The Bridge

Before I go to sleep every night, I walk across a bridge. Without fail, I make this trip every day. This bridge takes me from the real world to the dream world. This bridge, this mystical non-existent bridge, was not built with stones, wood or ropes. Instead it is made of memories, vines, ideas, ice, words, corals, glimpses of dreams and other such fantastic things.  The bridge is weak and hazy at first but as I walk along it, it starts to become stronger and clearer. And it becomes clearer, the real world becomes hazier and distant. Much to my terror, the bridge has no support that I can hold onto.

I have not covered the same distance twice, for the length of the bridge changes every day. Sometimes, the bridge is filled with memories from the past and questions from the futures. On those nights, it takes me hours to cross. Ever so rarely, the architect of the bridge feels tired or perhaps he takes sympathy on me. On these days, the bridge is short and I fall asleep as soon as I turn in my bed.

The bridge changes shape every day. Yes, every day. Sometimes, when I walk across the bridge, I will, without choice step into a gap between the vines or perhaps the ice beneath my legs will break. Having nothing to hold on to, I will find myself falling only to be caught by an unseen and unknown force in the real world. On other days, where there was a gap previously, I might find myself on a cloud, floating away with a sense of pleasure in my head.

No friends are made on this bridge. No enemies either. Everyone I see or meet is just a projection of my past and other times fantasies of the future. But all this is not what makes the bridge strange. Well, all that is not the strangest anyway. There is something else. Suspended above the bridge are electrically charged deep-blue spheres. They are of all sizes and they are everywhere. They always seem out of reach. Always, except that one moment.

When I am about to step from the real world into dream world, the spheres suddenly lower down. They come within touching distance. Sometimes I just cross over into the dreams. But other times, I extend my hand to touch one of these spheres. You see, all these spheres, they are made up of ideas. Good ideas, bad ideas, horrible ideas. Not ideas for world peace or furniture. Not those sorts of ideas. Every time I touch a sphere, I tap into an idea. 

In the real world, I grin as sleep starts to fall on me. It is always just a small idea but when I wake up the next day, it will still be there. I play with the idea in my head, developing it and thinking of different ways that it can end. I now enter the dream realm, satisfied.