The Dream

Five months ago, I closed my eyes and woke up in the house of an old derelict theater. I was sitting somewhere toward the middle, the red velvet seats were worn from use and the floor was sticky from years of spilled beverage. The air smelled of sweat, fresh paint, old popcorn, and cake makeup. The floor was a mess, littered with candy bar wrappers and program books. An older gentleman, in striped overalls and with balding red hair and a long wiry beard, crooked glasses on his nose, sat next to me.

"Brandon." He said. "What are you doing with yourself?"

"Well, I'm working at a great care facility and I'm living in the northend with my girlfriend and working on some scripts, things are pretty good." I responded.

"I didn't ask you what you have been doing, I asked you what you are doing with yourself." He responded, slightly annoyed.

"Yeah,  I know. I told you." I said.

He grabbed my arm tightly and looked me in the eye, his own filling with tears of desperation.

"You were given gifts. Gifts that are meant for bigger things. Things that are larger then you, or me, or anything you can possibly imagine. Please use them! You are wasting your talent." Tears slowly ran down his old face.

"I want to use them but I don't know how. Just, show me a way and I will." I said and then I woke up in my bed, next to my girlfriend, in the northend of Boise.

I thought a lot about my dream. Who was the man who was talking to me? Why was he so upset? What 'gifts' and 'talent' was he talking about? I thought back on my life, how I was always pretending to be somebody else and how I was always writing and telling stories. I knew then there was no doubt, by that time next year I would be in one of three cities: Los Angeles, New York, or Vancouver, finally working my way into the film industry. What I didn't know, is that in the course of the next five months, things would fall into place to prepare me both mentally and physically for this big transition. I would break up with my girlfriend over things completely unrelated to this decision to move. I would move out of the northend and in with a friend who would let me stay rent free, so I could save money, and my work offered me more hours and a raise to help out. all things began to fall into place.

Now I'm here, in a city of nearly 3 million people, with my best friend in the whole world. Just the two of us, barely enough money to get us here and settled, no gas, no jobs and plenty of homesickness but we're on our way.

I know we're going to make it, we just have to push a little harder each day. Why do I know this? Because I described the dream to my grandparents and they showed me a picture of my great great grandfather, he was the man who talked to me in the theater.

I will not waste my talent ever again.