"Dreams Drowned in Sand" by Leigh *Shwin* Erickson

The sands were consuming her.

They fell in hissing torrents all around her and she could not get out. They filled her mouth and burned in her eyes, making tears of protest flow from them. Her hair, already the colour of the sand, was covered in a gritty film of tan and gold polygons. She stumbled about in the mockery of a room that held her, the walls all but invisible in the blinding torrent causing her to collide with them; giving her the illusion of freedom.

She wouldn’t give up, she couldn’t. She held his life in her hands just as he held hers. If she were to give in and die, he would be lost.

Her saviour and her captor. Her jailer and her liberator. She could only hope that he would awaken before she was consumed by the sands of eternity.

Aaron Raphael Merion was a business man. His dress was smart; a black suit and a calmly matching tie, briefcase held tightly in his left hand, shoes freshly polished and shined. Though he wore no facial hair, his hair was long, neatly tied back in a tail at his neck. At first his employer had begrudged the length of his hair, saying it was unprofessional. Raph, as he was called, was prepared to cut it, but his boss having quickly seen how professional and efficient he was, allowed him to keep it. His boss had never been sure why he had changed his mind, but Raph entered work every day with the sandy lock still draping over his neck and was grateful for it.

He was quiet in demeanor, a very dutiful and devoted worker who gave his all to every project and every assignment. His service was envied by many of the profitable companies in the city, yet he remained loyal to his current work even over propositions by other companies who pledged to bring him up on the social ladder and on the payroll. He would smile and quietly refuse, thanking them sincerely for their interest and taking their card “for future reference should he change his mind”.

Raph was an architect. He loved to design soaring buildings, to watch the precise angles and mathematics form into an intricate maze of lines and letters that, with the help of some talented engineers, carpenters, steel workers, welders, roofers, plumbers, electricians and other workers, would be brought to life. It never ceased to thrill him to walk by the window he had designed, by the skyscraper whose plan he had been called to draw up, by the simple yet elegant bridge over the river in the park that had once been but a dream transferred with his pen.

Raph was practical; if a situation seemed impossible, he would not hope for it or try for it. Why put yourself in a place that was so vulnerable and easy to hurt? He was efficient because he planned well in advance, each element flawlessly thought out before it was born on the drafting board. Nothing was ever wasted or used excessively, creating a tight, professional aura around his work; and his heart.

Raph was dying, his work slowly strangling him. He grew weaker by the year, his physical body fading away under the strain. But that wasn’t all; his soul was dying. His dreams were cut down before they were born, lying in a mangled pile on his heart. He never knew the cause of it, but he felt a gaping emptiness consuming him slowly, agonizingly. It crept first around his senses, blinding his intuition, and then around his emotions, detaching him from his soul. He no longer felt, just hurried about his routine as any businessman would. Yet he was as efficient and professional as ever, perhaps even more so in his emotionless state.

Sometimes on late nights when he was near delirium from many sleepless nights of work, he would ponder vaguely what it was that was consuming him. Something, someone, was missing from his life. He could feel the empty place in his soul if he looked hard enough, a gaping hole that yearned to be filled. He longed to fill that space, knowing that with the discovery, he would be healed and allowed to live. But what was it? Would he find it in time before the nothingness consumed his mind and soul? It was at this point that the numbness would seep back into his thoughts like a poison, clouding the mirror to his soul and severing the thread of thought he had fought so hard to weave. He was drowning, lost in some chilling sea, and he could not stop it.

She fell against a wall, breathing heavily and then sputtering and coughing hopelessly for her efforts as the sand poured into her mouth. The had torrents doubled so that she could hardly stand under their oppressive weight. She couldn’t keep this up much longer, soon she would fall, and he with her.

The thought of him made her fight harder. She pushed herself from the wall and began to fight towards the ever illusive freedom that taunted her. She couldn’t let him die. She wouldn’t. But the sands poured down on her still, forcing her to fall.

She screamed.

