Bjorn was never someone so simple as to dissolve into the air if even a slight gust of wind rippled down the cobblestone street that he lived on, as he liked to think of himself as more than a daydream, more than a figment. Every morning he woke up, had a small cup of coffee, and read the newspaper. From time to time, he found that he could see through his own body, sometimes reading headlines unaware that his hand was resting over them. At times, he felt a curious euphoria that seemingly was unrelated to anything else happening around him. Obviously this wasn't a problem for him but he did wonder where it came from. One Sunday, he found it.

It had rained during the evening and the world's scents had soaked up into the walls and streets and waited behind a thin sheen of water, slowly unwinding outwards as the sun evaporated the rain. Bjorn watched the streetgoers and passersby from his second story window. Things were simple, it seemed. Idly glancing down, Bjorn saw he was looking at dark floorboards when he should be seeing his feet. Again, now. Curious and why only him?

Heading outside of his apartment complex, he stood in the street and was about to cross when he was quietly embraced with another warm wave of euphoria. With a swell of dull heat behind his eyelids and flushing his cheeks, Bjorn stood for a moment as the feeling spread slowly through him, like water expanding on flat surfaces. He could hear the distant whine of traffic, and the air was heavy with spent rain.

Bjorn opened his eyes. They were usually green; at the moment, they were blue. He bit his tongue. Could he float to his destinations today? Could his feet just leave the ground and never come down? Blinking, he found that a woman was leaning against a stop sign across from him, a tiny smirk on her full lips.

"There you are." she said, dark hair falling for unmeasured distances behind her back. Bjorn's euphoria was dancing inside of his skin, thankful, sensual, alive.

"I've been looking for you. You went astray."

Bjorn smelled the earthy, textured scent of flowers in the air as he realized he was almost transparent. Looking up at the woman, he asked her what, exactly, was happening.

"You're a daydream that got away and started living your own. It's a beautiful thing, dreams having dreams, but you have to come back now. Because you're a good dream and you are missed. Too many people need you." Bjorn found that the sound of traffic in the distance was gone. She extended her hand, her dark skin a contrast to the sun's leaping off of puddles that had gathered. Somewhere, the rustling of turning pages, the creak of old playground equipment, the slow breathing of lovers next to each other, and stretched between all of this the silence that weighs down before love comes. Bjorn closed his eyes, and touched her hand. Her skin was warm.

Without a pause, his skin faded from view, his clothes sliding from his thinning form. Without fight, without resisting, he lost parts of himself to the passing wind. What a curious feeling, to feel one's self thread through bird's wings and slide between vacant rooms of homes that are not yours. The wind took him home. She smiled, watched a drop of water slide down the side of the stop sign post before nodding, fading. The sun stretched shadows, and a man chimed the bell of his bicycle while going by a vacant street corner. Echoed.

What a curious thing, to be a daydream found. What a curious thing.

Somewhere, someone needs you.

moving,

Jared