Dear... That Dream
I still don't know why you persisted all those years, only to stop, so suddenly, never to be repeated again. I still don't know exactly what you are.
My earliest memory is of you. Strange that. My first memory isn't a real memory at all. It's the memory of another, false, mental reconstruction. I can't recall ever visiting a funeral before, but somehow my subconscious did. Two years old. Barely. And I'm watching men in black suits carrying a coffin over their shoulders, decorated in flowers and foliage. It's sunny, but the air is still, and quiet. Like death, dead air, like what I imagine the air inside the forum must have felt like across cold and rotting flesh. The small procession continues down a red carpet, I can't see where they will end up, but to defend to go on forever.
On my side, as I watch, there is a crowd of spectators surrounding me. I stand shoulder to shoulder with many of them, though I'm a toddler I feel part of these people. There is an atmosphere of acceptance, of belonging with them. I suspect it is our grief that unites us, but then again, still there is what I thought to be the strangest feature of it all.
On the other side of the red path is an orchard of some sort. Small blossomed trees lining the way, flowers pink and white, their petals littering the floor, and wafting gently through the dead air. But not from the trees, from myself and my associates comes a twirling beautiful rain of pure joy, entrapped in the flowers as we throw them, as if we were attending a wedding.
You, my own strange fantasy, my childhood friend, are without doubt the most beautiful scene I could hope to witness.
I just want to know why that is.