you live in my dream

missing

Today, a client came to the office.

I only saw his back—tall, still, dressed in a crisp white shirt.

Something in my chest gave a sudden flutter.

It was the way he stood. The tilt of his head.

It looked so much like the man from my dreams.

Before I could see his face, the deputy director came and led him into the conference room.

Just like that—gone.

A presence that had barely arrived and yet had already left something behind.

I stood there for a few seconds longer than I should have, eyes fixed on the door that had closed behind them.

Trying to quiet the rush in my blood.

Trying to tell myself it was a coincidence.

Just a man in a white shirt. That’s all.

But part of me had already begun to rewind the dream.

He wasn’t the man from my dreams.

I realized that as soon as he walked past me again later that afternoon, briefcase in hand, nodding politely. His features were softer. His presence, real.

Solid.

And yet, something lingered.

Not fear—

More like the echo of recognition in the wrong place, like hearing your name in a stranger’s voice.

Like something trying to step forward from beneath the surface of things.

That night, I couldn’t concentrate.

I sat at my desk, screen glowing, but the text blurred. My fingers hovered over the keyboard, motionless.

Outside, the apartment across the street was dark.

No yellow light. No shadow.

For the first time in two weeks, he was gone.

I should’ve felt relieved.

Instead, I felt cold. Hollow. Like someone had erased a sentence from the middle of a page.

I went to bed early.

And for the first time in longer than I could remember,

I dreamed.

That night, I dreamed.

Not the clipped, shallow sleep I’d grown used to—

but a full immersion. A descent.

I stood in a train station that shimmered at the edges, like it couldn’t decide whether it was real or remembered. The lights were warm but unfixed, swaying like candle flames.

People moved around me in silence, their footsteps leaving no echo.

Then I saw him.

The man in the white shirt.

But his face kept shifting—

with every blink, it became someone I had once known.

An old classmate. A barista I’d talked to for weeks without learning his name.

A man I loved briefly, and a man I never dared to love.

All of them. None of them.

As if my mind had stitched a thousand silhouettes together to form a single person.

He walked toward me, and the station bent around him like the world was making space.

When he reached me, he didn’t speak.

He simply held out a hand.

I took it.

And suddenly, the station fell away.

We were standing in my office.

Midday. Same lighting. Same chair. Same pile of unread emails on the second monitor.

He stood beside me, looking at the screen. Then, softly, he said:

“You’re not here.”

I tried to reply, but no words came.

He turned to me.

“You’re not awake.”

I looked down.

My hands were typing, moving, working—

but I wasn’t inside them.