Quotidian Bagatelle (@flash.qb.foofaraw.press.ap.brid.gy)

I Had a Dream About You Last Night Tell me—where do you go when you dream? Is it crowded and chaotic? Or maybe quiet and generic? I could never quite put words to my dreams’ settings for most of my life. Then my wife died. After that I guess it became her Life’s (Death’s?) Mission to be my ultimate Dreamscape Tour Guide. Once vague, nebulous settings transformed before my eyes—a vast myriad of colors, sights, and sounds saturating the expanse with a strange, other-worldly beauty I had never conceived. Bustling metropolises, cozy villages, rolling hills stretching out for miles—this place was truly alive, more ‘real’ than real life. Her favorites were the antique shops, filled with intricate and infinite maximalist delights. She’d take me by the hand and, together– we’d glide through those endless waves of strange shelving and narrow pathways in search of incomprehensible treasures. In an instant—a small, unassuming jar managed to catch her eye. As she reached for it, my flesh shiveredand stiffened. “Don’t touch that.” I barked out. She laughed. “You don’t own me!” A lump formed in my throat. We watched in horror as the jar slipped from her hand and danced through the air—spinning and spiraling until shattering on the floor beneath us. A black puff of smoke rose from the shards, instantly swelling into a massive storm cloud. She fell as the cloud enveloped her, becoming as hollow and cold as the day we buried her. “You break it, you bought it my friend,” the shopkeep called. “That Nightmare is yours.” * * * Sy Power is a non-binary writer of speculative fiction, focusing on the surreal and absurd. https://qb.foofaraw.press/i-had-a-dream-about-you-last-night/