Daydreams are strange. Even stranger than the dreams at night. They refuse to be contained in the category of good dreams or nightmares. Daydreams are a genre of their own. And I m a professional daydreamer.

Recently, somebody has been visiting my thoughts quite frequently. It’s not that I don’t usually think about girls, oh man of course I do.

My daydreams range from thinking of the perfect response of an argument I might have lost in the past, to the cheesy k-drama scenario of dazzling everybody with my newfound talent in music or some other uniqueness. Random scenes generate in my mind of doing a cool intro bit in an ongoing birthday party of somebody after being gone for about six months and shocking everyone who ever made a negative comment on my physique, appearing with an extremely appealing appearance. Razor cut jawline, shiny new boots, freshly pressed suit, while showing my abs for some reason (god I miss my abs).

Like I said, daydreams are strange.

Wait what was I talking about?

Oh yeah the recent frequent visitor of my daydreams.

It’s a known fact that the more you spend time with somebody the more will they be in your thoughts. However, the curious fact about this situation is I’ve never ever met the person of my thoughts as of yet. It’s been only a short while since I’ve known her. It’s been only a short while since we started talking. And yet she frequents my daydreams still.

How curious. To think, that I’d get so close so soon to someone. Who would’ve thought that tinder can actually let you meet with the right people. She’s become my only reason to open tinder. I don’t even want to swipe anymore. Why bother? When I’ve already found the one I was looking for?

You see, I’m a pro dreamer. I don’t just jump from random flashes of memory, scenes to scenes. I watch the whole fucking episodes. A series even. From one dream to the next. My dreams have reliability, rationality, and even quite a bit of reality. Sometimes though.. sometimes it’s strange like the one I’ve been having.

I try but I can never see her face clearly in these daydreams. It’s clouded, foggy, blurry, or sometimes hidden behind a veil. All I see of her face is a faint outline of her tempting lips. But in these daydreams, I hear her voice. And that alone makes them worth it.

.

.

.

“What’s wrong. What worries you?” she asks in her dreamy voice.

‘Nothing. Really. It’s just.. wait.. how do you always know?’ I enquire playing with her hair, mildly bewildered, but mostly just enjoying her attention.

“Your eyes. Their glow dims when you go to that far away place to distress” she responds, looking at me with concern.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

‘You never know, I might just be thinking about naughty things. I’m a man too you know?” I reply cheekily.

'hahah—ow, owowowowo—’ my laughter is cut off midway as she starts twisting my ears out of the blue with a self satisfied smirk on her faint lips.

“Well, Mr., I do know you. So, stop evading the subject and share your worries with me. Your thoughts are safe with me here,” she declares while putting her arms around my shoulders and pulling my head back to rest on her bosom. Comforting me with soft pats on the head like a puppy, she gestures me to continue.

‘...I don’t know who I am anymore..’ I respond after a minute of hesitation.

“How so?”

‘..Back in my residential school, I was always the odd one out. I was a kid from a village, 2 years younger than all others, selected through scholarship exam, and no idea of fashion or urban etiquette. I tried to fit in. I really did. I tried to make friends. I tried sports to be a part of a team, any team, and failed spectacularly. I tried music and art, but I was far beyond the average. And then once I tried poetry. I wrote it on the back of the 10th board quarterly exams question paper. Presented it on evening assembly in front of the whole school, got applauded and then asked where I stole it from. An icy sensation crept all over my body, snaking its way down to my bones. I should have been frustrated, I should have been furious. Yet, disappointment, and then numbness, utter apathy was all I felt. Then I was an outcast again. I hid in libraries. When my peers were cheering in the cricket field, I was delving deeper in the dungeons of fantastical foreign worlds. I became known as the that weird kid in Aravali. I tried to blend in. I really did. I tried to make friends, I learnt to laugh at stupid jokes, I learnt to smile to seem approachable, I did all that I could. And in the process to find validation from the replica of society around me, I lost myself. It’s been more than a decade. And yet, I am still that quiet awkward kid. Trying to find someone, just one. Just one to be myself with, without being judged for my thoughts, my habits, my appearance. Still, looking for myself. I glance at the mirror and find a stranger glancing back. I don’t know.. who I am.’

“……”

There is a moments of silence between us. Then I start getting worried about perhaps having over shared. And before I could wiggle my way out of her embrace I feel the warm wet sensation of a single tear dropping on my cheek.

‘huh?’ my fingers find their way to my cheek to investigate the anomaly. But my eyes are dry. I don’t remember having been able to cry since that evening assembly. I trace my way up the source to see the veil lifting with a breeze for a brief instant, in which I fail to see her face, utterly entranced in her brown eyes, full of understanding and anger on my behalf.

In a sudden motion that leaves me unable to react she pulls me in tightly to embrace.

‘Hey wha—..’

”Shh…. I’m here” she whispers soothingly with her warm breath in my ears. I feel my face heating up. My cheeks painted red.

‘Come on, what if someone—’

“I don’t care.” She declares in her casually confident voice still strangling the hell out of me in her embrace.

“Don’t you dare think you’re alone, alright? Your past might be haunted. But I won’t let your present be the same.” She mutters in resolution, “No one knows the future, but in this moment, as long as you’ll let me. I’m here.”

I lean back a bit to look at her again. But my eyes still fail to pierce the veil. But I remember her eyes. And as the canvas of my dreamscape fades to dark starting from the peripheral with her soft voice starts fading out, I hug her back one last time watching past the cascade of her dark hair, the encroaching end of the world begin eating away at the aspects of my being, I whisper smiling as darkness takes us..

‘I’m here too.. For as long as you’d let me. You and I against the world. Together.’