Dreamposting

one evening, as the end of the semester draws near, some friends and I light a fire on the beach. We drink, and we cook smores - the best smores I've ever tasted, in fact - and we shoot the shit. It's fun, but the night is tinged with melancholy. One of my friends will be returning to America, and there's a strong possibility that we'll never see him again. Another may be transferring to study in another country

truth be told, this particular group hasn't been sustainable for a long time. We argue frequently, over incredibly stupid things - more a clash of personalities than of ideologies. We never go anywhere or do anything. In that respect, this fire is special - and, for the first time in a while, the tension dissipates. When night falls and the embers finally burn out, we find ourselves staying up anyway - knowing that this might be the last time we get to do something together. It is, in a way

occasionally, people in #read-shills like to talk about their dreams. It's always dumb, weird stuff that would never happen in real life - "I dreamt that I was Vriska! I dreamt that we were all on a spaceship! I dreamt that Ever17 got removed from the shills list!" - seriously, just search "had a dream" in read-shills, there's over five hundred results. This shit's a gold mine. Makin hates dreamposting - "I'll allow it only because the chat is dead", he once said, only to state "I regret allowing it" immediately after seeing the dream in question. Usually, I'd agree with him; I've always found hearing about people's dreams to be a pretty uncomfortable experience, because there are only two kinds: the kind that's just stupid shit, and the kind that reveals way too much about the person dreaming

after my friends leave, I finally go to sleep, and - for the first time in a long time - I dream. In the dream, I'm back on the beach. The fire is bigger, and there are more people - but my friends aren't there. I realise that these people are all the faceless randos I've been talking to in #read-shills. As everyone talks, Drew stands off to one side - expositing, SPAT-style, about what's happening to Makin over the phone

the moment I realise what the dream is, I hate it. I hate what it says about me - that I somehow prefer these strangers to this group of friends. I wake up immediately. For a brief moment, I consider mentioning the dream in #read-shills. I don't, because I know that - if someone else posted the same dream - I'd hate reading about it. I haven't dreamt since

a couple of weeks later, Drew announces that SPAT will be drawing to a close. He mentions that he'd be interested in seeing people write about '"how the HSD impacted me" or some such / maybe not phrased so dorkish', and I remember the dream. I remember how nebulous it was, how the people were defined not by their faces or voices or their locations - just by their words, and who they were sharing them with