Worn Out Shoes

Dreamer's Note:

The parts in between some parts are yet to be completed. I put dots instead. I will be writing more in time. I hope you enjoy the story. I don't sometimes.

WORN OUT SHOES

 "I have this dream of Joy Atwell.

I wake up next to her

In a different body

With my own mind and memories

I can't tell if it's real

But I could give up on everything

To make it so"

JOY - I

I look at the words and can't make any sense of it. There seems to be nothing wrong with it. I mean it has my name on it but I don't feel angry. I don't wanna encourage anyone making a song about me  Especially a stranger. But this song does it for me. It sounds lovely. For some reason I don't think whoever wrote it is a creep. I send a response.

"I am fine with you using my name in a song like this. But I wanna see the whole thing before you release it ok?"

I press send and immediately I feel like I made a mistake. I don't think too much of it and close the laptop. I look outside. The garden looks nice. I like it when the sun just hits it from the right angle. I get up to go get some sleep. I try not to think about the song but I do. Maybe that was why.

CHAPTER I - The Island Dream (ft. Joy Atwell)

ALEX - I

I hate it when I can't sleep. It should be simple right? You shouldn't need drugs. I shouldn't need anything to just fucking sleep. But this time was different. I had a reason. A good one that is. One where you are too excited and just too happy to fall asleep. But I still needed to. I had a very important meeting and I couldn't risk missing it. I ended up thinking of Joy.

She heard my song. She listened to it. She read the lyrics. She saw her name. And she was okay with it? I was ready to be sued. Or at least got shamed. But she was okay with it. I haven't written anything else yet but now that I knew she was gonna hear it, I was looking forward to it. I had a good reason to do it. 

Thoughts circled around. Scenarios where I got to talk to her was making me smile and I see her in front of me. Like a glimpse of her. It looks as if she is behind some foggy glass. She looks confused. Worried. I felt worried too. I felt dizzy. I was falling. I felt weird. I don't remember ever being conscious in this part of my sleep. I felt a wind. It was brushing past my ear. It was an eerie and scary feeling. I didn't like it. But I knew if I fought it I would wake up. So I just let it happen. I do what I always do. I imagine that I am on a beach.

Colors materialize. I start seeing blue. Blue sky. Or an ocean. They're almost the same color. It is so bright. I feel weird. Like this is not a normal dream. Dream? What am I saying this can't be a dream. I just...

What did I just do? Why do I think I'm dreaming? I get scared and start yelling. 

"ANYONE HERE?"

"WHAT'S GOING ON?"

I look around. The beach looks beautiful. Ocean looks breathtaking. I can see the sand and the seaweeds inside the water. I look back and see a house. A wooden house. I normally don't imagine a house being on the beach but it looks nice. I can see a forest behind the house. Large trees. They usually scare me. But now I wanted to explore that forest  Like there was something that was calling me. 

I looked back at the house. Someone steps outside. A man. A very good looking man. He walks towards me. He has a blond hair and very appropriate clothes for a place like this. Light brown baggy pants that looks linen. A black and white shirt with flowers on it. As he gets close I see his eyes. Jesus Christ he looks good. His green eyes pierces my soul. He smiles and I suddenly feel less worried. What the hell is this feeling? He is not Aaron Taylor Johnson for God's sake. But I can't help but to want to meet him. I weirdly feel like I need to say something before he reads my mind. 

"Hey. Where the fuck am I?"

He seems taken aback by the question.

"You're in The Island."

I think 'Wow what a great response. This guy is funny.' I smirk.

"Wait. 'The' Island? What does that mean?" I make an air quote gesture on "The".

"Not Eppstein's right?"

I feel genuinely worried.

"Who's Eppstein?" He says with a very sincere face. I believe he actually doesn't know him. I feel a bit jealous. 

"Anyways this is a safe haven for visitors like yourself. But.." He looks at me like he is pondering something. "Never mind actually. Do you wanna get inside? We have another guest. She came in a bit earlier. Maybe you would-"

"Yeah let's go." I say cutting him off. he had me at the word "she". God I am lonely.

He started walking back to the house. I was following him. I saw him smile before he turned away. I got the feeling that he was reading my mind again. I hope not. I realized I didn't have shoes. Or socks. I was feeling the warm sand. It was so good. Fuck it felt amazing. Warm and relaxing. Like all of my bones was warming up with a blanket. I almost didn't want it to end. Almost until I saw her. She just came on the doorstep. It was her. The woman that I was thinking about before I fell asleep. She looked beautiful as always. But now she had blue hair. Like she once did years ago. I loved her hair in this color. And I fell in love with her once again.

"Wow." is all I could say. She just giggled once. 

