Dream Journal: One.

Sketch of a couple at a table with a mug — Charlotte Mui

I’ve always felt this since I was a kid

but it’s getting more prominent with age

Does anyone feel like they’ve spent a day in a different realm in their dreams

and wake up as though yesterday’s events were exactly two nights ago?

I felt like I missed a whole day when I woke up this morning.

It wasn’t anything special. The dream, I mean.

There wasn’t any surreal element to it. No lopsided staircases that led to nowhere. No infinite green doors that you have to keep opening and closing in order to find the galactic void that even you don’t remember why you’re looking for it. There weren’t even the small but quiet little monster creatures — which are present in every dream I have — nibbling at my feet.

I was sitting at a small wooden table. It was hand-carved, so the polish wasn’t very even. You could still see where the dark wood stain hasn’t really reached the nooks and crannies where the legs are joined. The soft morning light filtered through the linen curtains gave a warmth to the room. It made beams across the cups of coffee, the stone flooring, the fireplace, and the blanket covered sofas.

My partner came down to join me at the table as he scrolls through his phone for the news. My mother and aunt are still asleep upstairs. As I waited for the coffee to cool, I scribbled in a hand-bound sketchbook. I think I still have knitting to be done but it’s probably somewhere behind the sofa.

My partner asked if we should get groceries today. I told him that we should ask what my mother would like for dinner. We never got groceries.

By the afternoon, everyone was up and about. My mother and aunt were making soup in the kitchen. My partner was in his office writing up a new wireframe. I was painting at the same table, while listening to the pattering of snow outside.

It was a day that I would have happily spent in reality, only set in a parallel universe, somewhere in the future.

Like it was a premonition.