Observatory - Dream
I dreamed we'd inherited an abandoned observatory.
Not bought it.
Not discovered it.
Inherited it, as though someone had quietly decided, "Those two will know what to do with it."
It sat on top of a hill where the grass had grown through the stone steps. Ivy had climbed the walls, and the dome was rusted almost shut.
Inside, everything had been left exactly as it was decades ago.
Dust covered every surface.
Charts of constellations curled at the edges.
Old notebooks were stacked everywhere, filled with careful handwriting from people who had spent their lives trying to understand distant lights.
Naturally...
You ignored the telescope.
Instead, you picked up one of the notebooks.
I laughed.
"There's an entire universe above us."
Without looking up, you answered,
"Yes... but somebody already looked at it."
You brushed dust from another page.
"I'm curious about the person who wrote this."
That made perfect sense.
You weren't chasing the stars.
You were chasing the mind that had spent forty years looking at them.
Hours seemed to pass.
The light outside faded from afternoon into blue evening.
Eventually we forced the old dome open.
It groaned like it hadn't moved since before either of us were born.
The telescope pointed upward.
You looked through it first.
"What do you see?" I asked.
You didn't answer immediately.
Then...
"Dust."
"Dust?"
"Starlight that's been travelling for millions of years."
You stepped aside so I could look.
The stars were impossibly sharp.
The kind of sky nobody ever sees near cities.
I remember saying,
"Funny."
"What?"
"We spend our lives believing the stars are permanent."
I adjusted the telescope slightly.
"But every one of them is already becoming something else."
You leaned against the railing beside me.
"So are we."
There wasn't sadness in your voice.
Just observation.
Then something strange happened.
The observatory itself began filling with plants.
Not suddenly.
Just quietly.
Tiny green shoots pushing through cracks in the floorboards.
Vines climbing the telescope.
Flowers appearing between old books.
Neither of us tried to stop it.
You simply smiled and said,
"Maybe buildings aren't supposed to stay the same forever either."
I woke before I could answer.
...
It's odd, D*****.
My dreams keep refusing to make you into someone dramatic. You never arrive to save me or give speeches. You don't even look for the biggest mystery in the room. You wander over to the smallest forgotten notebook in the corner and ask,
"Who wrote this?"
That feels unmistakably like you. And, if I'm being honest... It's one of my favourite things about you.