"Wow indeed. It's you." Her greenish eyes look through me. I feel lucky to be the thing that she looks at. I can just look at her looking at me for hours, maybe days.

"You know me?" I ask. My voice shakes.

"Of course. You're the kid who wrote a song for me." Her voice soothes me. Makes me feel like everything will be ok. Or it is already.

It suddenly comes back to me. I did write a song for her. Well about her more like. She heard it too. I was so excited that I couldn't sleep. But I did. I was sleeping. I already knew that but now it hits different for some reason. "I am dreaming." I blurted out. I was still staring at her. She was wearing a very sportsy outfit. A short and a sports bra. I realize this is the outfit she wore in one of her concerts. It was very colorful. She looks at me confused.

"I'm pretty sure I'm doing the dreaming buddy."

'Buddy'. Am I her buddy now? No. Stupid. She isn't real. But this feels very real. I can't say anything. I just smile. "Well I'll definetely talk about this dream in the song too. If I can recall it."

"I would." She says. She is smiling and still looking at me. What does she mean by that? She wouldn't write a song about me. I blush.

Awkwardly I look at the dude who walked me here. He is hot but not as hot as her so I feel more comfortable talking to him. "Who is dreaming really?" 

"I know I'm not." He just says that and laughs. Both of us look at him annoyed. We were actually looking forward to the answer apparently.  He sees our very serious faces.

"No. Really. This dream concept of yours is very strange to me."

Joy looks at me. I immediately blush again. 

"Yeah he said to me that he never left this world and lives here. Unlike us apparently." She points at me and herself. I should stop feeling excited every time she looks at me. I wanna kiss her so bad. But I don't. This is a dream. I should be able to do whatever I want right? But I can't. It just feels too real. I don't know how but I feel like I won't be able to leave when I want to.

"So you live on this island? That's cool." I say to the blond guy. "What's your name?"

"I don't really have a name. I am only here to guide travelers like yourselves."

"That's not a reason to not have a name." Joy suggests.

"Well my master calls me Alex. I sometimes like it." 

"Not all the time? I feel you man." Joy laughs. I still can't believe she knows my name.

"What can we do here?" I say thinking this will somehow end up being like a D&D game. Like he will guide us to have epic adventures or something. He does look like a mysterious character who can give side quests and get us killed horribly.

"A lot maybe." he says. " Depends on how lucid you are." 

"Well I am Lucid now." I say cockily. 

"Well try to make something happen then." He said as he got a bit further from me like I was diseased.

I look at the sand. Only one thing comes to my mind. I move my hand slightly upwards and try to get something out of the sand. The sands actually move. But nothing else happens. I was trying to bring a sandworm out of the sand. Sands keep moving like small waves in the ocean but nothing emerges from it. I feel tired and finally give up.

"Weird. I'm usually good at this."

"It's okay. I just stopped you. That thing could be dangerous" He looks at me smirking. "You're good at this."

"But how did y-" 

"How did you do that?" Joy cuts me off. For a moment I forgot she was there. I feel bad for that reason. I had to move a bit away cause I felt like my ear was hurt from her yelling. She must've noticed it and said "Sorry." hastily. "But how?"

"I'm actually better at this. But for some reason I couldn't actually do what I wanted. But if this is your dream you should be able to do it as well." I look at her like I was challenging her.

"I'll try." She lifts her hand and does a similiar movement. Nothing happens. I smile like I proved to her that this was my dream and not hers. That doesn't feel good after I realize it means that she isn't real. She looks at her hands. "I'm not real?"

"No you are. It's different here." Alex says.

"How is it different?" I ask. He looks back at me like he is tired of explaining this. He sighs before talking again.

"This place is different. It takes a while to be able to control the reality. But I can assure you. You're both dreaming."

I look at Joy. I wanna believe that. I wanna believe that she is real and she is here with me. In a dream. Like every other time. But this time it's real. At least we are. How great would that be? I look around. I can get used to this. It's a nice place. I feel the wind and close my eyes. I can smell the sea. It's so weird. No other lucid dream that I had have felt this way. This feels real. As real as it gets.

"How long will we be here?" She asks. I can tell from her voice that she is not a huge fan of this place. Like she is bored. I feel disapointed.

"Hard to say. Some people stay for days, some for hours." Blond guy starts to explain. 

I look back at Joy. She is very interested in learning about this place. Me on the other hand I still can't get over the fact that she liked my song. And now I was talking to her. In a way. That's all I could think about. Even in a dream I can't focus on anything. 

"Think of this place more like a vacation." I hear him continue. "You'll be here for an indefinite amount of time. You can have food and other stuff that you can describe in detail so I can conjure it."

"I want a banana." I say suddenly. Don't know why but it's the only food that I could think of for some reason. "It's a fruit."

