Several adventures

   From the entrance of the cave, the storm looked somewhat beautiful. Rain covered every single plant in the forest, as well as every rock, leaf and animal, if they hadn’t found a proper place to wait out the storm. Tony and Gabe had found the cave just in time and had been there for at least three hours. In that time, the rain hadn’t stop falling and it didn’t really seem like it would stop anytime soon. It was as if it was the perpetual state of that corner of the world. Both men decided to take out their sleeping bags and rest, instead of waiting for something that might not come.

 The next morning, sure enough, the storm was still going strong. According to what they had read before going into the forest, it wasn’t that uncommon to have storms that lasted for several hours. According to one book, the record was five straight nights of rainfall. It was simply insane but that’s how nature worked in that place. So both guys decided it was best for them to wait. They didn’t fear the rain or anything like that. The problem was that they could get lost and that was a real problem that they wouldn’t be able to solve easily.

 They had brought food, and sleeping bags and several other things but they had forgotten a simple compass. Besides, their satellite map on their phones didn’t work there, as the forest had no Wi-Fi. So, in a way, they were trapped by rain. The physical map they had borrowed from the park ranger’s office was the only thing they could use to navigate the forest but there was no real way of doing that because the map was not precisely up to date. According to the bottom left corner of it, the design was copied from another map dating from the 1980’s.

 It was best to sit down on their sleeping bags and have a couple of energy bars, which would help them stay alert. Tony and Gabe rarely talked to one another. They were not really friends but they weren’t enemies or anything like that. The reason they were together was that they had originally plan to come with several other friends. The original group had around fifteen people but then the park made them cut off some of them because the limit was eight people. Then some of the ones remaining dropped out and only Tony and Gabe remained.

 They had decided to go together because they didn’t want to miss the opportunity of entering the forest. The government had announced recently that it was going to be closed indefinitely as the passage of people through the park was apparently damaging it. Tony and Gabe were practically the last two people to ever set foot there in, probably, many years. But they were so mad at their friends for not going that they hadn’t really thought about that amazing fact. It was practically a historical event in which they had been caught up.

 The second night in the cave, they decided to play a card game. It was one of the simple ones, nothing too fancy. It was Tony that had proposed to play, as he was getting crazy by just waiting to see if the weather got a little bit better. Gabe was also very disappointed in that trip. He had come because he really wanted to get away from people and things after he had finished the process of divorcing the woman that was supposedly the love of her life. He had found her having sex with another woman in their brand new apartment.

 Tony’s reasons were kind of similar. He wanted to get away from his family. He was an adult that still lived with his parents and had serious money problems. The trip to the forest had been his idea and he had designed it to be a perfect getaway with his best friends. That hadn’t come to pass and it made him rethink his relationship with them because he didn’t really knew anymore if they were really his friends or if they were only close to him because he was good with other people’s problems but no one helped him with his problems.

 The card game went on for several hours, until they had to drop it because one of their flashlights turned itself off. Apparently, the battery had run out. After all, it had been on for several hours a day, being in a cave and everything. They decided to sleep instead but they just couldn’t so they started talking. They first did so about the rain and the forest and how cool the first few days had been, taking pictures of animals and beautiful plants and discovering a whole world they had never even imagined that it existed so close to their homes.

 However, the conversation migrated soon to their problems. First, Gabe got to tell Tony every single detail about his divorce. He even told him exactly what he found his wife and now girlfriend doing in his own bed. Gabe’s voice sounded bitter, so Tony tried to make him fell better by reminding him that it was for the best that he had found out the truth. Gabe didn’t know if that was correct because he had spent a large amount of money in that marriage, from the ring to a holiday he had planned for their first anniversary.

 Tony insisted: at least he hadn’t lived decades a decades in a lie. He had found out in the first year and that meant he had saved himself years of suffering and lies. That was something most people would want to have in a relationship. Most never get to know any of the truths that lie beneath their relationships until it is too late. Gabe began to realize Tony was right and really assimilated the fact that he hadn’t done anything wrong and that he was still young, if he ever wanted to marry again.

