Cloudwalkers

To say that I first met her in a dream would be stretching the truth. Throughout the years I've learned that the 'extras' in my dreams are actually real people, ones I briefly met before or saw in the street. I didn't make them up - I just conjured them from my subconscious to fill the pretty streets and parks I explored in my sleep. I think it is best to say that I noticed her in a dream.

I didn't even intend to lucid dream that night. I was in Atlanta, I had just flown in from L.A. to visit my father, and since I arrived at 2 AM, I decided to stay in a hotel for the night and not to bother him until the next morning. I was dead tired, so I collapsed onto the clean-smelling, cold hotel bed half dressed and fell asleep right away.

I found myself in a strange village, a kind that you would see in the mountains of Eastern Europe, or somewhere around there. I gawped for a while at the unnaturally green grass and the snowy mountaintops piercing the clouds all around. Unwillingly, I started to question my consciousness. "Am I awake," I asked myself, "or am I dreaming?" I turned my head upwards, and saw the sun and the moon plastered side by side on the sky. It was my dream sign, and it was infallible. From that moment on, I was in control.

I wandered up and down the unpaved streets of the small settlement, absorbing every sight with genuine curiosity. I was walking down on a muddy, winding path when I saw her, walking beside a gentle cow. She was barefooted, her mahogany hair falling down to her shoulders, heavy and smooth.

When I woke up in the morning, I could only think about the dream as an achievement. I had been practicing lucid dreaming for quite awhile, but this one was the most effortless experience I had had so far. I was immensely pleased that it was starting to become a routine, and I basked in my success for the rest of the day. Her face only came back to me in the evening, when I was watching the sunset from my father's jungle of a backyard. It was something in the way the sun bathed the clouds in its dark red rays that made me think of the light sliding down her hair in a sheltered Czech village - I now remembered reading about one on the plane ride.

While I tried to keep her face deeply engraved in my memory, I decided not to go out looking for her. I went home three days later, and carried on with my life. Soon, my day-to-day problems settled like dust over her image, layer by layer, until her face faded from my mind, at least for the time being.

During the following three months, I practiced dreaming as much as I could. My dream journal got bulkier by the day, the images in the morning were more vivid than ever. I tried to gain as much control over my dreams as I possibly could. Soon, I could manipulate the scenery without screwing up very much, and I had decent control over the course of events.

Sadly, the more enthusiasm I had for lucid dreaming, the less I took my job seriously. I took every kind of zest from reality, and put it into dreaming. And while real life was dull and colorless, my nightly visions were beautiful and fascinating, and they had everything daytime was lacking. I spent so much time with my head in the clouds that I barely realized my job was hanging by a thread.

Thankfully, my father saved the day even before tragedy struck. He called me up one day in the office, and said, "I'm done with this shithole. Help me sell this goddamn house, I'm moving to Europe."

I wasn't as surprised as your average person would be upon hearing something like this. My father got these crazy ideas from time to time, and got no rest until his hunger for adventure was fulfilled. In fact, I was one of his crazy ideas, too. Considering this, it was inevitable that wanderlust would take over him again in his early sixties.

Me, I didn't take after him as much as he would have liked - I only lived an interesting life when I was asleep - but I certainly knew a good business when I saw one. He had bought the house on a whim years ago, in a despicable state, and fixed it up quite nicely. If I could strike a good deal, and my chances were high, then he could live happily in France for a while, and I could bask in the glory and probably keep my job, too.

That is how, exactly two days later, I was on board of a plane to Atlanta. Staring at the upper side of the clouds, spread all around like a sea of cotton candy, I thought that I should take the plane more often. This might just be might rightful place after all - my head in the clouds, literally. A velvety voice broke me out of my reverie: "Your drink, sir."

A cup landed in front of me full of - probably - apple juice. My eyes rested on it for a moment, then wandered upwards over a pair of uniform-clad breasts, and finally settled on a face I certainly hadn't expected to see. It was her. It was the face I had seen in my dream, the face I tried to remember and the face I almost forgot. And she was real. I had always known she was real, I just had no idea that I'd ever meet her. But it was all clear now, I had seen her on my previous flight to Atlanta, and then I dreamed of her. And now she was right there in front of me. My god, she was beautiful.

"Adrian," I croaked. "My name's Adrian."

She just smiled indulgently, and walked away. That's not very polite, I thought, the flight attendant etiquette shouldn't allow that. They shouldn't let her walk away from me like that.

I spent the rest of the flight looking out for her, but I only managed to catch a glimpse once or twice. I was downright furious. I found it absolutely unfair that I should lose her forever, after dreaming of her like that. It was likely that I wasn't the only person to ever dream of her, but that didn't even cross my mind in that moment. I considered her mine, she belonged to me, because I met her in a different world, a plane of consciousness superior to this miserable world. How dare she walk away and avoid me all night?