It had been a particularly hard day. His boss had noticed a flaw in one of his designs and had made it well known. It was a minor error, simply missing a water pipe in the design; easily fixed with a deft line, moving the foundation one foot forward. But his boss had come to expect the flawless efficiency of his work and had warned him that if this continued, he might lose his job.

He couldn’t keep this up much longer. He was growing weaker daily now, the stress of his job coupled with sleepless nights and not eating was really taking its toll. He would burn out soon, fated either to death or failure. He sighed heavily, neither option appealed to him, but both did to the nothingness. It fed on his weakening mind with a hunger unmatched by things of this world. Soon his mind and soul would be gone too, leaving him to be an empty shell that merely went through the day unthinking.

He detoured from his normal path home, choosing to walk through the park that dominated the center of the city. As he walked through the black iron gates, he pulled his hair free of its bond, shaking his head so the sandy locks fell just below his shoulders. A wave of weakness and dizziness waved over him. He stood still, eyes tightly closed against the spinning world and waited for it to pass. He was caught by these sensations often now, his body’s final protest against its death. As it dissipated, he walked forward until he found a bench. He needed sleep, but he had a project due tomorrow. He couldn’t sleep; if it wasn’t flawlessly executed by the morning, he would be finished.

He sat and placed his briefcase carefully beside him, folding his jacket and placing it on top. Now that his hands were free he leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and placed his head gently on his palms. He didn’t want to die and he didn’t want to fail, but it seemed one was inevitable, he would have to chose. But what choice is there between death and utter, shaming, irreversible failure? He shook his head, sighing heavily. What was he supposed to do? Where was that missing piece?

She could hardly breathe now, crushing sands pouring down on her relentlessly. Having fallen, she could not rise. She could only try to keep her face above the mad torrent. She couldn’t go on, she was dying. He was killing her.

Tears of sorrow joined the protest flowing from her eyes. “Forgive me!” she choked, sand muffling every word. “Live! Live!” she willed, knowing it was impossible. He would fade into nothing if she died, a fate much worse than death.

“No!” she screamed as the sands filled her mouth, cutting off her breath. She struggled blindly as they consumed her whole and then fell, limp, into the open arms of oblivion.

Sand was everywhere. It still slithered in gritty rivulets from the ceiling of the room though it seemed that the worst of it had fallen already. The room itself was of a different shape, a decagon with a detached ceiling. The gap between the ten walls and the ceiling allowed the sand to flow through, but allowed nothing out.

There was no door which made him wonder how he had entered the room, but in dreams such things are trivial, bushed aside without thought until the consciousness takes hold again. He walked blindly across the sandy floor, sinking and sliding down the sides of minute dunes and pits. It had to be over six feet deep he realized suddenly, his eyes resting on the very top of a door frame, yet still he could not touch the ceiling. The room had to be huge, over fifteen feet tall at the center and twelve at the sides. Why was it full of sand?

He tripped over something suddenly and turned to see what it was. His eyes widened. It was an arm; someone was buried in the sand. He quickly sank to his knees and began digging the sand away, revealing the side of a body. It was a woman, he could see, and he tugged at the arm in an attempt to free her from the grit. It merely filled back in where he had carefully brushed it away. Frantically now he dug around the arm, fighting the tenacious sand for the woman’s body. Finally after what seemed like an eternity of struggling, he was able to pull her from the sand’s death-grip.

She was pale and gaunt showing how long she had been here. Her hair blended with the sand that coated it, falling in waves to her waist. She would have been stunningly beautiful were it not for the anguish that was written on her face and the sunken, hollow look to her eyes. He put his ear to her chest, listening for any sign of life. Nothing. He smoothed the sand from her eyes, her face, her chest. Someone, anyone, this beautiful should not have had to die, could not be dead he thought. No one should have to die like this. An unfamiliar burning sensation seared his eyes; his tears threatening to fall for the first time in so long...

“Sir?” Someone was shaking him, “Sir?”

