TAYLOR JONES SAYS: In Dreams from the Sky by Frank Valchiria, Drake is a musician with abilities that he neither wants or understands. He is able to traverse worlds and planets in his dreams. His skills are so unusual that a scientist does experiments on him. But Drake gets information he isn’t supposed to have. Now, he’ll be lucky if he survives in any world even with the aid of his strange new friends with their strange new powers.

A fascinating book, with a lot of interesting concepts. I really liked the dream journeys, which were extremely well done. It’s a long book, 370 pages, so you’ll want to start on it when you have some time, because once you get into it, you won’t want to stop. A good book to get lost in on a rainy afternoon with a nice, hot cup of tea.

REGAN MURPHY SAYS: Dreams from the Sky by Frank Valchiria is incredibly complex. It’s a science fiction/romance/mystery/adventure/…Well, you get the idea. Our protagonist is a thirty-year-old musician at a cross roads in his life. He goes to Paris to visit an old flame, Sarah, and his whole world disintegrates when she goes missing. As you get into the book, you are taken back in time and forward into the future as Drake and Sarah experience alternate realities in their dreams—dreams that take on a frighteningly real quality. In fact, at one point Drake wonders if dying in the dream means dying in real life too.

Dreams from the Sky has some unique and thought-provoking ideas as well as very interesting characters. It’s not a book you can read in one sitting, but it will make you think.

PREFACE

“It’s still hard to pinpoint the reasons that took me here at this moment in time–the present.

“Why me, and not someone else, Drake? Why did I have to travel that far just to come back again?

“The more I think about it, the more a curtain of liquefied denial purges every attempt to find the real truth, giving me a chance to slowly recover and metabolize the last few months.

“All these years, struggling to hold on to something as vague as the need to survive, to conquer fears, and rise above the limitations of the mind–the real enemy of anyone. I could never have guessed then.

“Perhaps that has been always the problem. To be unaware of the infinite power we hold inside. That hint of wisdom that keeps pounding the cortex of your brain, trying to escape, but failing 99% of the time, held there by the intricate and deceiving structure of cultures and origins. That flaunted impostor dressed up in front of the mirror with you, making your life what it is. Our beloved identity–the yardstick with which we measure and understand each step of our life. Or so I thought.

“For years, a mantra of common doubts and fears played inside my skull, like an endless match, dictating the pace of progress and dynamism my life was taking, slowing me down at times, cramping larger attempts to rise, to be the real me.

“Not until the big blank, did I realize something of value in this existence. That there is plenty out there, plenty of wisdom running deeper than life itself. We are not all that counts in this universe, or at least our true worth is seldom accessed or used for good.

“‘Right now it’s different for me though,’ my mind recited.

“Growth sped up, thanks to what I had witnessed, slowly and intimately reconnecting to the many events and visitations, reviewing that well of knowledge with different eyes.

“‘Right now it’s the right time,’ I repeated to myself, engulfing my lungs with a strong hope.

“In my brain, edges and surfaces have been worked to smoother angles and wider arches. Connections in the cerebral cortex have been dismantled and fixed, substituted by the once-built-upon failures and mistakes–Flexible heroic super lanes, waiting for new inputs for new signs.

“Stronger, double/triple neural freeways, where these bits of information are running and feeding, dried up Brain soil where the light did not shine. It’s me, all right, but not quite–at least not the me I used to be.”

Little Princess fell quite, resting her head on the back support as she closed her eyes. The bright daylight bounced off her smooth teen features, concealing the immensity of her knowledge and her mysterious past.

I looked at her raven hair, gently resting on her pale neck and shoulders, as the car rolled forward, taking us to the next phase where the three of us–Little Princess, John, and I–had to prepare to fight and give back what had been taken away, kept buried in our very souls for way too long.

I couldn’t help but go back to the point where the events of the past and the events approaching began to shape shift and merge perfectly together, knocking on my door again, urging me to draw the real picture of what was about to come…

CHAPTER 1

It’s Not Over

January 2012:

My first morning of new awareness came on the third of January 2012, when it all began to come back as a reminder that it wasn’t over.

The New Year had just arrived, past the celebrations and feeding frenzies. The quietness and urban rhythm returned to the usual gray-scale paradigm of work and lack of sunlight, frequent and real in so many Northern European cities.

