Out of the darkness I watched through my kitchen window as my Billy came galloping towards me on a black stallion, expecting him to jump off and come comfort me, telling me it was all a mistake. He wasn't really gone. Just as I began to smile, I saw Billy and he saw me, and for the briefest moment I could have sworn that I saw a hint of the sad lopsided smile I was accustomed to seeing all those times we had to part, easing it's way onto his face and into my dream as if he were really there. It was as if he knew he was about to disappoint, about to let go. But just as in his life and in his death, we never quite met. Not fully anyway. A love cut short.
He never got off the horse. He never even came up the cracked driveway before turning and riding swiftly away from me. Before I knew it I was awake and that was the end. Not a happy ending, but not quite dispairing either. Almost hopeful, really.
I don't remember exactly what I was feeling the moment I woke up. I guess that's normal. After all, no one really remembers the feelings. The moments, the actions, the occurences maybe, but not the feelings. I remember not what I felt, but what I thought the second my dream came flooding back to me. The severity of my need to escape reality and be where Billy was. Awake and engulfed in a trance, I felt myself somehow relentlessly pulled from my bed, dragged into full contiousness by an unseen force. I found myself standing next to a window. Not my bedroom window, but my kitchen window. The very window I was standing at in my dream. I don't even remember how I got there. It was sudden de ja vu and I found myself half expecting to see Billy riding up to me on a horse like in my previous dream. I must have stood there for half an hour, peering out into the dark distance, waiting for my gorgeous warrior man to come and take me with him... Knowing deep down inside that the dream was his way of letting me know he still loved me...words he couldn't bring himself to speak in life. His way of telling me he'd be waiting for me. And for the first time in weeks I felt a small smile creep across my face. Until we meet again... Life goes on.