The Dream  by Will Hunter, Community           I turned to her and asked her to tell me about the worst dream she'd ever had. We sat on the grassy hillside, shaded by a lone tree which kept the hot summer sun from baking us, and I remember this day and this moment as clearly as I remember any of my other favorite memories. It was a Monday, but it was summer and we had no classes to go to so we spent the day together. We were young and in love, the kind of love that was almost tangible in the air when we were together. I loved being with her, talking to her, finding out what she thought, feared, and enjoyed. She regarded my question a moment, quite used to me asking her personal questions out of the blue, and quite happy to share her thoughts with me, then looked at me and told me a tale of being chased through the night by a hideous monster with only one eye and a mouth full of razor sharp teeth. She ran as fast as she could but felt herself moving slower and slower as if running through the water at the bottom of a swimming pool. The monster caught her, and just as its mouth was about to rip into her she awoke. She told me that she could not get back to sleep that night.         I smiled to myself as she asked me what my worst dream was. I told her I had dreamed I was looking through my room and found one of my childhood toys, a little green toy turtle with big goggle-eyes that spun around in circles and a bright red painted smile which brought comfort to me when I was a small boy afraid of the monster in my closet and of the world in general. In my dream I found this wonderful toy again and held it in my arms, overwhelmed by a sense of nostalgia. Tears formed in my eyes as I remembered all the good times I had playing with the toy turtle and all the comfort that it brought me. Then I woke up.         She asked me what was so terrible about the dream. She said that it sounded like a wonderful reminder of my childhood. I told her that at first when I awoke I was filled with joy and contentment at having my toy turtle again. Then I was filled with sadness when I realized that I had not really found it; that finding it had been a dream. The next feelings I had were pain and anger. These feelings were stirred when I realized that I never owned a toy turtle. The whole thing had been a dream; the nostalgia, the good times, everything. I was hurt by the dream and angered by its power to warp, even temporarily, my sense of what was real. That is why it was my worst dream.         She looked at me a moment, then leaned over to kiss me. We sat together in each other's arms and talked and kissed and held each other until the sun went down over the horizon. This I also remember with an astounding clarity which dulls many of my other memories in comparison. This day was a good one.         I drove her to her house, a good sized two story building on the comer of Oak Street and Clover. Just before she got out of the car, I told her that I would be busy working the next day or so, but would she like to see a movie around seven on Wednesday. She said that she would love to, and I told her I would pick her up. She kissed me goodnight and walked to her door, opened it, and disappeared inside.         On Wednesday, around six thirty, I drove to pick her up. I drove up and down Oak three times before I could be sure that I was at the right place, the comer of Oak and Clover right across from an abandoned store that used to be a doughnut shop before it closed several years ago. I got out of my car at that corner, once I was sure it was the right one, and was struck dumb. I fell to the ground, dropping the roses I brought to give her, and struggled to control my breath. The corner was empty. Her house was not there. There was an abandoned lot there instead. Just as there had been for as long as I had lived in this town. I was staggered as my memories collided; my dating her for over a month and visiting her house countless times, and the solid memory and knowledge that this lot was and always had been vacant. The memories of her and all the wonderful times we had together, and the knowledge and memory that I was not dating anybody and had been single for a long time. I could still smell her perfume and the scent of her hair, still see her wonderful eyes and smile. She had to be real, but she wasn't. I realized this when I tried to think of her name.         I couldn't.