This little incident kept bothering me for the rest of my stay in Atlanta, and just like my dreams, it took its toll on my performance. I took family after family into my father's house, and while all of them entered with intention of buying it, they all left frowning, and called the next day to decline politely. Day after day, I had to meet my dad's disappointed gaze.

A young man called Patrick announced one day that he would like to see the house. We made an appointment, and the next day he arrived on the dot, in the company of a young lady. The young lady. I watched them approach with synchronized movements, and I instantly felt a mild burst of jealousy. “Chill,” I said to myself, “you don't even know this girl.” And while this was a hundred percent true and quite obvious, I couldn't ignore the relief washing over me when I realized that they were brother and sister – the similarities were striking.
My voice was little shaky as I gave them the tour of the house, but Patrick was genuinely interested in buying it, and not even my awkwardness could change his mind.

“Are you both moving?” I asked him after I showed them all the rooms.

“No,” he shook his head, smiling. “My sister is here to prevent me from doing something stupid. I think this is the first house she approves of. Is that right, Ashley?”

“Mhm,” she hummed, immersed into the little signs carved into the white door frame.
That afternoon, I told my father the good news, and he sounded almost as thrilled as me. In a couple of days, we were done with the paperwork, and after signing the contract, Patrick invited me for a drink.

“My sister will be there, too, I hope you don't mind,” he said, handing me the pen. “She's been really bored lately, and it wouldn't hurt her to meet someone new.”

I agreed right away.

We were huddled on our shaky bar stools in a small, but quiet bar, with half full bottles of beer in front of us. She was talking about her life, and I was listening intently, while Patrick was watching a football game on the small TV.

“So you're a flight attendant?” I asked her. “That must be pretty nice, flying all over the world.”

“Yeah, right.” She frowned. “I've been flying back and forth between Los Angeles and Atlanta for years now.”

“Really?” I faked surprised. “Then I might have seen you a couple of times.”

“Possibly.” she shrugged, and took a sip of her beer.

“Touchdown!” Patrick shouted, throwing his arms up.

I decided to stay two more days in Atlanta, knowing that she had a couple of days off, too. The next day, we had a drink together again, and at the end of the day I was richer with a nice, long conversation and her phone number. Patrick shook my hand goodbye.
“I'm starting moving tomorrow,” he said. “Thanks for the house, dude. We'll keep in touch, okay?”

I was really going to miss the guy. But Ashley wasn't busy. I took her for a coffee in the morning, and then we sat around in the sun on a park bench, talking.

“You say your hobby is dreaming?“ She eyed me with suspicion. “Is this for real?”
I nodded.

“Lucid dreaming is quite fun, actually,” I said. “It just takes a lot of practice, and it can get a bit creepy sometimes. You have to be okay with yourself, 'cause you will be digging in your own mind.”

She became genuinely curious.

“You're a strange guy, Adrian.” She looked at me with glinting eyes. “Could you teach me how to do it?”

“Only if I see you again,” I smiled. “And again, and again.”

She took the cab with me to the airport.

“This damn place,” she said with a smile on her face as the cab pulled up in front of the terminal. “I hate it.”

She kissed me on the cheek, and said, “see you.”

Back in Los Angeles, I tried to restore my life to its pre-dream, pre-Ashley state. My boss congratulated me on selling my dad's house, so my job was safe for the time being. At first, I had some trouble falling asleep because my memories made me feel ticklish and alive. I looked at her number every day, her picture appeared in my mind quite often, but I tried to keep her away from my dreams as much as I could. I wanted to keep her real.

When she called, weeks later, I wasn't surprised, nor relieved. It felt right for her to call and say she'd be spending two days in L.A., and we agreed to go out for dinner and start her so-called lessons. I spent nearly a week driving around mindlessly in the city, looking for a nice restaurant she would adore.

She did love the restaurant, and I was pleased to see that she loved her first "lesson" in lucid dreaming just as much.

"You need to keep a dream journal," I explained, "it will help you remember your dreams. I found that the best way is to keep a notebook and a pen by your bed, and write down everything you can recall the first thing in the morning."

"I won't be able to write before my morning coffee." She frowned into her wine glass. "But I guess I must make a compromise."

I walked her back to her hotel after dinner. The air was very crisp that night, and it seemed that all the stars were perched on the sky to see us. To see her.

"How long are you staying?" I asked her as we were about to say goodnight.

“Two more days,” she smiled. I had to shake myself not to get lost completely in her piercing gaze.

“Two more lessons?” I suggested. She leaned in and quickly kissed the corner of my mouth. I took that as a yes, and that's what she meant, too. Next time we were discussing matters over a cheesecake.

“Dream signs,” I said, “are unique for everybody. There are some common ones, like light switches not working, but everything you dream about can work, like, I don't know, going somewhere and forgetting your clothes or being late. But it doesn't need to be any of these, and you can have more, too.”

“What's yours? Does the being naked thing work for you?” She asked that with such an innocent voice that it couldn't have been an innuendo, I thought, so I just told her that my dream sign was the sun and the moon on the sky, both at once. I looked up to see her reaction, but she didn't seem to pay attention.

