After all, we are in love

   The first thing I did, was giving him the biggest hug I could. It was amazing how I could feel his sweater against my face, how I could feel his warmth through the fabric and hear his heart beating beneath it. It was so real I cried, both in the dream and outside of it. I don’t remember how long we stood there, but I do remember I started seeing him in other places in my dreams, just running into him casually while he was saying something nice about me or about what he felt for me. I was over the moon.

 Actually, the full moon loomed above us for most of the dream; it was quite a beautiful sight. It was also nice to be able to touch his hand and hold it out in the open, in front of all the people in campus. Or at least I think it was a campus, it didn’t look anything like the college I had been to years before. It was bigger and with more faces and nice walkways lined with trees. And we would hold hands and just talk about movies and laugh about silly gossips that we had heard about people we knew.

 I have to say that, even then, I knew he wasn’t real. I knew that I was dreaming but it all felt so real that I didn’t mind. I knew what my real life was like and I wanted to have something different for a change and it didn’t mattered if it could only be in a dream. That’s why I tried to remember every single thing, repeating in my head as I went through it, because I wanted to remember every single part of that beautiful dream. I want to memorize his face, because somehow he was more than real to me.

 We even made love and he whispered in my ear how much he wanted to make me feel pleasure. I know, maybe that’s too graphic for some or to little information for others, but I have to say that also felt amazing. I could almost say that I was moaning loudly in my room, in bed, while we were having sex in the dream. We kissed a lot and he really seemed to care for me while we were together. I think that’s what everyone one’s in a partner, someone that really cares for you and who’s not there just to be there.

 Afterwards, we lay there talking a bit. We were tired and sweaty, but we couldn’t prevent our faces from grinning and smiling. We were too happy not to express it with our souls. I remember touching his face, feeling his stubble. He kissed my hand and then hugged me and I felt I could drown in his smell. I still have in my head, and I hope it never goes away. He kissed me like no one has kissed me before and, I have to admit, that maybe no one will ever kiss like that. After all, I lived that vivid dream in a moment but that’s all it was, it was just a dream, as unique as it was.

 When I woke up, I felt really good. I was smiling and I didn’t feel tired or worn down. It was quite the opposite and it has to be said that’s not very common. I usually feel I have just arrived from running a marathon. But not that time. I knew the alarm would go off in any minute, but that wasn’t important. My brain and even my body were still with him, feeling his body against mine and every single feeling he felt towards me rushing between both our beings. No idea if that makes sense at all.

 As I was in the shower and putting on my clothes, I thought of everything I had dreamt of. Some of it was already gone, something that was bound to happen. But most of it was there, for me to think about it over and over again. As I prepared to leave home for work, I realized how silly I would sound to anyone if I told them I had fallen in love with an imaginary person, with someone that only existed in my dreams. They would think that I was going insane or something worse.

 Then again, maybe I am. Maybe it is insane to think that a person that you own mind created is simply not healthy. Even I can say that it sounds crazy but I cannot stop thinking about him and about how he made me feel. In the bus, standing up facing the window and looking at cars and buildings pass, I realize that I don’t really care about what people think or not. He made me happy and it doesn’t matter where it happened or if he was just my mind creating him to make me feel less lonely.

 I couldn’t afford not to care, not to recognize he had been there. After all, I actually thought, for a moment, that maybe my head had not created everything about him. Maybe humans are connected in ways we do not yet understand and we were connected during that time. Maybe he exists, somewhere, and maybe he’s also asking the universe what this all means. I know how all of this sounds but sometimes you just have to believe in something to keep going, in order not to crumble and just give up.

 And I have to believe the love of my life is out there somewhere and that he’s thinking of me too. I would love to know if the face I saw in my dream is the same as the one in reality, but he will surely be thinking the same thing. I’ve found myself hoping he’s not very disappointed, because I’m not exactly a top model or anything like that. But maybe worrying about such a thing is just stupid, because he probably worries too about what he looks like. If he just knew I would love give him a hug and just feel him close to me, maybe that would make his worries disappear.

