The Elephant Island Chronicles

Presents

Is It Fantasy?

The 2nd in the Dreaming by Blondie inspired anthology

By Gio Marron

Narration by Amazon Polly

Is It Fantasy?

Myra watched the rain streak down the diner's windows, painting the world outside in blurred hues of gray. Inside, the buzz of the neon sign flickered against the chrome counter, casting soft, pulsating glows that matched the steady rhythm of her boredom. The late shift had an uncanny way of dragging time into a slow, syrupy crawl, every tick of the clock stretching out into an eternity. She wiped down the counter again, not because it needed it, but because it gave her something to do.

She was just about to refill her coffee when the door chimed. In walked a man, soaked to the bone, hair plastered to his forehead. He wasn’t the usual late-night crowd: no bleary-eyed truckers or shadowy loners seeking refuge from the cold. He had an air of detachment as if he’d stepped straight out of a different time or place and found himself in this greasy spoon diner inexplicably.

Myra’s first thought was that he looked like trouble—the kind that drifts in with the storm and leaves behind a mess. He took a seat at the counter without a word, his eyes lingering on the menu as if reading it could unlock some hidden truth. She slid over, coffee pot in hand.

“Rough night?” she asked, pouring him a cup.

He glanced up, a half-smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “You could say that. This place always this lively?”

“Only on the nights when the rain washes in the dreamers and the lost souls,” she replied, her voice laced with irony.

He laughed, a low, raspy sound that seemed to echo in the empty diner. “Lucky me.”

Myra liked him instantly. Not in a romantic way, but in the way you recognize a kindred spirit lost in the same fog of routine and quiet despair. His name was Ian, and he had a way of speaking that made even mundane topics like movies or books seem urgent, like secrets shared at midnight between lifelong friends.

“You ever think about leaving this place?” Ian asked after a while, stirring sugar into his coffee.

Myra shrugged. “Every day. But dreams are free, right? Doesn’t cost anything to imagine being somewhere else.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “Dreams are free, sure. But that’s just it—sometimes they’re all you get.”

There was a weight to his words, a hint of bitterness that clung to the air like the smell of stale grease. Myra wanted to ask more, to pry into the story behind his eyes, but the diner door swung open, admitting a blast of cold air and another faceless customer. She returned to her duties but kept glancing at Ian, her curiosity burning like a slow ember.

Later, after the last of the night’s stragglers had left and the diner was closed, Myra walked home under the dim streetlights, her thoughts still circling around Ian’s cryptic words. Her apartment was a small, cluttered space above a laundromat, filled with unfinished paintings, sketchbooks, and a sense of life on hold. She set her keys on the counter, kicked off her shoes, and collapsed onto the couch.

That night, as she drifted into sleep, her dreams picked up where her mind had left off. She found herself in a vast, sunlit landscape—golden fields stretching endlessly beneath a sky painted in hues of lavender and pink. Ian was there, standing at the edge of a cliff, looking out over a shimmering ocean. It was a scene that felt pulled from the pages of some forgotten storybook, a place where time didn’t matter and reality was a distant memory.

“Nice view,” she said, walking up beside him.

He turned to her, his expression unreadable. “Better than the diner, right?”

She laughed, a sound that echoed like bells across the dreamscape. “Anything’s better than the diner.”

They sat on the cliff’s edge, feet dangling over the abyss, talking about everything and nothing. Ian told her about the places he’d been, the lives he’d lived, and the countless roads that had led him to this moment. In dreams, it all made sense; the details were fluid, shifting like the tides, and Myra didn’t question the logic of it. She just listened, soaking in the warmth of the sun on her face and the feeling of being truly free.

When she woke the following day, the memory of the dream lingered, vivid and sharp like the aftertaste of strong coffee. She found herself thinking of Ian throughout the day, replaying their conversations as she served customers and cleaned tables. It was as if the dream had imprinted itself on her reality, a subtle shift that made the mundane world around her seem a little less concrete.

As days turned into weeks, Myra and Ian’s encounters became a regular rhythm, a secret pattern woven into her otherwise predictable life. Sometimes, he would show up at the diner, always around the same time, and they would talk like old friends reunited. Other times, he wouldn’t appear in person but instead find her in dreams, where their adventures continued unabated.

