sleep

Sleep

The following submission is by Writers in the Grove member Carolyn Bradley for the prompt Sleeping and Dreaming.

With fury the snow came down, slanted sideways like angry eyebrows, shattering its color over icy ground. It covered fence posts and car tops. It dusted fir boughs and bare limbs. It buried children’s tricycles and sandboxes until they were indistinct mounds. It filled empty flower pots and wheelbarrows to overflowing.  Then, with diminished force, it fell straight down, smoothing rough pathways and alleys with a soft frosting of vanilla. The garden tucked the white blanket up around its neck. It still slumbered. Seeds lay dormant. Worms and bugs slept. Bulbs waited. The ground, seemingly lifeless, was perched on the brink of awakening, its alarm clock a warming of the earth and bright morning sunlight. At the signal, the garden would shake off its white blanket and stretch its limbs toward the blue sky. Until then, it slept, breathing in and out and dreaming of soft soil, new grass and the rising of spring.

Advertisement

Prompt: He Lies

The following was written by Writers in the Grove member, Lorelle VanFossen, inspired by Prompt: Write About a Dream.

He says he doesn’t dream. Never. No memories of dreams. Ever.

He lies.

I awake to find him jumping on the bed, hitting the wall. “I got it! I got it!” He shouts at shadows.

“Rough night last night?”

“Nope. Slept like a baby.”

He lies.

Woke to murmuring sounds, cursing. He’s kneeling on the floor picking up invisible things from the floor, carefully placing each on his naked lap. I vaguely recall spilling a box of straight pins onto the carpet a week ago.

“You were up in the night picking things off the floor.”

“No, I wasn’t. I was fast asleep.”

He lies.

After a long international flight home from a business trip, he discussed engineering specs with me in bed. In France, he tried to straighten the pictures bolted to the wall. On Orcas Island, shadows brought screams of something in the tent. After his grandmother died, he ripped the bed apart, me in it, screaming and looking for her.

“You talked in your sleep again last night.”

“I don’t do that.”

“You do. You do so often.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Yes, you do.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Huh.”

He doesn’t believe me.

He lies.