 Meanwhile, real life is going on as usual. I go to work and I go back home, I sometimes cook and write and do things to pass the time. But every now and then I find myself thinking about him. However, after a while, I just think about how lonely I feel and how nice it would be to have someone close to tell him all my worries and my problems and to laugh and be idiots at the same time. I sometimes think about that and it makes me sad because and over thirty and that hasn’t happened yet.

 I’m the first one to say age doesn’t mean shit but the older you are whenever you finally get to meet that wonderful person, the less time you will have with them. And that scares me a lot, because I want more than a few good years with someone. Shit! After so many years of avoiding any kind of emotional attachment to others, I find myself in a position in which I would be ecstatic if I could feel something for someone else. It would be hard and strange and new, but it could be worth the shot.

 But life doesn’t work by wishing, or I would have met him several years ago, when I was more of an innocent kid that ever before or after. I was someone else and that guy really believed in possibilities. Me, not so much. I know that the dream is just a dream and that, even if there’s a possibility he could be real, that doesn’t mean everything would just work according to my imagination or some kind of plan. You don’t plan life because she will never let you. She’s tougher than that, always.

 Anyways, I want to keep dreaming about him. He made me happy, he made me smile. No one achieved that in a while and I want that here, with me. I know how it sounds and how it looks, but I’m the kind of tired that has to use his imagination to go forward. Reality is not the kindest to me, although it could always be worse. That’s why I dream of him, because even if things really go south, I would have someone nearby to really live with, in every single of the word. And that word means hell of a lot.

 My only hope now is that, somehow, I can see him again in my dreams. I feel like I’ve done that before so, maybe, it could happen again. Maybe this time we could go out dancing or singing before going to his place and have sex. Because that’s something I’m not willing to give up.

 I go to bed tonight thinking… No, I go to bed wishing I will see him again. And then I shed a tear and realize how silly, childish and stupid this is. But I don’t have anything else to hold on to. Real or not, I really need him right now and I just know he will come. After all, we are in love.

Ode to Pamela

   Plants are not fun, or that’s what most people think about them. They just think flowers are nice because of the colors but that’s it, they don’t see anything beyond it. Patricia did. She had always seen something in the botanical world that had attracted her. Maybe it was because those creatures didn’t have a voice, they weren’t able to scream and say what they felt or what they wanted. Mysteries wrapped them and made them something that was so near but also very far.

 So Patricia studied botany for years and she travelled the world getting masters degrees and doctorates, studying with the greatest scientific minds in order to learn more and more about her favorite living things. And then, it dawned on her, that she couldn’t just investigate and look at the plants from afar. She really needed to spend time in the field, discovering new types of plants and designing ways to better protect the one that people knew about. She thought about this day and night, for a long time.

 That was, until she met the person that could help her achieve what she wanted. Her name was Hayley and she also had a special love for plants. They met in a conference about roses and other flowers and were surprised how much the other one knew about those creatures. They even had fun quizzing each other about their favorite species and telling very interesting tales about the discovery of some plant or flower. They enjoyed the conference more than anyone else that year.

 They promised to be in touch and it was very soon after that when Hayley invited Patricia to a trip to the Philippines. Apparently, a team of many scientists would visit one of the country’s most remote islands, one were many people said an incredible number of new species of animals and plants could live. The island was relatively small and was protected by the government because it was one of the many islands forming a very large protected area. But this was the first time they would allow people to go in.

 Patricia had her doubts. If she had to be honest with herself, she wasn’t the kind of person to love dirt and hot temperatures. She didn’t even like taking transportation in order to go anywhere. She got annoyed in taxis, as well as in planes or boats. It wasn’t only that she got dizzy; it was also that she disliked having to interact with people that she didn’t particularly care about. Hayley had been a real exception and she finally decided to go only because she thought having Hayley around would be a good thing if she felt she couldn’t stand anything anymore.

