In Love With A Dream.

In Love With A Dream.

It started off as a white canvas filled with emptiness with nothing but her standing in the middle. She looked around for something, for people but there was nothing but herself. When she would close her eyes and start to think, she would be able to create something more. The blank canvas slowly turned blue and filled with the green of the grass and trees. An open meadow with a lake. Pink, red and yellow flowers started to appear. A dog, horses, and sheep running around the open field while she stood looking over at the beautiful farmhouse that occupied the space. She created a world for herself, a beautiful world she could escape to.

“Alora!” Snapped the teacher “Are you paying attention?”

“Yes, yes I am.” Alora replied.

“What is the answer?” Asked the teacher knowing well she wasn’t paying attention.

“The- what? The answer?” Alora felt the stares of her classmates, her leg started to shake.

“That’s what I thought.” The teacher sighed and directed her next words to the entire class, “Seems like you will all be needing extra work to be able to understand this material. You can thank Alora for today’s homework, I am adding pages 17 to 20 and yes it will be graded. Class is dismissed”

The students started talking amongst themselves upset about the extra homework Alora cost them. As she walked out of class, she could feel the looks of hatred from her classmates.

Alora took the bus to get back home. It was a long and stressful day for her. She was exhausted. Listening to music she closed her eyes for a moment. The blank canvas in her mind quickly started to fill with the blue of the sky and the green of the grass, she was back in the meadow. It was warm in the meadow; the sun was always shinning. She ran towards the lake and jumped inside. Her dog who lived there came running in with her. The two played together, she was happy.

“Louis! Louis! Where did you go!” Someone started to shout.

The dog that she was playing with ran towards the sound of the voice. Alora wondered who that was. She got out of the water and followed the dog. The dog jumped into the arms of a boy who was standing next to the farmhouse.

“Hello?” Alora said.

“Hello? Who are you?” The boy asked.

Alora was shocked by this question, she felt like she should be asking him that.

“I’m Alora, and you are?” She spoke.

“I’m Domenico.” He said.

Alora smiled and he smiled back at her.

“Hey, hey, kid wake up!”

Alora’s eyes sprung open. Alora was at the end of the bus line, she had fallen asleep. She was now further from home and had to walk 30 minutes to get back. Once home she was exhausted and went straight to her room to sleep, to dream…

“Do you come here often? I’ve never seen you before?” Domenico asked.

“Yes, I come here pretty often, I love it here.” Alora replied.

“Come, I want to show you something!” Domenico said.

The two of them get up and walk towards the mountain that wasn’t too far away from the meadow. They walk up and up and up until the winds start blowing a little harder.

“We are almost there!” Domenico says.

“This seems a little dangerous don’t you think.” Alora adds.

“Don’t worry, you are safe with me” Domenico says with a reassuring smile that Alora knew she could trust.

They follow a rocky path on the mountain until Alora could hear the sound of water getting louder and louder.

In front of her, Alora saw something so beautiful she couldn’t believe her eyes. There was this waterfall so large it seemed to be coming from the heavens. The water was so beautiful and clear, the sound of it was like music.

“What is this place?” Alora asked.

“It’s my secret spot. I come here all the time, to feel safe” Domenico said.

“Just like this meadow is my safe place” Alora added.

“Exactly” He replied.

She felt light and free. There was this feeling of content she had never experienced before. This was peace.

A crashing sound jolts Alora awake. Dazed and confused she looks around remembering she was in her room sleeping all along. Curious about the noise, she walks out of her room and into the kitchen. She stands at the entrance looking down at the broken glass on the floor and then back up at her mother with tears in her eyes and a cut on her head.

“Go back to your room Alora.” Her father says. She obeys.

Alora is sitting at her desk, drawing on a piece of paper the meadow she dreams of every day. She draws the trees, the animals, the house when suddenly the paper gets pulled away from her.

“These aren’t notes Alora.” Says the teacher. “Have you been paying attention at all during this semester?”

“Yes I have!” Alora pleads.

“I will be having a word with your parents. This is getting out of hand” The teacher walks away with her drawing and throws the drawing in the garbage bin.

Alora’s heart sank. She desperately wanted to start crying but kept it in when she saw the eyes of all her classmates staring at her. She hated it here, she wishes she could go to the meadow. All she wanted was to stay at the meadow with Domenico. One day, she told herself, she would go to the meadow.

Inside the teacher’s office, Alora sat there with her parents sitting by her side. Her professor spoke of her dreaminess and how she would never listen. She continued to say if Alora did not cooperate in class she would never graduate and get into college.

Inside the car on her way back home, Alora’s parents continued to tell her how she was a bad student for never listening, yet, she wasn’t listening to them either. Her mind wandered away while she looked out the window back to the meadow.

“I got in trouble today.” Alora told Domenico.

“What do you mean? What happened” Domenico asked.

“The people around me don’t like it when I come here.” Alora said.

“Why not, this place makes you happy doesn’t it?” Domenico replied.

“Yes of course it does. I wish I could stay here forever and never go back.”

“Then come, stay.”

“That isn’t possible.”

“Yes, it is Alora. This is real Alora! Come find me! Come find me!”

“Alora! Are you listening to us!” Her mother shouted, snapping her out of her daydream.

“Yes mother, I am” Alora replied.

Back at home, Alora was sitting in the living room watching television. She could hear the sound of her parents yelling at each other in the background but just ignored it. A commercial starts to play.