Colorful lights adorning the streets were being pulled down by hard-working layman, enduring the freezing temperature, carrying them back into the storage rooms where they’d rest undisturbed until the next Christmas.

Citizens, filled with extra calories, would keep stuffing themselves with the leftovers of delicious and nourishing food, riding the need for opulence, still for a few days to come.

The morning was filled with sunlight bouncing off the big eight-story post-war building in front of my windows–adorned by engravings in big letters on the entrance door, where teachers and students had passed hours of their lives, beginning or ending their careers. Three stories below my flat, parking lots were occupied by delivery trucks and cars running their errands on a normal Tuesday morning.

Walking and cycling pedestrians and tourists roamed and arrowed down to their destinations.

A group of students held their coffees and smoked cigarettes, exhaling warm steam from their mouths, before going in for class.

Nothing unusual. Another day starting and ending like many others. There was almost a feeling of relief in knowing my existence was just as real as the teacher I was observing in the university building across the street, with his eyes piercing the computer screen.

I stood there, losing focus for a few seconds, sipping in the intensity of mundane life, letting the flood of possibilities overwhelm me to the point where nothingness kicked in as a way to help me out of the physical limits of reaching illumination.

I soaked up a few more seconds into that feeling, knowing how weird everything still felt, then moved back, looking away from the window and heading to the kitchen where the desire for a second coffee surged up as a sort of compensation for a good deed.

Man-made utensils were the perfect way to start the day. My favorite was the stainless still vapor-powered Moka Caffettiera, very easy to use. It delivered the proper result, depending on the quality of the coffee you found in your neighborhood.

I opened it in a deliberate series of moves that had almost never changed as long as I could remember.

Unscrewing the top, I took the filter out, opened the garbage bin, and, placing the backside of the filter between my lips, I puffed dryly. The hardened coffee pad escaped the enclosure where it was caged, landing randomly on a milk carton this time.

Filling the bottom with water and the filter with new, freshly ground coffee, I screwed it on tidily, set it on the stove, and fired it up.

Then I started to summarize going through the usual pattern of thoughts and regrets that almost automatically possessed my brain. Daily.

The dependence from my work created a comfort zone where for the last three years I managed to reconstruct myself, heal what had been damaged for the most part.

Somehow, focusing on work helped me to re-establish a sense of normality that I had lost, especially when the scars were still fresh.

Things happened sometimes. When you were hurt and the flesh started bleeding, you could not avoid the pain. The only thing left for you was to believe your body would perform that ancient and mystic magic of healing itself. And that was exactly where I was at.

The coffee pot started rumbling like a Weber carburetor, steadily increasing its roar until its carafe got filled up. The smell wafting into the room was pleasant, and I couldn’t help but feel more connected to Earth.

The simple aroma replenished my fatigued mind and aching muscles for a moment, allowing me to remember why I liked mornings.

I warmed some milk, making myself a fairly large cup of latte then looked for the brightest spot around the table and sat there.

Flyers and booklets, the kind you’d find in your mailbox every week, were spread randomly across the surface. The top page of one of them read: Megadeal 399 instead of 499, laptop. I didn’t have any intention of buying a new computer so I kept sipping and allowed my head to compute a reasonable strategy for the day.

Suddenly, my cell rang, pulling me back from my moment of relaxation. The display showed a number I didn’t have in my contacts, starting with the country code +33.

I stared at the telephone screen, realizing somebody was calling me from France.

As I pressed the green icon on the touchscreen, a small lump formed into my throat.

“Hello?” I ventured cautiously.

The voice on the other side felt warm and recognizable. Even though she didn’t introduce herself, I knew right away who she was.

“Hey how are you?” Her accent unmistakable. Four words were all she needed, to project her image into my thoughts.

By reflex I jumped from my chair, spilling coffee all over the floor.

“I don’t believe it!” I howled, realizing it was the one phone call I had been waiting for a long time–years.

“Am I disturbing you?” a gentle voice inquired, slowly pushing herself into my life once again.

Immediately my mind saw the archives of her idiosyncrasies and habits I’d recorded throughout the years of knowing her.

I paused a long while with her hanging on the other side of the phone, silent, taken by a burst of anxiety and confusion, for all that it could mean.

Before I could formulate the thoughts and speech, each small detail of her personality played before me, whooshing up from somewhere within–rolls of old 35 mm film submerged my mind’s eye , playing an intricate trailer of our past.

