After You’ve Stopped Dreaming

Sometimes I wonder if everyone else is real.
Like that man sitting there, in the blue shirt. Is he real?
Then I go back to enjoying the moment.
Sometimes it creeps back up on me though… why would he want to be here?

I am the winner of the greatest academic award on this coast, the trophy is cradled in my arms like a bouquet, and my smile is as wide as the heavens. You see, my research finally worked. Years and hours and missed dates and skipped showers all led to the breakthrough I had been hoping for, with my name printed clearly across it. I am a scientific explorer, happily lauded, invited to the dinner table of the people I’d only read about. I am one of them now. I belong.
The triumphant music swells and it’s nothing compared to the expansion of my heart as I look to the crowd, people on their feet applauding for me, for my work, for all of that time that I gave everything I had.
I have so much to give, and now I get back.
I get this trophy.
I get to belong.

Then I wonder about the blue shirt, front row, clapping. His face is polite and sincere, he is nobody I know. Perhaps I will know him someday, or I haven’t yet recognized him yet, but he seems so gentle in this moment. Nice. A nice person.
But why is he here?
Is he real?

Are they real? The person who presented this trophy, is this really their desire? To present trophies?

I smile.
My eyes are bordered by welled tears, making the bright auditorium lights double in my vision. I can sense that everything has been worth it, and this is where it all changes. This is where I finally get everything I’ve worked for. There are photographers. Coworkers. Journalists. We’re all smiling.

Why are they here? Surely their gladness does not extend this far. Surely they have their own dreams and wishes, more than standing idly by and clapping as I receive the most important accolade of my entire life. If they truly supported me this much, they’d have been more accommodating in the field. I didn’t do this all myself, but damnit I might as well have. Nobody else gave more than me, and yet I see them as I look out there.
As all my dreams are realized, I see them. They’re clapping for me.

That man in the blue shirt, he is clapping for me. Could he know me? Have I really ignored so many people in my life who wanted to help?
…Are these people real?

The award is bulky yet weightless, it fits into the crook of my arm like the children I never had. Not in this life. This time I didn’t clean up spittle, I cleaned up experiments. This time, I didn’t calculate daycare prices, I calculated complex mathematical equations that changed the world.
The whole world!
Not just a simple household.
I always had something so much bigger inside me. More than supporting a family. I don’t support. Others should support me for a change.
And they did, and look what’s happening.
Everything I’ve wanted.

No more diapers and lunch money and parent-teacher meetings and family-style meals for dinner, NO!
All that is gone, a distant memory. All I have here is my achievement. My award. My supporters.
My dreams, and how true they are, how I will feel like this forever.
And ever.
So full of pride, I could burst! So relieved and excited that I feel drunker than a barfly.
My smile could stretch around the world and back to me. It’s so wide, it can’t be mapped.
I made it. I belong.

Yet there’s that blue-shirted man in the front, whose eyes are kind and he seems to care. I don’t know him, or recognize him at all.
I chose to spend my eternal peace accepting this award, from my end to the infinity beyond, being proud of what I could do.
Why would he choose to spend his afterlife applauding someone from the sidelines? Is that really his wish?
These people that clap, their eyes shining with joy. Are they real?

The lights reflect off my beautiful, brassy achievement award. I stand high above them all, finally what I should be. Appreciated. Accomplished.
My smile could span eternity, and it will.
I’m so happy.
I wanted to belong.

Short fiction inspired by The Twilight Zone episode, “Elegy.”

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