Fairy Tales Ending

It happened last night, so out of place and unexpected. I sat there, words stolen from me at the sight of him. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t breathe. Just an arm’s length in front of me, no longer on the other side of the world, Chris had returned.

It wasn’t the homecoming I’d pictured. We sat together quietly for a moment. I looked around the room that was too dim and too empty—curtains drawn, a flimsy 40-watt lamp somewhere in the corner, and a pile of crumpled sheets strewn across the floor. Chris looked at me, the scruff on his face as rough as his words.

He was home early, deployment cut short. He’d come to see me today to tell me that he couldn’t continue this relationship. Apparently, while he was gone, Chris had forgotten why I was "special enough to keep in the first place." His eyes were dark, his face motionless. The look he gave me was scarring.

He wasn’t sorry. He wasn’t anything I remembered. He wasn’t the person I’d waited for.

It has begun. The first nightmare has arrived, my fairy tale dreams chased out from under my sleeping lids. The one place I find peace has now become a corrupted stage, an open arena for the terrors only my wakeful mind has suffered. I must remind myself that it wasn't real, that rapid eye movement can oftentimes be deceiving. And yet, I cannot keep myself from worrying: which of my fears will play out next in my unconscious mind?

I am afraid. Awake or asleep now, I have nowhere to run.

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Photo by Gabriela Camerotti

Author's Note: Dreams and wakefulness can also represent desires and a state of enlightenment, respectively. However, my usage of both terms is meant in the most literal and physical sense. With no initial warning of the events taking place in a dream, I hoped to convey the shock and sadness that was very real to me in my sleeping state. Chris is still deployed and we are still very much together.