I couldn’t help, but remember the warm alto tone of her voice, growing steadily thinner and higher at each sentence, as she escalated into a warmer acknowledgment of me.

The compelling need to always say, “Oui, oui” when I finally got her point, while she curved her wide lips. The admonishing gestures she’d throw at you, wrinkling her forehead, when she disapproved of your manners. The quelling stares, her green shimmering eyes, and the list went on and on…

It all came back to me into one split second, lining up small fragments and moments like a personal screening into the secret chambers of my memories.

Hoping to control the flood of coffee pouring out of the cup, I tried to avoid the puddle on the floor, only to stub my toe on the table leg, condemning more coffee to follow the simple rule of physics and acquire enough energy and momentum to reach my face and anything else within a radius of ten feet.

I removed the phone from my ear, lifting it as high as I possibly could. Mumbling a choked, “Shit, wait, wait a sec,” I laid the cup in the sink, reaching for the first cloth I could find to dry my chest and face.

I could already hear her giggling at my clumsiness as if she already expected such a reaction.

Sarah, my Sarah I thought as I dried my chin. A friend, a dear creature who meant and means a hell of a lot to me.

We hadn’t spoken a word for at least two years and now she was on the other end of the line as if nothing had ever happened.

The two of us had gotten thrown like comets into the vastness of the mind, shown the way to understand a mystery unfolding, only to be left abandoned like foster children one day without any explanations, only more maddening doubts.

My dear Sarah who withdrew from me after that incident, after that night.

The emotions overwhelmed me, and I found myself stuttering profusely like a faucet gurgling and spitting bubbles of air.

Our lives had gone back to a stomping ground of emotions and fears. Each one of us needed time to reconcile with the regularity and logic of the everyday world. I was doing my best to steer clear of any abnormality, and ignore or repress those manifestations still coming at times.

Before long, I couldn’t control my thoughts anymore and, as if possessed by a remote control in the hands of the space aliens, I began remembering some years back…

***

Autumn 2007:

We met in the autumn, in Amsterdam, at a friend’s exhibition while I was taking pictures for Victoria, the gallery owner, who wanted to have some photos of the evening.

At that time, I was in a period of low creativity and despair. The last relationship had faded out, finally, after years of denial. I was jumping from one thing to the next, trying to keep busy so I could avoid analyzing what went wrong, and feeling remorse for the good times gone bad.

Good friends knew this and helped me get involved with whatever was at hand, just to help me out of that transition, Victoria was one of those friends.

The gallery was an old garage with a very high ceilings and white walls. The main space had a stark concrete floor, part of an older four -story building from the nineteenth century.

The concrete was painted a light gray with some chipped spots that looked as if heavy machinery had been standing there in the past. In the middle of the room was a sculpture of a white lama with bird like paws and a horse’s tail, gazing at the entrance, immediately catching the attention of anyone who came in.

I had seen the paintings in the gallery many times before while preparing the pieces for the coming show, so that night I was just walking around staring at people’s faces.

Sarah was standing at the back of the gallery, beside a ten-by-five foot abstract painting of a Greek painter.

The large oil canvas was made of thick layers of colors applied in strokes with a big brush, leaving trails overlapping other shades of bleached blue and violet, on a dark background dotted with spots of light.

The trails of paint seemed to flow into one another, leaving long tails like a huge nebula opening like a portal onto this plane, where the people were just drinking and chatting. The way she was standing next to it seemed almost as if she had just stepped out of that imaginary portal.

At first, I only observed her from far, then I decided to move closer, pretending to just hop from one spot to the next, taking pictures.

She was actively involved in conversation with a young hipster. The louder chatter of the other guests around them formed a sound cushion, making it hard to understand what she was talking about. I stepped just a few feet closer to them, managing to eavesdrop a little. Most of her words escaped my hearing and melted into the noisy background.

I could only grasp impressions of it, ranging from the city configurations of bicycles lanes to the complete absence of Tibetans restaurants in the center.

I kept my distance, every now and then pretending to shoot a picture and trying to be inconspicuous.

Observing her closer, I suddenly realized how unbelievably gorgeous she was.

Her short dark blonde hair with bangs gave radiance to the greenest eyes I had ever seen. The small nose, placed perfectly straight in the middle of her face, appeared geometrically calculated by the golden ratio. Her almond eyes and dark brows seemed to have belonged together from the beginning of time.

