Daydreams

I know why Amelie cries. Any dreamer would cry when they realize that the beautiful thing in their mind is just that: a dream. I lie in bed with one leg on top of the blanket but under the soft leg of the cat, and dream about my life. In my mind, I have many plans. I should be...cooking. Pasta. My husband comes home from the store with artichokes and I have him taste the alfredo. “It is very good,” he says. I smile and throw my arms around him. I missed him all day, I tell him. He is not surprised. A smirk forms in the corner of his mouth. The sound of a Billie Holiday record fills the air and the pasta boils over. We do not notice.

I am disturbed in my reverie by the cat moving in her sleep. A cat's temperature is 102 degrees. It keeps my feet warm while I sleep. But tonight my feet are too warm. Summer is upon us and my blanket is too heavy. I like heavy blankets, but I do not like my feet to be too warm.

I resume my dreaming by walking down the steps of my quaint apartment building in the city. I put my notebook and pen into the basket of my bicycle and pedal to the park. I sit by the bridge over the pond and write beautiful poetry. I am working on my third book; a novella about an American who joined the French Foreign Legion because he was afraid of the love he had for a petite painter in Paris. The first, my premature autobiography, was a bestseller. Just as I notice the handsome man I have been watching eat his lunch every Thursday afternoon in the park as I am writing cross the bridge, my cat decides that now is a perfect time to stretch out and claw my big toe.

Disturbed into reality, I ponder the legitimacy of daydreams. Does a dream detract from daily life? Is real life more perfect than a dream? Or, is a dream an ultimate reality? Do all people notice the divisions in their skin as the light catches on them within their gaze? Must pianists play classical music at tempos I deem inappropriate to the meanings of the songs?

I stretch out as much as the cat and fall asleep.