I had a dream last week that I really should have written down. Now the regrets have started floating in.

As is true with all dreams that have been left out for too long, it's started to evaporate from my mind in the warm summer air.

I was myself, lying awake in my room late at night. The computer screen was on and was filling up with IM message windows, each one heralded with a tiny electronic ping as they beat out a steady rythm over the sound of the tv. The evening news was on, telling of all the wars and mindless deaths, spewing governmental lies clouded over with meaningless hollywood jargon.

I felt sick. I could feel the world decaying around me and I was fading along with it. I had to escape.

I began to pull boxes from my closet, stuffing each one in turn and piling them on my bed until the precarious mound towered overhead (a strange feat seeing as how I have an 8' ceiling).

Then I began to eat.

I picked up a box in each hand and began to consume them one by one. Size and shape didn't seem to matter, I swallowed them all whole. I could taste the contents of each box as I did so. I savored the rich memories and emotions as they all came back to me and with each one I felt more vibrant, more alive. And with each box, I grew. Slowly my head cleared the roof of the house and then the treeline. I kept eating. The world was taking shape before me. I could see the colors again; the life inherent in everything around me. I was looking at the same neighborhood, city, valley and state that I saw everyday but this time, I could feel that sense of awe and wonder returning. I just had to take it all in. I was seeing everything again like it was for the first time. The way the leaves fell from the trees, their reds and browns swirling together in deeps drifts of color. I could see water trickling down from the mountaintops, collecting in pools and streams to feed life into the world below. And most of all, I saw the people; each of them living their seperate lives and yet still connected, affecting one another and the world around them. I could see all of the evils of the newscasts, the carjackings, rapes and murders, but there was good there as well. Every time the dust settled, there were good people there to help pick them up and put them back on their feet. It was then that began to feel hope again.

I'd grown quite large at that point; airplanes were buzzing like gnats in my ears. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a flash of light and I turned. I saw it then, just waiting patiently out there, the rest of the world calling seductively to me. I gently picked up the last of the boxes, now no more than a tiny speck of sand pinched between my fingers. I toss it into the air and catch it like a snowflake on the tip of my tongue. Then, with a sigh and a last glance back at all the places I knew, I turn and wade into the gently rolling waves of the Pacific Ocean and beyond, the lights of distant cities are glimmering like stars on the horizon.