To End All Dreams – A Microfiction

A legion of diverse forms wandered the desert plain, and after a time, the wolf grew accustomed to them.

A mangled koala, perpetual blood dripping from its torn ear, appeared on occasion. Once, a white bear of North America crept along tenderly. A brown and white jersey cow, bell clanging, moseyed at a distance.

Human forms too filled the ranks, millions of them, in all varieties. Some, like the koala, were bloodied and torn; others beamed and sang.

The legion wandered beneath a constant midday sun. No one spoke. No one traveled together; each had its own path toward the mountains that ringed the plain afar, mountains that never grew closer, no matter how fast or slowly they moved.

The wolf kept a steadfast pace, its only change to switch directions in an attempt to reach the mountains and rest.

To rest and end the dreams.

The dreams stalked and subsumed, as various as the legion. In one it ran through the woods as a midpack male, sneaking females until the alpha ripped out its throat. In another, it dominated the pack as alpha, until, old and infirm, they drove it out to freeze in the snowpack.

In other dreams, it lost its wolfhood: it galloped in a rolling pasture along a straight black fence; it surveyed a prairie outside its burrow; it soared over a valley, talons aching for prey.

As various as they were, all the dreams ended in death. But it learned that whenever it changed its direction of travel, it could slip from the dream and the mountains, though still never closer, would come back into view.

It began to shift directions as soon as a dream began. The dreams came faster. Soon it only glimpsed the mountains; a new dream took it on the first step of each new path.

Tongue lolling, the wolf turned and stopped. Immediately a dream subsumed it. It was old, in a bag of loose skin. A baby, watching a mobile. A woman clinking glasses with friends. It was lost in the kaleidoscope of an entire life at once.

Until light rent the dream veil. The mountains peeled back and were gone. It strained and broke through a translucent red membrane, slimy and wet. Around the light a circle of faces in green masks witnessed the moment.

She was born.