Kauthar's Recurring Dream

Kauthar had a recurring dream.

In the dream, she stood behind a one-way mirror looking at a line-up of men. Perhaps they were convicts. They all looked eerily familiar and seemed to be able to bore into her soul with their tired eyes, despite their shielded vision.

The first in the line-up was a thin, short man who looked as though he were from the Indian subcontinent. He wore spectacles, though they could not hide the burden of worry weighing down his eyes. His glance was accusatory, as though to say you put me here.

The next two men were gruff with Middle-Eastern features. One with Cheshire-perfect teeth, and the other with a menacingly boyish grin. Their mouths were both closed, and Kauthar wondered how she knew their smiles so well. Their shoulders were relaxed and hands identically clasped over their groins. And though she knew they were different in every way, they were strangely the same. Their eyes were impatient, hallowed, devoid of compassion.

The last was a white man - short, but with round features. A timid smile tugged at his lips, but he fidgeted the most amongst the bunch; looking at his watch, rolling his bespectacled eyes up to the ceiling (presumably to count tiles).

Kauthar looked them all up and down, desperately trying to remember why they were behind the glass, what she needed from them. Just as her mind was about to grasp the tip of the answer, the glass between them suddenly shatters and falls to the ground, and they catch a glimpse of her shocked expression.

Then she wakes up.

For the life of her, Kauthar did not understand the depth of the dreams and wished they would stop. But the dream followed her into the day, dug its nails into her skin and made her afraid to step out from behind the glass that was her heart. It made her want to drink coffee.

We become fearful just thinking of loved ones who go away forever, or of moments that could have been good but weren't, or of treasures that might have been found but were forever hidden in the sands. Because, when these things happen, we suffer terribly. But the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself.