to thine own self

I woke up feeling like myself this morning for the first time in . . . well, who can really say? The past month or so, at least, the dreams have been more vivid than the waking world, the memories of which are dull, grey, lifeless things. Not at all like the dreams.

If they even were dreams. I dreamt of life in a tower so high it looked down on the clouds, of gazing on the world below. A life apart, a life above. Everything in the tower gleamed white, and everything we did, we did to better ourselves. We were as powerful as we were wise, and we were so very wise.

I dreamt I marched the streets in a great crowd, my voice one of thousands, demanding progress, demanding justice. Our cause was just, our ranks innumerable. Our upraised fists would shake the very foundations of society and bring the tallest towers to the ground. We were united in purpose, bound together with ties thicker than blood. We were unstoppable.

I dreamt I lived in a great desolate canyon. There the wind sang me to sleep, the owls watched over me by night, and the heat of the sun woke me in the morning. I lived on wild locusts and honey, I knew no company but the rocks and sage. I had come in seek of answers, and found only questions--questions and the perfect serenity of contemplation.

I dreamt I trudged through an unending blizzard, colder than any cold I had ever known. I had neither destination nor purpose, except this: to stop was to die. Sometimes that was motivation enough. Sometimes I kept going only out of habit. At first the memory of warmth kept me going, but soon the cold had swallowed that, too. Warmth became an abstract concept, something for the scholars in their ivory towers to discuss.

The dreams didn't flee upon my waking, as they usually do. They lingered in my mind--or, no, more than lingered. They burned away the mists, shocked me into consciousness. I was sharp, invigorated, alive. And there was a smile on my lips as I shuffled through the dim light of the day, because now, finally, I knew something the world did not.