I had always been able to preserve my freedom to a satisfactory extent. At the very least, I had been able to keep my sanity for a fraction of the night. But I had never, in the deepest crevices of my rampant imagination, anticipated that someone could stop me from dreaming.

I stretched out under the willow tree and let my mind wander to the days when sleep meant safety. The gently swaying branches and soft lilt of shifting leaves would have comforted me into a land of my own creation, where fears ran away and beauty came out to play.
Winds would kiss my back and send me flying into the air, where I would stay until the stars came alive. My dreams harbored the ability to follow my mind wherever it wished to stray. I read somewhere that it was called lucid dreaming. I just called it relief.
The chirping of birds above me made my nerves quake in agony. I raked my fingers over my arms in an attempt to relieve myself of the pain that clouded my surface. Raised scratches formed over my biceps and transitioned into stinging welts that refused to bleed.
Fire seemed to lick at my sickened mind and burn away the edges of reality. Delusion seeped into my consciousness and gnawed at what used to mental clarity. I reeled in confusion, in agitation, in anger, as fantasy oozed into the gaping holes of my senses.
I was diagnosed with schizophrenia when I was fifteen years old. When the doctors told my mother that I was ill, she broke down into bone-quaking sobs. I remember their words distinctly. I also remember that they sent me into one of my fits.

“It is a severe mental disorder, resulting in the separation in relation between mental, emotional, and physical behavior,” the tall one with John Lennon glasses had said. I don’t recall what else there was to tell, because my mind withdrew right then.

I had one escape, though. One escape from my twisted sense of reality, one train away from the chaos that my mind insinuated on my surroundings: Sleep.

When I dreamed, the twisted chains of turmoil would unravel themselves, and the monsters that fed upon my consciousness retreated. Dreaming was the only time that I had the control to stabilize myself and do as I wished.

I especially loved to fly in my dreams. Soaring over majestic mountains and opalescent oceans relieved me of my constant pain. Sometimes I would look into the face of the sea and see myself for what I truly looked like.

Thick black hair that fell to my waist in flowing curls rather than tangles; skin rather like ivory than wan and waxy; eyes of cool blue skylines rather than the icy depths of insanity. That was who I really was.

Until I lost myself.

The doctor, the same one with the John Lennon glasses and the towering height that reminded me of a skyscraper, gave me the medicine.

“This will ease your confusion,” he said, as I vaguely stared at the blank stretch of wall behind him. His words sank into delusional depths, stretched with his tone, separated from my emotions.

“Focus, Clara,” he sharply said to me. I hated how he treated me like I was stupid, for I was not. I was just a little unwell. I knew that I was okay when my dreams came, and I could think just like any other person. Better, maybe.


“Clara, I am giving this to your mother,” he said slowly, looking not at me, but at the worrisome parent to my left.

“Joanne,” he said to her, “In two month’s time, her symptoms will have eased. This is a new discovery that will change schizophrenia patients forever! It may, in time, cure the disease. However, there is a drawback…”

And the drawback that he described is making the two months until the disease fades a nightmare. The medication paralyzes my mind when I sleep and halts the REM phase of the sleep cycle.

I can’t dream.

The willow danced above my line of vision, and I gripped my arms tighter. Now blood ran down my skin, pale instead of alabaster. I felt angry and confused at the sky, the birds, and the leaves that taunt me.

A scream shattered the broken day. I think it was mine, for I felt something work itself out of my belly and up my back in a fit of ferocity and agonizing pain. My cracked fantasy will swallow my days, and my ill mind will find no relief at night.

I have two months left until my symptoms die. Two months of this terror.
I am bizarre, I feel bizarre, I cannot react to the world that rips me apart. Relief is dead. My entire existence aches until the medication can lull me away.

The willow tree fluttered away over my head as stars erupted from the sky.

I closed my eyes and waited for the burning sensation in my head to stop. The flames continued to lick me. They refused to die. I bade the gentle grip onto my sanity adieu.

For now, goodbye. Until I dream again.