Dreaming of Flowers

I cracked open my laptop, opened Google, and typed "what do my dreams mean" into the search bar. Cool, only a million and a half results, all telling me I was either going to die or I wasn't getting enough Vitamin D. 

I tried googling, "dreams," "vivid dreams," and about a hundred other keywords. In the end, I came out with a few theories. I reinstated my previous theory, that my mind had just weirdly latched onto a stranger. But on a more supernatural (and unrealistic) note, I could be psychically linked to someone. But I'd never met field boy in real life, so how could I be connected to him? And what about all those other people? I had definitely never met any of them.

And then I started thinking about my mother. 

Why had she reacted so strongly when I told her about the dream? Scratch that, I hadn't even told her about the dream in detail. I had literally just said, "I had a weird dream." Did she know what was going on? Did she too have these dreams? In the end I realized I would have to ask her if I wanted to get any actual answers.

The rest of the day was committed to trying to figure out where that damn field was, or if it even was real. It was a long shot, but I wanted to see if it was a place as easy to find as googling it. That would be helpful.

But as I scrolled through the three million search results for "gorgeous field" I began to realize how impossible this was. 

It was almost two in the afternoon before I finally gave up. 

I closed my laptop that I'd had to plug in while I used it from draining the battery and tossed it on the foot of my bed. I had let my dog out hours ago. She had no interest in research, only in playing in the back yard. 

I left my room, shutting my wooden door a bit forcefully behind me. The house was cool and quiet, all I could hear was my mom's cat padding around. 

I stood there in the hallway for a moment, staring at a picture of my dad that hung on the wall, along with various other pictures. We had gone on a fishing trip; I was only four and the small perch my mother had photographed me holding had felt like a shark in size to little me. 

My dad died when I was eight, from a heart attack. I loved him, and I miss him every day I walk down this hallway and see these pictures of him, smiling and frozen in time. 

That gives me an idea. 

My legs and mind kick into gear with the fresh thought seared into my mind. 

Maybe I dreamt about the field, because I've been there before. 

Maybe. Just maybe. It even got photographed. 

My mom may not be the creative soul she once was, but for the first part of my life, she was always lugging around her camera, taking at least a hundred pictures a day. Sometimes of us, sometimes of nothing in particular, like pretty fields and trees.

I came to the tall wooden bookshelf that was pushed against the corner wall in the living room. The bottom half opened up, and stuffed inside was literally every picture my mother had ever printed out. Some were neatly organized in boxes and specially made containers just for pictures, some were rubber banded together and stacked to the top haphazardly.

I sat back on my heels and took in all the pictures. There had to be at least five thousand. 

This was going to take a while.