The Dream
By JOHN NYEN

Swaying palm trees, rambling surf, waving grass, sandy beaches. These and more are what I truly know. The subtle, monotonous sounds of the ocean's body ever renewing and repeating upon the crags and rocks of the cliffs that surround a beautiful bay. The sky a bright blue, darkened only by an errant cloud that suggests a different climate elsewhere. This is where I live. I am content to surf and exist as my forefathers have done for years before me.

Within the illuminating spectrum of my nights, however, the life and memories within my brain twist without rhyme or reason. They dance and flit into a dream. In this dream, I am strapped to a pair of boards. Everything around is crisp and cold. The daytime air is clear and thin, causing me to exhale roughly. All around is white. Trees delicately bow to the climatic presence that humbles them.

Everything that was is no more, and I speak to my friends of that same repeating idea that has been haunting my nights recently. The idea that I live upon an island, trying to surf and to live a simple life. They chuckle and begin to look away downhill. As we descend, the ambiguity departs and within the effort comes the reward. Caressing sweet particles of water give way before my body. I am enveloped by a white world where there is no up, down, or sideways. Long, slow seconds pass until time itself separates. I forget the silly tropical dreams of previous nights and focus everything in my being into that effort before me.

Down a wind-beaten gully, we head for the lip and pop away with speed. Over and through into the woods. Racing racing racing, dancing amid the flora and fauna. I pop in and out of the branches, ducking underneath and emerging into a copse. Here the snow is soft and giving. Open it up and hop over a buried stump. Faster faster into another wood. Shadows fly across my face as snow billows up to my knees.

I disappear in the moment and everything becomes possible. Without the limitations of my own perspective I can accomplish anything.

I emerge from the trees into blinding sunlight, and there they are: three pillows through which I slowly fall as though on an escalator. Every hit flexes my skis back and compresses my knees throwing powder into my face. Air is beneath me and finally I am falling, falling into the deep, deep snow below. On the trail again, I see my friends emerging. All are coated with the snowy attachments of a good day of skiing.

It is as it should be—surrounded by the mountains, my home for the last 20 years. Trying to eke out a living as my father did before me. The house that he built lies at the base of the valley, surrounded by two lakes and ranches older than the statehood here.

Perhaps tonight I shall dream that dream of the island again and the surfing, floating, relentless energy of that wave.


 Discuss this story in our Workshop forum