Lindsey

I owe a lot to Lindsey, one of my sisters. She was the one who cultivated my very vivid imagination.
I remember watching her make a dreamcatcher. It was a very beautiful dreamcatcher. She hung it above our bunkbed, and I asked her what it was for. She told me that it caught bad dreams, so we wouldn't have to have nightmares. I believed her fully. I woke up the next day, she was already at school, and I found something very peculiar in the dreamcatcher. Black things. They were caught in the web. I was too scared to touch them, and I played around with my stuffed animals, and did all the little things little kids did, and waited for her to get home. I immediately asked her what those black things were. She said simply, "Bad dreams." I was amazed. She plucked them out of the dream catcher and threw them away. Soon, it became my job for cleaning them out and throwing them away. They were all sorts of shapes and sizes. They all were black. Eventually, there were fewer in the dream catcher. Then none at all. I ask my oh-so-wise sister why this was, and she said, "They keep getting caught, they know they can't come here, so they aren't going to try anymore." And that was that.

Another such instance...a dragon. He lived in the ceiling of our little room. I would write notes to him, and he to me. I would leave the notes halfway shoved into the ceiling, and he would leave his on my bed. He had very weird, squiggly handwriting. I remember leaving a note for him, and anxiously waiting for his reply. I would play outside for a while, then run downstairs to look at my bed. Nothing. I would look and look, but he would never reply 'til it was dark. When I felt close to my new friend, I asked him for something I never dared asking anyone else. I asked him if he could make me fly. He said that he will give me some wings in his next note. Boy, was I excited! I played on the swing and trampoline that day, imagining flying to grandma's, flying to wherever I wanted to go, flying to the moon! I imagined that the wings would cover most of the bed, huge long feathery wings, white as the puffy clouds. Now I would truly be complete. My greatest wish all throughout my childhood was that I could fly. Now it was finally going to come true! I finally received his next note. It was...just a note. I was cruelly disappointed. Too disappointed to even read the letter. My sister comes down, and asks me what's wrong. I tell her. She tells me to read the letter. I open it up, and a pair of very, very small wings come out with a safety-pin. The dragon explains that he is a very small dragon, and those were the best wings he could make for me. Still, I was disappointed. What was I thinking? There are probably hundreds of people who have befriended dragons, but are any of them flying? No. Humans weren't meant to fly with wings. Humans are meant to ride on wings, but never to fly for themselves, to experience the exhilaration of being in the sky, free, alone, and independent. I have experienced it. I've had endless dreams of flying, and oh, what an experience! To be flapping those wings, to be...I shouldn't carry on...

...Return to the real world.