Stories in the Tiny Worlds Sketchbook are like a pencil sketch with words; loose, unrefined and not wholly a thing. But I like them and think there’s something here you might like, too.
Do you still dream?
Dreams about getting the lead in the school play. The vindication of being picked first for a playground game. The nervousness of talking to the pretty girl at school.
All those fears and hopes cast aside when they’re no longer important, when we’re older, far removed from those years.
But they’re still in us somewhere, aren’t they?
Yeah, buddy—they’re still there.
I’ve felt them—an unseen breath blowing dust from the corners of my memory, starting up the old projector behind my eyes now and again.
Maybe you have, too.
And I’ve been wondering: what part of us does that?
What part of us keeps watch, even after we’ve moved on?
I think they might be some other version of us, hiding beneath the bleachers with a can of cheap beer and a nearly empty pack of smokes. Waiting. Watching the school buses pull in at the end of the day, engines ticking as the motors cool down. They watch the assistant coach put away practice equipment. As the shadows stretch longer, they begin skulking around, unseen by the hunched janitors moving through empty halls.
I like to think of them like jokesters—wily miscreants with my forgotten thoughts spilling out of their pockets.
Through the halls they roam, jiggling the handles of locked doors late at night.
They search for windows left open just a crack, just wide enough, pressing against the frame, squeezing through.
Until they’re inside. Inside my dusty photography lab of a brain.
They move in the dark, digging through old filing cabinets and collapsed boxes, until they see it: a glimmer in the dust. At first, only a pinprick of light.
But those characters—the ones in my head—don’t give up easily.
They follow the faint light to the crack in the wall. They know the mortar has shifted just enough to let a finger slip through if they dig. They scratch at the edges as the light grows brighter.
Eventually, they remove the first brick, and on the other side, they see:
My kids have grown. Moved out.
A walk to the mailbox where there are no letters, only leaflets—sales upon sales.
The bricks come away, and one by one, the forgotten dreams spill out of their pockets as they squeeze through the crack.
They see me—TV left on as I doze in my easy chair. My side table cluttered with bottles—the medications that keep my body working, the ones that ease the pain.
Night after night, they find me as I sleep, brushing against my thinning hair. I never wake. In my dreams, I think about people long dead. About moments that might have been.
Most nights, that’s all it is. Just that.
And it feels so real.
I see faces. Trees turning color.
I exit the stage door, elated.
I’ve just gotten the part—the one I always wanted.
"But those characters—the ones in my head—don’t give up easily." The same dream recurring for the rest of my life, apparently. I am always so relieved to wake up and realize - no no no!that was long ago. They can't bully me any more. I am an old woman. Safe in my bed. Whew!
Efficiently goes under the skin, with the warm bite of nostalgia.