Originally published in Garbled Transmissions.
I woke up screaming in the middle of the night. My mother rushed to my side to see what was wrong, but the dream had always faded away by then. Whatever monster had chased me through my sleeping mind had disappeared, becoming formless black shadow once again.
“Odakota, you don’t have to have these dreams,” she told me once. “You might be asleep, but you’re still in control. Just tell yourself you’re dreaming, and you’ll be able to decide what comes next.”
I nodded and lay back down, but I didn’t go back to sleep. I squeezed my eyes shut and held my breath until my mother’s soft snores floated across our small home. Then I stood up and tiptoed outside, wondering where I could hide from the monsters in my head.
We had been moving farther west each year as the white men continued to take the land for their own. Our tribe had started in the grasslands to the east. Now the prairies of our new home had grown dry. Looking out to the mountains further west, it seemed that we were pushing closer and closer to a wall.
I can’t remember how long I stood outside. When I finally turned to go back to bed, I found my father standing behind me. He stood tall, with well-carved muscles and hardened dark skin that seemed like leather. I craned my neck upwards and looked into his face. His dark eyes seemed like the deep black pools of my dreams.
“We’re a proud tribe,” he said, his deep voice scaring away the rushing wind. “Hiding from nightmares doesn’t become us.”
Continue reading “Fiction: But a Dream”
Babbling Brooks 