A bright light blinded him as he jumped awake. He squinted in defense and held a hand up trying to block it from his eyes.

“Sir?” The policeman averted the flashlight from his eyes when he was satisfied that Raph was awake. “There is no sleeping in this park, sir. I’m sorry, you’ll have to go somewhere else.”

Raph grumbled a reply and rubbed his eyes. How long had he been asleep? He blew air through his lips, shaking his head in an attempt to banish the sleep from his eyes and stood. He nodded a good night to the policeman who eyed him suspiciously and then continued along his beat, trusting Raph to move on.

He shivered. He hadn’t remembered it being this cold before even at night. Shrugging on his jacket he gathered up his briefcase and turned towards his home, thinking suddenly on his dream. Try as he might, he could not erase the image of the dead woman from his mind. It was burnt there with an ominous finality he knew, he could not escape it. He wanted to help her, wanted to fix it, make it alright. But he couldn’t. She was dead.

What disturbed him most about his dream was the aching sense of loss that now filled the void inside him. He hadn’t felt anything for so long, the sensation was unnerving, almost sending him into hysteria. It felt like too much, the tendrils of grief overwhelming him and suffocating his now feeble heart in their grasp. His eyes were wide with panic, he wanted to scream, wanted to vent, to rid himself of the sensation of loss that was drowning him. But he couldn’t, it had become part of him, melding with his frame as easily as water to dirt.

He never made it home, collapsing in pain a few blocks from his house, breathing hard, eyes wide in alarm. He had lost the human part of him, becoming a panic filled creature that single-mindedly yearned for escape.

In his delirium the sun rose, shining down on his prostrate form with a gentle sympathy, trying in vain to warm his chilled skin. He shivered and shook, lost in his mind’s prison, seeing no escape. It was too much, it was too much, it was too much. He couldn’t bear it. He couldn’t. He couldn’t. He couldn’t. His panic forced his eyes wide, whites showing disturbingly large, surrounding each near black iris.

He knew what he had been missing. It was her, the woman in the sand. She was the missing piece. She- the embodiment of his dreams, a thing of his imagination- he had killed her with his despair, with his stiff professionalism. It was his fault that she was dead, and with her death, his was inevitable. His shivering lessened, he could feel the cold fingers of Death curling around his heart, ready to cut it off forever. He prepared himself for the chilling moment when he would be lost to the nothingness, the moment when it would engulf him eternally.

Warmth flooded his body and bid his eyes close slightly so they no longer resembled twin orbs but pointed, twin ovals. It massaged his tense muscles and forced him to relax while the world began to clear around him. He blinked, coughing life violently into his lungs and shoving himself upright so he leaned against the wall behind him.

What had happened? Why wasn’t he dead? Was he dead? He looked around. Early morning traffic hummed in front of him, walkers flew along the sidewalk, glancing at him suspiciously, but moving on, always moving on. He rubbed his face briskly, warming and waking it.

Then he saw her.

Sprawled beside him on the sidewalk, half hidden in the wall’s shadow was the woman. He cried out loudly in surprise, earning him a few reproving looks from passers by, and pulled himself so he was right next to her.

She was breathing. She was alive. What had happened? He shook her lightly. “Lady.” he whispered earnestly, “Lady?”

She groaned, in obvious discomfort, but opened her eyes. They were the same dark as his, infinite pools of black staring back up at him in confusion. “Raph?” she asked in a voice that was hardly a whisper, cracked with disuse and dehydration. “Is that you, Raph?”

“You- you know me?” Raph’s eyes were wide, this time in surprise, not panic.

“Do I know you?” she could speak easier now. She attempted to sit, but was unable to. Raph pulled her up so she was supported on his shoulder. She laughed softly, unable to say much without breaking into a fit of coughing. “I know you better than you know yourself.” she looked into his eyes. “Listen, Raph.” she broke into a fit of coughing, sand glittering on her hands in the fresh morning sun. “I can’t stay here long. Can we go somewhere else?”

