Dreams Involving Love Are Always Like This [Dream Stories, or Seeds for Short Stories #6]

What I saw in my pre-dawn slumber just now was a dream about someone I almost dated a long time ago, but never did. We met at a friend's wedding and hit it off talking about British pop music.

We both had partners at the time. Even so, we would occasionally invite each other out, wander the city, and spend the night together. In the dream, the two of us were sitting across from each other in a dim cafe like lovers, having almost finished our iced coffees. The yellow-green dress she was wearing had short sleeves, which meant it must have been summer.

She rested her cheek on her left elbow and asked, "What should we do after this?" I stayed silent. There were no other customers. She said, "It's almost happy hour, so I'm going to have a beer." Looking out the window, she gave a bitter smile and added, "I'm not sure if we're happy or not, though."

She muttered to herself, "Let's order the olives in oil, too," as she flipped through the pages of a magazine featuring Scandinavia and puffed on her cigarette beautifully. "I want to go to Finland or Norway with you someday," she whispered. Her smoke looked like the white breath you exhale in winter. When I replied, "Yeah, Scandinavia sounds fun," she looked happy.

"Scandinavia has such a stylish image."

"Scandinavian design is popular in Japan, too."

"As for Swedish bands, I think The Cardigans are wonderful."

"If you want raw rock 'n' roll, I recommend Mando Diao."

She said, "Let me listen to them sometime," and the music in the cafe changed. As a lighthearted intro began, she said, "Oh, we listen to this song a lot, don't we?" It was Teenage Fanclub's "I Don't Want Control of You." I said, "Teenage Fanclub is the fourth favorite band in the world to me." She laughed and said, "The fourth, huh?" After that, we both listened to the music in silence.

A soft blanket brushed against my cheek, and I realized this was a dream. Feeling the chill in the air, I remembered hearing that she had already been married twice. Returning to the dream, she asked, "Why won't you go out with me?"

"I'm willing to break up with my current boyfriend."

"We're both the kind of people who cheat on our partners. I don't feel like it would work out."

"Even so, you want to continue this relationship? Doesn't it make me seem like a convenient woman?"

"It's mutual. There are times when I feel like a convenient man to you, too."

I recognize this scene. I then stayed silent, put a few ice cubes from my glass into my mouth, and crunched on them. It tasted like watered-down coffee, and it made me feel sick.

The cafe music changed again. It was a song called "1979" by The Smashing Pumpkins. Even though we listen to this song, which sings about a year long before we were born, quite often, she didn't say anything else. She was smoking her cigarette looking lonely, and my vision began to blur.

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