Dream Link

By Francesco Armada

Chapter 2

I get home after another long day. Tonight, I couldn't finish watching the sunset because another topic chose to occupy my mind. The man with the different colored eyes would not leave my thoughts. The fact that he would often appear in my dreams, and then I saw him in real life, shows me that he is real. I felt the same feeling of longing, but also a sense of security. This is obviously strange because I have never actually met the man. I want to initiate something with him because I want to get to know him better. I’m not sure if he saw me or even knows if I exist.

Wouldn’t it be weird if I just opened up with, “So are you the man in my dreams?”

That would be horrible, just thinking about it makes me lose my cool. I need to calm down. I need to think about this logically. Maybe I could do this in a way that makes me comfortable. What if I draw him and then post it on my socials? That could actually work. I get my materials and grab my drawing pad. I imagine the man with the different colored eyes as best as I can. I remember his left eye is white and his right eye is blue. He has brown hair and a more pale-ish skin tone. I can fully remember his facial structure and……. Done.

Looking at the digital drawing, I know I did a good job when the likeness is uncanny. I upload the drawing and post it on my socials with a title that reads, “Drew someone that I recently saw, tell me if it looks like you.” It took me a while to figure out what to put for the title. Could I have mentioned that the man appeared in my dreams? Should I have mentioned where I saw him to narrow it down? I decided that the best way to go about this is simply. Like most things in life, when things are dumbed down to the simplest form, things often go your way. Not sure if that’s true for everyone or if it's just exclusively some people. I think I’ve put enough mental stress on my mind, so a nap seems in order. I’ll get back to whoever texts me after I clear my mind with some quality sleep. 

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Late at night, I hear a ping from my phone that is resting on my kitchen table. At this point, it’s about 11 at night, and the last thing I expect is a notification. Checking my phone, it's from a drawer/painter I found online and followed. This person (I have no idea what gender they are) makes paintings of the sunset and will doodle and draw stuff to post online. I imagine this person also makes a profit out of selling the artworks they post on social media. Whether this is their full-time job or just a hobby is beyond my knowledge.

Scrolling to see the new post, you can see in the blur of photos passing by different vibrant colors, most likely from paintings of sunsets, and gray and white drawings jumbled among the photos. I attempted to draw something at one point. I’m not very good with articulate hand movements, and that’s actually how I found out. I don’t have some kind of disorder, but like I just never had that eye for particular things. I think even if I did, my hands wouldn't be able to actually perform the action that my eyes would hypothetically see. I like to think I perform better with thinking. My mind will often go off into the distance and think too much right before I go to sleep. This is probably some kind of symptom of ADHD. I was told growing up that I would make a good lawyer because I would often go into debates knowing more than I should have at the age of 13.

Despite having an older mother, I managed to find myself online a lot of the time. The way I see it, the internet can be good or bad depending on who’s using it and how they are using it. People with a general negative view on this subject (or any subject for that matter) and don't have the information needed to even grasp the full view of the topic, tend to get me frustrated. My biggest enemy in my adult life is misinformation. Misinformation comes about because people will either only look at something from one angle or, if they are misinforming on purpose, just like to twist the truth. People who misinform people who don’t know better than to believe are a prime example of how, in this day and age, truth is relative. With the right context or explanation, anything can be explained. A rather silly example of this is, what do you think the person who discovered milk by milking a cow was thinking? With the context of today and how important milk is, it might be overlooked. Now, think about what people thought of the person who milked a cow for the first time. Probably not very good. 

Snapping out of my internal debate, I see the post that had notified me at 11 at night. It’s a drawing of a person, and almost an instantly recognizable person at that. I look at the drawing that has an uncanny likeness to me. I look in the mirror next to me and back at the drawing. Part of me is almost blown away at how realistic it is. The different colors of the eyes are almost exact, and the facial structure makes me feel uncomfortable; it's so similar. “Is this level of realism and likeness even possible from a human artist?” I accidentally say out loud. Reading the title of the post, it reads: “Drew someone that I recently saw, tell me if it looks like you.” I ponder if I should send a dm to the artist with a photo proving it's me. The thought that it could be some new kind of scam I had never heard of crossed my mind. Scammers are getting smarter and smarter past years, making it hard to tell. I would not be surprised if, by sending a photo of myself or sending a confirmation dm, I might have my data stolen.

I decided to work this out after I had attempted to get some sleep