Happy 2024!! A short story.
Happy new year!
We wish you health, peace, and joy.
Today we leave here a short story by by Gabriel Veiga (Brazil).
“The Dream Home”
After many hours inside a car, Josh, Andrew, Fred and Artie were worried they would spend the
rest of their vacation in the middle of a road. They were trying to find a way to fix their broken
vehicle.
“Oh my God, there is always something happening. We try to come up with new things and stuff
always happens”, said Artie, with a screwdriver in hand.
“Relax a little, Artie. If Josh and Andrew can’t find the problem, we can go to a hotel I found. It is
just a few minutes from here and we can get there on foot”, said Fred, as he showed Artie a
picture of a hotel with a sign reading “Dream Home”.
“So, Andrew and I think it is a problem with the engine. We need more time to fix it”, said Josh
grabbing a funny and colorful drawing of a funny animal that was on the floor.
“I was talking to Artie about a hotel nearby”, said Fred, showing the same picture to the boys.
“It sounds like a good idea”, said Josh, looking at Artie and Andrew.
The boys decided to leave the car and walk to the hotel. Some minutes later, the group had got
themselves a room and they were almost ready to go to bed.
“What will we do tomorrow?” Asked Fred, with a pillow on his face.
“Wait! What? Why is the alarm clock like that?” Asked Andrew, trying to understand why the
display showed 95:90 p.m.
“It must be an electricity problem. Now it is exactly 06:26 a.m.”, said Fred, looking at his cellphone.
After everybody fell asleep, they heard sounds of birds and fish, but they only woke up when a
wood-like voice began to say: “Hey, hey, wake up everybody. Wake up”.
Artie opened his eyes and saw a door walking around the room. Through its now-opened
threshold, He saw a magical flying whale.
“G…Guys I think something is not correct, we must be dreaming”, said Artie.
“Artie, stop with the nonsense. You just woke us up”, said Andrew, rubbing his eyes.
“What? Are you kidding me? There is a walking door and a flying whale!”
“Hello!” Said the door, with a hand out, which was serving a cup of hot chocolate for everyone.
“Wait, what?” the three said at the same time, while looking through the hole the door left
behind.
“I told you guys we are in a dream. So, I think I can…” Artie jumped through the open threshold
and fell onto a fluffy cloud.
“Artie, wait, what are you doing?” asked Fred, looking at Artie from inside the hotel room.
“Come on, guys! This cloud is made out of cotton candy”, said Artie, as he put his mouth on the
cloud and bit a piece of it.
“Okay”, said Josh and Andrew, jumping out of the hotel room and going to the fluffy cloud, which,
after Artie had bitten, got the shape of a big elephant with two big horns and a very large tail.
“So, if we are in a dream, we can control it, because this is all caused by us”, said Artie, focusing on
one cloud and magically transforming it in a plane.
“What? How did you do this, Artie?” asked Josh, making a funny face as he tried moving things.
“Just focus and dream about it”, said Artie, creating a gigantic football field.
“Let’s go”, screamed Josh, creating a flying horse with two big wings, 10-meters-long each.
For many and many hours Andrew, Artie and Josh have flown and imagined several things. That
was when they called for Fred and realized the boy was not with them: Fred was still in the hotel
room. He was alone and was not enjoying dreams like his friends. Instead, he was stuck in a
nightmare.
“What…what should I do?” asked Fred, almost exploding in despair. “Why… just, why? But all of
this will end now”, Fred reassured himself, walking to the door, repeating the words like a mantra.
“It is time to go home”, Fred thought. He jumped and, for some reason, he opened his eyes and
found himself falling off from a skyscraper.
“Wait, what is happening? This… this is the end”, said Fred, holding his legs up against his chest.
Seconds after he said that he realized that the impact hadn’t come, and that was very strange. As
he opened his eyes he saw a shadow which changed into the shape of a monster. He screamed
and ran back to the hotel room. When he got there, he realized that the threshold was surrounded
by wide and horrible teeth, just like a giant mouth. That was when the shadow grabbed him and
said:
“You will never get out of here; remember nobody likes you.”
“No, I am important and I will get where I need to”, said him, after jumping and getting to the
door.
“No, they hate you, you are just there because they needed a car to travel, and you happened to
have one. Face the truth, you are just a puppet for Andrew, Josh and Artie”, teased the shadow.
Fred used his dream powers to break the magical door to pieces. Sadness got over him. He got
hopeless again and started to cry. He felt cold and suddenly his surroundings changed; he was
falling into a red river and going downstream. In his mind, everything made sense: Andrew, Josh
and Artie hated him and everything related to him.
Everything went black. It seemed many hours passed by. Then, Fred heard a voice in the distance:
“Fred, Fred! Please, come back, you can't get lost now. I need to spend more time with you. You
are so incredible, you can do it. I…I know you can do it”, begged Andrew.
Fred could feel somebody hugging him. That was when he thought “why would I listen to the
shadow? It doesn't know anything about me and my friends. They love me. I love them”.
With this thought, he felt ready to go back home and woke up. He saw his friends next to him.
“Fred, are you okay?” Asked Fred, still hugging him.
“Yes, but we need to get out of here”, said Fred.
Fred created a magic cloud. Everybody jumped on it and they all flew to the hole the door left
behind.
“It is time to go home”, said Fred.
They crossed the door and, just as in the end of a bad dream, found themselves in the hotel room.
They went outside and spotted their car in the parking lot. They tried the engine and it roared.
Maybe their dream of a vacation came true. They fastened their seatbelts and hit the road, leaving
behind that crazy dream and celebrating their friendship.
Enjoy.
