What Lies in Dreams

This is something that has been kicking around in my head for the longest time and this is the one thing that I've written that I'm proud of.

She was sitting there, a glorious vision of a woman.  Her slender fingers gripping with anticipation the edges of a Stephen King novel.  Short black hair falling barely to her shoulders and her bangs cast to the side hiding one of the deep blue eyes that set a stark comparison to her pale skin and delicate red lips.  However, she always looked on edge, as if the world around her was about to collapse into billions of tissue paper bits.

 

In his stomach sat that tense nervousness he had come to expect from being around her.  She was his version of perfection, a ten in all areas.  Talking to her every day had given him time to understand her and comprehend what she was and how to make her laugh that gorgeous laugh and put her hand to her mouth in that oh-so-cute manner.  Sitting behind those red lips was the most beautiful voice he had ever had the honor to hear.  It was water in his harsh desert life.  He drank her in for as long as he could because the time was always limited and that was when he realized that he was wasting precious seconds by sitting here soaking in the ambience.

"Tanya."

She looked up and burst into a smile so bright it could put the stars in heaven to shame.  "MARCUS!", her voice saying his name was enough to make him melt.  "It feels like it's been forever, please come sit down."  As she said this she patted the empty seat next to her and he accepted without argument.

"What have you been up to today, dear?"  She asked with genuine concern in her voice. 

                "The same old same old, dealing with the problems of people who I hate" he said in reply with plenty of feigned angst in his voice.

 

                She giggled ever so slightly, "You're exaggerating Marcus. I can tell that much about you." 

                He couldn't help but smile back at her, putting his hand on the back of his neck. "You caught me." They both shared a laugh and when it died down there was a small comfortable silence.

8:05 - Five minutes left.  He knew that soon this conversation would be running its predetermined course.  The despair sinking in as the seconds passed with their own stinging bitterness.

"It seems the train is running late today."   She said casting a glance at the giant clock on the wall of the station.

"Funny how that always seems to be the case isn't it? I think I should have a talk with that conductor," he jokingly said. 

  

She didn't seem to play into his jest as well as he had hoped.  "I don't find that to be the slightest bit amusing, Marcus.  You know that if my daddy saw me getting on the train with a guy he would have a cow, literally. Or did you already forget that my father is the train conductor?" 

Marcus knew all about the conductor, he was not only the father of the woman who he had spent so many days with but he was a hulking behemoth of a man.  Six feet of pure testosterone and over-protective rage. All under the name of Bruce.

8:06 - Four minutes left.  Those hands upon the clock's pale white face seemed to be running a victory lap at his imminent defeat.  Almost as if it was taunting him to try and stop the flow of time. 

"I'm kidding, dear," he said with a smile, "I don't want to bring the wrath of Bruce upon my head."   Laughter filled the station again.

 

"You know Marcus, I really wish we spent more time together.   It seems we never meet outside of this train station.   Why is that?" 

8:07  - Three minutes left.  The rats in the underground tunnels were singing that symphony of clicks and squeaks so minute they had almost never seemed to exist.  He could hear the rumbling coming ever closer.

He couldn't bring himself to answer that simple question.  His throat tightened and his lungs almost gave up the fight to keep running.  His heart stopped for a moment as his mouth went dry.  Where was that gift of speech when he needed it the most? Slinking in the shadows like a wounded pup? "Not today my old friend, not today."

 

8:08 - Two minutes left.  The time was almost upon them again.  The parting of ways for another day.  How much longer could he keep up with this facade of happiness?  How long could he go before he needed her more and more? 

"Tanya, things for me are... well... they are complicated. I wish I could begin to explain what we have but words..." That tightening in his throat moved in harder, as he forced his vocal cords to cooperate with him, "...words have not been discovered for such a thing. To try and say what we are as of now would only be an insult what this truly is."

8:09 - One minute left. She was looking at him with those eyes, the longing was almost tangible.  As if it was a stranger in the room that refused to leave.  He wanted so badly to tell her the truth and to let her know what all this really was.

Tanya looked downcast. Her eyelids batted against the harsh station air. Her voice was but a whisper as she uttered, "Is there someone else, Marcus?   I can handle it if there is...I'm not a little girl."

8:10 - The train finally pulled in.  The sound of the wheels screeching to halt on the outdated metal tracks was enough to make them wince.  It was ear-splitting as usual.  The only thing they did not cherish about these moments together.

   

"No, Tanya. There is no one else but you," he had to scream the words over the sound of the train settling down next to them. Quickly he pulled her close to him and embraced her. He could see the tears on the edge of her eyes, those brilliant diamonds that were worth nothing but guilt on his part.  Putting his head on her shoulder he whispered gently, from one lover to another, "I can promise without a shadow of doubt in my heart. In all of the world, of all the billions of other women, of all the easy routes... I want you and only you." 

She looked up to him and smiled, a thing so beautiful in it's simplicity that you forget what you were talking about before hand.  Tanya looked to the train and then back to Marcus.  Stepping back, she mouthed the words "I love you..." and turned to walk away but Marcus held fast to her hand.  She turned back in surprise and he said to her, with anxiousness gripping the edges of his lips...

"I love you too." 

He watched her safely cross the double-doors with her long legs carrying her gracefully onto the hissing and awaiting train. She turned back one final time and stared at him with that longing in her eyes from the open double doors of the train.  He waved his goodbye and she returned the gesture with a kiss blown from the palm of her hand. A small gift to carry him happily back home.

The train vanished out of sight into the darkened tunnels of the underground expressway as Marcus turned to leave the station. He ascended the stairs out of the subterranean chamber and into the night air of the city above. His heart was sinking back in his chest into its rightful place of sorrow. Dragging the polluted city air into his lungs he sighed. 

"Hey buddy. Got some change for a broke fella?" a raspy voice asked from his peripheral. 

Marcus turned to find the owner of the voice. A broken homeless man, sitting under a shanty umbrella in this cold November night. With a smile on his face, Marcus fished in his pocket and brought up two 20 dollar bills. He cast them to the man with a flick of his wrist, as if it were nothing. 

"Always, friend." The expression on the man's face was enough to bring Marcus out of his sadness ever so slightly. 

"Hey Thanks buddy! You know something man, you're a real card! That's what you are! Man, I won't never forget you! I swear man you gonna..." but the man never finished his sentence. He faded away into a cacophony of high pitched squeals that rang everything into darkness.  To anyone who had no idea what was happening, this would have seemed insane but Marcus knew what was happening before it even happened.

What followed was a brief moment of returning, returning to something that he wanted desperately to leave.  He felt the street around him had vanished and that he was now somewhere much more familiar and somewhere much more unhappy.  It was the same place he had always ended up.

Marcus opened his eyes and saw his alarm clock berating him from across the bed. He reached over and flipped off the screaming world altering squeals. The dream was over for the three hundred- thirteenth time and his sorrow had not faded even though he knew the pattern was going to happen over and over.

He sat up and could still smell the lilac scent of the woman he had fallen in love with... the woman of his dreams, in every sense of the word. 

Author's Note

Please ignore the grammar issues, I want you to tell me if this is something that you'd want to keep reading if I were to expand on it..?