"We were walking around in an aquarium," she stated abruptly.
He looked up from his book. "What?"
"In my dream last night we were walking around in a giant aquarium, looking at fish." She paused for a moment staring off into the specks of light filtering down between the leaves. "It was a very large aquarium and there were other people there doing the same as well."
"What kind of fish did we see?"
She thought for a moment. "Urchins, clownfish, salmon, I don't remember them all. We were talking and the thing that struck me as being really odd was that the clownfish and urchins were in the same tank. The urchins were stuck in the backs of the clownfish, but the fish were alright. They were just swimming around like they normally would in an aquarium setting; there were just sea urchins stuck in their backs."
"Did anybody else notice?" He cocked his eyebrow at her.
"I didn't notice." She closed her eyes. "Nobody else reacted at least."
He nodded. "What was the building like?"
"It was like a maze. There were many tanks: some were small and some were big. All the tanks were swarming with so many fish that they moved in a blur--a colourful one at that. There were many stairs and the floor was a faded brown marble. The ceiling was high and wrought with uncovered steel beams. It was like a warehouse that was very dark, yet illuminated by the movement of the fish in the tanks." She stopped to think. "It was very quiet as well. Unusually quiet. Everybody was just wandering around staring at the tanks like they were hypnotized. When we spoke it was only in whispers. Perhaps nobody wanted to disturb the fish. It was cold and the air was dense. Perhaps we were in an underwater aquarium for people, where the fish keep us in mazes so they could watch our behaviour."
He laughed. "You never know. The ocean is so deep in places that they don't even know what exists at the very bottom. Maybe there's some kind of secret society of fish that are plotting against us. It’s not otherworldly threats we should be worried about--it will come from the depths."
She laughed with him. "A secret order of giant codfish that are plotting our doom from the darkest fathoms of the sea!"
He smiled. "But what of your dream?"
"We were just walking and walking. It seemed as though we kept passing the same tanks, going up the same stairs. There was never an exit visible." She paused to reflect. "It was one of those dreams that keeps going in a loop. That’s what woke me up--I realized that I was stuck in this loop."
"Yes, waking yourself inadvertently when you realize it's only a dream is a shame." He shook his head in a display of sorrow and looked back down at the book that he was holding. He book marked the page and put it off to the side. It was eight PM. She was laying with her head on his legs while they watched the sunset bloom over the horizon in a brilliant display of oranges and reds. A bit of a breeze had stirred since they had decided to sit beneath the tree; leaves fell around them like snowflakes.
She was holding a leaf up and examining it, tracing its veins with her index finger. "It looks like a hand. Look, even the way the veins branch out. Little hands that the tree holds up to the sun to create food for itself. A beautiful offering to the fiery orb--like plumage on a bird..." Her words trailed off into thought while she twirled the leaf around.
He watched her spin the leaf over and over again. It was silhouetted against the horizon and when the leaf was still, he admired the way the light shone through the flesh of the leaf, exposing the flow of arteries within. The leaf entranced them both and soon they fell asleep beneath the tree.
*****
She woke up first with a shiver. The night air was cold. The park was deserted and dark--small circles of light fell only beneath the lamp posts. She sat up and grabbed his shoulder to shake him.
He opened his eyes with a start. "What’s going on?"
"We fell asleep obviously--it's night now."
"I wonder how late it is?"
She shrugged.
He got to his feet and threw up his arms in a stretch. "It seems to be pretty late. I hope the trains are still running."
"We couldn't have slept that long."
He held out his hand to her and pulled her to her feet. "Let’s go."
"Go where?" She looked up at the full moon. It was barely visible through the haze of pollution that hung over the city: the moon was faded to an odd luminescent beige.
He was still holding her hand and after grabbing his book from the grass, pulled her along into one of the circles of light. He took two smokes out of his pack and after lighting one and giving it to her, lit one for himself. "We should go find some food. I’m sure there's a convenience store around here somewhere. Wasn’t there?"
She shook her head. "I don't recall. I don't even recall how to get out of this park."
He turned around in a circle, finally looking upward for the familiar landmarks of the skyline, but there were none: there were too many treetops obscuring the view. "I don't remember either."