“Of course. Do you want me to carry you? I don’t know that I can, but I’ll try.” Raph was eager to keep her comfortable, she seemed so fragile, so weak.

She smiled softly at him. “I can walk if you think I can, Raph. Can I walk? It’s up to you.”

He furrowed his brow, looking at her curiously. “Up to me?”

She nodded, “Can I walk, Raphael?”

He desperately wanted her to be well, desperately wanted her strength to have returned to her. He wanted her to walk, but she looked so weak, so vulnerable. She frowned as if reading his thoughts. She wanted to walk, he could tell. He had to decide? Never having been one to hope, he frowned slightly, ready to say that no, she couldn’t walk, she was too weak. But seeing the determined glint in her eye he thought better of it. She could walk. No one with that strength could be bound to the earth. Heck, she could fly if she wanted to! “Yes.” he spouted before he could stop himself. “Yes, you can walk.”

She smiled and strength seemed to flow through her body, the pale of her skin flushing with life, the gaunt hollowness filling in with strength. She nodded in approval and stood in a graceful, fluid movement.

Raph stared, mouth agape.

“Thank you, Raph, for letting me live and for giving me back my strength.” She walked over to him and took his hand, her new found strength flowing up his arm, banishing the nothing and infusing him with life that he had not felt for many years. He looked at her questioningly, but she silenced him just as he was about to speak. “Not here, Raphael. Where is your home? I will tell you everything there.”

He pointed vaguely in the direction of his house and felt himself pulled along with her, briefcase hanging limply in his right hand while she pulled him from his left. What a sight they must make, he mused. Here was this beautiful woman in tattered, bronze clothes dragging a well dressed businessman who looked as though he had just looked Death in the eye down the sidewalk. He genuinely laughed for the first time in years and she flashed him the most delighted grin he could imagine when she heard the sound.

He felt life pulsing through his veins once more. He wasn’t going to die, he was alive and very much so! He had missed so much of his life clocked in numbness. And without her. He watched her. She walked purposely with a bouncing stride that seemed to emulate joy and strength, her hair shining more and more bronze as she became more and more alive. He loved seeing her like this and focused all the strength he could towards her since it seemed that this miraculous change was dependent on his will.

“Here.” he said suddenly, recognizing the nearby house as his home. She grinned at him and slowed her pace, letting him lead- which he did. He fumbled with the keys, unlocking the door carefully and leading her inside.

It was a simple place shared with a tenant upstairs to help pay for the costs of heating and electricity, as well as the cost of living in the city. He bade her sit on the couch and asked if she would like anything to eat or drink. She smiled again, obviously pleased to see him so active and alive, but shook her head. She had no need of food or drink she said, but he did and should get something in him right away.

He was pouring himself a glass of water when the meaning of this statement hit him. He walked out of the kitchen back into the room where she was sitting calmly on the couch. “You don’t need food or water?” he asked, not believing, very confused.

She smiled. “Get yourself a sandwich, Raph, and I will explain everything, OK? You need to eat. It’s obvious you’ve been practically starving yourself. I won’t tell you anything until you eat something.” She eyed him with mock severity and he hurried to the kitchen, eager to hear what she had to say.

When he returned with a much needed plate of food and had made himself comfortable on the chair opposite her, she began. “I suppose you are wondering who I am.” he nodded, taking a bit bite of his sandwich and closing his eyes appreciatively. It had been so long since he had last been able to taste his food, so long since he had last enjoyed it. She smiled seeing this and continued, “You were right, Raph, I am that missing piece.” he raised an eyebrow in silent question of how she knew this, but his mouth was too full to properly talk. She laughed, “I know this because I am part of you, Raph, that’s why I cannot stay separate from you long. I’m your imagination. Your dreams, your hopes. All the things you never dared to believe in. Everything you crushed and killed with the sands of time.”

He choked not able to properly swallow hearing this, “What?”

