Sometimes... almost...

Sometimes I almost dream. Not the disjointed, unreal dreams that only make sense while you're asleep and fade before you're awake, but the deeper, haunting dreams of an empty soul seeking fulfillment. The dreams that play in the back of the mind, like a movie soundtrack, coloring every waking moment.

All I see and all I feel is desolation and deceit, torture and torment. The world I live in is dead. The people around me are all zombies. But I still remember the dream of peace and beauty. It is the only dream I ever had, and I used to think it might someday come true. But that was long ago, and far away, and I am much, much older now.

In this moment, for this brief leg of my silent, wandering journey through darkness, you have been my lighthouse. Your smile has been the beacon reaching out to touch what remains of my heart, through all the darkness in between. And you reminded me of those beautiful dreams. Just as the lighthouse leads the weary seafarer, you have both called to me, with the promise of warmth and hope and at the same time warned me of the rocky shore between us, and the dangers of getting too close.

You couldn't have known the ancient, buried feelings you awoke within me. The same old dream. The only dream. The impossible dream. Not just because it cannot happen, but because even if it could, I must never allow it to happen, though it is the only thing I've ever wanted. So, having never known a home, and having given up on hope, I wander.

When seldom I do by chance find such a rare person as yourself, someone who is awake and has seen the harsh realities of life, but somehow manages to go on, and even to keep smiling, I can only stop and stare in wonderment. You inspire me. You make me feel alive again. By the time I was your age, I had already grown old, declared myself dead, and had a silent funeral in the forest where I grew up, under the stars of a moonless night.

Since then, I have sought to help the rare friends I find, to make their lives just a little bit better. Being dead is very liberating that way. I no longer have a self to want anything for, so it's easy for me to give all that I can, sometimes more than I should. The only joy left for me in this world is in the smile of someone special enough for me to care for. The only beauty is that which I see through your eyes. Being able to help you, to make your life just a little happier, to make you smile, is what tells me that I'm still worth something.

I would love to love you. I would like that very much, even though we're separated by a vast sea of data streams. And I feel the currents pulling me in that direction. Then I saw you smiling at me like the lighthouse beacon focussing all its intensity, just for a moment, on one passing ship. The sudden brightness both warmed me and blinded me. I was enthralled and terrified at once. So I disappeared back into the shadows.

This has become my home, for it is the closest I've even been or can ever allow myself to approach my true home, which is no more a "place" than this is. I dwell among the shadows that fall between cyberspace and a dream. It is a good place to observe from, because the clearest view is always from the outside. And it a safe, comfortable place, where imagination is just as good as reality. But it is still a cold, dark, and very lonely place.

Out here I can be who I am, who I need to be. There are many images that describe this, but none that capture it completely. There is the grey wanderer, the calm, quiet stranger with a disarmingly honest way, a long dead code of honor, and ready sympathy for other weary souls. Someone's lost mind, freed to explore the far left end of the bell curve, out three sigmas past Strange. The wild panther, invisible in the moonlight, silent, graceful, and powerful. The silent shadow that merges with yours, to walk in your shoes, to look out through your eyes, and to understand. The familiar and reassuringly solid shadow that tries always to stand between you and harm, in all the empty places where you must walk. This is who I am.

Somehow, though I am but a shadow in the darkness, you touched my heart, reminded it to beat. It is a touch I have longed for, even craved in the empty nights, upon the hour of the wolf. It is a touch I try hard to forget, because it has never been, and can never be, a part of my life. It is a touch I dare not return, lest my darkness dim that wondrous beacon that is your smile. Painful though it is, I must move out of reach.

And so I wander, a shadow in the darkness on a vast electronic sea. Perhaps I will watch from afar. Perhaps I will but listen, when it hurts too much to look. Always I will be out here, waiting for your call, to be there if ever you need me. A listener when you need to talk, a friend when you need to cry, a big brother when you feel afraid, a guide when you need advice. If I should seem distant in the meantime, know that it is not because I don't want to be close to you, but because I want it too much. It is so very hard to not let myself want what I know I can't have, and sometimes, just sometimes, I almost dream.