Short Stoires: lonely dreams
by Samuel Teoh
lonely dreams
by Samuel Teoh
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Hereby begins several selected excerpts from “diary” by Hazel Vanderbilt Brown, aged sixteen years and three months, year 2022.
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my nightmare
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I always have the same nightmare.
When I close my eyes, it immediately takes me, throwing me into darkness. I can’t tell whether I’m closing my eyes or not. The darkness settles in until I can barely breathe. At first, it seems like the black goes on forever but when I move my elbows, they hit a wall. I move my hand above me and hit another wall. I’m in a completely dark, enclosed space again. But it scares me the same every time.
As soon as I realize I’m in a box, I want to get out, but I don’t have enough strength to move. The darkness traps me, suffocating me and suppressing my movements. I try to scream but I can’t because I can barely breathe.
I am still alone.
the counseling
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Mrs. Lambert stares at me through her thick-rimmed glasses from across the table. She looks like the owl that was staring at me through my window last night. I blink back at her as innocently as possible. She breaks her eye contact and leans back in her chair, sighing. Mission success, Hazel.
“Have you been having any more nightmares, Hazel?” Mrs. Lambert knows, and so does my mom. I made the mistake of telling my mom what I dreamt of. She immediately went and told the school and now I have a counselor. It’s one of the reasons I stopped telling my mom anything. I shake my head and give Mrs. Lambert my best I’m-a-perfectly-normal-kid smile, but she still doesn't look convinced.
“Of course not. I would’ve told you immediately if I had.” I say, then mentally shoot myself. Too bold, Hazel, try again. I lower my head and make my voice quieter, erasing my smile. “I haven’t been having any more nightmares, Mrs. Lambert, trust me.”
She sighs again. This woman is an expert at sighing. “Do you have any friends, Hazel?”
I take a beat. “Of course,” I lie through my teeth. I know that she knows I’m lying but thankfully she doesn’t push it.
“I think we’re done here, Ms. Brown,” she says in a resigned way. I swiftly stand up and turn around, heading for the door. That was quick. Usually, I’d have to go through a lot more examinations before I could pass.
“Hazel.” I freeze. “You know I’m just trying to help, right?”
I turn around, and for once her face isn’t stern anymore; just tired. And for a second, I don’t feel the need to be hostile. I look and see a mirror of myself, just older. Just tired. “I know,” I say, and I mean it.
I know.
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the nightmare part two
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Alone again.
Complete darkness.
the friend
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I never get called to the Principal’s Office.
So that’s why, when my name is called over the loudspeaker, I don’t react. There must be another Hazel Brown in my grade or something. But after a few seconds, I look up and everyone is looking at me. “Hazel?” My math teacher says hesitantly.
I blink. “Me?”
“Yes, you. Are there any other Hazel Browns in our class?” He says. That earns a small laugh from the class. I stand up and shove my things into my bag then throw it over my shoulder.
As I walk down the hall towards the Principal’s Office, I try to think of all the stuff I could have possibly done to be sent there. And after I get to the door, here’s what I come up with:
Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Before I go inside, I hesitate. Then I laugh at myself for hesitating. I did nothing to be sent here, what should I be afraid of? I open the door and observe my new surroundings.
It’s what a basic principal’s office should look like. Just bookshelves and a desk and a principal. The principal looks like what a classic principal should look like as well. Bald, with tiny, perfectly circular glasses, and an impressive buttchin. I bow.
The principal nods. “You may sit.”
That’s when I noticed a girl sitting in one of the chairs. I’ve never seen her before so she must be new. She has dark brown hair that’s tied back with a purple scrunchie. Her eyes are large, thoughtful, and brown. I sit down next to her.
“This is Juliette. She’s a transfer student. I wanted you to show her around the school and possibly become her friend.” Once the principal starts, I know that it’s Mrs. Counselor’s doing. Smart villains are the worst.
“Juliette, this is Hazel. You’re both around the same age and have the same classes.” The principal claps his hands together and smiles like we’re all going to be best friends forever. “I hope you girls have fun. See you soon.”
I stand up, taking it as my cue to leave. Juliette follows me outside, still silent. “So he said we have the same classes, which means you should be taking math right now, right?” I take her silence as a yes. Glancing at my watch, I say, “Well, the fourth period is almost over, so it’s lunchtime soon. We can skip the rest of math and have a tour if you’d like.”
