By Jessica Klimesh

The dreamers pull their window shades down and nestle into their warm, comfortable beds. They sleep with ease, dream in soothing hues, and awake refreshed each day. It’s only when the non-dreamers ask them what they dream about that the dreamers redden, ashamed, and say, hush, quiet, don’t say a word. They wonder how the non-dreamers have found them out. 

In the morning, the dreamers scribble down their dreams with sprawling cursive lines and loops, then squirrel the illicit notebooks away with a hush. If the non-dreamers can tell, who else knows?

~

The dreamers read the latest research studies, watch the news, see billboards popping up along the interstate: Still dreaming? Here’s how you can stop. Call today. They flush with embarrassment, consider calling the number.

Now even the most ambitious dreamers abandon their notebooks, leaving them at the bottom of sad gray boxes in musty attics where ghosts and rats will eventually find them. 

The dreamers don’t want to dream anymore, don’t want to be outcasts. So one by one, they tiptoe to the office of Maya, the local dream analyst, imploring her to fix it so that they won’t dream.

“But there’s nothing wrong with you,” Maya says. “There’s nothing to fix.”

“Hush,” the dreamers say, “not so loud. Someone will hear. Everyone will know.”

Maya offers them a supportive smile, sends them a bill.

~

With a hush, the dreamers spend night after sluggish night not sleeping, not even daring to close their eyes.

And with another hush, they return to Maya a week later, once again demanding that she help them. “Please, we’ll do anything,” they say.

Maya tells them to write down their dreams like they used to, that no one will know.

She tells them it’s okay to dream. 

“Hush,” the dreamers say, “we know it’s not okay.”

Maya just smiles sadly, sends them another bill.

~

The dreamers hide beneath their cold, heavy blankets or in the shadows under their beds, and they think about the news stories, the documentaries. Addictive. Unsafe. In staccato bursts of memory, they recall how they used to love to dream, how safe they felt, how free. For a tiny pink moment, they wonder if Maya is right.

But the moment passes.

With a hush, the dreamers rap lightly on Maya’s door and say, “It’s us again.” And when Maya opens the door, they slink quickly in, bolting the door behind them. And then they become loud. “We’re not leaving here until…!” they shout.

And Maya, the expert of dreams, finally relents. 

With a hush, she offers the dreamers a red and white pill, disk-shaped, tells them to suck on it as they would candy. No need for juice or water. “But,” she says—

“Whatever, whatever, we’ll take it,” the dreamers yell. 

“Hush,” Maya says. “Just let me—”

But the dreamers have already popped the pills, which look and taste like peppermints, into their mouths. They dash around Maya’s office with explosive joy, then unbolt the door and go roaring out into the evening, suddenly eager for nighttime.

With a hush, Maya sighs, a quiet, knowing breath. “Sweet dreams,” she says to no one, and sends the dreamers another bill.