Flash fiction “I Dream Of Horses”

Warily, I walk the path to the conifer until dreamland swallows the waking world whole.

Photograph by Helena Lopes

Dear hopeful reader,

Several weeks ago I woke up in a fever-dream state. In states like these, I sometimes get inspired. Words appear in my mind’s eye—feelings, images, themes, the like and the unlike. This time I was inspired to dream up a story about dreams.

And a few days ago, while in the shower—where and when I often get inspired, too—the words I dream of horses came to my mind suddenly. And I thought they were the perfect title, and theme, for the story.

“I Dream Of Horses” is a flash fiction piece that explores the themes of dreams, pain, death, life, and desires. A lot of the story happens in dreams. The dreams can be absurd and magical. But when do dreams make sense?

I would tell you to enjoy the story, but it’s not always enjoyable. At least, I hope you’ll have an interesting experience while reading it.

Also read: “Returning Home,” an experimental flash inspired by the award-winning roguelike game Returnal

---

I Dream Of Horses

In dreaming, you still feel pain. But also pleasure. And sometimes nothing at all.

In the waking world, the dreamers whisper of a rift in dreamland, guarded by an everdream conifer—the dreamkeeper’s watch. The rift leads to other rifts leading to the whitest space, so quiet, empty. It is where nothing exists and everything is forgotten.

“To get to it, I heard, you must experience the zeniths and nadirs of dreamscapes,” a dreamer spills softly. “And if you do not wake by then, the dreamkeeper will grant you a dreamwish.”

*

To forget pain. To unfeel it, I think to self.

The waking world is so full of it. Those brief dreamscapes make life barely bearable.

To never feel it, I wish. In dreams especially.

I close my weary eyes, and toss and turn to oblivion. Warily, I walk the path to the conifer until dreamland swallows the waking world whole.   

*

The everdream sits rooted strongly to the ground not there. It breathes heavily, quaking invisible walls. Its scaly, prickly leaves kaleidoscope, hiding a secret. The rift.

“Why do you seek?” it probes, yet knowing.   

“To never feel pain again,” I plead, mouth quivering.

“Very well.” The conifer’s leaves stop moving.

The amber rift glistens in sight, echoing for me to go through.   

*

In the first dreamscape I feel joy overflowing, no cup enough to fill it. It is almost unbearable how something so good overspills.

I see a little girl at the center of it all. Eyes turquoise and bright, she daintily holds a balloon the color of lilacs. As if she wants it to fly away.

“Who are you?” I speak first, grinning too much from too much feeling.

“I am someone’s could-have-been daughter,” she answers overhappy and hops away. “But why are you?”     

Her last words reverberate in me bemused.      

The balloon gets away and pops, exploding some kind of vermilion.

And she was but a mirage.

*

Here in this dream, sadness lives skysea blue. It tries to drown me in its weight. I cannot walk, I drag. There is no hand to reach for, to pull me up or out.

Oh, it penetrates my heart like frost. Shuddering, shuddering, I keep dragging. Does not everything end sometime?

Eventually I reach a window whence the sun peeks out from feathery cirrus clouds. Dandelions poke out of asphalt, multiplying and growing everyplace ad infinitum.

Even I get downed by weeds. And it was worth the view.

*

This rift colors everything black and white. I cannot tell what starts, what ends. I walk to see different perspectives. But near or far, everything is a grayscale blur.

In time, I hear the colors purr.

See from bird’s-eye view.  

From bird’s-eye view you’ll see.

A bird eyes you, it is not them—it is me—speaking.

A Gamayun appears before me, eyes full of lived knowledge, and therefore gentleness.

She lilts a cipher:

Free as horses on a meadow

Where happy sun never sets

On the other side the stars

Greet another nova

The bird embraces me with her wings, and somehow I understand.

*

At last I make it to the dreamkeeper’s keep.

“I have been waiting for you.”

I turn to not see a white shadow blended with white.

“I commend you for not waking.” The shadow swishes past me. “I owe you a dreamwish. Please wish your dream.”

“I wish to never feel pain, neither in the waking world, nor in dreamland,” I emit to space.

My words stick to walls.

The dreamkeeper takes pain and eats it. “I felt that, I understand. The code is ‘I dream of horses.’”

My eyes widen. “What does it mean?”

“Freedom. You will run amongst horses, forever happy. Pain will be a forgotten word. But…”

“But?” I shake.

“In the waking world, your body will turn to ashes taken by stars.” I feel the disquiet in the dreamkeeper’s quiet voice.

In this white emptiness, I make space to think. Remembering the Gamayun’s melody, I gain a knowing. I fall/a/wake.   

---

“I Dream Of Horses” ends ambiguously. Or at least I hope it does. So that it ends how you dreamwish for it to.

Yours hopefully,

Nadia

---