Resurrection by Jasmine Gilmore

There’s a place where dreams go to die. It all starts with children. They harbor hopes and dreams like squirrels hoard nuts for the winter, as if saving up for a similar time of hardship. However, children become adults and these dreams get neatly packaged, post marked, and shipped to the graveyard where they wait. To be extinguished. To be killed. As they anticipate their impending death they still cling to life. “I don’t want to die,” they whisper to each other but their pleas fall on deaf ears. They stay in limbo between life and death. Every so often one escapes to only die a painful death. Their solitary goal, fulfillment, is rarely achieved. They don’t talk much about those cases. But there is one they do talk about. It’s the story of a dream that died but refused to accept death. After all fulfillment is a basic right of all dreams. “Why me?” the dream asked to no one in particular. The dream couldn’t forgive this type of existence. The dream would get revenge. He would escape from the graveyard and haunt the half dead.

Who are the half dead you ask? They look like you and I. They walk, talk, eat, and breathe among us undetected. They can be seen on a train traveling to work. Eating at a restaurant not quite present enough to savor their meal. The half dead even pick up their dry cleaning like the rest of us. They are neither here nor there. But the half dead are the ones responsible for the many dreams that now reside in the graveyard. And they are fair game for the fugitive.

The fugitive dream, let’s call him Simon, watched the half dead in their natural mediocre settings. Simon would sometimes observe the half dead peer into the graveyard but quickly look away. He had watched plenty of half dead at this time but one particular member, the half dead referred to her as Sarah, would peer into the grave yard everyday gazing longingly something Simon had never seen the half dead do. This angered him. She was half dead how dare she hold such a gaze! Simon thought. He would make them all pay for his unfulfilled death by haunting Sarah.

Sarah couldn’t quite remember the moment her dream ceased to exist. Rather than a singular event, it died many little deaths culminating with its eventual demise.

“Mommy! Daddy!” an excited 9-year-old Sarah sang gleefully.

“Yes, sweetie?” her mother responded, her Dad with a nod.

“I know what I want to be when I grow up!” They nodded expectedly.

“A writer! One that writes stories about kids who can eat all the candy that they want!” she mused.

“That’s nice honey but wouldn’t you love to do something that helps kids and their mommies and daddies?” her father asked.

“Like a Doctor like Daddy?” her mother added.

But Sarah didn’t want to help kids and their parents Sarah wanted to share her stories.

An older Sarah stared at the results listed posted outside the cafeteria. She reread the heading dozens of times “Penbrooke High School Creative Writing Contest Results”. She was looking at the wrong flyer. Her name was not there. It should’ve been at least between Alicia Vandenhaak and Sean Moore, 1st and 3rd place respectively but someone had somehow replaced her name with Hei Young. Confusion turned to realization as a crowd gathered to check the results. Congratulations filled the hallways while I failed again, flooded her mind.

Over the years, she consumed novels at an astounding pace and dedicated time to write after her waitressing job for a year failing to produce a single finished story. She did this all while enduring the disapproving comments of her family. Physically and mentally exhausted she gave up writing and reading novels.

Sarah, now a 25-year-old copywriter, had completely immersed herself in her role at an accounting firm. This, she decided, would be real work that would simultaneously gain her family’s approval and produce results.

Wake up, breakfast, train, work, dinner, bed, repeat was Sarah’s life as a copywriter. It was painstakingly predictable but comfortable until this week. She missed the train to work, her favorite pair of heels broke, Microsoft Word crashed moments before a critical assignment was due, and many other improbable coincidences. But the icing on the cake was this feeling that someone was watching her. She surmised that no one could be this unlucky and that this person was to blame for this series of recently unexplained events.

That suspicion was Simon. He was there watching, listening, and stalking her thoughts strategically plotting her downfall. He would ensure that she was constantly reminded of what she chose to let go. His goal was to disrupt her daily life and fill her with paralyzing regret.

Sarah opened the fortune cookie that came with her lunch special. “You will write a book,” she read with disdain. “Ha, really funny guys,” she announced to the office but was met with blank stares. Embarrassed she quickly tossed it in the garbage.

Though rattled, she tried to get back to work. Normally, she mindlessly produced work like a well-oiled machine but today she couldn’t. Simon watched as she checked her email a dozen times. The 13th time she would find a surprise courtesy of Simon. “Writing Contest” the subject read. The email invited her to participate in an exclusive contest open to professional writers that had a passion for fiction writing. Should I try to write again? she thought. Simon snickered. She reread the first line “Dear Elizabeth” the email was clearly not meant for her. She glanced around the office surprised to see an ordinary scene her coworkers typing away on their keyboards. She furiously deleted the email and regretted the fleeting thought she had. Simon felt like he was making progress.

Sarah emptied the contents of her mailbox onto her kitchen table, her mind reeling. Was this all there was to life? She hadn’t thought about such things in years. She spotted bright pink paper in the stack of mail. Sarah froze. The first book she ever wrote in 3^rd grade stared back at her. She scanned the table for a note. Nothing. This was the last thing Sarah wanted to see and Simon knew this. She contemplated skipping her catch up with her friend Penelope at a nearby bar. This was too big of a coincidence.

Somehow Sarah still wound up at the bar.

“You became a writer. That was your dream in 7th grade right?” Penelope asked sipping her 3rd Martini.

“5^th,” Sarah corrected.

But Simon wouldn’t let her get off that easy. Suddenly the contents of a wine glass found its way onto her dress. Her gasp commanded the attention of every guest as the room fell silent.

The perpetrator started, “I’m sorr-,” but stopped mid-sentence.

The pair exchanged looks of recognition.

“Mike?”

“Sarah,“ they said together.

Of all the people to run into, Sarah agonized.

“I‘m sorry about your dress!” He apologized.

“It’s okay,” Sarah replied flatly.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“I’m here with my friend Penelope.” Her reply laced with nervousness.

“So, how do you two know each other?” A very single Pen interjected excitedly.

Simon was waiting in anticipation. Child’s play, he beamed.

“We work together at a big 4 accounting firm,” Mike gloated.

Pen turned to Sarah, “I thought you were a writer”.

Sarah turned to Mike with pleading eyes. Completely missing her cues he responds, “She is! She’s a copywriter”.

Sarah eased into bed replaying the events from this week in her head. Why did I lie? And what is going on with me lately? It’s like everywhere I go I’m reminded of it. I gave up that stupid dream years ago, she thought as she stared at her bedroom ceiling. Even now it still causes me pain, she thought as tears soaked her pillowcase.

Moonlight illuminated the book she encountered earlier. Sarah stared in awe and realized that for the first time she was feeling something. And it was because of those coincidences, that she now wanted to write not disconnected dispassionate advertisements but meaningful words and sentences. Something. Anything would do.

She opened her laptop and accessed a folder labeled “Essays” if this were a book it would be coated in a thick layer of 7-year-old dust. The cursor stood at the end of an unfinished sentence in her word processor. Sarah added the following sentences, “My dream is to scatter pieces of my soul, in the form of stories, all around the world. People will identify themselves in these pieces and make them their own. It’s through them I’ll live eternally.” Simon read these sentences in disbelief. His anger dissipated. He stared at Sarah’s tear streaked face determined and now vibrant and full of life. She was no longer a member of the half dead. My dream, reread Simon. Our dream, he realized. Simon would live again.