Memory of a Forbidden Dream

Residual

They say no one dreams anymore.

Not legally, at least.

Every bed now comes with a compliance scanner. Every sleep cycle is measured, purified, corrected. The Syndicate of Wakefulness ensures that neural impulses remain within regulated bounds. Nothing abstract. Nothing deviant. Nothing that might inspire.

And yet, I woke with a word on my lips. A shape in my chest. A warmth that did not belong to this century.

It was a dream—I know it was. Though the agents at the checkpoint this morning scanned my retina and found no trace of noncompliant REM, I know something slipped through.

It lingers. Like smoke from a fire no one admits was ever lit.

Ghost Color

It had color. Not the industrial blue of the biodomes, nor the sterile white of the Order’s insignia. It was softer. Warmer. Maybe golden. Maybe red. I can’t be sure. I’m not allowed to name colors that aren’t on the List.

I remember the texture more than the hue. Like fabric used in stories, soft enough to cradle the sky. I think I touched it—whatever it was. My fingers still tremble with the memory of something weightless and alive.

They teach us that dreams were a contagion. That during the Dissolution, millions lost their grip on fact. Imagination spread faster than fire, collapsing economies, dismantling reason. So they erased the source.

But something remains. A thread. A flicker. A ghost color under the skin of the world.

The Voice

There was a voice. I remember that most. It didn’t issue a command or a product code. It didn't ask for consent or recite the Constitution of Control. It simply… laughed.

A laugh without menace. Without sarcasm. It didn’t want anything. It was joy, distilled. Free.

No one laughs like that now. We smile when prompted. We nod when required. But laughter? True laughter is volatile. They filter it out of the water.

But the voice in the dream laughed, and I think it was for me. Or from me. Or maybe both.

The Ledger

I write this in secret, in the thin margins of a ration ledger, knowing full well this paper could get me vanished.

Dream fragments are contraband. You can be sterilized for less.

But I had to write it down before they extract it.

Before the machines come to sanitize me again.

Before I forget what it meant to float, even once, untethered by protocol.

If you find this, and you remember too—meet me where the wind still smells like wild things. Where nothing’s been paved. Where the stars don’t blink on command.

I’ll be waiting.

And dreaming.

The Archivist

There’s a rumor of someone who remembers for others.

They call her The Archivist. No one knows if she’s real. But sometimes, in the quiet static between sanctioned broadcasts, you’ll hear a voice whispering things too tender to be advertisements.

I’m going to find her.

She might not speak. She might not even breathe. But maybe, just maybe, she dreams. And maybe she’ll help me remember.

Return

I saw it again last night. Not the whole dream—just a glint. A hand reaching through liquid light. A shadow in reverse. My own face, smiling.

That smile is illegal.

I’ve packed my last sanctioned meal and deactivated my bracelet. By the time they find this, I’ll be gone.

Toward the woods. Toward the wind. Toward something I no longer have words for.

Toward the dream.