A Bed of Clouds

In "Dreams," Jerome K. Jerome says, “It is only in sleep that true imagination ever stirs within us,” Was William Shakespeare sleeping when he penned Romeo and Juliet? Was Michelangelo asleep when he painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel? How can he make such an outrageous claim, that it is only in sleep that true imagination ever stirs? Jerome’s explanation goes as follows: “Awake, we never imagine anything; we merely alter, vary, or transpose. We give another twist to the kaleidoscope of the things we see around us, and obtain another pattern; but not one of us has ever added one tiniest piece of new glass to the toy.” Are Romeo and Juliet nothing more than a twist of the kaleidoscope? Shakespeare must not have been the first person in the history of humanity to think of "star-crossed" lovers. This brings up the haunting question: Is there anything in this world that is original? Is there anything that is unique? Or are we all just products of what has come before us, just alterations of a world that has already been created?

The most extraordinary dream I ever had was one in which I was experiencing the end of the world, while standing under purple skies with swirling clouds. In the essay, Jerome claims that one cannot be surprised in a dream. Dreams are in fact the ultimate surprise. In Dreamland you can think, feel and do things that you never thought possible. Jerome says that, “into Dreamland, Knowledge and Experience do not enter.” What is there to dream without your knowledge and experience? The real surprise in dreams comes when such knowledge and experience is challenged by the subconscious mind. Things that you think you know, things that you know and feel when you are awake, are constantly challenged by the deep recesses of your brain, by a whole different entity, the dream you.


Lying in bed after a long day at the office, the brain does not stop stirring, moving from place to place, idea to idea. Was the report thorough enough? Does Mr. Allen think that I am the right person for the promotion? If I don’t get it, I am going to have to search for another job. Karen looked really great today, I wonder if she would go out for drinks with me tomorrow after work. I hate my life, I wish I could do what I have really wanted to do all along, write a story that would change the world, something that would win awards, which would take me out of this humdrum existence into a world of literary imagination and fantasy…

I'm sleeping on a bed of clouds. You would never believe how itchy clouds can get. When they are high up in the sky they look so fluffy and nice, but they are nothing more than a thicker brand of wool, which can get very uncomfortable. I roll off the side of my cloud bed, and take a one thousand foot free fall to my closet to get dressed for work. My bedroom looks a little different to me now; someone must have rearranged my furniture last night. I see her sleeping on my bed. Karen, the love of my life, is fully nude staring right at me. “I have been waiting for you all night, please come make love to me I can’t stand being without you for another minute,” she says to me while rubbing her hands all over my body. “Sorry babe, I have to get to the office, I need to make sure Allen isn’t screwing up the Johnson account.” I turned from her, too bad I am a busy man. I turned from her and walked out the door. The sun is closer to the ground than usual, and when I look up at it, it looks like it is staring right back at me. “Can I help you?” I asked it, annoyed at its intrusion into my busy morning schedule. “You should quit your job Nathan, that life will lead you to nothing but boredom and disappointment, you have already been passed over for the promotion; Allen gave it to Johnson.”

“The last thing I need to be doing is listening to a big ball of gas; just stay out of my way alright?” I said back, now very annoyed. I kept walking and all of a sudden the world around me disappeared; now I'm in my office sitting behind a desk. The desk is monstrous, with stacks of papers reaching all the way to the ceiling. I try to sort some of the papers out, but they just keep on piling higher and higher. I can’t see where they are coming from, a stream of papers endlessly flying in my direction. They start to pile up on my chair, pushing me up towards the ceiling. The entire office is filling, papers rushing in like water into a punctured tunnel. There must be a way out, there has to be a way to get out. I am now shoved all the way to the top of the office, and all I see below me is paper, both yellow and white. The only thing I can read on any of the papers is “GET OUT” in huge block letters. I turn to face the ceiling that I am being pushed against, and I see a small opening in the center of the room. I slowly crawl towards it, the pressure of the paper almost getting too much to handle. When I reach the center of the room, I see the opening, which is only a few feet wide, but it looks just big enough to squeeze through. I reach my hand up and I feel something. It’s small, and I tightly grasp my whole hand around it. It seems to be very sturdy, so I start to pull myself out of the sea of paper. As my eyes emerge, I look up to see what I am holding onto. It’s a pen, one of those fancy ones you see at jewelry stores that are way too expensive to actually buy. In small script writing on the side of the pen it says: “This World Can Be Yours.”