"Follow me." He looks at both of us before going in the house. "We have a special conjuring device for food."

I don't know what I was expecting when he said conjuring device but I was excited. I could always eat something. We stepped inside and everything looked ordinary. It was like any other summer beach house. A few wooden and cushioned chairs here and there. Small glass table in the middle. There was a carpet underneath the table and the picture on it reminded me of the forest outside. There was another room to the right. There were long tassels on the doorstep instead of a door. We passed through them. We were in a kitchen. Right across the room there was a fridge and to its right another larger glass table. On the left there was a counter, a furnace and a weird looking stove. It looked weird at first but when I got close I realized they were made of glass. They shined because of the sunlight that was coming  through the window between the fridge and the counter.

Alex came in and stood beside the fridge. "Voila!"

"This is the conjuring device?" Joy said already knowing the answer.

"Yes" Alex said proudly. Joy and I chuckled. He just looked at us not really understanding. 

"Yeah we call that a fridge. It's in every house where we come from."

"Yeah I heard. But this one is special." Alex said holding the handle. "Now I want you both to imagine your favorite food. Picture the taste, texture and how it looks. Closing your eyes usually helps to make it better." I chuckled again and did what he asked. I closed my eyes and imagined a special salad that I loved. With beans, tahini, vinnegar, onions and some greens. Since I became vegan that was my favorite thing to eat. "Are you ready?" Hw asked. I nodded.

I heard him open the fridge. I opened my eyes and there were two things. One of them looked like the salad I was thinking about. He took it out and put it on the table. Joy took the other bowl herself. It looked like mac and cheese. She smelled it and I could see in her eyes that it smelled right. She started to tear up. 

"This smells exactly like-" She put it on the table and wiped her eyes. There were forks and spoons ready on the table. Were they there before? I could swear that they just appeared. I sat down and got a spoonful of the salad. Wow. It was the best version of this salad that I have ever tasted. I went for another spoon and another, then another. It was delicious. I never realized I was this hungry. Maybe the taste made me hungrier then I was. I saw Joy eating her special mac and cheese too. She was taking it slow. I could see that it was very special for her too. I guess it was more special then just the taste. She had a memory resonated with it. She was looking in the distance with every bite. I wanted to ask her why but I didn't want to pry either. I just pointed at my salad. "Wanna taste it? It's good."

"Sure." She took a forkful. I was curious what she would think of it. I wanted her to like it. She nodded her head looking impressed. "Nice. Is that vinnegar? And... Tahini?"

"Yes. Did you like it?"

"Yeah. You have to give me the recipee for it."

"Honestly I don't know If I can. This tastes better than all of the times I've done it. How is it this good?" I look at Alex when I asked the last question. 

"You have to thank your imagination for that. Both of yours." He looked at us both and we looked at each other. 

"How's yours?" I pointed at her bowl. 

"It's alright. It's not great but it tastes exactly like when someone made it. One time. Want some?" She asks lifting one side of the bowl towards me.

"Alright." I took some. It tasted like any other mac and cheese I had. I nodded as if I liked it. I mean I didn't dislike it so whatever. I turned to my own bowl and nished the rest of it. I felt full. How could I feel full in a dream? I wasn't really eating. I didn't think too much about it.

.

.

.

I felt weird. Dizzy. I lose my balance and fall on the sand. Someone grabs my arms and tries to hold me but I collapse on the warm sand. A part of me is glad that I did fall. Sand feels amazing again. I... I am waking up. I don't want to. I wanna stay here. This may be the most beautiful- scratch that- only beautiful dream I had. I. I... I see Joy's face. Really close to mine. I feel terrible. Just like every good thing in my life. I can't make this dream last.

JOY - III

He falls through the sand. That's the last time I saw him until we met properly. I feel bad for some reason. Like I could do something but didn't. Eventually the blond guy speaks again.

"Don't worry he's fine. He just went back to your world." 

"What is this? Narnia?" I say angrily. Don't know why I'm angry but I am. 

"My master talked about that world. A book as I recall it?"

"Your master? What are you? A slave?"

"No. I'm more of a servant of the Island. Well he said he wasn't my father but I always felt like he was. He did take care of me ever since I can remember."

"But you can't leave this place?"

"Oh no I can. This is just the best place in this world."

I believe that. Everything here looks very peaceful. I walk on the very relaxing sand for a while. As my feet touches the perfect warmth of it I feel my body relieve its tenseness. 

"Yeah this place is nice I guess. But I just- I think I wanna go back to my world. "Can I just go inside the sand and leave?" I point below. Exact spot where he was standing before he fell down. 

"No that usually doesn't work. And it probably would hurt a lot." 

"Shame." I say sarcastically.

