Where You Always Wake Up

The fabric of my shirt was as light and gentle as the wind. Nobody wanted the wind to be gentle.

The heat came in waves, almost embodying the big everlasting noise devouring the small overfilled city.

The wired earphones dangling from my pocket brushed my thigh with every step. The little taps were not unwelcome. I had made the right decision by stepping outside. The slow ceiling fan back home had begun to look unbearably ugly.

“My nightmare!”

The voice belonged to a jolly, short man with more of a waddle than a walk. He wore a yellow suit that peculiarly matched his overextended moustache, which stretched past a big, narrow smile. For a moment, I wondered if he was even speaking to me.

I smiled anyway. I wasn’t sure why.

His hands—unexpectedly long and thin—reached out and grabbed my arms.

“No, listen! I need to face my demons. That has to be why I ran into you!”

“You didn’t run into me,” I said, still smiling. I made sure it reached my eyes. I pulled one arm free, then the other, and kept walking.

“You were flying a drone,” and apparently we were walking together now, arm in arm. I could not tell if I had grown taller in the time I spent at home. Looking around, no one was quite as short as him.

“I don’t own a drone”, I tried to wriggle free out of the arm lock. He giggled, “Stop moving, you’re tickling my freshly polished head with your hair!”

I remained steadfast with my opinion: there was something wrong with him.

I freed my arm, “I will walk with you. Just don’t hold my arm...please.”

He put up his eerily slender hands in retreat before closing them behind his back like a caricatured king.

“So,” he said, “in my last dream, you were flying a drone.”

“Are you sure it was me?” I attempted urging him to think logically.

“And you broke the drone. And then you were like ‘Oh no! I no longer have something to run after!’ And the way you started chasing me! My, oh my, was I terrified! I could not catch my breath for minutes after I woke up. Young little brat!,” He slapped my back with as much momentum as his short arms could swing to muster.

“I said don’t touch me.” I snapped.

He frowned with a sarcastic glare, “You said not to hold your arm,” he slapped my back again.

I turned around to walk away.

“No! That is exactly what you did in the rest of my nightmares!”

I exhaled sharply. “Who even are you? Do I know you?”

He clapped his hands, delighted, and resumed walking as if the street itself had cued him.

“Come, come. You always ask that before you try to leave. And then things get bad—worse in the next dream.”

I stayed where I was for a moment, then followed. It was better than thinking. And the heat had pressed my thoughts flat anyway.

“What happens when things get bad?” I asked.

He tilted his head. The smile softened at the edges, like it had been worn down. “You stop listening. You go very quiet. Like you’ve already forgiven me for something I haven’t said yet.”

We passed a closed fruit stall, flies orbiting the shade like loose ideas. The earphones knocked against my thigh, steady and grounding.

“You’re very confident about my behavior,” I said.

“I’ve had time to study it.”

That should have alarmed me more than it did.

“In one dream,” he went on, “you never chase me. You just stand there, holding the broken drone, staring at it like it betrayed you. I’m shouting your name, but you don’t react. That’s the worst one.”

“My name?” I asked.

He faltered. Just for a beat. “I don’t hear it clearly.”

We reached the corner where my building hid behind a row of wilting neem trees. My chest tightened with the familiar resentment. Home meant walls that echoed me back at myself. The ugly fan. The stale heat that never left.

I slowed.

He noticed. Of course he did.

“This is it,” he said, suddenly quieter.

“What is?”

“Where you always wake up.”

I stopped walking altogether. The street hummed. Cicadas screamed from somewhere invisible. My reflection stared back at me from a darkened shop window—sweat-damp, tired, half-there.

“You’ve been following me,” I said.

His shoulders sagged, the yellow suit losing some of its theatrical brightness. “Watching,” he corrected gently. “From my window.”

I turned fully now. “What?”

“I moved in three months ago,” he said. “Across from you. Same floor. Same square of sky.” He gestured vaguely upward. “I didn’t mean to notice at first. But you’re always there.”

My stomach sank.

“You only open the door for food,” he continued, words tumbling out faster now. “You never have guests. You never talk on the phone. You stand in the doorway like you’re bracing yourself before every delivery, like even that is too much.”

I felt suddenly exposed, like my skin had thinned in the heat.

“And you always look so upset,” he said. Not accusing. Observing. “Not crying. Just… emptied. Do you even remember the last time you genuinely smiled?”

I swallowed. “So you decided to approach me on the street?”

He shook his head quickly. “No, no. I decided to look away.” Then, after a pause, “And I couldn’t.”

The words sat between us, heavy.

“I’ve lived my whole life pretending not to see things,” he said. “People like you. People who are still moving but already gone somewhere else. I tell myself it’s none of my business. That everyone has to take care of their own storms.”

He rubbed his hands together, suddenly self-conscious. “But then I started dreaming.”

I said nothing.

“In the dreams, you’re running,” he said. “Or trying to. Always chasing something that won’t stay together. A drone, a kite, a thought. And I’m there, watching. Doing nothing. Every time I wake up, my heart is racing because I know—I know—I’m a bystander again.”

He looked up at me, eyes too earnest for his ridiculous face. “I think my mind made you chase me because it was easier than admitting I was the one running.”

The heat pressed down harder, as if the sky were listening.

“So I’m your punishment,” I said.

“No,” he said immediately. “You’re my reminder.”

I laughed, sharp and humorless. “You don’t get to turn my life into your moral lesson.”

“I know,” he said. “That’s why I didn’t knock. That’s why I didn’t speak. I just… watched. And then I dreamed. And then I felt sick with it.”

We stood there, right below our two windows facing each other in daylight.

“I talk to you in the dreams,” he said softly. “Because I never did when it mattered.”

Something inside me twisted. I thought of the long days, the way I’d walked just to feel time pass. Of how absurdity did feel lighter than despair. Of how easy it would be to let him keep talking, keep projecting, keep giving me a shape that required nothing from me.

“So what if you keep dreaming about me,” I said, “what do you want me to do?”

He hesitated. “I want you to turn around.”

“In the dreams?”

“In life,” he said.

I rolled my eyes. “I can’t be your absolution.”

His smile returned, smaller now, sadder. “I don’t want you to be.”

We stood in silence. The cicadas screamed. Somewhere above us, two opposite windows stared blindly into the sun.

“I should go,” I said.

He nodded. “You always do.”

I took a step toward my building, then stopped.

“Do you remember,” I said slowly, “any dreams where I don’t run?”

His eyes brightened. “Yes.”

“What happens?”

“You don’t run,” he said. “You just keep walking until I can’t see you anymore.”

I stared at him. “You need help.”

He beamed, stepping back. “I do have an appointment!”

I turned away.

The earphones tapped against my thigh, counting my steps home.