Dreams

Mark Hopkins did not dream. His parents never had to answer a midnight scream, never had him crawl between their sheets for comfort. Until they had a second child, it never occurred to them that this was not normal. When he went off to school, Mark unconsciously envied the fantastic stories his friends would occasionally tell of their dreams in the early morning classes. He even tried to imagine up dreams of his own to tell them once or twice to feel ordinary. He gave it up when he realized that it simply wasn't the same as actually experiencing the things his friends obviously had.

In most other respects, he was not markedly unusual. He excelled in most subjects in school, but had no real interest in any of them. He did well enough to earn entrance into a state university, a public ivy as it was. His first year in college was University Studies, as required by the university. It wouldn't have mattered if it wasn't, though. Mark had not a clue as to what he to pursue with the remainder of his natural born life and was happy to put the decision off another year.

In the fourth week of college life, he was finally beginning to feel adjusted. Today he happened to be between Freshman Biology and Music Appreciation with another student with the same two-class line up. It wasn't unusual for this to happen with the large freshman classes, but Mark was amazed how much more open and casual people at college seemed to be. This was the first place he could recall where two strangers could strike up a friendly conversation and it was considered perfectly normal.

It was here, between these classes with Sophie, where he first noticed the flier.