe, to be able to start afresh.