The Dream: I wake to Jim coughing hard, slip out of bed and squeeze from a tube several translucent strips of medicine. They are the diameter of toothpaste, violet blue with glitter suspended within. I bring them back into the bedroom in a little pile in my hand, kneel by his bedside and give him one. He is miraculously cured.
The Reality: I wake to Jim coughing hard. He slips out of bed and closes the door, says "I don’t want to keep you awake." I wiggle over to his warm side of the bed, and holler out, "There’s Nyquil in the cabinet," and fall back to sleep.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology