Nightmare

Last night I had the most terrible dream.

I'm with my father, who is organizing papers over a table. The phone rings and my father answers it. He listens for a minute, nods with his head and hangs up. My mother has died, he tells me. I'm in a shock. My father goes back to his work with the papers. I feel a deep, dark sadness, I don't know what to do. Time goes by. I become unsure if the phone call was just a dream. I ask my father if mother is dead. He confirms it.

At that moment, in the real world, I must have cried a little, because I wake up what feels like moments later with tearful eyes.

It's still dawn. I'm confused, as it happens when you get back from an intense dream. But I realize then that my mother is not dead, it was just an horrible nightmare. I feel I should be relieved. The sense of loss inside me, though, doesn't go away.

It takes me a long while to get back to sleep.