you live in my dream

Chapter One:The Man in the White Shirt The first time I met him was in a dream. A wide meadow stretched out under a golden sun, so quiet it felt like time had fallen asleep. The grass moved gently with the wind, brushing against my legs like soft whispers. In the middle of it all, he stood—still, composed, dressed in a white shirt that caught the sunlight like water. He didn’t speak. He didn’t need to. He just looked at me, or maybe through me, his expression unreadable but kind. A white bedsheet fluttered nearby, suspended from a line I hadn’t noticed before—billowing lightly, almost floating. The air smelled like summer and something half-forgotten. Then he reached out and touched my head. Just that—his hand resting gently, like the memory of warmth. The moment stretched, soft and slow, as if the world had taken a breath and decided not to let it go. I looked up, trying to see his face, but it was too bright, too soft around the edges—as though the dream itself didn’t want to give him away. I only saw the suggestion of a smile. I woke up with the sunlight on my pillow, and for a while, I just lay there, not moving. There was a quiet hollowness in my chest, like waking up after crying but not remembering why. I couldn’t recall the details, not exactly. Just the feeling: the comfort, the closeness. That strange sense of having known him for a very long time. The second time came days later, or maybe weeks. I never dream of him when I expect to. This time, it was dusk. A small train station appeared—empty, washed in violet light, the tracks disappearing into soft fog. I sat on a bench, waiting for a train I didn’t know the name of. My hands were empty, but my heart beat like it was holding something delicate. He appeared again, quiet as before, walking across the platform as if he’d been there all along. His white shirt was slightly wrinkled now, as though he’d been traveling far, through places the dream wouldn’t show me. He sat beside me. Not too close. Not too far. Just enough. We didn’t talk. But the silence was thick with meaning, like pages from a book written in a language I almost understood. A breeze came, brushing against my hair, lifting the corners of everything. Somewhere in the distance, a single bell rang—soft and low. I turned to look at him. His face was still blurred, the way a candle flickers behind glass. But the smile… it was the same. Soft. Unchanging. Familiar. When I woke, the ache was sharper. Like missing someone you never met. The third time wasn’t a dream. It was the morning after. I opened my eyes slowly, as if afraid the dream might still be lingering and would scatter if I moved too fast. I stared at the ceiling, trying to hold on, to remember more. But no matter how hard I tried, the details slipped through my thoughts like water through fingers. I couldn’t see his face, couldn’t recall his voice—if he ever had one. But the feeling remained. That quiet presence. That sense of being seen, not entirely, but enough. That moment where the world slows and for just a breath, it feels like something is complete. All day, I drifted. Watching strangers. Noticing white shirts. Listening for footsteps I knew wouldn’t come. There was an emptiness in me—not sharp or loud, just… steady. Like a low note held too long. I don’t know who he is. I don’t know why he keeps appearing in dreams that feel more real than the waking world. But I know— He will return. Somewhere between memory and moonlight. Just out of reach. And still, somehow, waiting. Chapter Two: The City Without Dreams It’s been a long time since I’ve dreamed. The nights pass quietly now, unmarked. I wake without remembering where I’ve been, as if the door to that other world has quietly closed itself behind me. I haven’t seen him—not in dreams, not in sleep, not in flickers between waking and falling. The man in the white shirt is gone, or perhaps he’s waiting, somewhere just beyond the veil. And yet, he remains. Not as an image, but as a feeling. A presence stitched into the background of my thoughts. Some mornings, I catch myself turning corners slower than usual, half-expecting to see him standing there — at the end of a street, in the blur of passing faces. It’s irrational, I know. But I still look. Sometimes, I hear footsteps behind me and pause. Sometimes, I pass someone in a white shirt and feel my breath catch—not because it’s him, but because for a fraction of a second, I believe it could be. He is nowhere. But he is everywhere. There’s a kind of ache that doesn’t fade. Not loud. Not constant. Just a soft, persistent echo, like the sound of wind against closed windows. That’s what he’s become: not a dream, but a shadow of a dream. Not a memory, but the space where a memory once lived. I’ve stopped trying to remember his face. Because I never truly saw it. But somehow, I know—if I ever did see him again, I would know it was him, even from a distance, even through a crowd. He belongs to that place between sleep and silence, between knowing and not needing to know. And some part of me still believes—quietly, stubbornly—that I will see him again. Not in a dream, But on an ordinary day, On a street I’ve walked a hundred times, At the moment I stop looking. Chapter Three: Between Dreams and Deadlines These days, I no longer dream. Not because I’ve forgotten how—but because sleep has become brief, practical, clipped at the edges. I fall into it like dropping into a pause, not a story. By day, I sit behind a desk, a quiet figure in a long corridor of other quiet figures. I file reports, respond to emails, move through routines with steady hands and tired eyes. By night, I open a screen and learn things I don’t yet know how to use—functions, loops, strange lines of logic that might one day unlock a door I haven’t found yet. I am always tired. But I keep going. Because something inside me refuses to stop. And sometimes, in the rare still moments between code and coffee, I think of him again. The man in the white shirt. The one I haven’t seen in so long, but who somehow still lives somewhere behind my eyes. I never knew his name, never saw his full face. But there are nights when I close my laptop, stretch my back, and in the silence, I almost feel him behind me—like he’s watching over this quiet struggle with wordless understanding. Not helping. Not solving. Just being there. Like he always was. Some days, I catch my reflection in windows and wonder if he’d recognize me now. I’ve changed. I move differently. I speak with more caution, and more purpose. I’m not the girl from the meadow anymore. I’ve grown into someone who builds things instead of waiting for them. But the part of me that wandered those dream fields? She’s still here. She’s the one who makes me believe that all this effort, all this reaching, isn’t just survival. It’s becoming. And though I don’t see him now, I think he would smile. That same soft smile, blurred at the edges— As if to say, “Keep going. I’m still here.”