ast night, I dreamed of a woman with honey-brown eyes and a crooked smile. She was sitting at the edge of a fountain, humming something soft and wordless. I sat beside her, though we didn’t speak. I remember the wind tugging at her scarf, the weight of something unspoken pressing against us like fog. When I woke up, I couldn't shake the feeling that she was real.
A quick search later, and I found her face. Her obituary. Gone three years now. I’ve never met her. I don’t know her name beyond what the internet told me. Yet somehow, she found her way into my dream.
This isn’t the first time. It’s happened too many times to write off as coincidence. A boy with burn marks on his palms. A man who kept handing me keys. A child who laughed in a language I don’t understand. I meet them all in dreams—and wake to find they no longer walk this world.
I keep asking myself: why me? Why do they visit me, if “visit” is even the right word? Is this some echo of grief I’ve never owned? A trick of my subconscious? Or something more?
I never feel afraid. Just... curious. Sometimes, honored. These strangers arrive and leave as gently as dusk. But their presence stays with me long after morning. I can’t help but wonder if our souls brush against one another somewhere between sleep and silence—if there’s a place beyond time where the dead remember, and we’re invited to remember them back.
I don’t have answers. Only dreams. And maybe, that’s enough.