 Then, they moved on to Tony. Gabe asked him, rather bluntly, why did he still live with his parents? It was a difficult question to answer but it all came from the fact that Tony didn’t really have any real skills. He had gone to school, he had gotten diplomas and so on, but no company seemed to be interested in hiring him. As he explained to Gabe, companies were not looking for people that had a vast amount of knowledge. They were looking for people to exploit and someone that knew his worth wasn’t going to accept anything like that.

 Besides that, he found jobs that paid him a little money at a time but never enough to actually save anything. In his parents house, he had to pay the electricity bill and had to help with the groceries too, so there was no way he could ever get his own place that why. He lived with his parents not because it was the right thing to do but because it was the safest thing to do. He thought going out into the world blindly was not a solution to anything. Going out from home and then failing fantastically, only to come back, wasn’t really something he looked forward to.

 Gabe told him that, at some point, he was going to have to risk it, in one way or the other. Maybe he did need to take a risk like leaving home for working away from his parents. Or maybe he needed to let a company exploit him, letting them know that what he wanted was experience and that they could pay him whatever they paid others in order to be able to work. Tony was not very convinced by Gabe’s advice but then he said that Tony could also do his own thing; create his own business with all his knowledge at the center of it.

 That seemed to get to Tony because he was silent for a moment and then confessed to Gabe that he had always imagined having some sort of library, where he could help all sorts of people with all sorts of books. It could be in an old house, with a small cafeteria and a certain ambiance that would make it attractive to every single person around. He would offer all kinds of titles, from novels to poetry, from cooking books to big ones filled with artistic pictures and paintings. He knew it was hard and that his dream required a lot of money.

 Gabe told him he liked his idea. Furthermore, out of nowhere, he told Tony he would love to help to get that dream become a reality. After all, he had gotten some money out of the divorce and he had a stable job that gave him more than enough to live comfortably. He could afford investing those earning from his failed marriage. Tony was overwhelmed. They both sat on their sleeping bags and, in silence and with only the rain as witness, they hugged and agreed to become partners in a new adventure.

Takua Hotel

   The premise of the island was that any person in the world could get anything they wanted there. There was no limit for what the people that managed the place could provide. It could be someone to spend the holidays with or a really great adventure, the best sex of your life or maybe something that most people wouldn’t even think about. Everything was on the table or, at least, that was what the brochure said. David was very nervous on the plane, trying to figure out if he had done the right thing by spending so much money on that vacation.

 When the plane landed, his worries were soon a thing of the past. As people descended to the tarmac, it was impossible not to see the beautiful waters that surrounded the main island in the atoll and the lush and exotic vegetation all over the place. All the people that were in the plane were also watching and even taking pictures. David was going to imitate them but then a woman that worked for the hotel arrived in front of them and greeted them. She asked everyone to follow her and so they did, to what would be the terminal of the landing strip.

 The flight that had just ended was a private one, only for the people that had paid to live the experience of the Takua hotel. The journey had been very long from home, but David was very excited now and looking forward to everything the trip had to offer. When everyone was in the room, the woman told them that all electronic devices were barred from the island in order to have a better experience. So they needed people to put all of those objects in a small locker right there in the terminal. They would be able to open them with their electronic bracelets the day of their departure.

 Everyone complied and five minutes later they were in the docks just outside the terminal. The woman told them that, as everyone hadn’t come to have the same experience, they would not be staying in the same areas of the hotel. Some would go to the lagoon, others to the main island and the forest and others to an artificial island, which was on the other side of the atoll. Three boats were ready and she called people one by one, reading from a list. Once everyone was ready she reminded them to follow instructions and to have a nice stay. The boats departed as she waved to them.

 The boat ride was short for David. Apparently he would stay in the cabins that were located in the main island, surrounded by the lush forest. When they arrived there, another hotel person greeted them. Her name was Valery and she asked them to ask any questions they could have. Someone then asked when would their experience begin. She smiled at the question and told them that it would begin differently for everyone. She gave everyone yellow bracelets with a number and told them to go find their rooms, luggage would be already there.