 Before departing for the Philippines, both women met and had a blast together. Not only they enjoyed discussing plants again, they also went shopping for appropriate clothes for the trip and even had time to eat, drink and watch a movie together. They really got along very well. The only difference between them was that Hayley loved people and was, apparently, a big partier. She would sometimes talk about it but, as she soon learned, Patricia was not of her same perception so she limited those subjects.

 The day before departing Hayley promised Patricia that she would take care of her and that if she had any problems with any other person, she could come to her and tell her all about it. Patricia was so thankful for that kind attitude that she decided to buy a nice little present for her trip companion at the airport. She gave it to Hayley on the plane, hours after take off. It was a nice little pendant with a rose pendant. Hayley was so surprised; she just gave Patricia a big hug, which surprised her. But she didn’t push back.

 In Manila, they met the rest of the team, mostly composed by men. Some were going to the island to look for minerals and others were biologists hoping to find the creature that would put them in history books. Also a couple of geologists joined them, intrigued by the many tectonic faults plaguing the island. Patricia got nervous when she heard about that, but tried to remain strong because everyone else seemed so put together and committed, and she didn’t wanted to be the only one freaking out.

 On the next plane, Hayley sat far from her, as the seats had been assigned prior to them getting to the airport. So she had to sit with a big guy that sweated a lot and loved to talk about rocks and not much more. They only chit chatted for a bit before the man turned to the other side and decided the person on that side was much more interesting and willing to connect than Patricia. She felt really bad but thought the best thing to do was to try and sleep a bit before having to board the boat, the final leg of the route to the island.

 When they got off the plane, the heat was incredible. Patricia tried to refresh herself with some wet towels but that wasn’t enough. Actually, it made no sense to spend any time trying to get rid of the sweat because each step anyone took on that tarmac meant at least a hundred drops of sweat would roll down their foreheads. So they just followed their guide to the terminal, then to a van than took them to a pier and finally into a boat that was much too tiny to carry so many people. Patricia was really having second thought about coming on that trip but she couldn’t say it out loud.

 As the sun would set soon, their guide told them they would not be going to the actual island that day but to the one just in front of it, were their cabins had been built by the government. Of course, when they got there, the rooms had no air conditioning and the beds were into precisely meant for hotels and resorts. The bathrooms were also awful and they didn’t have much to cook, as provisions had not arrived from Manila.

 So dinner that night was made of cold sandwiches with water. Everyone was so happy that night, around a big table, eating and joking and telling stories. Hayley sat by Patricia all the time but she seemed so much more into the whole interacting thing. Patricia would just sit there and stare at people as they said whatever it was that they said and then she would attempt to laugh or at least smile, but most of the times it just seemed as if had some kind of stomach pain. So she soon left for her room.

 Sleeping was impossible. Partly because of the noise the rest of the people were making but also because of the heat. She had attempted to cover herself with a very thin sheet but even that made her feel she was going to get stuck to it. So she decided not covering herself and sleeping only in her underwear. It was the most comfortable, even if she wasn’t very keen to sleep like that with so many bugs floating around. A couple of hours later, she was finally able to fall asleep.

 She knew she wasn't sleeping to well because she had one of those vivid dreams, when you’re very aware of everything that’s happening. She moved around a lot in the dream and also imagined she was in the middle of a jungle. Weirdly enough, the jungle was less humid and hot, so she felt cozy and a bit less uncomfortable. She felt watched by something, or maybe someone, but no one was around here and that’s when she woke up and realized she was not inside her cabin anymore. She was outside.

 As in her dream, Patricia was deep in the jungle, where it was colder and nicer in general. But she was scared. Why was she there? Had she walked in her sleep, away from the compound? She stood up and started running, hoping to be just a few meters away from everyone else.

