Dream Journal
I was driving with a group of people in a blue fourteen-passenger van from Anchorage to Fairbanks. Near halfway, we stopped at a house filled with African American orphan boys. The living room of the home had been converted into a large gymnasium where the orphans practiced tricks on the tightrope and trapeze.
The oldest orphan came up to me and we spoke for a while; there didn’t seem to be any adults in the house. I agreed to take him with us to Fairbanks.
When we drove into Fairbanks, I realized that Melissa was no longer with the group. We had lost her during the trip somewhere between the orphanage and Fairbanks. I knew she didn’t have her cell phone with her, but I did not know where her cell phone was.
I called all of the places we stopped on the trip, but no one has seen her. I suggested to Damon that we try to call her cell phone and see if someone answers—hopefully it would be the person she gave her cell phone to. Damon asked me what her number was, and the number I gave him belongs to my dad’s cell phone in the waking life.
I call her cell phone from a pay phone and a woman answers. I knew that she was a fifty-year-old waitress in a Nevada truck stop wearing a bright red blouse and a lot of makeup. She said that Melissa had been there but had continued on to Hollywood.
It was so far away, and I knew I would never see her again.
Themes: Left Behind, Melissa