#SSSOOOOOO dissociation amirite

[jorvikpov]

You wake up to a terrible storm. It tears your window open, glass shattering and falling to the floor and rain and cold wind rushing into the cottage; outside, thunder strikes, and somewhere in the mountain range, a tree falls to the ground. Even as far from the ocean as you are, you can hear it roaring, or perhaps something roaring in it, and

You wake up to the sun in your eyes. Your window is wide open, and outside a tree sways in the wind. The day is bright and new, deep golden light filling your room and the world and warming your skin. All around the village, doors are creaking as people begin to go about their mornings. A bird is chirping on your windowsill, and the trees are a deep green in the late summer, and

You wake up to a light breeze running over your cheek. It is cold in your room, and your sheets are cool against your skin; the window is cracked open, the spring-green leaves of a tree dancing in the breeze outside. The clouds are dark and heavy, and as you come out of the blur between sleeping and waking, the first few raindrops land on your windowsill. Your neighbour slams their mailbox shut, the clang of metal against metal echoing through the forest.

Perhaps it is all a dream, or perhaps it is all real.

It does not get easier to distinguish between the two.

In the mornings and evenings, when the sun is low and the air cold enough to give you goosebumps, and when the moon and stars are out and you find yourself too deeply lost in the mists of prophecy to sleep, you linger in the stables to bury your head in your horse’s fur and thread your fingers through its mane. Among it all, your horse is tangible and real: one of all too few things, these days, that you know to truly be so. It speaks to you more than ever in those silent hours of the night, quietly letting you know that you exist and that you are here, in body and mind. It is a welcome assurance, for the times have long passed when your visions were different enough from reality that you could tell one from the other on your own: now, the gentle evening wind against your cheek no longer lets you know that the stars you are seeing really are in the same place in space and time as you, and the hot sun on your back during a midday ride no longer tells you with certainty that the birdsong is truly being carried to you through the rustling tree crowns.

Perhaps it all a dream, or perhaps it is all real.

At times, you wonder whether it even truly matters. Real or not, the world is beautiful.