 But she ran to the beach and realized, horrified, that she could see the lights of the compound across the water, on an island across it. Somehow, Patricia had ended up in the place where they were supposed to discover new species. But maybe the biggest discovery would be something much less easy to explain or understand.

Crisis above

   Captain Kohl had been looking at the problem for a long while, but she wasn’t able to find a single way to fix it without endangering her whole crew. She even imagined going outside the ship and fixing the problem there, but there were already many problems with the oxygen levels and walking outside the ship didn’t help fixing any of those. She spent a whole night trying to come up with a plan, making drawing in paper and then tossing it to the other side of the room. She forbid anyone to even whisper around her.

 The next day, Kohl ordered the crew to gather in the main room. She also invited the guests they had received from the military unit they rescued a few days back because, after all, what was going to happen affected them too. She waited until they were all there and when they were, she only faced a big screen and pushed some buttons. All of a sudden, everyone could see themselves on the screen. The captain was recording, so she put herself in front of the camera and tried to look as calm as she could.

 The message was for Earth, so she greeted her senior officers and chief of mission. She stated the current status of the ship and also its location. She then proceeded to tell them about the accident they had been in, just after rescuing the military personnel they had decided to help. It had to be said that people on Earth had no idea that had happened, so she was also reporting a number of deaths and injuries. She tried to do it in a compassionate way but without really stopping too long to explain all the details.

 Kohl then did detail the most important aspect of her message: the rupture of several solar panels as well as the leakage in their main reactor unit. The chamber where it was housed was already contaminated with radioactivity, which had forced them to evacuate half of the ship, mainly engineering rooms that could be control remotely. However the leakage was persistent and the risks had taken a more serious note. If it couldn’t be stopped, the generator could explode and they could freeze to death in minutes.

 The crew gasped, as they had not thought the problem to be that serious. They thought they could fix it but it was clear that the captain thought there was no real chance of fixing the problem. She did stated that she had tried to come up with a novel idea to prevent what she feared most, but that she had concluded that it was an inevitability. The reactor was going to explode and they could do nothing about it. Before her crew could actually react to that, she declared to the camera that they would evacuate the ship immediately and land on the planet below. No one said a word, they didn’t even breathe.

 She finished the video by stating she would inform them of their success in a few hours. The captain then turned off the camera and then turned to her crew. The most affected by the news were the military, that tried to seem tough but they were visibly very close to crumbling. Her actual crew, her peers, just looked at her in disbelief. Someone asked if they really had to leave the ship, if there was really no other option. And she just nodded and declared it had been a very difficult decision to make.

 The next few hours saw the ship turned upside down. The captain had ordered everyone to pack whatever was necessary and then transport it to the lander that they had in order to land on asteroids. Because that was their original mission: they were going all around the solar system gathering information about asteroids. They landed on them and collected different kinds of data that could one day help understand many mysteries of the cosmos and even some of the remaining mysteries on Earth.

 So it was a priority to put the samples gathered on the lander first, as well as downloading their main computer into that vehicle. As they did that, the military people just stood aside, gathering their very few belongings and watching silently, waiting for the moment when they would be forced to jump on another transport in order to continue their journey. It seemed to never end for them and they were getting a little bit tired of that. They wanted to go home, some even obsessing with that prospect.

 When everything was almost ready, Kohl asked everyone t o gather around near the lander. She would explain the procedure to detach from the ship and then head for the planet they had nearby. It was Mars and they knew very well it could be hospitable if they landed on the right place. She was commenting this with her engineers and with the biologists when, all of a sudden, a gunshot could be heard and everyone froze on their spots. One of the soldiers, a man with very crazy eyes, was holding the gun.

 The captain turned to him and ordered to drop the gun. The man didn’t obey. He seemed to be somewhere else, maybe even high. The captain repeated her orders but the man ignored her, telling his comrades that they needed to stay put and wait for the army to come and get them. The other soldiers nodded, although some did look as scared as the rest of the crew at the sight of the gun. It had been a very big mistake not to check them before letting them in, but the situation had been so dire that the thought had not crossed anyone’s mind. Yet, the situation had been very strange.

