by Jaimie Jackson

Created on: March 31, 2009

Have you ever thought that your life was just too good to be true? That every wonderful moment could fade into nonexistence? That any moment you might wake up and discover that it has all been just a dream?

I woke groggily this morning, penetrating a haze of half-formed dreams and ideas. Images flitted behind my eyelids, and I felt so safe that I refused to open my eyes and get out of my warm, protective, beautiful bed. I woke to near silence; my alarm clock didn't go off. I groaned as I realized that I had overslept my early class yet again. But the sound of my groan arrested me. It didn't sound right, was I getting sick? I finally opened my eyes. I stared up at the bottom of the top bunk for a moment before moving my gaze down to my body. I stared incredulously at the tiny digits on the hand that I knew was connected to my own arm: the arm of a toddler. That's when I realized that it had finally happened; I had awoken from the perfect dream.

I heard the sounds of my family getting up, eating breakfast. My older brothers quarreled over something, my mother chided them softly. I could hear my father's low rumbling laugh as my sister complained about something, but I didn't pay attention. I was alone in this house, alone in this world.

How could it have been a dream?
Could a toddler's
mind really dream up fifteen years worth of people, places, and events? I looked at the bottom of the bunk above me, wishing that my college dorm mate was laying above me, about to get up for class. But I knew that she wasn't there. I forced myself to sit up and swing my legs over the side of the bed. I stared at them for a moment as they dangled mid-air, unable to reach the ground. I stood on my tippy-toes on my mattress, clinging to the metal bar of the frame I peered over the edge of the bed, hoping against hope that my roommate would be there. Instead I came face to face with mounds of stuffed animals, my favorites toward the edge of the bed so I could easily grab them, hand-me-downs from my siblings farther back since those toys weren't as special to me.
I spotted a teddy bear that I hadn't seen for years, the one my brother gave me for my first Christmas. I grabbed it, clinging to the physical comfort of the inanimate object. I was alone, except for my teddy bear, stranded in a time and place that I could barely recall. Even as my sister softly called my name at the door, I knew that I was completely alone.
How could it have been a dream?
Why did I know things and places that

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