 David got a nice cabin that was as close to the water as it was to the forest. The only thing that he didn’t like was the fact that bugs may enter his room but he was assured, the following day, that there were no bugs in the island. He thought that was weird, but he didn’t dwell on it. The first night was great: the bed was just perfect, as was the weather. He had regained the energy he had lost through travel and he was ready to meet his experience, whatever that was. The first thing he did was shower and then go to the breakfast buffet because he was starving.

 As he was choosing some fruit, he noticed there was only one remaining passion fruit and he loved that fruit. So he grabbed it but then someone else wanted the fruit too. Their hands touched and they both recoiled as if the had been burned. He looked at the guy and David was instantly attracted to him. It was a very strange feeling because he had never seen that person before but, somehow, he felt he really liked him. David asked him to take the fruit; he could have it some other time. The guy wanted him to take it. Finally, they both had passion fruit as more was served in a second.

 They decided to sit together, as they both had come by themselves. Actually, everyone in that place was alone or meeting people there, which maybe had something to do with their desires. But David was not thinking too much about that. He was asking the guy his name and where he had come from. His name was Michel and he was from Paris but his parents were immigrants from Africa. He started telling David his story and it was so interesting that David didn’t notice all the food from the buffet had been taken away because of the hour.

 They decided to keep talking, walking around the island, discovering the place together. David confessed that he didn’t really know what he had wanted to achieve by coming to the island because he wasn’t even sure of what he was looking for or what it was that he wanted from life. Michel told him he was more certain than that but that he was open to anything that could happen in life. He wanted a better job for himself but also to please his family by getting together with someone and having a family or something like that.

 Both men decided to meet again later for dinner and so they did. The mood was strangely romantic but nothing really happened besides a lot of flirting and maybe holding hands for a short time. David was very happy, as he had not been in a long time. He felt as if he had gone back in time, just as a boy in school who is excited about meeting people and having their first crush, That was exactly how it felt and it was very strange but he intended to enjoy it thoroughly.

 His stay was of one week. And he spent almost everyday with Michel. They explored the island together by foot, kissed in the middle of the jungle and swam together in the lagoon, playing around with seashells and other things they found. David loved to watch Michel swimming and then walking towards him, dripping water. Somehow, that was very sexy to him. By the fourth night, David let Michel into his bedroom and they made love. It was very particular but even sex felt better there, it felt much more natural, easier if it makes senses.

 They both noticed it and they talked about it the next day in bed. They kissed a lot and then had breakfast in the buffet. But then, something really weird happened. Valeria, the woman who had greeted them the day they had arrived, approached them on the restaurant and told Michel that he had a “penalty point” because he hadn’t registered into his room the night before. David didn’t believe what she was saying. But then again, other people from the hotel’s staff, were apparently having the same conversation with other guests.

 Michel responded to her saying that he had the best sex of his life that night, so not following those rules had been a good idea. The woman didn’t laugh or seemed even annoyed by the comment. She just repeated that he had that “penalty” and that if it happened again, he would be “invited to leave the island”. And then she left, leaving them with their mouths open and wondering if that had been just to play with them or an actual thing that hotel had. It was a very weird situation but they forgot about it later, during sex in Michel’s room.

 They decided to respect the rules but not fully: they would have sex in each other’s rooms but not during the night. They would go have something to eat or hike or swim after that. The truth was that both of them had the best week of their lives there. When time come to leave, people from the hotel told everyone that each person would be picked up individually in their rooms with their luggage and then taken to the landing strip by boat. They came for David just after lunch, which he had with Michel. He was not on the boat and then, not in the plane.

 Everyone was leaving at the same time, that’s how it worked. But why was the plane taking off without Michel. Maybe he had forgotten to take his phone from the locker or something. But as the plane flew over the island one last time, the guy besides him smiled and asked: “¿You thought it was real, right?”. And David realized that that was exactly what had happened. He had bought into the hotel’s experience and now he had the best memories with someone that wasn’t real. Or was he?