 The scientific ship had received a distress call and, as they were so close, they had arrived in no time. The place where the military ship was floating around was not a common spot for any ships in the system. Actually, it was too far from any planets or moons and the military were usually assigned to taking care of military bases on such places. But there was nothing where they found them. Only the floating pieces of their ship and a few survivors unwilling to tell the whole story of what had happened to them.

 The truth was that they had been there to fulfill a secret mission concerning a very special kind of engine that the army was testing in secret. They had been sent to that spot in particular because they knew no ships would ever pass close by. It had been a miracle that the scientific ship had been passing not so far from them. Or at least that’s what they thought at first. Because with the firing of that gun, they soon realized there was no coincidence in anything that had happened, except in the crisis with their reactor.

 That had been a factor that the soldiers had not predicted. They did know how to hack unto computers, and it wasn’t hard for them to make the scientific ship deviate from their usual course into one that would put them directly on their path. That’s how they were saved. They had done that after their tests had been successful and a black hole had been formed artificially in the middle of nowhere. However, it had not been a black hole in the typical sense of the word. It was more like a portal, a door somewhere else.

 Apparently, something had gone horrible wrong with said portal. But the soldiers didn’t say another word. Actually, they weren’t able. One of the engineers toppled the man with the gun and a biologist sprayed the other military people with a special gas. The fainted in seconds and were dragged onto the lander. The captain thanked them for their bravery and kept the gun for herself, stating they had no idea if leaving it there was the best idea. One never knew what could happen once in the planet.

 They left shortly after. They landed on Mars about forty minutes after they had left, just on the outskirts of an abandoned colony. They could make things work again and then maybe asked for a rescue mission from Earth. It would be even easier than asking to rescue them in space.

 That night, they saw how their ship exploded over the Martian skies. The debris fell far away. They all felt strange, not only because it had been their home but also because they felt something was still amiss. Something was not right and  they needed to figure out what it was, fast. Before it was too late.

Our necklaces

   The necklaces came in different colors. Actually the only choice we had in the whole matter was to choose the color of our liking. Of course, we couldn’t make that choice the moment we were born. But once we grew to be five years old, they accepted our requests for colors. That way, kids would compare their necklaces in school and change them every few months during the puberty. When that was done, the change was done every two years, in order to download some content and replace it if it was needed.

 Nobody really remembered when the necklaces were put into place. Some say, the reason we don’t know the exact date is because they have wiped out our brains of memories. Not all of them, of course, but the ones that are important to the government. They say the necklaces are there to ensure our safety and, to be fair, even top officers use them. Of course, theirs are much more beautiful than the normal ones, some even made of different materials and adorned with jewels or other beautiful things. But in the end, same as ours.

 It has been like this for a long time and we just live alongside the whole thing. Our necklaces record our daily lives and all of that is passed on to the government in order to decide who is loyal and who is not. We are taught that’s a good thing because we cannot have rebellious people around. The yare the ones that could hurt us the most and they sometimes do. The explosions and attacks that happen sometimes are all of their doing and its because they don’t want us to keep living like this.

 To them, this system is wrong and we are also wrong because we let it exist. But the truth is that most of us don’t make our lives being like this at all. We just wake up in the morning and then go to work and then comeback to our families, like every single person has done for thousands of years. The necklaces don’t make any difference in our lives; it’s just an accessory that we have to carry from the moment we are born to the moment of our death. Not more than that and we accept it.

 Rebels, people say, are people that want everything to be as it once was. We are taught in school that the world was chaotic in the past, filled with war and poverty and hunger. We don’t have any of that to today and we fail to realize why some people would like all of that to come back. Back in the past, people fought for everything that we have now, so why would we even remotely agree with a rebel that just wants us to fight and fight and fight, with no end in sight? They are crazy people and they have to be detained by the government, the only ones that actually care about us.

