Page 27 - Contrast2007

On Dreams

c::::

Emma Joyce

. Sometimes when there are a lot of people around it is hard to sleep at night, because night
ISwhen people are dreaming and dreams are louder and brighter than ordinary thoughts. They
come flooding into her mind, so many images all colorful and glaring like a street full of blazing

:nneon signs in every direction, so bright it's like daytime. Only they make her eyes hurt more,
d they shine in her eyes and buzz in her ears until she can't see or hear anything else. Some-
Im~s even when she does sleep they take over her head and then she dreams borrowed dreams
until morning and wakes up still tired.

She thinks that once she had dreams of her own that were sometimes good and sometimes
bad, but never quite made so much noise. It's hard to remember, though. Maybe she still has
those dreams somewhere, but if she does, they're far, far down under all the other ones. Down
down down and broken into a million pieces on the ground because dreams are fragile things
When they're yours. But she doesn't think of that often, because she forgets.
b Some nights she is alone and there are no dreams at all, and she sleeps peacefully, her mind

lank. She likes those best.

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