My nose itched. Well, it wasn’t
exactly an itch, more of a tickle.
“Leave me alone Matt, I’m trying to sleep.”
I brushed my hand across my face. If Matt didn’t leave me alone, I was going to
clobber him.
The tickling continued.
“Matt, I’m warning you!”
I felt the tickle again, which had now become more
than just a little irritating.
“That’s it!” I
sat up and looked around.
I was definitely not in my room any more.
It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the
brightness of the sun, but my other senses were exploding with sensation. The combination of salt with something floral
assaulted my nose. Simultaneously, my
ears were filled with a familiar roar.
The ocean? My eyes finally caught
up with the rest of me, and my breath came out in a rush. Josh!
“Hello, beautiful.
About time you woke up.” Josh
leaned back against a rock, a white flower in his hand.
“Were you tickling me with that flower?”
“Guilty.”
“You’re lucky you stopped when you did. I thought you were someone else.”
“Speaking of which,” he began, “should I be jealous of
this ‘Matt’ guy?” His eyes sparkled as if he had some private joke. He didn’t really seem jealous.
“For your information, Matt is a friend. A good-but-annoying friend. Tickling my nose while I try to sleep would
be just like him. You, however, are
either just a dream or a figment of my imagination, anyway, so why should it
matter?” I shrugged and looked out at
the ocean. I plastered a pout on my face
which I hoped screamed Hayden Panetierre.
“Ouch. You
really know how to hurt a guy. And after
I brought you to one of my favorite places, too," said Josh, holding the
flower out as a peace offering. I
pretended to ignore it.
“Okay, so where are we, anyway?” I asked as I took in
my surroundings.
Josh leaned over to brush a strand of hair off my
face, his hand lingered on my cheek for a second.
“Hmm, so beautiful,” his eyes bore into mine, “but I
digress.” He spread his arms wide. “This is paradise, or at least the nearest
thing to it in this place. It’s a
replica of one of the smaller, less known of the Hawaiian Islands. Welcome to my world.”
I looked around, and it was amazingly, achingly
beautiful. The water was the clearest
blue I’d ever seen, not like some of the Gulf beaches I’d been to. Part of the beach was shaded by draping palms. To the left of the beach area was a steep
cliff and to the right what appeared to be giant lava rocks.
How could a dream be this vivid? Maybe there was something to this other world
stuff after all.