She laughed. "How odd."
"Odd, indeed." He spun on his heel and pointed off in a random direction. "We will go that way."
He held her hand as they walked off into the dark regions between each pool of lamplight. There was nothing but silence in the distance. She stopped and cupped her hand to her ear in an attempt to find any minute trace of sound. "It’s like the rest of the world is dead. Perhaps it is much later than we thought."
"It just doesn't feel that late. Come on, let's go find that store because I’m really hungry." He grabbed her by the arm to pull her along. She was standing on the edge of a lamp pool, half of her illuminated, the other half in darkness. He looked up again at the encroaching treetops. The moon had sunk lower and appeared to be bigger. A halo shone around it.
"I don't recall the park being this big." she suddenly laughed loudly into the silence. "I don't even think that we've woke up yet."
"Still dreaming?" He stroked his chin and smiled. "Wouldn’t doubt it at this point. But still I’m hungry; even if it's only dream food, it's better than no food."
"That’s if we can find our way out of this park--look at how crowded the trees have become and the lamps have seem to have become few and farther between." She pointed off into the distance.
He looked in dismay in the direction of her finger. He turned to look the other way. "It’s the same on all sides. How the hell are we going to get out of here?"
"One of us has to wake up obviously."
"But which one of us is dreaming and which is only part of that dream?"
She sat cross-legged on the path. "That’s the tricky part."
He sat down besides her, leaning against the lamp post. "You must be the one who's asleep: my hunger would have woken me up by now."
"True enough, I’m always dreaming about mazes and puzzles." She thought for a moment. "I don't know how to wake myself up. Any ideas?"
A grin crept across his face. "Seeing as we're only dreaming, I can get away with this." He leapt to his feet and grabbed her by the throat and lifted her off her feet, squeezing the life out of her body. She convulsed and struggled, striking him weakly with her fists, kicking at the air.
"Stop... what are you doing?" she gasped. He put her back down on the ground and she rubbed her neck. "Why’d you do that? You could have killed me."
"If we were dreaming, it wouldn't matter."
"But this whole dream thing is pure speculation. We don't know for certain that this is actually a dream." She looked at him with wonder. "What if it's merely a moment of convex reality? What if at this particular time, in this particular place there isn't some kind of flux of gravity that's distorting reality?"
"Do things like that happen?"
"I have no idea. I was just speculating. Existence is too subjective to come to any definite conclusions about it."
"True enough, you perceive things one way, and I another." He reached out and stroked her neck. "I’m sorry about trying to kill you. Nothing personal. Just trying to relieve this hunger." He grinned. "So to speak." He slipped his arms around her waist and pushed her against the cold steel of the lamp post. "Maybe we are in some kind of weird gravitational field--I certainly don't feel like myself--or do I?"
She looked into his eyes and smiled. "Perhaps I don't feel like myself either." She pulled him closer and kissed him.
He leaned back. "Look behind you. Look at the moon," he whispered.
She turned her head and caught its brilliant glow out of the corner of her eye. She was compelled to turn away and bask in the soft glow of its unusually close orbit. He held her from behind and kissed her hair.
"The night is cool, but the moon is warm." She closed her eyes and held her arms out as if to embrace the moon. "I wish it were closer so we could look at every aspect of it. Imagine being able to shoot a grappling gun at the moon and constructing a swing." The image sprung to life behind her eyes. "It would be like flying..."
His arms unwrapped from around her waist and a cool breeze rushed past her back. She turned to find that he was gone. Alone, she was standing in the middle of this park with its claustrophobic trees and receding lights. It was beautiful--but she wanted to weep with loneliness. She fell to her knees and the pavement ripped at her skin. She looked up at the moon which was almost so close now that she could reach out and touch it, grab a handful of moon dust and scatter it into the air.
She closed her eyes and fell into a fit of laughter the way one falls backwards into a swimming pool. And as she fell back into the pool of lamplight that splashed outwards in a frozen wave, she watched the rainbow blur of fish stream around her like a current. She fell slowly to the bottom of the pool and let the seaweed embrace her. She closed her eyes and smiled, breathing the water like air and hoping that no one would wake her up too soon.

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