It was always the meadow. Whenever he dreamt, by will or otherwise, he always woke pressed against the grassy earth. With every visit, the world around him grew- until he could not remember what came before the sky and the stars; what the meadow looked without the massive oak at its epicenter, whose roots provided the very foundation of which every fiber of this utopia molded up from. There was a time, he supposed, when the dreams troubled him. He had expressed his discomfort with such strangely enticing reveries, of which his brothers easily dismissed. It seemed that as the years passed and the boy counted numbers to the sum of his existence, the nights lengthened until days were simply missing. Still, none questioned the irregularity of his sleeping habits- perhaps then it was too early to discern. He was still young, after all.
Every time he woke in his dream, he always lay beneath the shade of the great Oak. He'd watch the clouds form shapes before his eyes, weave tales with their misty fingers. He'd run through the endless stretch of the meadow, in constant banter with the whispering wind. Yet as the boy continued on in his inconstant balance between the divide of illusion and actuality, life around him trudged on. He slept through the arrest of his mother; caught apparitions of monarch butterflies while his father packed his bags and sought the renewed comforts of the retirement home a mile off.
He was four when Alarik took his hand and led him into the place called "hospital," to the man named "doctor." It was all strange, the sterile environment and the uniformly pristine coats. There were many doors too, of which he thought would lead to great adventures (although, Alarik did not think so.) They came back many times after, sometimes taking Garin when he wasn't too busy. All the while, he didn't understand why returning to the same bland, forsaken place was so important. Alarik and "doctor" talked often, although their words never truly entered his head. He was always caught in stupor, his mind flying to the ghostly figure of the Oak and his friends whom were the spirits of the breeze. It wasn't until they explained in the simplest possible way what was happening: that little boys weren't meant to dream the way he did; that the average person didn't sleep for a few couple days, weeks, months.
It wasn't until they told him that the dreamscape he so loved wasn't okay.
He held great speed in his bones, once. Now as his toes dug circles in the sand, muscles twitching in audible anticipation, the boy allows himself to clutch--although loosely--to the faith that perhaps it were possible: to feel the wind on his face and the fight of soles against dust and those precious milliseconds of running, rising, airborne. [A practice run, he assured himself. When Alarik sees, he'll smile as wide as the earth entire.]
He broke into a sprint at first, his crutches flung aside, heart pierced by the reckless arrows of adrenaline rush. It was, beyond that of fantasies and obscured reality, that he ran like he were air and wind and sky. Sand flew from his heels, clung to the soles of his feet. It was a quiet night, and the moon shone fully upon his fleeting shadow; kissed the knobs on his knees and the curls on his head.
True to the immeasurable strength of his will, he sped; quick as a hare caught in a fox's narrow, predatory vision--as it was, for he could feel the weariness that nipped at his heels and the numbness that stung his toes. No, faster, faster. He rounded the curb, teeth ground in a defiance. Still, it caught up like it always did: a sudden pounce that forced in the exhaustion and mortality. Pain, and then the fall, which was graceless and agonizing; a boulder to the bliss that had but just grown wings.
The feeling eased from his limbs as easily as rain poured from dark, slate clouds in the onslaught of a lightning-cracked sky, and the ground embraced him with hard earth and the little fanfare of dust rising in a melancholic sigh. Panic possessed him; the unconscious and hysterical fear that came when control fled, and when arms gathered his curled form into the comfort of a broad, warm chest, he wished only to beat at the facade of pretended strength and diminish his pride into tears as wild as waterfalls. But there was the scent-of smoke and cinnamon; the breath and the rush of a rowdy September night. There was the worried gaze, the face so alike his own.
"What were you doing out here?" He was tired, clearly, but the crinkle of his eyes suggested the suppression of a smile.
"Did you...Did you see...me? See...Did you...?" The words spewed in stuttered phrases and, despite the lack of feeling, his eyes shone. He told Alarik then, of his intentions and the dream he had meant to give. Alarik kissed his forehead, hugged him tightly and said he'd seen it all; said it was the greatest present yet. After he had been deposited onto his bed, Tage did not sleep immediately. Instead, he listened, to the broken pieces of sights and sounds that he'd recalled from his run across the dirt-trodden track. And, as his eyes pulled shut, he sank into the comfort of the thrilling chase; the fragmented eternity.
It has always been the thing they lack, that men crave most desperately.