“It’s a hard thing, Raph, I know, but consider what happened. I was only able to come to you once you realized how important I was to you, and I was only able to stand once you imagined that I could. You’re right, Raph, you killed me with your practicality, with your stiffness and unwillingness to believe. But you wanted me to live Raph, you thought that something,” she blushed, “that something so beautiful shouldn’t die. But you also thought it couldn’t. It was this that brought me back, and you with me.”

“The dream...” Raph realized.

“Yes. The dream. Do you understand now? Do you believe?”

Raph was shaking. “You are the woman from the dream? How? How did you come to me?”

“I’ve never been apart from you, Raph, and if you believe, I never will be. I am part of you, Raph, you need only believe. Do you?”

He looked at her hard. It was the woman from the dream, she was sitting in front of him, radiating life and hope, the embodiment of his every fancy. Realizing this, seeing her, something inside him was freed and the nothingness lost its hold. It fell back from his mind in gentle waves, emotion and feeling flooding him once more. But he could handle it this time, she was here. How could he not believe? “I do.” he answered looking directly into her eyes.

The smile on her face held joy beyond his wildest dreams, but that was what she was, his dreams. “Then I bid you farewell, Aaron Raphael, but only from my physical form. I will be with you always, just a daydream or an imaginative thought away.” she stood, the epitome of grace and elegance, and walked on light feet to where he sat. “Goodbye.” she whispered, leaning close, her lips brushing against his forehead in a gentle kiss. “Don’t forget what I’ve taught you, don’t forget what you’ve learned.” With these words, Raph fell into a deep yet gentle slumber.

He forced himself to his knees, coughing violently, his head spinning. The pavement chaffed his hands and dug into his knees. He looked up to see that he lay within a few blocks of his house, exactly where he had fallen. What? he asked incredulous. What happened? Why am I here?

He remembered falling vaguely, remembered waiting for death to claim him, to banish him into nothingness. He remembered waking, remembered seeing the people and feeling the sunlight.

Then it hit him.

Her. He remembered her. He remembered her lying beside him, weak with sickness and death. He remembered willing her to walk, remembered being lead down the sidewalk with her to his home. He remembered her sitting in his living room, the embodiment of his dreams smiling back at him and explaining who she was. He flinched suddenly, remembering her promise, remembering her kiss. She had promised she would be with him always, but where was she? Gone? Not again, she couldn’t be gone again. He began to panic, his hard earned reprieve vanishing with each quickened breath.

Raph. Her voice sounded, warm and soothing, in his mind. Shh, honey, I’m here. I’m always here. I told you I’d never leave you if you believed. You said you did when I appeared to you, do you still?

He closed his eyes and saw her. She was smiling at him softly, her bronze hair shining in healthy waves, her dark eyes shimmering with kindness. She extended a hand to him and he reached back, feeling her fingers warm and smooth in his own. I do he thought back as earnestly and firmly as he could.

Her lips parted in a gentle smile. Then dream on, my dear, knowing I am always with you. Never forget me, Raph, and I will never, ever abandon you. Now you have a few hours left before that project is due. Call on me, I can help, I can give your drafting life; life that will cause people to stop in awe. Imagination I am called, and imagination I am. I am life in this rigid world, the one thing that makes living here bearable. Never forget, Aaron Raphael Merion, I am with you always, even to the end when all seems black and faded. She gave his hand a gentle squeeze, beaming at him.

Tears shone in his eyes. I will never forget you, ever. He smiled at her and she at him, then he let her hand fall from his. With this separation, he opened his eyes. No longer did she stand in front of him, but he could feel her still. Ever there, ever guiding, the pathway to his dreams. He had found the missing piece, he had been made whole, no longer vulnerable to the chilling emptiness that had filled him for so long.

Raph stood. For the first time in many years, a genuine smile graced his face. He smoothed his hair, letting it still hang free, and began to walk with a brisk pace towards his house. He had a lot to do in the three hours before work began. But he could do it, he knew. He was no longer alone, and never again would be.