Day 15 - Flag Story

Flag Story

Matthew Ryan Fischer

Angelo had dreams.  Oh so many dreams.  Sometimes it seemed like he had more dreams than waking hours. 

All men have dreams.  They have hopes and desires – goals which are stated or unstated, realized or unaccomplished.  Angelo had those sorts of dreams too.  He wanted wealth.  He wanted a wife.  At one time he had wanted to do something important like practice politics or invent something practical.  He had a dream of his name in lights and the accompanying fame.  He had the dreams of the common man and sometimes the dream of the wise and successful.

Yes, Angelo had those sorts of dreams, but he had the other dreams too.  The dreaming that comes when something doesn’t seem right, but is more than you can understand.  The dreaming that is found when you are lost.  The dreaming that begins before you sleep and ends long after you awake.  The man who dreams when awake can make those dreams come true.  Angelo thought he could be that sort of man, but he had a problem where he wasn’t always sure when he was awake and when he was asleep.

The dreams always seemed so true.  Sometimes it was hard to wake up from them.  And it was harder yet to forget them.  Angelo wished many of the dreams were true.  Even after he had long since woken and the dreams had faded to near oblivion, he had secret wishes that they would return and take him away.  His dreams could be magnificent.

In one dream he was in a forest.  In another the streets were filled like rivers.  Then there were natives, and then there were none.  Sometimes ships were in the sky, other times he could hardly see at all.

Angelo liked the dreams of people and places he had never seen before, the dreams of the impossible.  He wondered how he could create such vivid images when he had no artistic inclinations during the rest of his days.

Once he had a dream of a land called New Amsterdam.  That was an okay dream.  There were more languages, but the buildings weren’t as tall and there were more parks.  That was a nice dream.

Once he had a dream of a woman.  That had been one of the best.  It felt like it went on forever.  Years even.  When he had woken he had cried that it wasn’t real.  He looked in the mirror and swore his beard was grayer than before.

Angelo hated waking up.  It seemed wrong.  He was always off.  He could never shake the fatigue quickly enough.  His surroundings were not his own and he felt confused for far too long.  He always had hope though; hope that this dream or that dream would turn out to be real.  That it would keep him; keep him locked in its embrace.

Not this time, it would seem.  Angelo shook his head, already forgetting the dream he had just dreamed.  He walked to the window and looked out at his city – cold, flat, and uninviting.  It was the way it always seemed.  He looked to his left to where the flagpole was positioned on the side of the building.  The flag was there – that same fucking flag.  It was always there, whenever  – the stars and bars with that black swastika in the middle.  Angelo knew no other, but he knew so many others.  Angelo felt sick.  He couldn’t wait to fall asleep.