300 Letters - 54. Letter 53 (Nightmare)

19 January 2016

Dear C,

How are you doing? I hope you are keeping yourself warm? I saw on TV today that temperatures dropped to 1 degree in London today. I don't know if you are allowed to be going outside yet, but if you do - wrap up warm!

I would like to tell you about the dream I had last night. It was extremely surreal, yet it felt very real at the same time. When I woke up in the morning it took me some time to digest the whole thing.I dream that you, me my and your mum were all walking in the park. It was autumn because I remember seeing colorful leaves on the ground. This park was not in London but in my hometown back in Poland.

It was the park I used to play as a child, right next to my parents' house. In this dream, my subconscious told me that those events were happening after prison and your cancer. So it was a dream of the future. We all sat down on one of the benches and talked. I wasn't sure if we were back together again, but definitely, we were enjoying each other's company. Our mothers were talking to one another (funny, as my mum speaks no English and yours speaks no Polish). At some point, you stood up and started throwing leaves at me and we were running around like little kids. Then, as we got tired we sat back next to our mothers. Your mum looked at me and said that she was happy you had someone like me in your life. Then you suddenly turned around to your mother and asked her: "Mum, do you know that he is 'that' guy?" She looked at you and then she looked at me and said: "Yes I know".

I remember feeling so overwhelmed at that moment in my dream that I think I cried real tears.

Then I noticed that some of the leaves that were laying on the ground somehow started to slowly lifting up. First I didn't pay any attention to it, but then I realized that all of them were going up. First slowly then very fast they were disappearing in the air. You and our mothers were completely unaware of this. Then the first big oak next to us crushed and disappeared. I wanted to shout to you if you saw that and I grabbed your hand only to realize that your hand was the only thing that left of you. There was no blood or anything like that, just your hand. Then it disappeared too. I started to see that everything was crushing and flying off in the air. My mum wasn't there anymore, neither was yours. I fell onto the ground as the bench I was sitting on was now gone. Then I heard the laughter in the air. All around me. First I couldn't figure it out who that voice belonged to, but then I realized it was you. You were laughing so loud and so hysterically that I felt like my head would explode.

Then I woke up.

I couldn't move on my bed. I was staring at the dirt on my wall for some time. I felt nothing and I felt everything. I closed my eyes once hoping I would wake up back home next to you, that all of this is still just a nightmare.

Then my alarm clock went off. I got up and brushed my teeth. They bled badly, I think my gums are properly damaged now, could be after all that beating I received in the previous prison. I don't know.

I looked at myself in my old mirror here and I asked: "why?"Then I turned on the news and started to pretend that I am going to be ok.

Forever yours,

Sebastian