BLIND | DreamSMP

XXIV - A Thousand Lifetimes

When Phil slept, he dreamed.

It was something he couldn't help but do, a natural inclination that had plagued him as far back as he remembered. No matter what he ate, drank, or slept on, when the curtains of night drew close and he shut his eyes there were always colors and sounds, sensations that toed the line of reality but never fully crossed, illusions that bordered on being tangible. Worse still, they weren't the abstract mish-mash of thoughts and experiences played out in a relaxed and empty mind; no, Phil dreamt only of the past.

When he was younger, the dreams were about mundane activities he had completed during the day: hauling water, hunting for food, sewing new clothes, making additions to his small shelter. It was one of those mundane mornings that, on his usual trek into the surrounding woods, longbow in hand, he happened upon something decidedly not usual. 

A woman, her skin earth-brown and her hair black as coal, sat under the shade of a hickory tree, dragging her nails through the soil with a contented expression. She looked up as Phil stood there, staring, and startled, jumping to her feet, which were bare and caked with dirt. 

That was when he noticed she wore no clothes, which made heat rise to his cheeks and his gaze quickly dart upwards above her bosom to meet her own dark, luminous eyes. 

Phil thought that might have been the moment he fell in love for the first time; seeing the curiosity and apprehension that shone within those eyes, the inquisitive tilt of her narrow face, the slight smile that graced her thin lips.

Phil hadn't come into contact with another person in nearly ten years, not since he had left his family and struck out into the wilderness on his own, as was the custom of his tribe, and he remembered being nervous to speak, worried he would trip over his words and ruin the moment, but as he tried to ask her where she had come from, he realized she could neither speak nor understand him. 

So instead, he held out his hand; an invitation. 

She laid her slender fingers on his with a grin.

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The woman did not have a name, so he gave her the title Hickory, after the tree he had found her under. Phil dreamt of her every night, yet when he awoke beside Hickory in the morning it was like he was rediscovering something breathtaking all over again. 

Slowly, he taught her words and phrases, making up gestures along with them so she could use the language. Hickory learned fast, and after a year she could hold her own in a conversation with Phil. 

She taught him words too, ones for the trees and the smell of the rain and the warmth of the earth. He cherished the special gestures like they were gold, because when he used them she smiled, and whenever she smiled, Phil fell even more in love with her.

Ten years passed in quiet bliss. Hickory had faint creases around her eyes and nose and thin streaks in her hair, but nothing could diminish her beauty to Phil, who was aging right alongside her. 

Sometimes Hickory would trace the lines of his face while Phil played with her thick black tresses, running his thumb over the faint gray hairs, and in those moments nothing else mattered to him.

They never married; two rings and a promise couldn't begin to convey what they felt for each other, and it would've been insincere to pretend. 

Perhaps, though, they should have conducted the ceremony anyway, for it would've given Phil something to hold on to after Hickory fell ill.

It started with a light cough that became heavy and rattled Hickory's frame in the winter; and for three winters more it stayed that way, until during the fourth it didn't melt away in the spring and instead lingered in her chest.