Intangible

I try to convince myself to remain in a half asleep state, even as my computer boots up and Mozilla freezes momentarily while it loads. I close my eyes and my brain feels tight, like it's squishing itself, compacting itself together into a small aluminum foil ball, like I do to my sandwich wrappers after the food is all gone. The dream is already almost gone. It was about Journalism class, and I was talking about how I couldn't get a source to talk with me, and then Betty (my professor) was leaving the room and telling us we couldn't leave for another hour. And so everyone just sat there, but I went off into this downstairs room or something, and apparently there was this guy. And we got along superbly well. And so we talked, and talked, and it didn't even matter that I was missing my classes and missing my train and missing dinner, and whatever other parts of my life I was missing out on by sitting down there in that cold, dim room with him. His shape wavered, shimmered almost when a light was on, glowed softly in the dark when it was not. He wasn't real; I knew this much in the dream. I could touch him, but when I did, all we could each feel were slight pressures on our fingertips, on our bodies, on our lips and on our tongues. It was like a phantom limb; you convinced yourself you could feel it, but somewhere inside its crunchy, silvery folds, your brain knew you couldn't. But I remember being happy. And I remember telling him not to go. And I remember him telling me this was no way to spend my life. And I remember that it didn't matter if he was physical or not, because he was everything I needed. Then I woke up groggily, but with a slight sense of urgency that sent me scurrying for the cellphone among my blanket folds. I had overslept. I forced myself to swallow, and my tongue, burnt from salted caramel extra-hot hot chocolate, brushed against the roof of my mouth, a little bit painful, and a little bit numb.