dreaming of electric hitsuji

It's a common enough illness of mine to dream in my sleep what I dream about awake; taunting myself. On a nightly basis, my pillows unwittingly get acquainted with my darkest, most desparate desires. I'm actually quite glad my bedding isn't the type to gossip.

And it's only fair, merciful even, that with every dream comes a swift forgetting. Only small snippets manage to escape my un-consciousness to join me in the waking world. However, these small wounds are painful and remind me of my loss, however imaginary, constantly.

So it's quite unnerving to be confronted by my dreams outside the 4 corners of my bed. Whenever I get close to my desires, I lose all sense and the customary disbelief kicks in automatically. It sickens the hell out of me that whenever this happens, I always start yapping about all-sorta-stuff that sound a lot like false-modesty.

It all started one not-so-special afternoon, just about before the time I wait beside the time-puncher-thingie until 5pm. My boss approached us, in his slow, deliberate shamble and confronted us with his usual thoughtful expression. Not the type to beat around the bush, he off-handedly started asking the 4 of us which have passports.

My heartbeat quickened, and, with every negative answer from my fellows, it shot up a little more. In the end, 2 of us have passports, but since my friend wasn't officialy part of the team yet, our boss told me that it might be me who was up for a business trip to Japan sometime soon.

There it is. The primary reason for all the hours I've toiled, underneath their cheerless flourescent lights and inside their cold cubicle walls, was here.

And somewhere between the sound of my boss' footsteps walking away, the congratulatory remarks and the quaking of my heart, all I could say was: "Whoa. Malabo pa naman yun e."

Deny. Deny. Deny. I guess I was ashamed and quite shocked at how much I wanted it. When my passport-bearing friend asked me if wanted to go, I answered with a resounding "Hell, yeah!" Then, upon realizing my brazen mistake, I quickly placated the situation by telling him he's got as much a chance at it as I do.

All I'm trying to say is: I don't want to count on it. Until I set foot on Japanese soil, I'll be defeatist, waiting for the sound of the alarm clock to take me back to the real world. That same treacherous clock that usualy goes off the moment I stumble and begin to believe.