i've always had a blessed life. to some it may seem a tad boring, but i am still thankful. looking at the past forty-odd years the only regret that i had was not meeting my wife earlier. she's beautiful, talented, and gave me two beautiful children. my parents-in-law are proud that their daughter could marry a successful guy like me, while my own parents never stopped having words of praise for their lovely daughter-in-law.

i am proud of my two children. they are good looking and hardworking, they score good grades and yet are not nerds. they are also popular with their friends and help out often in church.

i have a stable job, and although sometimes the workload is heavy i still get to spend time with my family. i have good relationship with my colleagues and superiors. sometimes i wonder if my life is too good to be true, but i soon snap out if it. i had worked hard and deserved it.

tonight, i went to bed early, though i could barely sleep. earlier on i had a strange dream. i was quite sure it was a dream. however, it was a very detailed one. in fact, it was so detailed and although nothing much happened, it seemed to be in a more sensible chronological order then when i wasn't dreaming. that worried me somewhat, but i soon forgot about it as i laughed it off with the rest of my family members during breakfast.

in this dream, i "woke" up in an uncomfortably small room, lit by a buzzing light bulb. i was sweating all over, and i looked at my damped, yellowed mattress. it wasn't all that smelly, but it bothered me. i didn't do much about it, thinking that when i needed it again it would be dry and less smelly. i looked across the room and a badly painted painting was on the easel.

i thought i knew how to paint. despite thinking that this was a dream i decided to try anyway. i held the paintbrush and was about to repaint the painting, but just at the instant when my paintbrush was about to touch the canvas my mind went blank. i thought i wouldn't have any trouble, because i saw the already finished image in my head. sometimes i feel this way, when im just about to paint the first stroke. usually i get over it quickly, and the painting turns out well in the end.

unfortunately the first stroke already looked awful. gingerly, i continued with the rest of the painting, at the same time trying to convince myself that it would turn out fine. and it didn't.

so i flung my brush to the floor, splattering paint all over. finding something else to do, i found some bread and ate it. deciding there was nothing else left to do, i went back to "sleep", and that's when i wake up.

i was amazed that when i related to my wife i could recall all the details. she laughed it off and we went to bed.

unfortunately i had the same dream again. only this time it was... different. it seemed to continue from where i left the night before. i really hated waking up sweating, but it bothered me a little less then the last time. i went to my painting again, picked up my brush and smeared it around the palette, without washing off the dried paint. half heartedly i dabbed a few blotches of paint here and there. this little area looked a little better, but i made a few other parts worse. feeling tired just after an hour of painting, i messed around for a few more minutes until my mattress was dry again, then i went back to "sleep".

i thought the fact that my dreams seemed to be in some sort of order seemed interesting enough to tell my family about again. they thought it was a little funny, and it helped me laugh it off again. nothing much else happened, and i went back to sleep. this time i was sure i wouldn't dream the same dream again, for i had a relatively tiring day, although it was the "good" tired. i was sure to sleep all the way till the next morning for sure.

nevertheless i "woke" up in the same place. i was sick of this boring dream, where i do nothing but paint the same old sick picture. it looked like shit. but when i looked around there was nothing else to do. i wanted to take a walk outside but my shirt was too ugly, and it was too cold outside. then i went back to "sleep".

i started to get frustrated. because i always got the same dream. the only difference was that the painting looked better a little sometimes, then i would screw it up. every now and then i'd complain to my family, and they'd just listen but not give any comments. in the end i would just pretend to laugh it off, sometimes i'd even say it was a joke and i stopped dreaming the same dream already.

until one day, my son came to me and said in a somewhat serious tone, that maybe my "real" life was a dream and my "dream" was real. then he suddenly laughed and said he was just kidding. but he saw me just staring at him, with no expression on my face. after a while he left.

that night i fell asleep and "woke" up again. the first thing that came to my mind was what my son said to me, and bothered me a lot. i was unable to decide which one was the dream and which was real. finding a little knife beside my bed, i decided to end the one i didn't like more.