The Anatomy Of A Dream

By Animisha Saxena

A cold winter sun dawned an usher of reassurance to Shanaya as cutting wind from the window sent shivers down her spine. She had opened it to let the fresh wind calm Papa’s countenance. He had had a run-in with some bad luck today. The TV, which usually kept his psychosis at bay, and was the last connection to his faraway homeland, in this unfamiliar fairyland, had broken down. It exemplified his impulses. It was all not uncommon, but a tiring ordeal for Shanaya. Papa had crept back onto his repeating fixation. He bellowed his loud voice and sang with his lungs- 

“If I sip the sun, it would taste like marmalade.

And eat the earth for refreshments, like green tea on a good day.

I would still love her on a bad day, I still love her all my days,

For all the lovers who die, heart still lush, hearts still, 

And raging,

For all their love and lies, all their dwindling smiles,

For the heaving, beating love that lives on,

On and on, over and about,

Love who takes on the spite of death, of tears, of strain,

And lives on, winning, that terrain,

She’ll live on unfazing, forever and over,.

My sweet marmalade, my sunshine, my dream, my goddess of orange and green

I dream for you every day, above and over”.

There goes that old song he sang over and over. Shanaya leaned back in a hum, the song was the thread of strings that linked her with her mother, one that had passed away while she was young. Papa had long enthroned her the Goddess of dreams; the goddess of orange and green. The song was sunshine, the song was green shade, it echoed the warmth of all that a mother could be, deemed plentiful, and a restorative scene. She settled Papa down, opened the way to the outdoor, laid out a seat; “There you go, take some air, there’s plenty of sunray, where your love, would gleam.’’

As Papa settled in the evening air, his voice cutting through the breeze, she set out to resolve her dream, It was a job at the writing firm. She had passed the first few rounds of selection with flying color, a written piece, a reasoning test, and a determining interview. The interviewer had communicated to her his favor, “you seem to be a great hand. With all that you’ve given, you seem to know a great deal about romance, a lovebird whose dazzling fight here, would likely, stand”. She was radiant after that short applause; she intended to make this final settling piece gleam. The final determinant of the selection process was to be an essay on a prescribed prompt. She settled on her desk and opened the letter detailing the final selection scheme. It read out’- ‘Write a brief picture in your own words about that stunning sightly scene about the goddess of dreams’.

She was astounded. It was unlike what she had expected. ‘The goddess of dreams’ in her experience was unheard of, except of course, for in Papa’s sweet marmalade love song. She sat and introspected. What could she make of this proposed metaphor of a dream? After a long, period of deliberation she determined that she is going to make this essay hers. ‘The paper is going to glow orange and green, it is going to be an accolade to my identity, it is going to be excellence in brevity, they’re going to cry, there will be stirs, when they read about Lady Marmalade’s insight. It’s going to cast my childhood, my ever-present dream, to evoke my inspiring mother, better known as the goddess of orange and green.

Days had gone by since Shanaya had given in the essay that would inspire her future. She was patient, she was grimly waiting, she took care of Papa in the cold, told him that “The sun will show soon,’ and when he was bitter from the dim of night, “your grand love song will dull the moon.” Two days later, Shanaya opened the envelope that would resolve her dream. The envelope read- “Shanaya your grasp of the literary voice is stunning, however they’re some lapses in your tone, it is too profoundly hopeful and most importantly there’s an error in the portraiture of the goddess, you’ve colored the goddess orange and green, if you had better equipped yourself with the needful knowledge you would know that the goddess of dreams is always red and blue, always. Your essay thus highlighted certain lack of familiarity with important intelligence. Furthermore, we are looking for work that is more critical. We are sorry that we won’t be selecting you this round.’

The letters drowned Shanaya. After all this effort, she wanted to scream. She understood what she had lacked, she didn’t understand how that would be transfixed, bring it possibly back. She went home and confided to her diary- ‘I struggle like a baby struggles to catch the sun. It is a cute phenomenon, but you wouldn’t find pity for a snarling, helpless oddity, like you won’t find pity for the sun. I gleam, I shiver, my arresting glow, unfortunately, sends others to respite. As a baby only tries, I have caught the Sun amongst these palms of mine so others can cringe in its light.’

Few breaths over, she still couldn’t produce any words that were sound. She wrote further on,- ‘I wanna cry cry cry, hopelessness brings me down to the ground, I want to let a tear go by, let it run dry on to my desert heart, which pleads for the sick sun to set down, her time is through, I’ll be a storm for the mind of the brown.”

The writing did her no good; the writing had exemplified her impulse, like fire dappled with more food. She was decided. Like Papa, she would submerge the Sun, like Papa, she would cause a scene. She left the confines of her dainty house, and she was going to scream so very happily, so very merrily.

She was running like a storm in air, when she hit a wistfully walking man, the crash sent sparkles of glimmer in the air like snow that is gold. “Shanaya! Hey! Shanaya!” in his hands was a bouquet of marigolds. “I was looking for you, the girl in the shining gilded armour, what are you doing here?”. “You’ve been reading my work, aren’t you?, interceded Shanaya. “These were for you, enjoy, of my favorite colors, so don’t be mean”, she evoked a smile. “You’re a dream.” The sun shone stunningly that evening bright.

By Animisha Saxena