She looked unnaturally beautiful, too organic. Even the presence of a few wrinkles around her lips seemed as if purposely arranged. Her face was radiant, smooth–like a female character out of painting of Alphonse Mucha.

She glanced briefly at me, acknowledging my presence as if she felt my attention, driving my eyes to the floor and making me blush for a moment. I felt like an undercover spy who’d gotten busted.

She kept gesturing, mesmerizing the young hipster standing in front of her. The small guy–dressed in a brown polo shirt, a pair of dark jeans, and red moccasins–looked at her as if each word she spoke was carving itself permanently into his brain. He nodded and gestured at times, adding a few lines in between her dialogue until he was approached by another friend who dragged him reluctantly away from her side.

Seeing the small vacuum created around her in that brief moment, I felt it was the right time to step in.

I approached her, trying to look relaxed, even though I felt slightly intimidated by her beauty. As a real amateur by any means, I predictably shot a picture of her as a way to break the ice. To my surprise, it didn’t bother her at all. She just flashed me a large friendly smile, playing along.

As I expected, she seemed quite used to being approached by men. Not only she was cool, but she immediately and effortlessly led me into a conversation.

Her slender figure, almost reaching my own six-feet of height, made her a towering presence in the room. She was wearing slim jeans with dark-blue velvet pumps and a large, light-cream woolen blouse with a V-neck, giving her the appearance of an artist from one of the exhibits. Her long fingers held the glass stem as if she was holding the most delicate and fragile flower. She talked and talked, with me only shaking my head every now and then like the hipster to reinforce her point, becoming just a mere spectator or a fan, admiringly surprised by her eloquence. Slowly I began to gain the confidence to ask some more specific questions of my own, hoping to drop the usual masks, wanting to be as truthful as possible, for reasons I couldn’t understand.

The evening went by in softer lights, in between people’s chatter and young artists enjoying the overall attentions of what looked like a well-arranged exhibition.

Casual interruptions by others interrupted our meeting, showing her abilities to entertain and manage the crowd like a real host. After all, she was here for work to begin with.

When the main hall became a bit more empty, and people where mostly outside smoking, we could hear each other better. Her accent became softer and sweeter, her questions less direct, giving me the feeling that now I was more accepted by her. I wasn’t an unknown immigrant in a foreign country anymore, speaking a foreign language with an accent. I was becoming a familiar figure, approaching her reality with a genuine curiosity.

Then she asked, as if she was speaking to an old friend, “What will you do later?”

“Well, I don’t have much to do to be honest,” I said. “I’d like to eventually get something to eat. I’ve been here since this afternoon, helping out with moving and hanging the artwork. So, apart from some crackers, I hadn’t had much to feed my uncooperative stomach.”

“That’s exactly what I was thinking,” she replied. “I haven’t eaten much today either.”

“What do you prefer?” I asked. “Do you have anything in mind?”

“Don’t know right now. I feel just like a simple pizza, or whatever includes backed dough and tomatoes.”

“You feel like a pizza?” I said, faking an obvious over-exaggerated expression of surprise.

“No you idiot! I meant I feel like having one not being one,” she muttered, laughing.

“I know. I know. Just teasing. We could go to this very good place not far from here. They have a wooden oven, just like in Napoli. I know the guys are from there and they take pride in making the best pizza you can have outside Naples”

Sarah moved her finger gently around the edges of her lips, widening her eyes and vocalizing a soft, “Mmmmmm,” obviously mocking my praise about the place and getting back at me.

“So what do you say we sneak out?” she asked, probing me with her deep green eyes.

“Fine with me. I think I took enough pictures of the evening. Victoria will be pleased.”

“Victoria, the gallery owner?”

“Yes, she asked me to take some photos of the evening to post on her website”

“Do you work a lot with photography?” she inquired.

“Nah, not really. I just love to do it. There are plenty of things I discovered later in life. Some friends are just nice enough to let you experiment with it,” I said, being unusually truthful.

She just smiled and reached out with her long arm to a wooden stand, placing the prosecco glass on the side of the twenty-inch head of sculpture made from the rest of a plastic doll with one side burned. Then we walked to the entrance where all the jackets were hanging.

I felt mostly at ease with her, as if she was somehow encouraging me to come closer to my senses, closer to the real me. It had been quite a while since I had last interacted so eagerly with anyone. I wasn’t sure why she was being so nice to me, but I knew that I wanted to get to know her better. Speaking to her gave me the sense of having finally placed something vague, something unreasonably compulsive, in the right place. I held that feeling without understanding it, leaving it to mend my hopes. Wishing it would last.