Myra began to notice the oddities—the way Ian always seemed to know exactly what she was thinking, the way he could manipulate the fabric of their shared dreams with a mere thought. It was as if he was more than just a figment of her imagination; he was more than a chance encounter at a diner. He was a catalyst, a mirror reflecting her own unspoken desires back at her.

One night, after a particularly vivid dream in which they had explored an ancient, crumbling city bathed in moonlight, Myra decided to confront him. They were sitting on the steps of a grand cathedral, the stone beneath them cool and worn smooth by centuries of footsteps.

“Who are you, really?” she asked, her voice barely a whisper against the stillness of the dream.

Ian looked at her, his expression serious for the first time. “Does it matter?”

“Yes,” she insisted. “It does. You’re in my dreams, you’re in my life, but I don’t even know if you’re real.”

He sighed, leaning back against the stone steps. “I’m as real as you want me to be. That’s the thing about dreams—they can be whatever you need them to be.”

Myra frowned, frustration bubbling up inside her. “But what if I want more than just dreams? What if I want something real, something tangible?”

Ian met her gaze, his eyes filled with an unfathomable sadness. “Then you have to decide what’s real to you. Is it this? Or is it the life you keep running away from?”

The dream dissolved around them, the city crumbling into dust, and Myra woke with a start, her heart racing. She lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, Ian’s words echoing in her mind. What was real? The dreams, with their boundless possibilities and uncharted territories, or the drudgery of her waking life, with its repetitive cycles and unanswered questions?

The next time Myra saw Ian, he was waiting for her outside the diner, leaning against the rain-slicked wall like he belonged there. She’d just finished her shift, and the city was drenched in a misty haze, the lights reflecting off the wet pavement in a kaleidoscope of color.

“Let’s go for a walk,” he said without preamble.

She hesitated, glancing back at the diner, but something in his voice pulled her forward. They wandered the streets in silence at first, the only sound the soft patter of rain against their coats. The city seemed almost magical in the half-light, the mundane transformed by the shimmering veil of rain.

“I’ve been thinking about what you said,” Ian finally broke the silence, his tone thoughtful. “About wanting something real.”

Myra nodded, hugging her coat tighter around herself. “Yeah. I just… I don’t want to waste my life chasing fantasies.”

He stopped walking, turning to face her. “What if I told you we could make our dreams real? That we could live them, not just in sleep but every day?”

She stared at him, searching his face for a hint of a joke, but he was serious. “What do you mean?”

“Let’s make a pact,” he said, his voice low and earnest. “Let’s live as if our dreams are real. No more just getting by—let’s actually go after what we want. Even if it’s just for a little while.”

Myra’s mind raced. The idea was ludicrous, impossible even, but it was also tantalizing. She’d spent so much of her life on the sidelines, dreaming of a world beyond her reach. And here was Ian, offering her a way to step into that world, to bridge the gap between fantasy and reality.

“Okay,” she said, her voice steady. “Let’s do it.”

She quit her job at the diner, pouring her energy into her art—paintings that captured the vivid landscapes of her dreams, sculptures that embodied the emotions she could never quite articulate. She spent her days exploring the city, seeking inspiration in its hidden corners and forgotten alleyways. Ian was always there, a constant presence at the edge of her vision, guiding her steps.

But as Myra’s dreams started to bleed into her waking life, she struggled to separate the two worlds. She would lose track of time, forgetting whether she was awake or asleep, whether the conversations she had with Ian were real or just figments of her imagination. It was exhilarating and terrifying, a dance on the razor’s edge between reality and fantasy.

One night, Ian appeared beside her as she worked on a new piece—a swirling, chaotic blend of colors that seemed to pulse with its inner light. He didn’t say anything at first; he just watched as she worked, his expression unreadable.

“This is amazing,” he said, his voice tinged with awe.

Myra stepped back, wiping her hands on her apron. “Thanks. I just… I don’t know. It feels like it’s coming from somewhere else, right? Like I’m just the conduit.”

Ian nodded. “You’re creating something real out of your dreams. That’s powerful.”

She smiled, but there