The Cameraman

Ever had a dream with someone you know in it? Maybe your crush proposing their love for you which you know will never happen in real life or your teachers prepping you for a test you haven't studied for. It's pretty common as far as I am aware to dream about familiar faces which makes me wonder why I don't.

Sometimes dreams feel familiar. I'm at school or at home, places where people I know tend to be. But they're empty or filled with strangers.

I dream of a mother who isn't mine. I dream of a friend I have never had. It's always so real, a sort of barely memorable earth.

In most of my dreams, I am alone. There is a calm about that, no angry voices, no desperate longing to be seen, no desire to fit in.

The people I do meet in my dreams are human, kind of featureless but undoubtedly human. They mostly just walk around my mind like robotic extras in a movie. I am the cameraman. Looking on at a scene I have never lived through, a reality where I do not have to hide behind the person those around me see.

Every night I disappear into that world. One night I don't think I will want to come back.