The Dream

I wrote this post for the It’s Thursday on Leo’s blog. It was a picture based theme this time. The artist of the picture is Denise – Bianca ( ~ xDenise).

He woke with a start; why was he having this dream every night now-a-days? His dream consisted of him studying at his childhood study table. He would then be called out of his room by his elder brother, and on returning he would find his book replaced by a book of poetry, on which lay an antique pocket watch, showing the same time in every dream.

Why his childhood house? Why that table? Where did the book come from? What about the watch, what did it mean? Was there one answer to these many questions? Did it have to do anything with the fact that his teaching career was fast on the downfall? Did this have to do with the interest he had lost in his job as a teacher? He had been a fan of the subject of psychology, and so he tried to analyze himself, but never came up with the answer.

There was only one way to know, or try to know, he had to return to that house and that room. It had been seven years since they had left that house, after the incident that changed their lives forever, for the good.

As he went back to the lane where they had lived, it seemed from a different time and age. His childhood had been the complete opposite of his youth. They had been poor back then, and now they were one of the richest around. He entered the deserted house, becoming nostalgic with each step he took. His mind flashed back to their last day in this house.

He had been reading then. Though it was a happy moment for all, he felt unhappy. He still remembered the four lines he read, conveying, only to him, how he felt leaving the house –

You can’t push it underground
You can’t stop it screaming out
How did we come to this?
You will suck the life out of me.

As he was called to finally leave the house, he had left the book there itself, scared of carrying it, for some reason. As he entered his old room, he saw everything covered with white cloth. He picked up the cloth covering his table and was surprised to see the book still there. He picked it up, found the words, and read them again. It is only now that he realized that it was his book that had been calling out to him all these days. He read through the book and realized that it was also his personal diary in which he had recorded his childhood. He had forgotten that.

Reading it now, he suddenly knew what to do with his fast deteriorating life. He saw that he had written many a poems in the margins of the book. Looking back, the poems were great, for his age then.

He knew his new career now. As for the watch…. his last poem had been written at 10:30 A.M.