Dreams are doorways

"We always were,

aware in infinite essence.

a loop of forevers

kept away by dreams"

.

Wall to wall ceiled in mosaic tile, it sprawled the rest of the upper limit of the long hall in vertical fashion. Examining the expert carpentry of the wooden doors and stray shadows of the windows cast by the moon from outside, Salima wondered what strange place she found herself.

She stood up but fell back into her seat as her feet detected motion, tacit motion tilting her softly backwards.

Looking around to see she was sitting on the last of the row of royal blue seats, like decks of tall blue cards, in front of her and to her side on the right, all empty, not a single breath of anything living occupying the spaces.

In baffling might, she breathed on the fogged glass and wiped for a clearer view.

The sky was purple and clouds pink, the light of the moon so daring it made the view as clear as a cloudy day. The motion was slow, permitting she switched glances between the two hills the train was sandwiched. there were dwellings hewn out of the mass in numbers, their doors were round wood with vine trailed handles.

she realized she was on a train, a retro styled one and alone in it.

It wasn't the spooky kind of alone, it was one of choice, the greed of wanting such a view only to oneself.

The view soon opens to wavy black water reflecting the night lights. the rail lines seemed to be built on air, over opaque roofs beneath the height as she felt so high above the ground, looking over rooftops, lit rooms throwing their light through windows imprinting a shaky impression on the water rocked by the cold night air.

"You are so fixed on the view, you desert me of your voice." She turned to see the seat beside her was suddenly occupied by a presence, there was a screen and she didn't see a face but heard the voice of a man.

The presence was familiar, she knew it.

"one day we'll have a house in the middle of many flowers, far from the noise of the world. when we need a break, we'll go there. In a cabin opened to the view of water. We can see sun sink on it's face like that and at night we see the moon. Don't you think?" The presence suggested.

"Yes, I think.

and how do you know everything I like?" She strained her sight to see whoever it was, it failed. unfathomable to sight.

" Perhaps, I have come to love you and all that you love "

Salima still looked at the euphoric views, it had to be a dream. like some futuristic scene.

"Who are you and why can't I see you?" her hand reaches out to touch empty vapor.

"Fate. Time. It's kept us away "

The presence vanished together with the train view, all was black and then it was no longer in the euphoric water place, It was now a balcony looking out to scarlet rooftops of other houses cascading rain water down. she watched the pouring water, wanting to reach out for the cool drops and she saw her hands unfree, an infant latched onto her, head buried into her chest. a hand was resting on her shoulder from behind and she asked.

"Who are we? Where is this?"

"Us. the future"

The whole view narrowed into a black point, the faceless infant and voice fading with it. A force overcast her and she was swept backward through a tunnel and back in the lodge room, the only familiar thing she had seen since. looking out the window, tracing the rain beaten windows. She smiled a smile of content before feeling a rough tap.

"Wake up!"

Her eyes opened to a fearful Anisa's rigorous shaking and Bushra standing behind her, holding a cup with an obvious apprehension on her features that eased as Salima glanced questioningly at her, salima did not want to believe Bushra's intention was to pour water over her face with the low degrees of that morning.

"Thank God you are alive" Bushra dropped the cup, hugging her.

Salima was still surprised, what the hell had happened.

"We have done all possible best to wake you up from sleep, you were so still and calm in it that we thought. . . you were gone" the tremor In Anisa's voice trailing off and the way she held her chest like steadying her heartbeat of imagining what it could have been if it was what their minds conceived that had happened.

"I was only sleeping, nothing happened" she answered brief, looking outside to see the clearing day. For an early riser that awakened with dawn, it was a surprise she slept away juvenile day.

"But you never slept like this, you wake up earlier than any of us, you are our living alarm clock"

Bushra still shocked said.

" I was dreaming " she remembered once in the boarding house when she had slept long, Habiba said they did all possible things to wake her up and had given up till she rose herself. Salima had been dreaming that day too, it was as though she transported in physical to another realm, the realm of dreams.

"At least you can hear me speak, ghosts don't talk. I am fine." she peeled off the thick blanket, leaving her bed to try to catch up the time slipped in reckless sleeping,

or rather in her secret sweet dreams.

" Since we know now that you're well and fine. Alhamdullah. It's past six am and you have classes by eight. You know how to do your thing sharply that you do not end up in the back seat"

" We couldn't even eat" Bushra peeled plantain like a seasoned chef and Anisa plugged the heater.

