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Asleep
July 26, 2006
I am dreaming climbing slowly up the stairs in the house where I grew up. I stand on the landing. All its doors are closed. I open my bedroom door. The glow of the gasfire, and my hearthrug like a shaggy dog’s coat. On hands and knees I go and bury my face in its tickly softness. In the bed a human form – the top of a child’s head, her sleep-swept hair just visible on the pillow. I know that it is me. And that I mustn’t wake her. I creep, stealthy as a parent on Christmas night, to the door.
by Polly Blackley
Categories: Short Shorts
Polly Blackley
qarrtsiluni 
A fantasy, though sadly never a real dream of mine. To see myself so small and helpless, and to offer hope and comfort. Thank you, this is beautiful.
Oh, cool dream! The sensual details – the burrowing in the soft, shaggy-dog rug – things a child would sense, while at the same time experiencing the parent’s view of the sleeping child with sleep-swept hair. Wonderful.
This is one of those dreams that just cries out for interpretation, isn’t it? But I like the way you have left all that up to the reader.
Fascinating – you lead me toward musing on the idea that we are our own parents, in a way. It’s a very simple retelling of the dream, but there’s a lot in here.