A Dream I Had While Asleep, January 20th 2026

A Dream I Had While Asleep, January 20^th 2026

     The air in my grandparents’ house tasted of woodsmoke and old memories, a stillness that usually feels like an ending. But then she was there. Marsha. Not as a memory, but as a living presence, radiant and solid in the center of the living room.
     My late grandfather, Harry George, stepped into the room with that familiar, jaunty stride. His voice was a warm chord of music. “Hey Marsha, great to see you again,” he said, his eyes crinkling with a kindness that transcended the veil.
     “Hi, Mr. George,” she replied, her voice a soft bell. “Good to see you here, too.”
     I felt a surge of desperate, earthly love. I had bought her a gift—a tie-dye dress, a swirl of colors to match the kaleidoscope of her spirit. I wanted so badly to see her in it, to give her something beautiful to hold onto. I searched every corner of the house, my heart racing. I tore through the guest room, the bedroom, the closets of my childhood, but the dress remained a ghost.
     We went out into the cool, velvet embrace of the night. I searched the car, frantic now, as she leaned against the frame, watching me with a patient, knowing smile. Her hand kept straying toward the door hinge, and a sharp spike of protectiveness hit me. “Watch your hand, honey,” I kept saying. “I don’t want you to get hurt. I don’t want to be the one to hurt you.”
     But in the clumsy gravity of this world, the door clicked shut, catching her thumb. My heart broke in that instant. “Does it hurt? Do you need a doctor?” I pleaded, looking at the swelling that bloomed like a dark flower on her hand.
    “I think I should go to a clinic,” she said softly.
     Even in this reunion, there were fractures. The X-ray showed a small break—a reminder that even in dreams, our love carries the weight of our fragility. On the drive back, the silence was heavy with my need to provide, to fix, to make amends for a world that can be so sharp. I offered her money, a hundred dollars for the bills, as if I could pay for her comfort.
     We walked down the street together, two shadows moving through the dark, until we reached an old house with a rusted, forgotten ATM. It looked like it hadn’t breathed in decades. I pressed the power button, and it hummed to life, a flicker of light in the gloom. But as I rifled through my wallet, I was lost. I had dozens of cards, but none of them were the one I needed. I couldn’t find the currency of this world to give to her.
     Then, the struggle simply evaporated.
     Marsha began to glow. It wasn’t the light of a machine; it was the light of an internal sun. She looked at me with the same smile she wore the night we fell in love, a smile that promised forever. In the quiet of my soul, the first notes of “God Only Knows” by the Beach Boys began to play, the harmonies layering like clouds.
     The dress didn’t matter. The money didn’t matter. The injury was gone. She leaned toward me, her face luminous against the night, and whispered the only truth that remained: “John, when you join me in heaven, I hope we will be right beside each other.”
     The frustration of the empty wallet and the missing dress evaporated, replaced by a radiance that no earthly gift could match. In that moment, the shadows of the dark street vanished. The ATM, the cards, and the medical bills all fell away, becoming meaningless artifacts of a world she no longer belonged to. All that remained was her smile—that same light that first captured my heart decades ago. As her words echoed in the silence of my room, the weight of the search finally lifted. I didn’t need the dress or the money to take care of her anymore. She was whole, she was beautiful, and she was simply waiting for the day the music would start again.
     And then, I was back in the silence of my room, the song still echoing, and the warmth of her hand still lingering on mine.