" If you want Lipton,I can share"

Anisa said to Salima who was shivering from the cold, she wasn't patient enough to heat up water and had rushed a bath.

"I would have loved to but taking liquids anytime after six, I would spend the first periods of morning looking for available restrooms."

Salima said through clattering teeth.

" And it is as easy as taking excuse to relieve yourself, what's so hard about that?" sizzling sound of hot oil filled out the seconds before Salima answered.

" You don't know social anxiety, that's why" she was forcing the last dollop of cream, rubbing her hands.

" May be social anxiety but you are too relaxed in your own self that you resist any change, situations won't always favor you,no matter how much you try to control it, be flexible. you have to adapt" Salima had said the same words some few years back to Habiba, to adapt. It was funny how she had adapted every curve ball life had thrown yet the little issues still crippled her.

"what if even after denying yourself any drink , you still feel like peeing what would you do?" Bushra posed another question to her, it must be something she got to jab at her whenever she's chanced.

" I would simply hold it, it is easier if I didn't drink anything at all"

"Keeping your mouth firm for long after eating without water, imagine what comes after" Bushra laughed.

"That's why I never lack mint, see"

She showed them proudly, her collection of gums. mint chewing gums.

"You're such a character Salima. You never cease to amuse me.

How would you deny yourself water for the sake of avoiding asking for permission in class, do you want to die of dehydration?"

" I don't avoid water, I only drink as early as five so I can use our bathroom as much as my system pushes out before going to class, but today I woke up late"

" What about the times your classes last till evening, "

"I make very good use of my lesson breaks. When I would leave class like many others" Bushra choked on her plantain.

" Are you enjoying poking fun at me?"

Salima figured it was Bushra's way of showing delight to her that she woke up fine.

" I'm not poking fun, you are the joke. Just hear you"

" You just love talking to me, admit it"

Salima said to Bushra, pinning her skirt securely.

"It's got to be something for you to be so happy in the morning.

this is a good change, you sleep like like a log and wake up as rosy as blooming sunflowers.

If whatever grace has cultivated you should go with me till the end of semester, I'll pass my grades without breaking sweat"

Said Anisa with a half smile.

" Am I not always like this?"

" No you're not, you're always like a grumpy old cat who loathes the world and everyone in it"

Salima bit her tongue from spilling her dream, only nodding sideways as a response without saying any more word. She ate quietly her slice of bread seeing she still had time to make up for waking up late.

With their things kept in place, hurrying out for the day and all that would come with it. Salima inhaled the last smell of her comfort zone before throwing gum in her mouth, it would suffice for her till she came back again to the repose of her room.

doors locked and keys tucked away. salima sure of the extra keys in her bag repositioned it around her shoulder.

They went their ways and salima looking at her watch knew she might have to take a run on the short road to get a seat at least somewhere in the mid row.

**

"I told you would see the world through my eyes, here are the pictures. Assume you were there"

the pictures were numerous as she scrolled her gallery. Habiba had sent many of them. Her visits to many places and the historical site was the one that pulled Salima's attention most. The pyramids of Giza, she zoomed in and looked again and again. It fascinated Salima, things past. Imagining possibilities of what life was and how people lived. The leap of humanity from gatherers to civilized tribes conquering every space. If she had her way she could have studied archeology part time and psychology too or even maybe history just for the fun of it.

Her phone buzzed with a notification and she saw it was the expectant video call from Habiba, swiping sideways the receive icon she was faced with one human she had first cultivated trueness with.

"So why are you grinning like that?"

Habiba asked, she was dressed in a tie-dye gown with a deep purple headgear and some forehead hair out and styled with gel.

"It's been long that's why and... did you do all these for just a video call"

"Video call with you? Nah.."

"Then Taif? "

"No, he's never seeing me in this kind of minimal dress till he earns it."

"Then for who?"

" Me, Idiot. I was just trying out some diy makeup hacks in the repose of my room. Looking good for myself because I have nothing doing for now, my brother, his wife and kids are out of the house."

"oh. . . Should I believe you?" she wanted to annoy Habiba with her fake suspicion.

" Don't you trust me. I'm still saint. Besides your feminist principles forbids dressing up just to catch the male eye. Trust me, when I'm out I only make use of my powder, gloss and kohl"

" I have said it time and again, I'm not feminist"

" Or maybe a misandrist would suit you better"

"Misandry is a loosely thrown around term. Avoidance and keeping distance with the other gender are deeply rooted fears, if you meet the real misandrists, I doubt you'll be able to stand them, sometimes, it is borderline narcissistic tendencies"

Habiba nodded, she always had new things to learn from Salima.

