Young Writers Project is a creative, online community of teen writers and visual artists that started in Burlington in 2006. Each week, VTDigger publishes the writing and art of young Vermonters who post their work on youngwritersproject.org, a free, interactive website for youth, ages 13-19. To find out more, please go to youngwritersproject.org or contact Executive Director Susan Reid at sreid@youngwritersproject.org; (802) 324-9538.
Dreams take us to places unknown — to seafloors, mountaintops, the clouds scattered above. But it is only when we’re lucky that our dreams return us to the cozy safety of our pillows, allowing us to reorient ourselves to the world of the living before we have to confront the day. This week’s featured writer, Oliver Ellis of Belmont, brings us on a serene dream-journey through time and space, ocean and sky, before gently setting us back down into reality.
The time I flew
Oliver Ellis, 13, Belmont
I was cold. I shivered in my sheets and peeked out my window into the night. The moon was stone cold, making me shiver even more. I leaned back and my head hit the pillow, and I pulled the blankets over my head. I began to feel dizzy.
I felt like I was spinning and rising at the same time, and a million thoughts swarmed my head. I felt like I would burst. My eyes couldn’t see well; instead I felt like I was staring into the abyss of the night. A bright, white light flashed in the corner of my eye, and in the midst of it all, I screamed.
My scream echoed out and echoed again and I found myself rising up higher, but I wasn’t sure where I was. I tried looking down, but it was dark. The only thing I could make out was the dark shadow of my house below me.
Was I floating? Was I flying?
I kept soaring upward in the darkness, until it wasn’t dark anymore. It was bright instead, and I couldn’t see anything. So I closed my eyes and realized that I didn’t have to see anything. Because I was above it all. I was carefree and careless and nothing mattered. I felt myself rising and swaying in the calm breeze. And I was pleasantly warm. I was warm in the way that you feel when the sky is blue and you lie in the green grass and the sun comes out from behind a cloud, hitting you with a beam of sunlight.
I kept floating forward and up until the fog cleared and I saw the sun, shining bright and warm. Looking down, I saw a white-sand beach spotted with palm trees and coconuts. The water sparkled in the light, a shimmering light blue ocean of possibilities.
I felt myself floating down, descending through the mist. I closed my eyes for a while and soaked up the moment. Then my feet touched the sand. It felt soft and warm, and I started up a jog along the coast. The beach stretched out for a long distance before the turquoise water on one end, a green jungle on the other. The ocean waves slipped against the white sand invitingly and I changed my direction to jog toward the waves.
Water touched my toes. It was perfect. Before long, I was up to my chest in the water and I began to swim. I swam for miles, leaving behind the beach and the jungle. I swam and swam. Eventually I saw another small island. It was only big enough to fit one house. Palm trees surrounded the house. A memory came back to me, of trying to sleep in my house and being too cold. I remembered rising up and out of my worries and troubles and going to the peaceful beach. I climbed onto land and opened the door.
I wandered upstairs to my room and I got in my bed. I laid my head on the pillow and looked out my window at the dark sky and the bright moon. My eyes closed.
I woke up. I was warm and cozy. For a split second I remembered a beautiful island beach. I would visit again someday. Again, in my dreams.
Read the story on VTDigger here: Young Writers Project: ‘The time I flew’.