A man stayed up late into the night and wrote on dreams. His wife had gone to bed, and he was left to his faulty mechanism, his midnight mind.

The man was an architect who had always dreamed of being something very different from what he was. So on this night, he confessed into the notebook spilled open on his office desk and to the slobbering pen in his hand. And he wrote.

~

Thinking of my current manuscript, if I can even call it that, I feel a great sense of detachment. To the publishing industry I feel nothing but detachment. I had longed my entire boyhood to be a writer, a traditionally published author that occupied a small but culturally significant space in literature and fandom. But after many years of seeing the types of books that publishers put out, I have become greatly disheartened. The style, the subject matter, the quality, the look and feel and spectacle of it all. Whether I find the works good or otherwise, it does not matter: in either case what I have written will never be of their standard. 

I’ve made peace with this. Something I cherished, worshiped, and desired so deeply now means so little to me. I don’t care anymore. I feel this way about so many of my dreams. I held things so close to me and now I see that they mean nothing. I say this, not out of depression, but of a peaceful numbness. My dreams are trophies, golden and radiant, so beautiful yet so meaningless. 

Why did I carry this dream for so long? Did it make me feel important? Did it make me feel as though I was meaningful? Was it another goal to chase? Was it ever mine to possess?

Dreams carry the weight of our hopes and burdens, unlocking the gate that leads to the world where we are finally happy and good and true and realized and perfect. Dreams are expected to be such a thing, I think. How silly, how disappointing. How stupid I have been. 

~

His wife awoke from her sleep to find him in his office, slumped over his desk, his fingers smeared in black ink. The man rose his head and said nothing.

With a slight stumble and a shielding of her eyes from the bright light of his room, she picked up his notebook. He squeaked out a protest, and she shushed him firmly. Turning her back, she began to read. He peered over her shoulder and saw her eyes at the bottom of the page work their way up again, scanning over it once more. Then again. In her usual way of reading his works.

When she had finished she walked over to him, and looked down upon him in his chair. She held the notebook to her chest and asked him, very softly,

‘Is this true? Is this really how you feel?’

His heart was heavy. His throat was too tight to speak, and he hung his head.

She placed her hand on his shoulder and the notebook back on the desk.

And she whispered, ‘What will be left of you without your dreams?’

And at those words, he buried his head into her long gown and sobbed so deeply, feeling her fingers in his hair and the weight in his soul.