Competition Twenty-Two Shortlisted: FOUR OF THESE FIVE DREAMS TURNED OUT TO BE TRUE by Emily Macdonald
One
I dream you bend your head towards me, and our lips briefly touch before we hear the key in the lock, the bellowed, ‘I’m home’ from below.
Two
I have the fleeing dream where I’m like a roadrunner from a cartoon. I run and run going nowhere until the dream reveals the rubber treadmill, the harsh overhead lights in the gym and in the wall of mirrors, multiple reflections of you.
Three
In my nightmare I’m falling through space. I’m sinking under the sea. My mouth is moving but no words come out. I’m sick with terror, filled with dread. My heart races, I flail and shout, thrash my arms and legs, I hit out until my husband restrains me, soothes and holds me until I’m calm again.
Four
In my dream your wife is expecting twins, and you have one arm around her shoulders and one hand cupping her belly. This despite you telling me you stopped fucking her more than six months ago.
Five
I’m flying. My bird’s eye shows me the world mapped below. The houses, the trees, the veins of rivers and roads, the thumbnails of fields. And somewhere like a carbuncle, an island in the Mediterranean Sea, the small stone villa we dreamt of sharing, shaded by a palm tree.
Emily Macdonald has stories published in anthologies including the Bath Short Story Award 2023, and online journals such as Fictive Dream, Ellipsis Zine, Raw Lit, Roi Fainéant Press and The Phare. Her collection of driving related stories, Wheel Spin and Traction, is out now with Alien Buddah Press.
Twitter: ek_macdonald Instagram: macdonald8017 Bluesky: @ekmacdonald.bsky.social
Print by Lucy Macdonald
Wheel Spin and Traction is available from the FFF Bookshop – here
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