Category : Stories

Sub Category : YoungAdult

I could only sit on the hood of my car as the thought of her seeped into my mind like water under the door from the bathroom and into the hallway. My eyes closed as she danced her way through my thoughts.

Oh what I would give to tango with those red pumps.

My temples throbbed at the music from the car. Some modern rap music with words I could barely understand but the sound... that sound was catchy enough that my head joined her. Dancing to the beat. Moving to the rambled lyrics. Enjoying nonsense.

As the song ended, she slowed her dance. She bowed to the crowd and I sat up straight, waiting.

I took a look around the outside and felt my heart racing hard enough to be felt in my throat.

"Whoa," was all I could whisper as I climbed off of the hood of my car.

The cool breeze hit me and I realized the beads of sweat that started to come forth.

There she was, hiding behind a red brick house with no lights on.

"Hey!" I screamed to grab her attention. Surely she heard me, right? No one else was outside. No sound. No pulses but ours. No life but our own and the trees that now separated us as she headed behind the small home.

"Hey, come back! I was just thinking about you!"

She kept walking. But it seemed no matter how fast I walked, she was faster. I picked up the pace, speed walking my way with her in my line of sight. Never taking my eyes from her.

"Please!"

She never turned around. Never looked me in my eyes nor showed me her lips. I imagine they are painted red to match her pumps.

What color was her dress? I cannot remember.

"Just have a conversation with me, please! I beg of you! You are all that I need!"

I could feel the breathing of another on the back of my neck and I stopped in my tracks. Haulted by the suspense. Though when I turned to face the other... the space behind me was empty. There was nothing but white.

I walked forward again, only to realize the houses were gone and the white room was all I could see. I had lost her.

"Not again," I whisper to myself. "I will never get to find her."

As I dropped to my knees and began to sob, a small voice balanced the silence.

"Ella, is it?"

I looked up to see a child. Six? Seven?

I cannot remember.

"Yes," I reply as I try to remember why tears streamed my brown cheeks.

"I am Lilith. I am here to help you." She knelt down before me. Her nakedness, at the time, had not been a thought or notice in my mind. "Do you remember what I am to help with?"

I nodded in silence.

"Speak up, my friend. I do not bite."

"The fruits. We must pass out the fruits."

"Very good, my beautiful child. The fruits."

As she reached her right hand into the space between us, it was an elderly hand. As if time had somehow become fond of her. I reached my hand to meet hers halfway. My hand was small and I looked up.

Her face, I cannot remember. Her hair, I cannot remember. Her skin color...

"Ellanor?"

The young woman looked up from her hands and into the eyes of her therapist without a reply.

"In dreams, it's easy to forget things we cannot comprehend once we wake. It's natural." The therapist gave a soft, forgiving smile. "Go on, how did the dream end?"

"Oh, right." Ellanor's voice was quiet as she looked back down to her partially bitten fingernails. "We had gone through this garden. The smell of it was so... real. But I guess that's only natural."

"Yes. Dreams often try to communicate our senses to make things feel real." The therapist tapped his pen on his clipboard as he waited patiently for Ellanor to finish.

"Then I asked her... the strangest question." She paused for a moment, leaving the office in a still silence. "I asked her... 'Where can I find her?'"

"Find who?"

She shrugged. "I supposed the lady with the red pumps and lipstick."

"Who do you think that woman is?"

"I'm not sure. I don't know anyone that would wear those."

"If you had to guess?"

Another still pause lasting just a few seconds. "My sanity."

The doctor smiled and looked at his watch. "Oh, boy. We're out of time Ellanor. I have to pick up my son from school, but do me a favor."

"Yes?" She stood at the same time as her therapist. Standing just a few feet from his five foot tall frame she watched him turn and grab a yellowy-orange pill bottle. It was transparent and the pills inside were a light blue from what she could tell.

"Take two of these once a day, same time every day. I'll see you next week."

"How come?" She took the bottle in her thin, brown hands.

"They'll help the dreams stop. Pretty soon you won't know what dreams are." Though the man joked his final sentence as they walked out, the thoughts in her mind, the feeling in her body ached.

Everything telling her not to do this. Not to take these pills.

"See you next week, Ellanor." He said as he went through double doors and she went through a single door, out into the world of chaos. Clenching the pills in confusion.