[ WP ] You possess the ability of persistent lucid dreaming . Accompanied by a strange man/woman , together you build a world you revisit every night . One day you see them at a coffee shop . You immediately recognize each other .

I make my worst mistakes after my alarm goes off. I think of that with my hand hovering over the snooze button. I could try to slip back in, but she ’ ll be there. The dream will be there tonight. 
 
 The shower is hot until I hear the neighbors upstairs flush their toilet and there ’ s just enough time to do the math in my head before the water betrays me. The nearest towel happens to be the dirtiest one, but it ’ s still the nearest towel. The cardboard box containing little single-serving pellets of ground coffee is as empty as it was yesterday morning. Everything I see through the windows is grey and wet. 
 
 Fumble a cigarette into my mouth to counteract the wet morning air, then rifle through the building mailboxes for a paper, coming up empty. The bus lurches by and if I ran, I could make the stop. My feet slow down. I can feel my body around me, heavy. 
 
 There ’ s a tiny bell attached to the door of the coffee shop that jingles when I walk in and I already regret coming here. I ’ m dripping rain on the floor as I find a table, feeling everyone stare as though they ’ re better than me for being there long enough to dry off. I order a coffee and the waitress pauses, waiting for the minute details of soy milk and chemical sweetener until I glare up at her. 
 
 I think of it then, alone with the sounds of people around me. What I could have had in the dream. Where I find myself now. I try to blame her, but I can ’ t. I don ’ t remember how it started, if she was there first. When she realized I would never serve, she made sure I would never rule. Those rare moments when I get a taste, it is fleeting. It is everything to me. 
 
 That ’ s when I see. There ’ s no aura, no trumpeting sound, no fawning idiot announcing her presence. Just her, and she ’ s enough. Seeing her like this, her eyes wide in amazement as she reads, one hand delicate holding a swizzle covered in marshmallow dripping into a steaming cup of hot chocolate. She ’ s perfect, more so because she is surrounded by us. I roll my eyes, but then the idea comes. 
 
 The waitress looked at me for a long moment when I asked her to do it. She thought I was a stalker, a boyfriend violating a restraining order, a sad man with a belly and receding hair who was about to embarrass himself with a girl so far out of his league it was pitiful. I sighed and handed her a $ 10 bill. 
 
 An apple, green and perfect placed before her. Like the one from the dream, the one I offered to them, those ones created in her image. It was never about good or evil, it was about their freedom to choose. I gave them that and she never forgave me. 
 
 She looks up, eyes flaring until they settle on me, grinning back at her impossible beauty. She stares and smiles, tilting her head fondly for just a moment. And I realize I ’ m late for work. 

