Dreams after the long road

The road felt endless that day.

Dust clung to the windows of the van while the afternoon heat pressed against us like a heavy blanket. Every bump in the road kept shaking my body awake just enough to make rest impossible. For two days, I had barely slept more than six hours. Everything started to feel blurry. Conversations sounded distant and the sunlight felt too bright. Exhaustion sat deep behind my eyes.

When night finally came, and my back felt the daybed, I fell asleep almost instantly.

In my dream, the world was silent.

I found myself standing in the middle of a flooded field. The water was shallow where I stood, cool and crystal clear around my legs, but only a few meters away the land suddenly dipped deeper beneath the flood. Even then, I could still see the grass and crops underwater, gently swaying beneath the surface as if the field had simply fallen asleep instead of drowning.

The flood should have felt frightening, but it did not.

I walked slowly through the water without fear or urgency. There was only silence and stillness.

Somewhere in the distance, I could hear wind moving through invisible trees.

Then the dream suddenly shifted.

I was inside my grandparents house, my current crib. The air smelled like warm wood and quiet afternoons.

My grandfather was there.

Not as a ghost and not in a frightening way. He simply existed there as if time had folded for a moment and allowed me to see him again. He moved quietly near the window and then suddenly, by accident, his hand struck the glass.

The sound cracked through the room.

When he pulled his hand back, blood slowly appeared across his skin, vivid against the soft light. But he did not look angry or afraid. He only looked distant. Quiet. Almost as if he was trying to reach through something that separated memory from the living.

No one screamed. I just stood there and look for a paper towel or something.

The room stayed calm, carrying the same silence as the flooded farm.

Then I woke up, it was 7:30 in the morning.

The exhaustion was still there. The heat from the road. The lack of sleep. The endless travel. Yet somehow the dreams did not feel like nightmares. They felt like my mind releasing everything my body had been carrying for days. Fatigue, memories, family, distance, and the strange clarity that only comes when a person is completely worn down.