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DREAMING
Written by Chris High.
This
is a man who finds escape in the act of closing his eyes to dream of the girl
he has left so very far behind.
This
short story written by Chris High is available only online.
The text version of Dreaming is on this page, however if you fancy having the
author read it to you it's no problem!
This tale in audio lasts for 4 mins 31 seconds and is available in two formats.
Link: Opens the Real Audio format of Dreaming in the Real Player Plug-in.
Link: Downloads the Dreaming MP3 audio file 2.07MB
After reading this tale inspired by a Chris de Burgh song, why not find out what the inspiration behind the story was.
Skip to inspiration behind Dreaming
Dreaming.
Down by the beach they sit and dream.
Tired old men with thoughts they keep hidden to themselves, watch as the boat
pulls in with a fresh delivery down at the harbour. The show is as grand, as
noisy and as over the top as ever. It's always that way on Delivery Day. Somehow
I doubt that it will ever change.
Waves crash in over the rocks as they make their way, relentlessly, towards the shore. Breakers crash, sending plumes of water like sparks into the sky and weed is dispatched onto the white, pebble speckled beach to lie scattered like litter. Unnoticed. Uncared for. As ignored as I feel.
Noisy shouts echo down from the surrounding mountainside. A group are up there, clearing the way for more to follow in their path. As I turn and scan the mist covered outcrop of the range, I can tell that it's raining up there. But the group won't mind that. In fact, given the heat of the day, they'll welcome it. It's the first rain of the summer -the first taste of summer wine my father would have once called it - and it'll not be the last.
Turning
myself back to look out across the sea, I notice a seabird has got caught up
in the fence line. Its frantic efforts to free itself make it exhausted and
so, at last, it ends its struggle to instead hangs limp and pathetic, by one
broken wing.
I turn away.
I turn away and shut my eyes.
When I open them once more, she is before me. The prettiest, loveliest, sweetest
girl in the world. Her emerald eyes flash. Her long, damp red hair shines in
the glowing fire of the sun. Specks of sand are stuck to her long, evenly tanned
legs that only stop at the hem-line of her white, single piece costume. A costume
that fits - as any costume should do to such a deftly crafted body as hers -
perfectly so as to accentuate its curvature.
Slowly
she draws to a halt before me, her toes buried deep in the sand, and places
her delicately long fingers on my shoulders. Her eyes intense. Her brow curious.
And then, with a waspish smile, she moves in for a long lingering kiss that
stirs my soul. I place my hands on her hips and hold her close to me, revelling
in the sea-salt that has dried - even in this short space of time - upon her
full lips.
We part and I stand to look at her, my hands still in place at her sides, the
very smell of her lingering on, whilst her fingers stroke gently at my hair.
When it's time for us to eventually sail away, I vow that things will be different
in future. This was a lady who deserves to feel the sunshine on her back all
of the time and the gentle caress of warm summer breezes through that mass of
red that shrouds her most angelic of faces.
Yet as we part and she drifts away, I know that this is a vow born to be broken
by circumstance.
It
is night time now and I am back inside.
The rain has turned to sounds of an unseen squall, lashed into a frenzy on the
fingers of a biting wind spawned from the gentle breezes of earlier. The meshed
glass windows creak from its touch in their wooden frames, such is the tempestuous
strength of the summer storm.
The new delivery moans about me. The fresh jingle of chains is cacophonous in
the concrete mess hall that serves as a recreation area. The stench of stale
sweat, cheap food and despair fills the room. Bright neon lights all but burn
the eyes. Tobacco smoked by those who have completed tasks to deserve it, is
puffed out in rank, choking clouds into the already cloying atmosphere. The
scrape of metal chair legs against the harshness of the solid concrete floor,
grates at the very spine. Coughing, swearing, weakened laughter and many a threat
or whispered confidence makes up for a lack of any real conversation that is
stifled in such a place as this.
For
all of the men - both the hardened and the new delivery - are experiencing the
same claustrophobia that is prison life here on the island.
The only means of escape from this place, I have found, is the act of closing
ones eyes and to dream of the girl I have left so very far behind.
©2003 Chris High
Inspiration behind the story Dreaming by Chris High.
Dreaming: Derived from Living On The Island I wanted a feel of Tom Jones' Green, Green Grass of Home. Here is a prisoner on an island thinking of the girl he's left behind.
We
don't know what he's done to end up there and only at the end, do we know that
he's there at all.
The song uses the words I wanna feel that sunshine in my heart as though he's
being deprived of the freedom to feel just that.
This is where I got the idea from to set it in a prison camp. A sort of steal from Papillion in a way.
Chris High.
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Quote from Chris High in 2003 “Writing gets me away for a while' from this world and into one where I, alone, can make or break the rules as I see fit.”
The Henshaws Society for blind people
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