A Dream.

My best dream. It was like Heaven.

My version, at least.

I stood in the center of a pine wood. Not like the pine woods down South, where spindly trees hunch together and stretch their shaking limbs into acid earth or torrid sky. This wood smelled like winter. Clean. Sharp. The trees towered above my head, so that all around me, trunks, like pillars of bark and lichen, paraded into the clear, deep-filtered depths of forever. The ground was thick with fallen leaves, bright with the crimson and gold, glowing greens and deep purples of autumn. The air was cool and fresh, like a long sip of spring water.

And I was different.

The ground was closer than I remembered it. My hands were smaller, warmer, my skin softer, pinker. My blood rushed with energy and light.

I ran. My long-sleeved flannel shirt flapped behind me, my hiking boots pounded the soft ground. I could feel my loose jeans slap against my ankles as I ran. I could feel the wind as I broke through the bright afternoon air. I could hear - laughter. First behind me, then all around - in front, on both sides - as other children surrounded me, running, streaming through the great woods toward the white sunlight between the trees.

A wordless, insane happiness flooded my insides from the bottom up, bursting out of my mouth in peals of laughter as we raced through the forest, abandoned to the wild fire within.

I laughed. I shouted. I screamed, for the joy inside me. My body strained with the pressure of holding in my joy, until my soul hurt from the happiness. And I was never tired.

A fallen tree, half-decayed, lay on its side in my path, its giant roots climbing into the air. I swerved toward it, running so fast the ground flashed by in a carnival blur. The instant my foot touched the mouldered wood, I was rushing to the end, climbing the pile of roots and sod and - I jumped off the edge.

And flew.

Arms spread to the wind, head back, hair flying. How many yards? I don't know. Forever collapsed, like a glorious black hole, into one moment.

And I hit the ground, legs pumping. And kept running.