Ficlets

On the other side of the wall, clocks run backwards. On the other side of the wall, everything looks different; everything has the cloudy appearance of a dream. On the other side of the wall, things are oddly backwards; topsy-turvy, if you will. On the other side of the wall, dreams suddenly come alive.

On the other side of the wall, she is alive. I know she is.

I can see her in my dreams, the way you see something out of the corner of your eye but can never really focus clearly on. She’s there, but she’s not. She’s present and absent at exactly the same time. And I’ve often wondered how, when faced with that kind of paradox, a soul manages to keep itself intact.

And yet, it does. And now I’m sleeping to dream her. Sleeping to catch her in second-long snatches. Just a glance of her blinding-black hair. Or the eerie after-image of her startling emerald eyes.

She’s there, behind the wall. Alive. I know she is.

And sometimes, it seems, all I have to do is find a means of arriving there myself.