In my dream I am dreaming.
The ground surges beneath me and I rise. I look down but there’s nothing under my feet. I race above the earth on an invisible magic carpet until I reach the end. There could be one galaxy or a thousand but I am beyond them all.
I close my eyes and feel the soft touch of music on my face. The vibration of harmony sinks into every pore. Cello strings and bumblebee wings. The thrumming builds, layering one skin of harmony onto another. Songs with no words but more meaning than language. I open my eyes and see infinity filled with sound. These sounds have a shape and a form. A choir that surges forward yet stays still. They float yet never leave the ground. Their beauty is deafening but still welcome. I can feel it with every atom that I am.
This is the battery that gives life to a war. A fierce and beautiful fuel. There is nothing gentle about the harmony. There is nothing quiet about their whisper. A fragrant wind begins to blow. It carries the melody on its breath. It washes over me, lifting my hair like a space walker and when I inhale it is inside me too.
I am also still lying on my bed. I am everywhere and I am nowhere. Powerless but in complete control. Knowing all yet content in my ignorance. Everything is instantly reimagined through the ever expanding and ever healing wounds of the world.
I am made of glass, but then I realise it’s not glass, it’s mirror. Thousands of pieces, glinting and tossing light with every breath. I am a reflection of everything around me. So many fragments, so many reflections, that I no longer exist. I am lost somewhere behind it all. My eyes, each strand of hair, my entire body, all I am is no longer mine.
A different face is reflected in each mirror scale but there is no one else in my room. So many eyes. So many fears. My skin starts to rattle. I begin to shake, my skin quivers and I feel a sensation that is new. Doubt. It creeps inside my mirror armour, crawling under my skin, flicking off one tiny piece at a time. Soon I am flying apart, glass bullets all landing in an old wooden box that floats above me. This box is no bigger than my hand but never gets full.
I am watching this from above and from within. The box descends until it is resting in my hand. The lid closed tight.
And it is dark.
Tessa Apa 