The circumstances of love

   Anyone could have said it: their last kiss was beautiful and heartbreaking at the same time. After all, it wasn’t every day that two people were separated in such an awful way. One of them was going to jail and the other one was going to have to prove himself by trying to make a living alone. That last moment happened in the harbor, were the ferry for the prison island leaves. It was very hard for the people that had joined him to watch, especially as they knew everything that had happened before, all the hurdles they had to go over.

 Since the moment they had laid eyes on each other, they had known that something important was going to happen. But, to be fair, neither of them thought that it was going to be so intense and such a long relationship for the both of them. They met on a plane, on a very long flight that they took for different reasons. Lucas was travelling for work and Carlo had won the trip on a raffle his mother had put him into. She had done it as a way to have more possibilities to win and when the family did win, she decided to give the prize to him.

 After all, the rest of the family was not very fond of flying and he was the only one who was actually interested in it, once they had won the prize. When it happened, it was like a mouthful of fresh air as Carlo was desperate for something to do in his life. He had recently been fired from a job as a sales person on a big store. During that year, he had been laid off from at least five jobs. Sometimes it was the circumstances that made it happen but most of the time the problem was he didn’t care at all about what he did because he had no passion for it.

 He had gone to college and had a degree on architecture but the reality of the matter was that he didn’t care at all about it. He had studied it because his father had wanted that for him. Furthermore, Carlo had never voiced any will to study anything else so when the moment came, they just paid for whatever they wanted and he had to go there and do his works. From an academic standpoint, those were the most awful four years of his life. But he made a very big social life, meeting lots of friends and guys to date, so he never really complained.

 The trip came as a surprise and he was very happy to have something to do, even if it was for only seven days. He was going to take advantage of every single one of those days, going crazy in his destination and just enjoying himself for once in a very long time. He failed at every job he had because he hated everything except for having fun. He secretly hoped that he would learn something interesting and definitive about himself in that trip but he certainly didn’t said anything about that to anyone. It was hard to confess he actually cared.

 Lucas, on the other hand, was a very successful young man. He had finished high school at age fifteen and at twenty he was already walking out of college. After that, he worked for two years in his father’s company, which imported various products from other countries, and then decided to go and study abroad in order to have the experience to love by himself and getting to know more about what he wanted. His dream was to have his own company to buy and sell the best things for pets, as he absolutely loved animals.

 His trip was the one that would begin that stage of his life. He was young and eager to know what was ahead of him. Lucas was the kind of person that always has ideas, who’s always creating and imagining. He couldn’t stay still for long as he was very keen on doing something at all times whether it was to exercise or to design a new business model for his future pet company or whatever it was that made him passionate in a moment. He loved life and all that had to do with it and he couldn’t bear to stop and stay still.

 His father always told him he should take a break. When Lucas announced his trip, he was very happy for him but also worried because he thought he was going to use that experience to work even more. One day before departing, he sat down with him and asked him, almost demanded him to have fun, to relax, to just take a look around and enjoy all the other parts of life that he never really enjoyed. Lucas was reluctant to accept he would try but that was because he really didn’t know how to be that loose and carefree person.

 The day of the trip, Lucas had everything ready and arrived at the airport early. His father was the last one to say goodbye, hugging his son for a long time and telling him that if he needed anything he would be dare waiting for his call. This moment made Lucas realize that his father really wanted him to have that experience but he also wanted for him to chill a bit and just enjoy more of life, especially those things he wasn’t really attracted by like having intimate relationships or even just having drinks and going on a wild night from time to time.

 On the plane, they weren’t supposed to sit together but Lucas had to change seats because a woman wanted to be with her husband and changing seats would help her with that. She told him it was something very important as she suffered from some condition. He complied and it was then when he saw Carlo and they actually stared at each other for a couple of seconds before trying to make it seem it hadn’t happened. But they both through glances at each other until the dinner service came.