Television: Music playing, a voice starts speaking:

A good Holiday in Italy is the sound of simple things. Hours spent by the sea, bare feet in the sand, wind in your hair. A good holiday is an adventure and challenge. Mountains, lakes, and culture.

Clips of the beautiful country are displayed on the screen when something catches Alora’s attention.

“The meadow!” She shouts.

There it was, the meadow she would dream about, the farmhouse, the lake, the mountain. For a split second, she saw it on the screen, it was real.

“It’s real.” Alora says to herself.

At this moment, at this very moment, she knew what she had to do. She ran to her room took the first bag she found, took her clothes, and stuffed them inside. She went into her parents’ room and open the second drawer on the left and took the stack of money her parents would hide under the socks and her passport which was also hidden there. She walked out the front door and called the first taxi she saw.

“Alora! Alora! Where are you going” Her mother yelled as she and her father ran out the door. But it was too late, Alora was gone, she was going to find the meadow, going to find Domenico.

Alora was back in the meadow. Domenico was sitting alone by the lake.

“Domenico! Domenico!” She shouted as she ran towards him.

“Alora! What are you doing here, I thought you weren’t going to come back!” He said.

Alora jumped into his arms and he swung her around as he hugged her.

“I’m coming Domenico. I left, and I’m coming to find the meadow, I’m coming to find you!” Alora said with pure happiness.

“I knew you would. I can’t wait to see you Alora!”

“Once I get to Italy, how do I find you?”

“Go to Castelluccio, Umbria. Ask the people, they will tell you where to find me.”

After hours of travel, hours of flight, Alora lands.

Thank you for flying with Lufthansa, we hope you enjoy your stay in Italy.

Alora bords off the plane and makes her way to Umbria, to the village of Castelluccio. She wasn’t certain where to go, none of the meadow’s looked like the ones she imagined. Domenico told her to ask the people, and so the people she shall ask. She walked to the closest café and asked if anyone spoke English.

“Yes, I do.” said a man who worked there with a thick Italian accent.

“I’m looking for a meadow.” Alora said to him.

“There are many meadows’s here.” He replied.

“Not any meadow. A specific meadow. There is a large lake, and a small farmhouse, not too far from the mountains, with a waterfall. And a boy! A boy lives there!” Alora added.

“A boy? I know the place, but there is no boy there? No one lives there.” The worker replied.

“Yes, there is. I know there is! How can I get there?” She asked.

After a while of thinking, the man finally said to Alora “I can take you there, for a small fee, 50 euros and I can take you there.”

She gave the man the money and they took off to the meadow. The county started getting more and more familiar. It was real, the meadow, she knew it. An hour later, she had arrived. There it was, the farmhouse, the lake, the flowers. Tears rushed to her eyes, her heart was beating at the speed of life. Her dream was no longer a dream. She found, peace, she found the meadow. It was wonderful, it was everything she had imagined. She could finally be happy, she was going to be happy from now on.

Alora ran out of the car shouting “Domenico, Domenico! I’m here, I’m here, I’m finally here.”

She waited outside, but no one came out. Where was he, she wondered.

“Domenico?”

Alora walked to the farmhouse. Maybe he was inside, maybe he couldn’t hear her. She walked inside, but it was vacant. There was no sign of Domenico, no sign of anyone. Maybe he went on the mountain? Maybe he went to the waterfall? Where was he? She walked deeper into the house, she found a paper on the kitchen table, a letter. She sat down and picked it up.

Hello Alora.

I hope this finds you well, but if it does, that means I’m not here. It’s funny that I’m even writing you this now, I don’t even know if you are real. I dreamt about you every day. All the time we spend at the lake, at the waterfall, playing with Louis. Every single day I dreamt about you. You felt so real to me, you were what made me happy. All this time, I tried to convince you to come and find me, but instead, I should’ve came to find you. I know people thought I was crazy, talking about you like you were real, but something deep in my heart told me you were. The dreams, they were so vivid, I could feel, touch, smell everything. I dreamt about you for years and years, but I have grown older, and sicker. I don’t know if you will find me in time Alora. But I have fallen in love with you. It seems I have fallen in love with a dream. I guess they were right, I was crazy. But I rather fall in love with a dream, than with nothing. You kept me alive Alora. Thank you.

Forever, Domenico.

Alora’s eyes filled with tears. She couldn’t comprehend what she was reading. Domenico was real? Was he, dead? Alora held the note next to her heart. The man who drove her there walked inside to find her crying.

“Young lady?” He said.

“He’s, dead.” Alora said. “I’m so stupid, I don’t understand. He was my age, in my dream!”

After a moment, the Italian man spoke “You were right when u said a boy lived here. But that was ages ago. He would have been my age by now if he hadn’t died. I remember him well now. When he was 18, the same age you must be now, he would always talk about this girl who would come visit him at the meadow. Said her name was Alo-something, I don’t know. Everyone called him crazy.”

“Alora. That’s me, I’m Alora. He wasn’t crazy.”

Alora sat in the kitchen silent for a while longer, tears still streaming down her face.

“I’m sorry I took so long Domenico.”

With the letter in hand, she walked outside, towards the lake, and stood there. She looked into the reflection, she looked at herself, she imagined Domenico standing next to her. He was gone.

There she stood, in the meadow, she dreamt of every day for years and years. The thing that filled the blank canvas in her mind now felt empty. It was empty. Her heart was empty.