"Alex." I repeat it as I walk. "His name was Alex too. Did you know that?" I point at the sand below.

"I know."

I get that weird feeljng again. I feel like he is reading my mind. I would normally feel violated but for some reason he gives me some sort of comfort that I'm safe. Like he doesn't care what I think. He is just here to answer my questions. 

"He came here before. On a different day. It seems that he forgot."

"How can you forget a place like this?"

"Visitors tend to do that. They come back as if it's their first time. Sometimes it hurts." He looks away. I feel like there's something painful. "I guess it's the nature of travelling between worlds." He looks at me and smiles. I can't help but to smile back. I realize I'm not angry anymore. I started to like this place. 

He stomps his foot on the sand. He is wearing a weird pair of slippers. It has a picture of an island. Similiar to this one. The weird part is that they both look different. I realize they have the same picture. Only, one is night and the other is day time. Just as I'm about to comment on it I start feeling weird. Like I just stepped out of a roller-coaster. I fall to the ground and around me everything becomes a blur. Islander Alex steps close but I feel far away. I don't fight it. 

I found myself back in my bed. I stay and look at the ceiling for a while. I remember the dream very clearly. I think back and try to keep remembering it. It feels like I am trying to hold a bar of soap in my hand. I turn to the bedside table and open my song notebook. I start writing down everything ı can remember from the dream. Not a song idea but it's something I do not want to forget. I wrote down everything I could recall.

.

.

.

ALEX - II

"Wherever it was

I liked it there

I liked the sand and his eyes

I guess I wouldn't have a chance anyway

I wanted to kiss you

But I held myself

Even though I knew it was a dream 

I didn't want to erase your smile

I wanted to believe that you were really there."

I look at the words I just wrote. 'This is not a song' I think to myself. I just woke up from a beautiful dream. And I wanted to write it down somewhere. But this was not a song. It's not even a poem. It's barely a story. Weird one. I'm not sure if I wanna put it into a song. Especially a song that she might hear. A song that is about here. I want it to be perfect. So I scratch all the words. It was a beautiful dream. But dreans usually don't make good songs. They're random. There.

That's better. This is a song about her. But also about a dream I never had. So dreams can be a part of the song. Not a specific one, just the nature of them. I started writing some ideas on the notebook. I looked at the picture on the wall. It was a drawing of an island. The Island that I viisted once in a dream. I could barely remember it. Until last night. Until I went there again. It was so peaceful. But like everywhere I go, I somehow managed to be just anxious and worried throughout my visit there. Joy was there too. It felt so real. I met her. I wondered if it's possible to share a dream with someone. Not metaphorically.

I close the notebook and look at my phone. I see my friends' new posts. I look at my messages, I scroll here and there and waste my time. Suddenly I get a call. It's not a saved number. I look at the number for a while and decide to pick it up. 

"Hello?"

"Hello is this Alex Rathbone?" I hear a woman.

"That's not my real name but yeah."

"The lead singer of The Lowers?"

"Yes."

"Ok I'm Miss Atwell's manager. I called you to determine a date and time for your appointment."

I almost drop the phone. I hold it just before it drops on the table. I put it back to my ear.

"Appointment? For what? I haven't written anything else yet."

"Yes I know. She wants to meet you in person if that's okay."

I think I skipped a heart beat. She wanted to meet me? What was going on? I couldn't form any words to express myself. I think I started mumbling. The person on the phone must've been worried. 

"Are you ok sir?"

"Yeah, yes. I was just looking at my schedule sorry." 

I think I hear her giggle. She knows it's not true.

"Ok so you want to meet her?"

"Yes." I think I sat it too loud. I gotta control my excitement. "Yes. I'd like that." I say quieter this time.

"Ok, how about a lunch tomorrow? In Merlowe studios."

"Tomorrow? Yeah sure. at like 12?"

"Yes or whenever you like before 2 PM."

"Ok I'll be there. Like I said I-"

I hear the phone hanging up. I was going to say I didn't write anything. Should I? Oh my god. I was going to meet Joy Atwell. One of the most talented musicians. The singer of my favorite band. I feel excited. I don't know what to do. Should I just sleep and make the time go faster? Or maybe I should write more. I go back to my notes.

It's been a few hours and I didn't write anything. I just looked at my dream journal. I looked at the last entry.

"The Island Dream Part II, meeting Joy and Alex"

The last sentence of the entry is this,

"I fall through the warm sand. I never felt as bad for leaving someone behind before as I do now."

It was true. I felt like I needed to be there longer. But I couldn't. I got excited. That's what usually happens in my other lucid dreams. I do something that excites me and I wake up. But this time I didn't even do anything. I stop myself. I thought about this dream long enough. I rip the page. I throw it on the trash can. I don't need another reminder for my loneliness.