She took her beige Burberry trench coat and led the way outside.

I almost tipped, trying to react with the same speed while placing my camera in to the bag. I briefly went into Victoria’s office where she was talking to an elegant older couple in their sixties. Potentials buyers, I thought, motioning to her from the door and trying not to interrupt her conversation. Gesturing like an actor in a silent film that I would call her, I faked the actual move with my cell phone, pronouncing the words by slowly moving my lips.

She looked at me for an instant, smiling. Then I leaped outside, still following the trail of Salvador Dali perfume Sarah had left behind.

“Where do we go from here?” Sarah said, spreading both arms to the side like a huge swan landing in the middle of the small alley.

“It’s not too far. If we walk straight on we’ll get to the main junction where we can catch tram sixteen and drop off after two stops. From there on it’s just a hundred yards straight ahead,” I said, gesturing in my usual manner.

“Not bad,” she said, nodding. “I wish I’d always meet somebody like you to ask for directions whenever I got lost.”

“I just happen to walk around here a lot,” I said, scratching my head and feeling a bit nerdy. “I know the neighborhood like the back of my hand.”

“Do you look at your hands a lot?” Sarah asked, while turning her head toward the tram stop, already absorbed in something else.

Seeing that she didn’t expect an answer, I chuckled, showing her I’d gotten the joke.

She led the way to the tram, turning every ten feet to look at me as if I had to confirm or give new instructions to make sure she was heading in the right direction.

Not the kind of girl that likes following, I mused.

When we stepped on the tram, watching her trench coat waving around and revealing bits of sinuous flesh, everything seemed to slow down. My focused shifted to a blurry maze of feelings, tickling the inner walls of my abdomen and trickling all the way down to my pubic area, which was reacting physiologically to her sensual body.

Once on the tram, she sat in front of me, smiling and unconcerned, as if she trusted me already, or at least that’s what I perceived. For me it was another story. I felt inexplicably compelled to trust her from the very beginning.

The lights were moving with the softness of a violin, showing underneath a well-arranged melody like the one that was running in my inner pod by Antony & the Johnsons, “The Spirit was Gone.”

Her pupils kept narrowing every time she flashed a hint of smile. Her cheek bones were flushed, radiating a palpable glow.

The noise around us became muffled, vague. Reflected faces in the windowpanes adorned the tram, leaving behind clueless shapes, dancing by together with other colors from the outside.

I could hear, on top of it all, the beautiful voice of that song, filling the spaces that needed beauty and allowing my attention to derail from reality and fluctuate on the energy coming out of her. I was experiencing what felt like a moment of beauty, a fleeting instant of reverberating power and truth, immediate in its surroundings and random in its exposure, but real and overflowing with emotions that just where.

I happened to be sitting in front of someone who touched me. I was feeling beauty, her beauty, gripping me like a scarf that warmed your limbs with a long overdue heat, shutting out the blizzard of rotten loneliness.

It felt good. I wished I could have just arched my back, reaching for the ground and scratching with the elongated nails of a werewolf to hurt the surface of time and old the pavement forever. I wished I could feel that moment repeatedly until the sun vaporized every molecule, extinguishing all traces of awareness and allowing my rebirth.

Unfortunately, that moment was already fading as usual, leaving me in the accelerated reality. I perceived the sounds and chatter that reemerged around us, like a bucket of water being splashed on a grayish curd.

Her voice interrupted abruptly, pulling me out of the trance, defining the veracity of my seat on a moving tram traveling at 20 mph. “Have you ever been to Paris?” she asked, breaking the few seconds of silence that encompassed a moment most likely felt only by me.

“One time in 2004 with my ex-girlfriend,” I said. “I’d always wanted to go there,” I continued, focusing my attention on her again, hoping not to be misjudged. “So once she surprised me, organizing the whole trip. We stayed the weekend. The first day I almost set my feet on fire by walking the Louvre in my boots,” I confessed with a hint of mockery. “Something I’ll never do again. Right there I understood why tourists always wear running shoes. Doesn’t look very charming, but it saves you from the blistering pain of exploded feet,” I added, looking down at my Converse.

