The Dream Thief

First the lights.

Then the colors.

That was usually how the dream thief saw things.

Unfortunately, that was also exactly what the dream thief saw when he landed in the most beautiful city in the world. Which, according to the Wikipedia and the humans, was Bruges. He couldn't help but feel disappointed as he beheld the city. Oh, it certainly was beautiful. But Bruges was beautiful in the way humans perceived beauty. The city had theatres and art galleries and concert halls and it was laden with renaissance architecture.  But the city was also clean, orderly and infinitely boring. Just like all other cities the humans had built, Bruges lacked something essential. It lacked fun.

Well, now that he was here he might as well see what the people of the most beautiful city in the world dreamt of.

The dream thief spread his mind out to the hundred thousand people which was roughly the population of Bruges and became them. Well technically, he became their dreams. The dream thief now saw and did everything the people in the dreams saw and did. He never had found the right word to describe this moment. That was perhaps because the humans never did invent a word to describe this feeling.  So he invented one for himself—Syaril. The state or feeling of being in infinite dreams. Being in syaril the dream thief could change and reshape dreams. He could take them too, the fading memory of a dream and keep it for himself. But he rarely did so. Just as he was doing right now, the dream thief simply experienced the dreams. There were many wondrous ones but to him they all seemed mundane.  One man was dreaming of flying and getting the factors all wrong. It always amused him how the humans had managed to make a lump of metal ten times heavier than themselves fly but didn't achieve flight themselves. Well, only the birds and the dream thief knew what they were missing out.

As the dream thief was in syaril he noticed a particular dream. He noticed his dream. But he wasn't the one dreaming it, someone else was and very vividly. The dreamer was a girl and she was dreaming of a place where there was fun. In her dream she was still in Bruges but somehow the city was even more colourful. Everyone knew each other and the smiles they shared were true.  There were bonfires in the town square and candy stalls everywhere. Children chased each other from rooftop to rooftop. Everyone here was joyful and the city thrummed with life. Here everyone was happy because the key to happiness wasn't success and riches. Here the key to happiness was human interaction. Families were loved and strangers were not strangers but friends. The city glowed with a light Paris couldn't compare to. The dream was so beautiful that the dream thief just reached out a hand to take it. This dream meant nothing to the girl. After all weren't all humans' just dreamers without the perseverance to fulfill their dreams? There were some, the dream thief knew, who possessed the ability to make their dreams come true. But they were so rare. But he still found himself hesitating. And he understood that he wanted this girl to remember. He wanted this girl to believe in the dream.  So he slowly withdrew his hand and hoped that this dream would not fade away.

The writer is a grade 7 student at Sir John Wilson School.