 It was Carlo that initiated the conversation because he noticed Lucas had asked for wine with his meal. Carlo asked him if alcohol didn’t made him to tipsy on a plane and Lucas told him that it made him more susceptible to sleep. Then, they went on to talk during their dinner, sharing points of view and experiences from the airport and the plane. Lucas had travelled a lot before but Carlo had not so he was really interested in many things Lucas knew and he wasn’t annoying about it, all the contrary, so it was a very interesting conversation for both.

 When time came to sleep, the plane’s lights went off and most people turned off their screens. The two guys continued their conversation and started talking about their lives. Lucas rapidly learned what kind of person Carlo was but he wasn’t bothered or anything by his behavior. He was actually very interested in someone that seemed to not mind much about what the world thought of him and that wasn’t really crazy about leaving a mark on the world. Meanwhile, Carlo was fascinated by many of the experiences Lucas told him about.

 A stewardess came to shut him up and they did but as soon as they could they talked more and when the flight ended they joined in each other to the taxi area. There, they parted ways but gave each other their email information in order to talk through social networks and so one. During the week Carlo stayed there, they met every single day and on the last night they had way too many drinks and ended up having sex and spending the night together. The next morning they shared breakfast in Lucas place and then he took Carlo to the airport.

 They didn’t expected to see each other in a year, at least. Lucas had thought he was going to stay in that country but as soon as his studies ended he came back home, a bit changed because he had new goals and priorities in his life. Inspired by Lucas, Carlo tried to make himself into someone new and created a small business selling cupcakes and brownies, all made by him. When they saw each other again, they knew what the next step was. With both of their savings, they decided to live together and tell everyone how happy they were together.

 So many years have passed since that decision. And now one of them was been taken away, who knows for how much time. He had been wrongfully sentenced after a trial had been held in order to determine if money had been stolen by him and other accusations. They were all lies, that’s what they said. But the truth doesn’t matter. The point is that two people that loved each other were broken apart. That was heartbreaking for everyone that believed in love to see. They were lost without each other.

About dreams

   This time, I really thought I was living my dream. Everything looked so real, the people and their concerns. They didn’t seem to be following whatever I wanted them to do; they actually seemed to be doing what they wanted. The places looked so authentic, real and well crafted. I have no idea how my brain created that place I was in just some minutes ago but I think I wouldn’t mind going back some day. The difficult thing is that I have to be really tired and not being able to sleep a lot in order to go so deep into my dreams.

 Waking up gets so much harder like that… I would love to be able to choose everything inside a dream. Not only who appears and how, but also the setting and the story and, of course, the length of it all. They are some delicious dreams that make you believe you are on top of the world and, often, they only last a few minutes or at least feel like it. I would love to be able to choose everything because dreams are the best doors to access when the eyes are getting closed and resting is the prime objective of the evening. I love when it happens.

 Thankfully, I haven’t had a bad dream in a very long time. I actually don’t remember when that happened and I think it’s better if I don’t try to recall that event. Nightmares are awful and populated by the most disgusting creatures our mind could ever control. Nightmares are chaotic and that feeling of not being able to get hold of anything is the one that really makes us wake up sweating or screaming. Is not what actually happens, which we know is false, but rather the sense that we are not safe anywhere, even inside our heads.

 But yeah, nightmares have been off the table for a while or at least the ones that are openly awful. I have had dreams that are strange and difficult to understand. Even there, in the middle of the dream, I know that nothing is real but at the same time I know that there’s nothing that makes sense and that makes it worse somehow. Knowing that you are dreaming makes everything a little bit more real, for the better or for worse. But I think I prefer it most of the time, it kind of gives me the idea that I am a little bit more in control.

 Right now, my body hurts a little bit but that’s because I didn’t slept a right amount of time. I push myself to do things no one is asking me to do and they have this negative effects on me. Feeling like crap when I wake up is nothing really knew for me but it’s even harder and more painful when I push too hard and when there’s a dream involved. I feel I slept during a movie and now I will never know the end because it was a one time in my life kind of thing.

