In Between

A Story by Mello

Thoughts.

You start to paint a quasi-realistic picture of how the future would look like. You put yourself and the girl of your dreams in that setting, having quasi-realistic conversations in that one place you know you've never visited before but for some reason you're quite sure you have. And in that setting, everything starts to melt into one quasi-realistic dimension, where the world becomes the sum of all the movies you've watched, books you've read, and things you have experienced. You're here, she's there, walking along familiar roads, under a more familiar night sky, staring at the same constellations you've once stared before. You don't know if it's real or you're just ripping off some scene from a book or a movie. And then it becomes too beautiful, too surreal, that you find yourself being pulled by this magic to its own chasm. That magic will keep pulling, and what is there to hold you back? In that world, You will experience everything that you've ever wanted since you saw that one indie film starring actors you don't know, the one that gave you a glimpse of what you've always wanted in your life, the one that allowed your mind to welcome the possibility of the existence of a future happiness that you know you will someday belong into. You let that magic pull you to the other side, but at one moment, you'll realize that that's not how life works. In order for you to remain at this chasm, you'll need to keep on picturing these quasi-realistic scenes in your head, and even though it's all you've ever wanted in your life, deep inside you know that they aren't real. They're just illusions you've fabricated to find comfort in amidst the cruel streets of reality, full of uncertainties and doubt. That's where you stop: the moment you tell yourself that it's not real, you let go of the rope that's dragging you to the other side.

And you wake up. You feel a bit nauseated, and you decide to go to sleep again, hoping to re-experience the same brand of magic you can only experience while asleep. But you can't sleep. And the more second you spend awake, the more fragments of your dream vanish until you now remember nothing, and what's left is a gaping hole with an endless desire to be filled somewhere in you. But it can't be filled. The only way it can be filled is if you go to that magic chasm and re-experience everything, even a lesser version of it. But you know that's not going to happen. You know it's not real. So you decide to finish that one indie film your friend told you about months ago and start from the scene right before you fell asleep.