Scareship_Issue8

“The Shifting Space Between Dreams and Waking” copyright © 2012 by
Brittany Warman.
W
hat I want, more than anything, is to tell you a story. I
wonder if you can somehow find a way to listen to it. I
am not privy to the world inside your head, whatever
you may think. My part of the story is over now, I know, but you
are still here, still waiting, and I am waiting too… for what I am
not sure. A shadow hides in the vines that surround us and it too is
waiting.
One hundred years is a long time, longer than I first imagined,
but I’m not mad anymore and I want you to know it. I’m sure
that’s not what you want to hear, not what you’re waiting for, but it
helps me to come here and say it to you. You, little dreamer, you
have your entire life ahead of you. I am nearing the end of mine;
the shadow is patient while age climbs all over me like an eager
child. And you, silent and still beautiful, are just a child too. Even
if you don’t want to be, even if you hate me, you always will be a
part of me. I suppose there is some happiness to be found in that.
* * *
As I sleep, the faerie spins her story. My story.
In this darkness where I wander now, I can see her faintly on
the edges of my dreamscape. She is a solitary shape in the
distance, sad and searching. She reaches out to me and I want to
call out to her, to tell her I’m here and that I understand, but my
mouth does not move and my tears do not fall.
* * *
Do you know that they call you the sleeping beauty in the
tower? No, I suppose you couldn’t know that, though I sometimes
like to imagine your disembodied spirit floating over the world like
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