Hypnos, Peter Pan, steaming coffee

Hypnos comes to steal you away. He comes in the dark to whisk you to the island of dreams, where the sunsets never end and the puffy clouds line the sky and on the horizon there’s a single, flashing, green light.

He comes and he asks you where you wish to fly to tonight. And so, you push off from ground and you soar like little Peter Pan, amidst stars and galaxies through a perfect sky, waving to the Big Bear, and her little cub, and Orion’s mechanical eyes go tick tick tick as they watch you fly by. Orion’s arm is locked in position, Eros swoops down just in time, and your ears hear a small, tiny click as the arrow snuggles back into the little crook in the worn wood where splinters are rough and but the feathers still smooth, and Eros holds it there, as Orion’s bitter heart goes unsoothed. 

You fly to the island. You fly to where you come each night. Each night that you dream, each night that you wander, your flying feet come to rest at the hearth of the one you miss most. The door creaks open and you step in. You step into a wonderland, a fairyland, a place beyond the hills. Beyond the silos, beyond the cages, beyond what you thought was real and it’s all so hazy. It’s like you’re walking through water, and the rapids are trying to pull you away, but you fight against the current because you can start to see it now. The warm checked, brown blanket that’s draped on the arm of the chair, the fire crackling at the end of the room, a mug of coffee still steaming, waiting for you. 

It’s so hazy. It’s so hazy but you push through because you know who put that mug there. You know but you never get to see but every night. Every single night, you sit down next to that mug, and you reach for the coffee and your fingers wrap around the warm cup. 

He knows you well. 

Your papers are there, the ones you sent some weeks gone by and you know that he reads them, most nights, as he sits with his own mug in this very chair, waiting for you to sleep, waiting for you to come, waiting for you, he places them there. 

He’s just around the corner. 

You hear the step, the creak in the floorboard and the water stops pulling. Everything goes still and then everything goes bright for a beautiful split second, it all goes bright. And it’s no longer a dream, it’s your life, and you’re there, after flying, after a day at work, and he’s coming home, and you close your eyes, and you open them, and you realise this is the dream. You have everything. This life, this moment, this dream. Then the split second ends and the current is back and there’s another step, and you try to turn your head but you can’t and then you’re in your bed and you can see his words, because he knew you’d be gone before he got to you and he placed the paper in your pocket like he does each night but the words are fading fast and you beg for the water, for the tide, for the swell, but Poseidon and Hypnos are long gone and it’s all fading fast, and all you want is to stay asleep, to stay awake in Hypnos’ sweet sweet realm where the tides pull and push, where the coffee never gets cold, where the blanket waits for you, on a dear old armchair in front of a fire that is your sacred hearth, in a dream that you wish was your real, and you wish you could have a moment longer, a scene, a flicker, a reminder of the good, of the beautiful, of the dream, just one more split second please.