Your Dream ... WILL COME TRUE

“Your Dream Will Come True” 

“For so long, I didn’t believe that dreams could come true. Then I met you.” Melanie’s eyes glistened with tears of joy.  

“Well, Mellie, thank heavens real dreams don’t come true. Mine are so crazy.” Gerald pulled her close, kissed her smiling face good night and turned over. She cuddled up behind him and held him close.  

A movement in the bed stirred him from sleep. He reached his strong tattooed arm across the bed for her, but she was already up. Her space was still warm. Groggy, eyes only slits then closed again against the bright morning light, Gerald slid over to her side and cuddled with her pillow. He loved her scent. 

He heard her sweet voice, though sharper than normal and from somewhere far away. 

“What, dear? I’m still in bed. Come back.” He mumbled toward the other side of her apartment. It was Sunday morning. It was their time to loll around in bed making love. His leave ended in just hours.  

“Gerald, goddammit, wake up!”  

“Oh, for crying out loud. What do you want?” He pushed himself up, slid to the edge of her bed, rubbed his eyes and reached his feet toward the floor. But there was no floor. 

“What the . . .?” His eyes opened, not to the other half of the bedroom, but to the vastness of space. The morning light he’d sensed was instead the blaze of a star that didn’t seem all that far away. He could feel its warmth. The empty expanse where the room had been was both bright and dark at the same time. The silk sheets he’d brought her from China slid toward the emptiness as he scrambled back onto the bed. He grabbed the end before it slid off and pulled the sheet and blanket around him. “What the  . . . ?” 

He heard her again, now pleading with him, “Gerry, help me, I’m down here.” 

He crept to the edge of the mattress and peaked over into deep indigo nothingness where the floor and her dresser and nightstand and walls and window and her picture of him in his dress whites all used to be.  

“Honey?” he asked. “Where are you exactly?”  

She waved to him in panic. “Down here, dammit. Get me, please.”  

He saw her, floating, wearing nothing but his Deep Purple T-shirt. Her long blond hair was drifting out all around her, lit by the radiant light. She was so beautiful.  

“How the hell did you get down there?” 

“I DON’T know. I must have slipped off the bed. I don’t know. Just get me the hell out of here!” 

“OK, OK.” He scanned the room, grabbed the top and bottom sheets and the blanket off the bed and tied them together, knotted them to the headboard, and lowered them over the edge of the bed. They wafted in space, nowhere near Melanie.  

He pulled his makeshift rope in, crawled across the bed, looked down and saw brown hardwood flooring and the long soft rug that ran beside the bed. Their clothes, her stuffed animals and extra pillows were strewn across the floor where they’d thrown them before they jumped into bed after a great Chinese dinner.  

It looked normal, and he felt the effects of gravity. His toe felt the rug and floor. Fuzzy but solid. He lowered himself off the bed, still holding onto the headboard. One foot down . . . seemed solid. Both feet on the floor. It was solid. He stood. All normal. 

“My side is solid, honey.” No ropes. It was a one–bedroom apartment in the city. The linen closet! 

He grabbed the other set of sheets, two extra blankets, several beach and bath towels, and her bath robe and tied everything together. He tested the knots. He was a sailor—they were perfect.  

He needed something with weight he could throw to her so the “rope” would follow. Her hair dryer! He tied its cord to the end of the sheet. 

“Mellie, honey, I’m going to throw this down to you. Try to catch it.” 

He tossed it toward her into the vast space but missed her. 

“Dammit, Ger, throw straight. It’s cold down here. Whatever I’m standing on is shrinking. Hurry!” 

“Hang in there, I’m on it.” He reeled in the linen and grabbed the hair dryer. 

“Damn, Ger. I’m on one foot. Hurry!”  

He peered over. “OK, honey, here we go.” He threw the hair dryer at her. This time it reached her, and she grabbed the sheet with both hands. Whatever was holding her in space disappeared, and she began to fall. The towel on his end slipped a little in his hands. 

She screamed. 

“You’re OK. Hold on. Tie the sheet around your waist and then between your legs. Tie it really tight and hold on,” he instructed. “Got it?” 

She pulled herself up. “Hurry! GO!” 

“I got you, just hold on. Scream if there’s a problem.” 

“Oh, I will. You can bet on that, sailorman.”  

He smiled. “Ready?” 

“YES!!” 

“Here goes.” He stood on the edge of the bed and lifted. She got heavier as she ascended, but he was on active duty and in excellent shape. The linens held. She rose out of the abyss. Just as her feet cleared the bottom of the bed, the room snapped back into place as though nothing had happened. He grabbed her, and she wrapped her arms around his neck, weeping. 

“What do you remember last, Mel?” 

“I was dreaming that dream where you’re falling.”  

“I’ve had that dream.” 

“Usually you wake up and you’re in bed, right?” Melanie was shaking. “Well, when I woke up, I was actually falling out into that nightmare.” 

“Just a second.” He laid her on the bed, jumped off onto the now solid floor and ran into the front room. He came back with a small slip of paper. “Do you remember your fortune from last night?” 

“Oh my God. ‘My dream will come true.’ We talked about dreams.” 

“Yep.” He jumped into bed and handed it to her. “Why didn’t you dream that we were married, in love and rich?” She laughed and hugged him. 

“I tell you one thing, we are NOT going back to that Chinese restaurant!”