I glance at her and the girl nods once. We go through the entire school in a matter of minutes. I show her where the classrooms are, the cafeteria, and the garden. Anything you need to know to survive school. The geography part at least. I tell her the rules, what teachers act like, who to be cautious of, and who you should befriend.
Throughout the whole thing, she doesn’t say a word. Finally, when we’re done with most of it, I turn around and cross my arms. “Tell me what you think.”
She stares at me and we have a staring contest. She says.
“I’m kind of smart, you know.” There’s a pause. “If you give me a day or two, I could figure out everything you just told me. I don’t need a tour guide to tell me where things are; I’ve been to enough schools to figure out where everything is.”
Another pause.
“What I need is a friend.”
I stare at Juliette.
“I can be your friend,” I say.
Juliette smiled. “Do you know what the difference between friend and acquaintance is, Hazel?” I get a sudden flashback to Mrs. Counselor. “An acquaintance is simply someone you know. You have a lot of acquaintances, Hazel, but people like you don’t have friends. A friend is someone you talk to. Someone you love. Someone who loves you. Someone with whom you don’t care whether you embarrass yourself or not. That’s a friend.”
More staring.
“Can you be mine?”
And I feel like Juliette isn’t the one who’s asking for a friend. She’s the one who’s tossing me the lifebuoy. It’s just up to me to grab it.
“I don’t know if I can,” I say. “But I can try.”
Juliette smiles. “Okay, friend.”
I smile. “Okay, friend.”
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the nightmare part three
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Complete darkness.
Still dark. Still choking. Still broken.
And then there’s light.
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friends
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I see Juliette sitting by herself at lunch so I cross the room to sit next to her. We eat in silence for a few moments and I wonder whether I shouldn’t have come over at all. She speaks. “You shouldn’t come over unless you want to come over, Hazel.”
“I did want to come over.”
“Because if you feel like I’m a burden or something, this friendship will never work.”
“I did want to come over.”
“Friendship is something that should be voluntary. Something that you actually want, not something to be forced or fulfilled.”
“I DID WANT TO COME OVER!” I scream.
The cafeteria falls silent and I lower my voice into a whisper. “I did want to come over, okay? I’m not doing this for you to like me, or for the principal, or even for social status.” I swallow. “I just want a friend.”
Juliette stares at me for a few seconds. “Tell me about yourself.”
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who i am
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I am Hazel Brown, aged 16, born in 2005 on February 16.
I have no siblings and practically no parents either. My dad died in a car accident and after he died, part of me stopped caring anymore. After his death, my mom drowned herself in alcohol and work. She doesn’t come home anymore and works late at night. The only traces of her existence are the money on the table for me to eat and the smell of cigarettes in the bathroom.
I don’t really mind. Like I said before, I don’t really care anymore.
What do I care about? What makes me angry? What makes me angry is people who think they’re better than everyone else. Sometimes when people look at other people on the street, they automatically assume things about them and think they know everything. Everyone is a person; a real living person that breathes and thinks just like you do. You’re not better than them just because you’re richer, smarter, or prettier than them. Everyone has their own story, you know?
What makes me sad? If I die and no one goes to my funeral. No one cries for me when I die. No one is there to pray for me, say anything, or send me off.
That’s what makes me sad.
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the dream
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Light pours down from above, so bright that it looks like black; but it’s light.
The light encircles me and I hold on to it. I can breathe again.
I can breathe again.
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the ending
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Before I met Juliette, I thought that life was one big nightmare. A nightmare that was being alone and alone forever. I once read about a man who said that for his entire life, he was climbing this ladder up a side of a building, just to realize that when he got to the top, he was on the wrong ladder. There are so many different ladders in life. Which is the right one?
My nightmare has been being alone. Climbing up the ladder of life but climbing it by myself. And before Juliette, it seemed like the only choice to have. People surround themselves with friends when they’re acquaintances. They go through life feeling alone and unloved. But Juliette taught me more.
When you have a nightmare, you feel scared. I was scared. I was scared and alone and afraid. But nightmares are dreams. And dreams are not real; you wake up from them.
That’s what Juliette did. She saw me in my nightmare, grabbed me, and shook me awake. And when you’re awake, you realize that it was a nightmare.
And that feeling is the best feeling in the world.
A brief note about work
This story is one I wrote a while ago. I wanted to create a character who lived alone in a nightmare and I hope that through Hazel finding light through friendship, the reader will find that light as well.
About the author
Samuel Teoh is a homeschooled high school sophomore from Taiwan. He loves drinking bubble tea, reading short stories, and writing them as well.