Post 9: In Dreams

Okay, free writing.  I can’t make myself write for anything, so now I have to say nothing until I come up with something to say.  I promised my sister I would update my blog.

So I’ll start with dreams.  I’ve had some great dreams lately that would make stellar books, so I’m going to sketch out a few ideas in case I ever get around to novelizing. 

Dream the first, slightly embellished:  I fall in love with Barack Obama. 

It is wartime, somewhere overseas with forests and cold autumns.  I am caught behind enemy lines after a surprise attack that moved the front several miles behind me and cut off all direct lines to safety.  I am a reporter embedded with an army unit, but they have all been killed and I am alone.   I am doing my best to survive in a bombed-out wasteland, but I am lonely, scared, and cold. 

Enter Barack.  He was giving a speech to the troops (a terribly classified effort – only his top advisers knew he would ever be this close to the front lines), when the same offensive that trapped me left him stranded with only one or two secret service agents, who were bringing him back to Air Force One in a Humvee.  They were hit by a roadside bomb.  Now it is just Barack and me.  We find each other and join forces.  He looks particularly handsome in a brown leather bomber jacket.

As the days pass, we move as silently as we can from shelter to shelter, hiding place to hiding place.  We forage for food, taking turns keeping watch at night.  We have only one gun with a few bullets, and using it will give away our position to the enemy.  I feel a great civic duty to keep the president safe and make sure he is not killed or captured.  Sometimes we are trapped in one place for several days at a time, unable to get any closer to home without being discovered.

To pass the time, we talk.  About everything.  Our lives, our families, our dreams for what America will be again when the war ends.  The more I learn, the more I respect him.  He is earnest and serious, but has a wry sense of humor and a self-deprecating charm.  I can see that I surprise him in my determination to survive, and it is my cheerful attitude that keeps him going.

One day we find a building that still has running water, and it is like a holiday and a spa day wrapped into one glorious chance to finally be clean again.  He keeps watch outside the building, but he underestimates how long it will take me and catches me in only a towel.  For the first time I can tell he is attracted to me, but he gallantly averts his eyes and apologizes.  I begin to look at him differently.  He is my only link to my country, my home, and my future.  But he is married.  I will not abandon my values.

I stop calling him Mr. President.  We become more familiar, huddling for warmth at night.  Nothing else happens between us.  But we talk for hours and hours.  I start believing that no one will ever know either of us the way we know each other.  We talk about the future as if it is something we will share together.  I start to let myself daydream that he will always be the biggest part of my life.

And then suddenly one day, rescue comes.  We are surrounded by an entire platoon.  They rush to secure the president and whisk him to safety.  We don’t even have a brief moment to say goodbye.  As he is helped into the back of a truck, orders being shouted everywhere around him, his eyes seek mine. 

His look is an offer.  He will leave all of that to stay with me -- to be with me.  My eyes are clear as I meet his gaze.  I will not allow him.  He will return to his family, and to the nation that needs him.  We will never meet again.

His small smile is an acknowledgement of his duty to go, and my duty to let him -- but it is tinged with sadness and regret.  As the truck leaves our rescue site, I allow a soldier to wrap a blanket around my shoulders and lead me away.