She runs, He turns

She runs, bounding through the field, though it feels like she's flying. The yellow daffodils are a blur in her peripheral vision, but the crisp smell fills her nostrils. He is all she sees. The yellow field and the blue sky are just background colours, the background music. He is the solo, the focal point. All that she sees, feels or thinks is him. He still hasn't seen her, and he wont, not yet, he never sees her until she is a certain distance away. Her boy, in his nice shirt. She loves him, she knows she does. Oh, he has seen her now.


He stands there, in the field, with his face turned to the sun. It's so warm and inviting. Footsteps... and the rustle of fabric is what he hears now. He turns and looks at the girl in the red dress running through the sea of yellow daffodils. The smile in her eyes lights up his heart, and the happiness overflows and he finds himself grinning. Opening his arms, ready to catch her, to hold her for what seems like the first time.


She's almost there. He's smiling at her, opening his arms, she jumps the last metre, or did she fly? Regardless, she is in his arms. They're together again, finally. The smell of the daffodils and the soft Spring air is forgotten, all she smells now is the aftershave he's used, and the crisp smell of clean linen... and paper. Old paper...


He feels happier than he has ever felt. There she is, in his arms, she smells sweet, it must be that perfume she uses. He buries his face in her hair at the crook of her neck and breathes deeply. Holding her in his arms, he never wants to let her go.


She begins to frown. The dusty smell of an aged book... funny, that's how her copy of Anne of Windy Willows smells. Why can she smell that? That's not right... Now she can smell grass and.. cars? She can smell cars? …No, she can hear cars and smell petrol but what are cars doing in her field? She looks into his eyes, his loving blue eyes and feels comfortable and safe, like she can stay there forever, but he isn’t smiling anymore. What's wrong? Why is he fading?


He feels safe and loved here. But now she's pulling away, why is she doing that? He looks into her hazel eyes, frowning, searching her expressionless face for an answer. She's never done this before... oh, but she has. Now he remembers. Every time it ends this way. Damn his imagination, couldn't it at least be a little creative with the ending once in a while?


She blinks, He's still there, which is a relief because she thought for a moment that it was ending again. With a jolt she opens her eyes a second time. Funny, she didn't remember closin- the light is blinding her, the sound of the midday traffic fills her ears and the pages of her book are creased from where her head lays. Sitting up she sighs deeply, why must it always be a dream. But it is so vivid, so real. And it's always him, the boy in the dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up and the converse shoes.


He stands alone in the field. The daffodils at his feet are in disarray. Crushed by their short-lived happiness. He stares across to where he had first caught a glimpse of her, in that gorgeous red dress. Every time he saw her he wondered anew how she managed to look that stunning in such a simple item of clothing. It was just a plain red dress, but it fit her so well and complemented the warm flush that was ever-present on her pale cheeks. Wait, why had she left whilst he was still here... surely he would never intentionally rid himself of her in a dream? The scenery is fading now, ah, yes, now he's waking up.


She pushes her hair out of her face and wipes the tears from her eyes. Why did it always have to end? She never gets to ask his name. They talk about everything under the sun but as soon as she thinks to ask his name she wakes up. Pulling out her notebook and a pencil she begins to sketch him again. The pages of this book are filled with his face. It’s impossible that she is only dreaming, he has to exist. Sitting at the foot of the tree, sketching the face of an imaginary young man who she has fallen in love with. Toying with the idea that if she could marry her imagination she would never be unhappy ever again. She needs to find a real boy, though… why can’t he be real?


He holds his eyes shut, perhaps he can fall back asleep and see her again. He draws images of her from his inner mind and holds them fast. But his alarm clock begins to beep and slices neatly through his memories of her, and the images are gone. The deep red of the insides of his eyelids is all that he sees now. Red… the colour of her dress, of her burgundy hair… His imaginary girlfriend, god that’s lame. He needs to find himself a real girl… why can’t she be real?

My incessant boredom is consistently, creatively, productive

Books! ‘tis a dull and endless strife:

Come, hear the woodland linnet,

How sweet his music! on my life,
There’s more of wisdom in it.

And hark! how blithe the throstle sings!
He, too, is no mean preacher:

Come forth into the light of things,
Let Nature be your teacher.

She has a world of ready wealth,
Our minds and hearts to bless—

Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health,
Truth breathed by cheerfulness.

One impulse from a vernal wood
May teach you more of man,
Of moral evil and of good,
Than all the sages can.