Dreams Under a Night Sky

The slight breeze that carried the sent of the dry eucalyptus bush caressed my damp cheeks and closed eyelids. I knew what I would see when I opened my eyes, the moonlight that would wash over the flat paddock casting long, wholesome shadows that didn't frighten my ten year old self. The blades of grass tickled my bare feet as I sat under the night sky, submerged in the shadows that I had always been able to relate too. When my friends screamed when the power cut off the other night, I realised I was just that little bit different again. The darkness never scared me, it was almost comforting, it offered something the light never could. I could hide.

I knew what would be above me if I cast my eyes to the darkened sky. The little specks of light gleaming with a fire, a heat I could only dream of. How many time had I let them be subjected to my pleading gaze in the hopes they would grant me what I wanted. I never asked for much, just for the yelling, the screaming to stop. To be able to go to sleep at night without the slamming of draws and crash of the plates in the sink or the screaming. Was I selfish, was I asking for too much? As I brushed the tears off my cheeks and stood, my eyes adverted from the depths of the sky, and the false hope it offered I realised then that there wasn't anything up there for me as I rubbed my left arm, the large purple bruise was almost like one of the shadows only this one wasn't cast by any object. And laced around my skinny forearm as if a shadow had a hand and was holding me with an iron grip.

Because why would someone let this happen to me again, why would the stars let this happen to me. They had the power to grant wishes but they couldn't stop the pain? I wouldn't wish upon them anymore, they never did anything anyway. I would turn back to the house, that lay motionless and quite as its inhabitants slept. I didn't want to go back in there, but where else would I go, the stars couldn't offer anything more than the house could. Who ever told me to wish upon a star must have never done it, otherwise why would you tell a child to do something that would only lead to disappointment. I reached down slowly and picked up my tattered pink diary with stickers all over the front as I walked back to the house, knowing my bed would be there waiting. With this realisation came a feeling of loss, like I was loosing something I would never get back again.

As I slipped through the window and crawled under the sheets I knew it would be a while before I feel to sleep, like always. And maybe just maybe, I thought, this is a dream and when I wake up in the morning I won't remember it, like all of the others.