“I really envy you sometimes,” she said quietly, staring at her plate, and no matter how I bugged her, she wouldn't tell me why.

We spent the next day together, from start to finish. She was soft and sleepy before the coffee in the morning, quiet and smiley as we walked up and down the alleys in the park, chirpy during lunch, while she was picking at her salad, and she seemed really comfortable as she invited me to her hotel room so she can change into her uniform and take her bags.

“Why are you so quiet?” she shouted at me from the bathroom while she was changing her clothes. I didn't reply because it was nice to hear her speak. At the airport, she kissed me properly, more than properly, and the next time she came to L.A., she didn't stay at a hotel.

It was a long time until then, but it was worth the wait. Every day and every night was the perfect buildup to the moment we would finally be reunited. She filled out every thought and every dream I had, and when I drifted off to sleep with her voice in my head, and saw her face right after, I still asked myself if I was dreaming, but my answer was “I don't care.”

She had promised me she would call every day, and she kept her word, so I wasn't prepared to be overwhelmed by emotions when I finally met her again. Still, I held it all in, like a man, and kissed her confidently, like a proper boyfriend. I took her home, and she said my apartment was lovely. She acted really comfortable in my little den, like she had been living there forever. Curling up on the bed like a lazy cat, she pointed at the big notebook resting on the nightstand.

“Is that your dream diary?” she asked.

I nodded, climbing onto the bed beside her.

“Can I see?” She batted her lashes at me, but I couldn't say yes. It was something deeply personal, things that were once buried at the bottom of my mind, and I wasn't ready to let her see them. I didn't say anything, but she understood, curling into my arms with a smile on her face.

“Let me tell you a story,” she whispered into my shirt, and I hummed in response. She told me many things, she told me that she used to play a piano as a child, and her favorite song was still haunting her, she could hear it very distinctly sometimes. She said that as a child, she wanted to be a pilot, just like her grandpa who was shot down in World War II. It was bittersweet, listening to her stories that were both sad and happy, watching her face freeze and then come to life again in the dim lighting. When she was tired, it was my turn to talk, so I told her about my mom and her huge rose garden, and that when she moved away to Greece, she took the roses and left me home with my father.

The morning sun found us still awake, still talking.

“So when you're all good with lucid dreaming, what's left to do? What's left to learn?” she asked, her voice low and drowsy.

“Quite a lot actually,” I replied. “There are the out-of-body experiences, or the dreaming together...”

The last word seemed to intrigue her. She pushed herself up on her elbow to get a better look at me.

“How does that work?”

“It's basically both of us having the same dream, at the same time. Of course we both need to be lucid, and very much on the same wavelength for it to work... It's difficult stuff, I'm not sure if it works at all, but... I'd really like to try it out with someone.”

She gave me a long, contemplative look.

“If I were 'fluent' in dreaming... would you do it with me?”

That was the moment the balance of bittersweet tipped towards sad for me.

“Dreaming together requires a lot of actual... being together,” I said softly, pushing a stray lock of hair behind her ear. She sighed, and buried her head into the pillow, her brown waves spreading like water around her head.

“I'll be back in a week,” she screamed at me through the noise of the airplanes when she was about to leave. “I promise.”

She genuinely thought that it was up to her, that she could come see me whenever she wanted to, and when she realized things didn't really work that way, she took it as a downright insult.

“I can't make it tomorrow,” she said to me on the phone, and I could feel her sulking at the whole world. She didn't understand that I understood. Despite all this, she learned to appreciate every little moment we had together, and I would start hanging out at the airport so I could catch every short hour she spent in the city.

“Isn't it nice,” she asked once, while we were watching the planes take off. “That we both live in the clouds?”

I kissed her on the temple, and said,

“At least your clouds are real.”

“I'd trade them for your figurative clouds any day,” she sighed.

Fifteen minutes later, when her plane took off, too, I still wasn't sure what exactly she meant by staying that. But I found it out later, in the midst of both the emotional and physical pain caused by her absence. So many months, and I still couldn't get used to her not being there.

One night, I had trouble sleeping. I had come down with a fever the day before, and I was floating in and out of consciousness for hours. So when I heard the doorbell ring at well past two in the morning, I put it down as a hallucination. But it rang again and again, insistently, so I was obliged to get out of the bed and open the door.

Again, I wasn't surprised that it was her. It felt natural that she would show up at my door in the middle of the night when I was sick. I didn't even notice her suitcase until she pushed it over the doorstep with her knee. The door closed on its own behind her, and she pressed her palm against my hot cheek.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, my voice a bit hoarse.

“I quit,” she said after long seconds of silence. “I quit so I could follow you everywhere.”

Not knowing what to say, I wrapped a curl of her hair around my finger.

“Even into my dreams?” I asked finally, pulling her closer.

“Especially there,” she whispered without hesitation, like rehearsed, and closed the distance between us.

Buried deep in pillows and blankets, our new adventure was just about to start.