Dreamcatcher

"Have you ever seen the movie Dreamcatcher?" She spoke into the room, eyes not quite focusing on the lit room surrounding her, yellow light painting the room in an artificial glow. She didn't wait for an answer before she continued.

"A character in the book I'm reading asked another, "Tell me more about you? A book or a song that changed the way you look at life." And the movie Dreamcatcher came to my mind." It was common enough for her to communicate via movie quotes- "Rick ate some berries in the woods and now he doesn't feel so good". Sometimes even sounds that seemed to match the tone of her thoughts would even escape. Most didn't care to notice these, let alone ask after their meaning.

"Jonesy. In the film we get a visualization of his mind, a stage as it were for some of the story. His memory vault. Yet it's the philosophy of compartmentalizing that fascinated me since I first saw the movie. The concept of having limited storage inside one's mind... having to choose which files to keep and which to lose. The notion that we can keep secrets locked in the recesses of our own consciousness, even hiding things from ourselves."

The file room blurred around her as she paced, placing one foot heel to toe before the other with slow deliberate steps across the metal walkway, liking the way it sounded against her shoes. Her balance faltered, the uneven horizon of stacked books before her wavering before thinning out as she steadied. She turned on the ball of her heel, quickly hoping to mask the mistake with a small bounce and beginning to pace once more.

"I still follow that logic to this day. Or at least to try too; sometimes it's easier to look outwards rather than inwards." Distantly, within the hazy, multi storied file room, notes fluttered, typed words saved as memories on small square sheets of paper. "It gives me a sense of order which helps me feel safe, bust mostly it's somewhere between what I think people would approve of and what I like, where on that line it falls I'm not sure.."

"Whenever the pain would get bad, the kind of pain that felt endless and crushing, pinning me in place; I would visualize my space. The space within my mind, reserved only for me. Within that space was a room where pain lived and if I could at least close the door, leaving a small barrier, then I wouod feel like I could breathe..."

As if holding that breath even now, she pushed out the air from her lungs in a huff. "You know you live within these walls now?"

But it was a warm smile that tugged her lips when she spun in a circle, arms spread out wide, stretching into her wing span. "It's changed. These places within me. How I visualize my own world. Therapy gave me an alternate view. Though I don't think I'm achieving what was intended." The room opened up above her, dark ceiling yawning higher and higher until the number of levels and rooms and doors felt endless. Like maybe there didn't have to be a limit on all the things she could keep with her.

The distant sound of a lighter, sparking a memory of concrete floors and the crunching sound of boots as a shadow walked out of her peripherals. She followed, stepping into a room that shifted and flickered between dream and reality.

"Close your eyes and visualize a large body of water, vast and safe while you swim on its surface. Imagine deep down at the bottom is you, another you, a part of you. In your mind, swim down to yourself and as you do ; picture your entire timeline..... theres mire but; the exercise was to draw out traumatic experiences, ones that I'd buried. And it did, surprisingly, more than once it led to memories surfacing and fucking me up for a few weeks at a time."

She sighed, sitting down on a wooden desk, the bulk of which looked to be made from thick, heavy and creamy planks, worn down over time. She crossed her legs, picking up a small paper wolf between two fingers and admired him, absently playing with the red paper figure as if it helped center her thoughts, ground her.

"My therapist explained to me this could be a safe place, since I had once described my bed as my safe place and she deemed that unacceptable. A place for reflection.

But as I repeated the exercise the ocean became murkey, dark and eerie, the waters thicker, and I envisioned a safe zone outside of the ocean. A beach with a cabin. A dock leading out into the water that housed a small boat...a little wooden dingy, unsafe and unreliable but nostalgic..."

Holding her palm out flat, the origami wolf stands proud, fierce and unwavering, fighting against the cone of breath she pushed out between pursed lips. He wobbled slightly in the simulated breeze, shaking before bursting into a flutter of tiny red confetti. "It's safer, knowing I can choose to go out into deep waters, but I have a safe place with solid ground. Safer sometimes not to look too deep."

She shrugged at that, not sure her own vulnerabilities warrant even mentioning.

"You live in here now. Like an old blanket that's not what it was when it was shiny and new, but one that smells like home and makes the world feel far away when you wrap yourself up in its warmth. A comfort. A voice of reason, trust, and as new as it is, a voice that tells me I can... I can't file you away in a beige filing cabinet and I won't forget. But I'll keep all the prices of you, scattered, within the space that feels most safe so I can look at them when I miss you the most."

Her breath stuttered on an intake, the pulse in her throat throbbing with her controlled release of air. "I miss you." Her eyes drifted again, seeking the movement of shadows lingering within every nook and cranny.

With a sigh she slipped off the desk, walking to the door without ever really focusing on the room or most of what lay inside, feeling as if she could keep the memories alive by not looking too closely at them. Stopping in the doorway she graced her fingers over the plastic light switch, tracing the nob with a wistful smile. It wouldn't be forever; she hoped, but it already felt wrong to leave the room.

Flicking the switch off snuffed out the glow of yellow lights, leaving only her shadowed form haloed in light framed by the doorway. "It's always going to be open, if you return. Because you live here now and I can't imagine this space without you."

The door closed behind her with a click, a divide, but one not without the whimsical hope of a girl who missed a boy.