Hannah Klingberg

Blue Dreams

I’ve had blue dreams for thirty-five nights now. Each dream is the same. I run in a field of long grass left to grow, my bare feet pressing into the soft, brown soil beneath. I am five years old, and I run towards the figures of a child’s imagination – pirates and princesses and ponies that prance. Then, as the last bit of sun disappears behind the trees, my world turns blue. The skies drip with a darkened blue that bleeds into the grass, the dirt below my feet, and my mother’s garden in the distance. Blue shadows loom over my house, and my breathing quickens with fright as I look down at my small hands, finding my skin stained with shades of blue as well. Tears swell in my eyes, and I blink because I know this is just a dream, and blue is just a color. But when they open, every part of the world I was just standing in has turned blue, so that that the trees blend in with the sky and the grass and me. All I see is blue, all I think of is blue, and I can’t remember what it’s like to be human because all I am is blue.