 Once a year, there are public showings of a movie shot by drones that fly away to other areas of the world. Our country is large and prosperous but some others were actually destroyed in the wars of the past. They want us to see all of that for ourselves because the truth is more important than anything. The footage is always different but the message is always the same: we cannot keep rising because when people do that, other people, less fortunate people, suffer all of the consequences. And that’s what happened.

 None of us remember the wars. None of us remembers when the bombs were dropped from the skies and from the blackness above us. What we do know for sure is that some of the people, those that survived to create the government, they hid for years in deep caves, eating only canned goods. Nowadays, we have all the fruits and vegetables that we would ever need. We don’t buy them, because they are delivered to our houses and distributed equally among the populace. We don’t have to suffer anymore.

 Rebels, apparently, say that the government keeps most of the food for themselves. But they don’t understand that we don’t really care. Because we are able to eat what we want, we can ask for it and it will be delivered. Only a few things are commonly rejected and it’s due to the low amount of some resources. But we understand that. We have learned that oil and coal and so many more things became almost extinct after the wars. So we have learned not to ask for any of that. Actually, we have mostly replaced it all.

 Complaining and complaining. Not wanting to fit into a society. That’s what’s wrong with those people, with those rebels. They just don’t want every single one of us to be happy. They want to create chaos because they are the kind of people that love to kills others and see the world burn. They do what they do because the amount of order in this world makes them mad. They cannot bare to think that we have peace, that we finally have a world in which we can be ourselves, just by giving up a little bit.

 And yeah, we do. We give the government access to our lives; we keep our necklaces because we have agreed to live in peace with everyone and everything else. And they cannot understand it, they are furious every single day because a bomb hasn’t killed a whole family or a soldier has not been slaughtered with a knife. They find chaos amusing and they thrive in it, as if they were flowers fed with blood. Deadly flowers that have nothing pretty about them, they are only poisonous and looking to kill us all, slowly. Rebels are that type of scum and we don’t want them here.

 Sometimes, not too often, a billboard is raised to announce the number of rebels leaving the country to be sent to a specialized facility where the government can take care of their kind. Some people say its located on one of the caves that our ancestors used after the war. Some others say it’s an island just a few kilometers from the capital city. Well, of course most of us don’t know where it is or what it’s like because we are not rebels and we haven’t done anything to deserve that kind of punishment.

 The idea is that rebels are stripped of their ideas there and then the yare sent back to the country, in order to be valuable members of our society. Most of us think that’s a great idea but we know it doesn’t happen very often. The few times the military makes raids, they kill all of the country’s enemies and we celebrate it by applauding for a whole minute at home. We do it to make our boys and girls in uniform for their fantastic job. Without them, it is quite possible that the world would be lost.

 It’s not common to see one of those rebels that have become a member of the community once more. They are rarely seen in the cities and, people say, they are mostly used in the large farms that feed all of us daily. It must be a nice change of pace, from carrying weapons and killing people, to milk cows and planting rice in the fields. Maybe they don’t deserve it, or maybe they don’t, but the government gives them a chance and that’s a lot more than they deserve, that’s for damn sure.

 We also partake in an event called the Games, every four years. In the Games, we face each other in different sports. The idea is that every single member of society should have an ability to exploit. The Games are most important for teenagers; because that’s the way they find out what their jobs will be in the future. Adults participate too, but it’s more like training and a gathering of different people to share experiences and get to know one another. It’s not something we do a lot and its fun sometimes.

 Something curious is the moment we loose our necklaces, when they are being replaced for one reason or the other. It is then when we all change a bit. It is a very short moment, a glimpse in time. But we all react differently when we are disconnected from our government. It is a very peculiar thing.

 Some of us scream, as if we were staring at a monster. Some other start crying profusely and others even laugh their heads off for a few seconds. We all do something. Or at least most of us. They are some, not many, that do not react to loosing their necklace. They don’t move or make a noise. They just wait.