" Whatever it is, hate is not a healthy thing to live with, allow yourself experience something. being locked up does more harm than good"

" Fall in love or don't, be friends with people or not. You're still going to be hurt. So it doesn't change anything"

deliberating a little, she added

"and not every man is your daddy, ok."

" I don't want to talk about this so can we talk about your pictures and Egypt." Salima brushed off the talk.

" Egypt is as sunny as for now and those pictures were taken quite a while back. My brother and his family took me along for sightseeing. It was fun and I wish you were here"

In a jesting tone, Salima said

" No you don't."

" How's school?

Are you coping with medicine?" She asked concerned.

"how many times do we have to talk about that, classes, lectures. Everytime. " Habiba gave a bored eye roll.

" Then what should we talk about, boys?"Salima asked with a shoulder shrug

"Things that happen in school, all you've experienced."

"I'm always in my room" came Salima's simple response.

"Ok how are your roommates?. Pray Anisa doesn't bother you much because I'll kill her"

"Anisa is my buddy here. library and literature buddy.

My roommates are good, I'm even the most annoying of them. And Bushra is the funny bone, just once a while when the seriousness becomes overbearing. "

"So nothing about you, if you know what I mean. What's new?"

"I'm still the old Salima you left here though I get along with classmates we grab snacks together sometimes and we have discussions, nothing personal"

" So they're all girls?"

" Yes they are. And I talk to boys, for academic discuss. They are good, decent."

" And no one's talked to you?"

With curiosity Habiba asked.

" Yes they do for assignments sake or practicals or to inform me of changed venues"

" Urrgh, stop being a spoil sport. You can't tell me you didn't encounter anything like attraction even once"

Salima could have told her about Fareed and his games just for the talk of it, but reconsidered he probably wasn't worth her time, her precious data.

" Can we say something else, please. I'm tired of boys becoming floor of all my talks"

" Say something that makes you sound human not some programmed robot that chews data and spits boring facts. enough of science tell me something I want to hear"

" I dreamt today"

" A good one?" she asked and Salima nodded in the positive.

" I think I would love to hear that. What was it about? "

" I was alone in an empty train and it was night. I look through the windows and see so many beautiful ancient styled houses, like in the movie Hobbit."

Twinkling lights in her eyes, Habiba's interest was roused.

"Then there's this river, where the rail looks over houses. It was of unimaginable beauty "

Habiba was all ears with full concentration.

"The view vanishes and I am at a balcony holding a sleeping child, there's this man standing behind me with a hand on my shoulder and tells me 'us' 'the future'. The whole thing narrows to black point and I am back in the lodge room before waking up"

counting seconds stretching into a moment of quiet reflection eventually broken by Salima

" what are you thinking? "

Habiba seemed disinclined to share her mind, with a drooping eye and small smile, of guilt. Salima read her face and thought if what she had shared could have drawn any kind of sadness.

" You seem to believe your dreams, don't you?" Habiba asked staring intensely at the screen, one wonder of civilization that made them face to face despite being miles apart on same continent.

" Somehow I dreamt my father walked away before he did and he did." Nothing flashed in her eyes as she spoke her father's name, he no longer had any place with her, she had lived long enough with the open wounds that to her, he was just a man, a man she had been fated to come to the world through.

"Perception. your mind is quick to sense" like some looming unacceptable truth, Habiba professed and the seriousness with which she spoke, Salima could have thought her a trained therapist.

"It was your fear. That you saw how disconnected he was from you and was drifting. You knew but refused to believe and those thoughts you had shut away came as your dreams. The truth you refused to know"

" I never told you this one"

Salima swallowed her dry throat, her invisible Adams apple moved upward and then down, with caution of treading buried grief.

" A month before my grandma passed. I saw her in my dream, dressed up and younger and she told me she was going somewhere. I wanted to go with her and she refused telling me it was far away and she was never coming back. She turned her back and since that dream till after she was deceased, I couldn't gather myself. The horror of seeing such a dream." reminiscing her grandmother's cold body, melancholy threatening to overload her senses.

"Don't judge me for what I'm about to say" plead Salima, Habiba was a friend she could bare her truth to but the thing she was about to reveal was a hefty one on the tongue.

" You know I never do that to you, not when you're sharing something as sensitive as this"

" I was partly guilty that my negative thoughts had killed her. I wonder if my mind is that full of evil thoughts, that it hurts other people."

