Is This a Dream

By Peter Bowden


The sky was the color of old paper, soft and wrinkled, as if the day had been folded and tucked away long ago. He stood on a street that shouldn’t exist, where every house looked like something drawn from memory—porches sagging with stories, chimneys breathing faint smoke into air that held no wind. The trees whispered, not with leaves, but with the hush of voices long gone, speaking names he almost remembered.

He walked slowly, careful not to disturb whatever spell held this place in stillness. A bicycle lay on its side in the grass, wheels spinning though no one had ridden it. A swing moved without a push, creaking like a question. Somewhere, a screen door slapped shut, though no one came or went. He passed a mailbox with his name, the paint chipped just as he recalled from childhood—but he had never lived on this street. Not really.

At the corner, beneath a flickering streetlamp that blinked like a tired eye, he turned and whispered, “Is this a dream?” The wind answered in smells: fresh-cut grass, old library books, the starch of Sunday shirts. No voice came. But from somewhere deeper than thought, something said yes.

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