“I would never do that,” she stated unequivocally, staring at the rubber soles. “I prefer to limp rather than walk wearing those awful unmatchable colored shoes, no way! I’ll walk barefoot if I have to.”

“I’d love to go back again though. I didn’t manage to absorb as much as I wanted,” I revealed, trying to steer her away from the subject. “So many details that you can only appreciate if you get the chance to live there. I think I would probably walk the Louvre the same way people walk in the park, making it part of your life rather than just visiting it. The same goes for the city itself. So much I still have to take in and absorb,” I added, realizing I was getting strangely personal, trying to explain to her things I hardly understood myself.

“What do you have to absorb?” she asked, probing me with her ever-glistening eyes.

“I don’t know. It’s just the way I feel about new experiences or memories,” I told her, trying to come up with an explanation that would make sense. “It starts with simple things like reading signs you’ve never seen before, marveling at architecture, sitting in a square and realizing where you are, feeling that sudden awareness that can hit you in any random moment,” I elaborated, trying not to get lost into the feeling itself. “Or again, letting the apparent chaos be smudged on your chest like Vicks Vapor Rub, inhaling details into your nostrils.”

I felt as if I might have skipped some details of the concept I wanted to share with her.

“And what do you do with it?’ she asked with a broad smile, encouraging me to go on.

“Well, then later when enough images, colors, smells, and little encounters have scarred your brain pathways–seeding it–feelings and memories will begin to form, merge, attached to specific events by scents, for instance, enabling both your soul and body to go back to this weird place made of remembrance and beauty, becoming a treasured well of longing and mythical perfection, understandable only by you,” I elaborated drunkenly, having no empirical evidence for what I was saying.

She giggled. “I’m kind of following you,” she said, looking at me intently and lightly creasing her forehead as if to emphasis her statement.

“There’s more. I noticed something interesting,” I continued, feeling I could stretch the concept a little farther with the new self-confidence she inspired.

“I was certain there was something else,” she said, mockingly poking at my elaboration. “But please go on.”

“Okay,” I replied. “As time passes and specific memories become more and more valuable in our life, there are moments where they resurface uncontrolled, suddenly, overwhelming you with a veil of joy,” I explained as she widened her green eyes. “For me, it works like this. Whenever something triggers these nice memories, like a trail of perfume left behind by somebody or a waft of air coming from a kitchen, or simply a leaf landing on a windshield, I start to feel goose bumps spreading rapidly over my skin, followed by an inexplicable sense of well-being, pounding right here in my chest as if a glowing energy source from within is feeding the lack of illumination.” I paused, briskly reviewing in my mind what I had said, holding each word with more hope than facts. “I call those, moments of beauty.”

Sarah just looked at me, flashing the tiniest Mona Lisa smile, before giving me her take. “I think I know what you mean,” she said to my surprise.

“Y–you d–do?” I stuttered, almost shocked that I might have made some sense.

“I get something of a similar nature,” she explained, directing her attention to the outside world. “My head fills up with all kinds of images and thoughts, as if once that moment is triggered, the brain follows a specific route, connecting all of the things you hold close into your soul.” She was making more sense than I had. “Like, for instance, things I associate with peace, good. Thinking of my favorite cookies connected to a perfect view, perhaps from the balcony of a house on the coast, remembering that early morning where you met a special friend. Stuff like that. And it keeps coming like that, one after another–nice pleasant emotions routed together, bonded in a mystifying inexplicable way, causing a rush of endorphins to flood your blood stream. But it never lasts long enough. By the time I try to ride that impulsive wave of joy, it’s gone.” She paused, placing both hand on the side window and leaving a hand-shaped heat stain, slowly fading as it cooled off, leaving no trace behind.

“Yeah me, too,” I said as the tram stopped. “I kind of think I’m not prepared to let those moment last. It must be something holding us back, something blocking the thoughts from becoming more powerful,” I muttered in a monotone voice as the tram’s doors opened, letting a gust of chilled air in and waking me up completely. “By the way, we need to get out. Now!” I commanded before the doors could close again.

I grabbed her hands, taking the mad initiative to yank her from the synthetic-leather-covered seat, pulling her toward me and rushing out of the tram, through the closing doors, just in time.

We fled the scene as if escaping from the burning hull of a shipwreck, jumping into the water and swimming a shore to save our lives. But that was just a projection of my irrepressible imagination, adding layers of colors to an already promising encounter.

© 2015 by Frank Valchiria