Habiba was apprehensive, fingers tapping on the table, as she repositioned her tablet, listening.

"It is whispers of the evilness of soul, I know I wasn't supposed to think like that. I'm even more guilty that I thought something as grievous as that" with her confession came a lightness of mind.

"All decrees concerning life and death rests in the Hands of Allah, No one has the power over such, so that dream definitely has nothing to do with instincts. It is a lot more than the mind can comprehend. "

Salima knew that too and shook head in acceptance of what she had already told herself.

" I have no knowledge regard dreams"

Quiet reflection again and Habiba spoke

"You know my brother is really keen on the human psyche, he's obsessed with dreams too. he had always loved the stories of prophets, especially the prophet who was blessed with the knowledge of interpreting them. He would bore his wife and myself all in the attempt to make us see the wonder of dreams. I started to think of the things you had told me but I never asked him. Didn't want to reveal our secret"

Salima no longer considered her ill luck a secret. Her family was messed up and there was nothing to hide about it.

"There are three origins of dreams. your inner most wish, whispering from devils and inspiration from God.

So sometimes it might be the working of your mind and let's focus on that one to avoid misleads. We shouldn't speak much of what we have vague knowledge of "

Salima was in agreement. She too had been digging up the net. She had found e-books, summaries and references to the first book of dreams, by an Eastern scholar, Ibn Sireen, Saved up in her internet bookmark with many like it. She read, though still undecipherable, ideas of what dreams conveyed. She wondered the most, why she was a frequent dreamer, the dreams had become part of her. It was like a voice from the inner, a mapped working for navigating her fogged life. She was thankful, for all that she hadn't. She wanted to believe she had a gift.

"The mind is one powerful tool, there, lies answers. perhaps meaningless fantasies, resonance of buried memories, bearing of a glad tiding, dreams can also be prophetic." Scientifically proven, Salima had read of prophetic dreams.

"Drawing from the aspect, where it comes from your mind the way it works. You remember I had told you that you dream of the things you think most of"

Habiba paused then resumed talking

" The euphoric water place is the escape you run into from the fractured reality. Perhaps, a place your mind creates that makes you feel safe from the life you hate to face daily. You had always loved the moon and fancied solo night trips, so we could say that one too" Habiba saw the slouch in Salima's posture,

A tinge of disappointment on her face then it disappeared.

" Then this man whom you see could be a fantasy, an effigy projection of the kind of person you want to end up with. And the baby, your balcony and rain are summed up as the things you would love to have. Your idea of a perfect,pacific life."

" He called me Qamar, what does that mean. I never imagined any one renaming me from Salima to Qamar. "

Salima had always thought her parent never gave much thought before naming her, they just gave a name because they had to.

Iman meant faith, it was sweet to pronounce, perhaps well thought by her mother and she was just Salima, coined from the word Salam, peace.

"Qamar means moon, moon is lofty and sole in existence. Though I don't know what that means "

"If this is from God, maybe he would see you as an anchor, a light to his existence"

There was an undeniable feeling of eupathy, though Salima pinned her face from bursting in squeals of a possibility that a dream could be a near-future reality.

"And whenever I wake up, I get this good feelings. I have no aches. like painkillers induced in my blood"

"Dopamine. Happy chemicals, it does the trick" all her hopes was broken down to mere biochemistry by Habiba and she saddened a little.

" Of course Salima, you could be a light. You're true and too honest even with yourself and I think that's a rare valuable thing. To the ones you hold dear you swear allegiance for life. a good friend you have been and your beauty comes from your softness, to empathize. And to any one who would see that, you are Qamar. "

Habiba's apprisal did nothing to silence the roaring storms in her mind.

" I do not wish to dispel the authenticity of your dreams but clinging to something like that. You might hurt yourself with fantasies, hopes of what doesn't even exist" Habiba turned glassy eyed.

"You are so alone and retreat to your mind, you console yourself with everything you never had. You don't even deserve this. no one does" she broke into soft sobs and salima couldn't reason the cause of it. It was selfish she was offended, she had only shared a dream, then why was she crying? Habiba saw her as some tormented person badly wanting to be told that the imaginary gleam of light was a farce only in her head.

A single drop came down her left eye and she wiped it quick. There was no need crying, there was no need being the cause of someone else's cry, she abhorred indulging people in pity. It was pathetic she was always making people see her in piteous light and she hated it.

