The morning was calm when Dreamer woke up that day. The sun shines brightly on the horizon and beams of light are slowly passing through the broken window panes. There was an awesome feeling of solemnity in the room.

Dreamer got up and sat down for a while on his bed in deep thought. Why is it that his dreams were really awful lately? Though he doesn’t want to, he can’t help but feel afraid, afraid that one day his awful dreams would turn to reality.

In his dreams, he saw the world crumbling around him. He saw his life being torn apart. Shadows are chasing him wherever he goes. He felt a cold chill in his spine. Not that he doesn’t know what those shadows were. He knows. He knows exactly what those shadows are and where they came from and the thoughts are tearing him apart.

What if anyone knows? It is suppose to be a secret. It isn’t to be broadcast to the world-no it can’t be, the odds are all against him and the ghosts of his distant past started to haunt him again.

Dreamer closed his eyes in frustration. Silently in his heart he prayed that the shadows just leave him alone. He needed grace. He knew that pretty well. And he knows that asking God for grace requires being broken. It requires letting go of all his sense of self-right. It means exposure to a world that he is running away from.

All these years he has been building a world all for himself. A world where everything is happiness. Where did, his Greek professor say, the word happiness came from? Makarios! Ah yes! That word.

Dreamer sighed in desperation and started dreaming again. He dreamed he was in a whole new world. A world devoid of tears, frustration, hurt and pain.

Dreamer, in his mind, has been building a world where roses doesn’t have thorns and rains are occassional. In that world carefully kept in the innermost crevices of his brain, these rains don’t mean crying. They mean health and beauty and healing.

“What makes you so sad today?” A young man slightly smaller than Dreamer rose from a nearby bed and pat him in the shoulder. “Is there anything wrong?”

The young man is Lion Heart. Playful, charming and friendly; he was among the only persons that Dreamer allows to enter his world of pseudo-reality.

Lion Heart sat beside him and tried to make him smile. It was their way of showing concern for each other when one is sad or frustrated somehow. It felt good for Dreamer, yes, but it felt odd as well.

It felt odd because he is not suppose to feel what he feels when Lion Heart is around. He knew that what tries to well up from deep within him for his bestfriend is terribly wrong. How could he ever felt that way?

Dreamer forced a faint smile in his lips. “I’ll be fine. It’s just that I had bad dreams for a few days now. I don’t understand why but I feel worried about those dreams.”

“Dreams really make us kind of sad sometimes. But dreams are dreams. Reality is what counts.” Lion Heart grabbed a pillow and trashed it towards Dreamer. The two playfully threw pillows at each other until both dropped heaving. They rested together on the bed until the bells rang for the morning routine to begin.

Dreamer and Lion Heart are enemies turned best friends. They felt friction as intensified as lightning when they first met yet after 5 months together in a boarding school, the momentary harsh exchange of words and ideas turned to a budding friendship.

The two were inseparable. They do lots of things together. In the campus, it is common knowledge that these two are bestfriends and dream buddies. They are actually so different from each other that their friendship proved to be a complex case study for human relations.

How can two persons of different personalities and backgrounds relate to each other so harmoniously that when they are together they felt like they were indispensable?

Lion Heart was athletic. Dreamer hates sports. Call it a psychological defect or abnormality of some sort but he never had the nerve to really handle a basketball ball. Sports is simply not his cup of tea.

Dreamer loves reading books but Lion Heart hates it. For him, reading sucks and it makes him idle. One thing that has captivated them both, however, is a strong fascination with music. They both compose songs and both love to sing. Music glues them together. There is, however, a line that draws Lion Heart and Dreamer apart. One that drives Dreamer to insanity for quite a few weeks now.

In his heart, Dreamer knows something is not well. From deep within him there is something so strong and uncontrollable that struggles to come out. It seeks a way out of the innermost cave where he has bound it for many years.

Dreamer knew he was wrong in confining it there inside his system for right now, he felt its power so strong. He fears that someday, he may lose his hold on it and it will come out.

One day it did. And that day dawned like a flash.

The morning was calm and the prevailing yuletide breeze sends shivers to his body when Dreamer woke up that day. The sun shines brightly on the horizon and beams of light are slowly passing through the broken window panes. The cool easterly winds brought dew-still evident in the Mango trees outside. There was an extreme feeling of guilt in the room.

Lion Heart is still lying on the bed beside his own. He somehow knew that when he finally wakes up, a friendship might have been broken. If only he had not known him, this day could have been different. But things really are that way, maybe. There are things that we sometimes regret. We may want to change them but they can never be undone.