I hold the pen tightly in my hand, and I can feel its energy permeating my body. Every second a new pulse, traveling through my bloodstream, down past my lungs, soars to the tips of my toes and back to the top of my head. I open my eyes and now I am in a dark room, lit only by a small oil lit lamp sitting in the on an old wooden desk. The pen in my hand is now a feather tip quill, and on the desk is a small container of ink, and a large piece of parchment. On the top of the parchment is a heading that says: “Nathan’s Masterpiece.” I sit down on the chair, dip the quill in the ink, and start writing. My hand is moving faster than I ever thought possible, completely filling the giant sheet with very tiny script letters. I wrote for days and days, year after year. When I was finally finished, I looked down to see a light gray beard resting on the edge of the desk. My hand did not feel weak; instead it felt more powerful than ever, fully ready to keep writing for all of eternity. There was one last step before finishing the masterpiece that I just completed. At the very top, where the words: “Nathan’s Masterpiece” once were years before, I titled my great piece: “Nathan and Karen.”

The second the pen left the paper, finishing the “n” in Karen, I look up to see the desk is turned around. I am now looking directly at the desk, and a different man is sitting behind it, with my masterpiece in his hand. He is leaning back, with one leg crossed over the other. The giant paper is blocking his face. I stand anxiously, waiting for some kind of response. When he eventually removes the paper from the front of his face, I see the man who will determine the fate of my masterpiece.

Mr. Allen stared at me through his black rimmed glasses, his bald head too bright to look directly into. “Nathan, this is an amazing story,” he said to me with a stoic and stern look on his face. “Your writing is fabulous; your imagery is vivid and haunting.” A feeling of pure elation started to fill my whole body. Finally my great abilities will be appreciated. “The only problem, son, is that your topic is a cliché, two lovers who are not meant for each other defying all odds to be together, it’s a story that has been written thousands of times, it’s just not original.”

The floor underneath me vanishes, and I start to fall. I am free falling through space and time, but all I can see is white. There is no sky; there is no ground, only white. After what seems like an eternity of falling, I gently land on the same bed of clouds that I awoke on. All of my hopes now sufficiently shattered, I dig my face into my cloud pillow, and start to weep uncontrollably. I turn onto my back, and there he is again, that damn Sun just won’t leave me alone. “Will you go away, I just want to be dark now; I will never come up with an original idea. Even a talking Sun is a cliché; so how about you just leave me alone.”

“Ideas are never unique Nathan; humans have been around for thousands of years. For any person to think that they are the first to think of anything is arrogant and unrealistic. It is you that is unique, Nathan, you have never been on this earth before, and anything that you write, anything that you feel, is original. Stories may stay the same, but the people who read and write them will always change. It is the human mind that is unique, every single one is the first of its kind. You need to wake up Nathan, wake up to a world that will set you free. You have to wake up Nathan; you need to be free to let your mind soar with new ideas. If you don’t, the paper will find you again, and this time it will not let you go. You will be suffocated by paper, consumed by it. You have to wake up Nathan, you have to wake up. You are a man of great talent Nathan, you have to wake up.”

“You have to wake up Nathan!” my roommate Ted screams into my ear while shaking my shoulders. “You’re going to be late for your meeting, aren’t you up for that big promotion?”

“I was just having the most ridiculous dream.” I said rubbing the sleep out of my eyes.

“What was it about,” Ted asked.

“Something about a talking sun, I have no idea actually.”

I walked into my office, my tie perfectly tied and my pants pressed to perfection. This is my big day, the day that I have been waiting for. I take my final steps into Mr. Allen’s office, with a tightening feeling in my stomach.

“I’m giving the job to Johnson, I’m sorry Nathan, I know you have been looking forward to this opportunity. Trust me, more opportunities will arise in your future. If you continue to work hard for this company, Nathan, your hard work will pay off.”

I left Mr. Allen’s office walking quickly, feeling very light on my feet. I made my way to Karen’s desk. She looked up at me with her perfect blue eyes. “What’s up Nate?”

“Will you go out to dinner with me tonight?” I finally asked the question I have been dying to ask for months.

“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea Nathan, what would Mr. Allen say? You do remember the memo about inter-office relationships, don’t you?” she said.

“Well it’s a good thing I don’t work here anymore, I’ll pick you up at 8,” I said to her as I walked through that office for the very last time. When I reached the street, I looked up at the sky, at the beautiful fluffy clouds that were over my head. I always wondered what it would be like to sleep on a bed of clouds. I bet it would be perfect. I reach into my pocket and grab the little black notebook my mother gave me for Christmas ten years ago, the day I told her I wanted to be a writer. The very next week I got a job interview here, and never wrote a single word in it. I opened the book and cracked the binding for the very first time. I took out my pen, and wrote something down.


“I"'m sleeping on a bed of clouds...”