 What I like about dreams is that, if your head is up to it, anything can happen. You might have one of those dreams in which you fall and fall and fall through a various array of holes but you could also meet someone you haven’t seen for many years. I think the brain creates whatever is better for us at that moment: if we need a hug, it will create someone that can give it to us. If we want to feel smart, our brain will go back to a moment we felt exceedingly brilliant. Of course, things can be a lot more complex than that. Just like in real life.

 I believe that in every single dream, you have the capacity to intervene and make it yours. Many people thing they are passive subjects when they dream, having to go through some determined events in order to get to the final part of the dream where you may have some kind of revelation or maybe just wake up thinking nothing at all. I do think you can use your mind to affect the outcome of any dream and I even think you can decide when it should end, all of this in the right sleeping conditions, as they are not all ideal.

 For me, dreams are the base of what I try to do. I have been creating things out of them for a long time and if it wasn’t for that subconscious part of my brain, I wouldn’t have as many ideas as I have. I’m not saying that they are all amazing ideas that have to go somewhere but I do like that my brain keeps creating, even if just changing a little bit of some ideas that I have had before or even twisting stories that I have read or heard about. I have to admit that I am probably not one hundred percent original at all times. It would be very hard.

 What I don’t like about waking up from a not satisfying night of sleeping is that, for the rest of the day, I feel like there’s something missing and I’m right. Because what I miss is rest and what I have is an unfulfilling dream and there is nothing in the world that can make that feeling go away. That feeling of being tired and not fulfilled by anything. In those cases, dreaming come too close to actual living and, I have to say, I don’t care about that one bit. If dreams become as heavy as life, then the magic is lifted and everything goes to dust.

 I already have a real life and, although it’s fun when dreams imitate life, I know how to tell apart the imitation from the actual thing. If they both become the same thing, a very essential way to cope disappears into the world. It’s scary to think that we might, one day, not be able to dream again. Some people actively try to eliminate that experience from the nights because they think it makes them feel weak, because it scares them. They don’t want to face themselves and they hide behind any possibility in order not to do it.

 I think it makes us very human, although it also makes us a little bit paranoid from time to time but I do not think that’s always something wrong. I think it’s great when there’s something in life that can shake us so much. And who better to do that than ourselves. We are the ones creating those dreams after all and we cannot be afraid of our own selves. It is simply ridiculous to hide away from who we really are, whoever that person might be. People have to stop living in fear and embrace whatever character may lurk in the darkness.

 Of course, the word “darkness” doesn’t mean that everything buried deep inside us has to be bad or anything. There can be very good things in the dark too but we will never find out if we don’t dare to take a look. And the perfect place to do it is in a dream, where nothing can really hurt us. We have to learn to be scared and to cry and even to scream. We have to accept that some parts of life are more difficult than others. We have to learn how to look at ourselves in the mirror, without any fear but with our eyes wide open.

 All of this sounds so weird, so insane. But anyone that has ever dreamed can easily understand what I’m saying. It is a world of wonder but also a place where we can learn so much about who we really are. We don’t find out about that going to the other end of the world but just hearing and watching what our brain is telling us, all those things buried below the surface of our own personalities. Everything that we area is there, waiting to be able to surface or at least the be represented in some capacity in the real world.

 We all have bad thing and good things. No one is saying that we are going to like every single thing about our personality that we find deep inside our subconscious. But we have to acknowledge its existence in order to be able to handle it correctly. If life gives us the possibility of learning more and maybe improve in some areas of our lives, I think the smart choice is to take that chance and exploit it as much as we can. Knowledge has never really been a curse, only for the ignorant and the ones that live in fear but not for the brave.

 And brave we shall be. Yes, even when we go to bed and close our eyes or when we open them and realize we are in a brand new day. No matter where we are sleeping or who is next to us. We have to be brave in order to accept who we are and dreams are made of us. Their fabric is our life and our thoughts, so we have to learn to embrace it in order to have a stable mind and heart. No one says dreaming is easy, it never is. But it’s the first step to greater things.