[UNTITLED, UNDATED DOCUMENT; FILE HEADER DATE IS 49.04.17.04.10]

     In my dream, I am with you.  We are laying together in our living room with our closest friends.  I am on the carpeted floor, reclining against a chair or cushion or some such thing, and you are leaning against me, cradled by my arm.  Your warmth is comforting, and the smell of your hair beneath my nose is intoxicating.  I feel the most contented I have ever felt in my life.

     I look down at you, and you are Maria, the first girl I ever kissed.  Then you are Maggie, the girl I lost my virginity to.  Then Laura, the woman I lived with for a while after Maggie.  With each breath, you become each of my former loves, but you remain undoubtedly you.  I know this with absolute certainty.  And I feel an incredible warmth, beholding you, the woman who is more than the sum of my past.

     We talk to each other, both of us in a mellow, relaxed state.  We talk to friends who wander by, to our mutual delight and amusement.  I have no idea what we talk about.  I watch your lips move, but I can't hear what they're saying.  I know I am talking, but I don't know what I just said that was so funny.  Ultimately though, it doesn't matter.  Whatever it was, it was good.

     We are in our house, which is strangely the house I grew up in - with elements of the Centaur, my new home on Alpha, and someplace I've never been but is nonetheless absolutely incredible.  With a strong sense of familiarity, I am now wandering through the house to the side facing the lake (North and South and all other means of coordinating myself spatially are simply non-existent).

     The lake is the type that forms in the join of many tall mountains, the kind often referred to as 'bottomless'.  The house, which is my family house - and so many other things - is perched on the side of one mountain, the lake a hundred or so meters below.  Looking across the lake, all I see is more mountains.  I tilt my head upward and at last glimpse the sky, coal-black with the normal spattering of stars, which is kind of weird because the lake - and the mountains surrounding it - are fully-lit, as if illuminated by giant floodlights.

     You appear beside me, wrapping your arm through mine.  There is no need for words between us, our synergy (for lack of a better term) is that good.  We gaze out across the liquid-filled chasm, our attention not on each other, but on everything, including each other.  I feel at one with everything around me, including you.  There is no better state of existence than this.

     I know, however, deep down inside (and yet at the forefront of my thoughts), that this is not real.  You and I have never been like this.  This must be a dream.

     At that moment, you turn your head to me and say, "I wish this could last forever."

     My heart is filled with joy indescribable.  What you say is the exact thing I've always wanted:  To be content.  Forever.  I know, however, that the reason I want this so badly is because it's not what my reality actually is.

     Nonetheless, I ask, "Why can't it?"

     After an eternity, you respond, faintly, "Because nothing ever does..," and then you are gone.

     I should feel anguish, I should feel despair, I should feel anger.  I don't, though, because I know deep down inside (and yet at the forefront of my thoughts) that you left me long ago.  I never felt your presence as I just did, and I never will.

     I descend a very long stone stairway winding down the side of the mountain.  With each step, the surrounding light grows dimmer.  Farther and farther I go, down and down.  Each step is harder to see than the last, and at last it seems I am blindly following the descent with no regard to what kind of sheer drop may lie on either side.  All I can see is the lake, strangely illuminated of its own regard.

     There are people down by the lake.  They are waiting for me; down there is my destination.  I know this with absolute certainty.  I make my way down to them, thought the way is difficult and wrought with obstacles.

     As I approach the shoreline, the crowd parts to let me through.  I try to look at each of them, but most of their faces are in shadow.  Those faces that I glimpse are not faces at all, but a haze of uncertainty that could be anyone.  However, this is how I usually see faces in my dreams, so I think nothing of it and continue on.

     There is a man at the shore.  He is dressed in some sort of formal wear that reminds me of what our priest used to wear but at the same time completely different.  This was the man I was supposed to talk to.

     As I approach him, he seems to be looking elsewhere and not noticing me at all.  He has the same unrecognizable face as all the others.  Before I can speak to him, however, he turns his face toward me and says "We've been expecting you."

     I recoil in surprise as the man's face coalesces into one I recognized too well:  My own.  I turn around to the crowd behind me to see all their faces changing into mine.  No, not all of them; many of them are Theresa.

     I turn back to the 'me' I saw before, but he is gone.  No, I think, I have questions!  I spin back around to the crowd of me and Theresa, but they are all walking away in their own directions.  I run after the nearest one, but when I try to get his attention, I can't.  I try stopping one of the 'Theresas' walking past me, but I can't touch or interact with her in any way.

     Desperate, I lunge after the nearest one of the crowd (I can't tell which), and futilely fall to the ground.  Now I feel anguish, despair, and anger.  What's going on?!  This shouldn't be happening!  It's not supposed to happen like this!  Why?!

     There is no answer.  There will be no answer.  There can be no answer.