"I don't know why you are even crying, I wouldn't want Taif thirsting for my head because I made his love cry" her joke worked and two of them had soft giggles dispelling the sober. Quickly dried eyes followed with smiles.

"You cry so often these days. what's happening to you?"

"Love heightens your empathy, I heard so." Habiba's wet eyes black with melted mascara.

"how do you know?"

"You just know it.

and salima you would know it when it comes."

" how true?"

" So true he's knows I'm worth the wait. To be decent with my dignity and would only take it the right way, not sneaking into the dark like ashamed of his love but in front of the world, taking the solemn band of marital-hood.

So true he doesn't see me to love me for what I am to him but who I am for myself. He doesn't have to know me by my body type. I'm more than a pretty face to him, he loves through my soul and sees right through.

Salima I feel this connection, it's so unreal I'm beginning to believe the concept of soulmates. the moment I open my mouth to speak, he completes my words like he lives in there, like we've known each other for ages we don't even have to try so hard to love, it comes as natural as the loving oneself. when he was created perhaps, I was made from his rib"

The spark in her eyes still shone, same light, stronger than the first spark Salima had seen the day she had first told her of her love life. She had no fear for her friend, she knew she was in good hands.

"That being said, I know yours will be more than this. I'm assured of it, pray it doesn't drive you to a point of madness."

Salima stopped for some seconds before saying

"That's never happening. I don't know why you have such high hopes for me"

Love possibly existed but for the lucky few and she was not the lucky few

" Some are lucky to meet the love of their lives first encounter and marry.

I already like this Taif for loving my friend. I feel the truth for you"

" So here's a game"

Habiba suggested,

"let's assume your dreams are true, like clues you are putting together. Note whatever you see repetitive. write them down, those puzzle pieces and we would put them together piece and piece. Maybe we get lucky to meet someone who meets our criteria and walla! We found prince charming"

It was a welcome joke for Salima.

"And if we don't, we would have something to laugh about or tell to your kids, or your future man. You would show him the caricature of what you thought he would be"

A future with a man and kids was still alien but Salima could think it.

" It's interesting, filtering a fiction to fit someone who probably doesn't exist"

" Maybe he does, just maybe. We never know"

" I'll see you some other time"

" Yes we talk too much for people who are charged for speaking with data rates"

" I've exhausted two weeks subscription"

Salima would wish upon the stars for the day when she wouldn't be so thrifty. the day she stopped living penny by penny.

" See you, some other day. And you better have something interesting to tell" the screen went blank and salima had kept her phone aside.

Leisurely throwing herself back in to the space of her bed unoccupied by books, her bed was a mess. she would take care of it some time after her rest.

She let herself stream the subconscious, saccharine dreams.

what could it be?.

imagining a life of belonging, to be accepted just for being she. To be human, to feel human.

could she accept it if she got it?

For how long would it take to come? How true was it? Had it ever come before her eyes and she couldn't see?

There was the way the language of the universe is revealed, through faces, names, gestures, dreams.

Coincidences.

She would search through every face she had seen, perhaps she might catch a resemblance, every name she's come across, what alphabet did his name begin with. The voice, yes the voice. She felt slowly it would become known some way.

She found herself blossom with a sweetness of chest and she smiled. Ease, breathing was ease.

if it was a lie, then she would live in it while it lasted, a lie felt sweet for the first time. And some of her prayed it wasn't.

A ring of a phone cut the silent retreat of her daydreaming, she grumped, it was rarely that she had rest periods. She had wanted that day talking only to Habiba and to sleep next. It helped her cramps. the phone vibrated the mattress, too lazy to pick up herself, her free hand roamed the piled up bed looking for her phone and the moment her hands caught it, she brought it to her face and again, like a coincidence

The sore thumb that has been up her nostrils, Fareed.

He had left numerous text, she hadn't replied. Every 8pm he would never miss a call, she never answered any.

She was a hard nut to crack and it bemused men like him who loved challenges, to conquer, to defeat.

She wondered if he hadn't had the last of his pride trampled by her and why after a week of no calls from him, he had given a surprised call on the afternoon of her daydreaming.

A huge coincidence.

Her phone was still ringing. She mused, if she was wrong for being such a snub, for doubting why a man who looked like he could have the whole world of girls, girls who were pretty was running after her and for the first time, she picked her phone, to at least give him some self-respect lessons, if he hadn't been taught.

"Hello" came the husky voice from the other side.

"Hi Fareed."