My Dreams Put a Restraining Order on Me

I followed my dreams. I chased them. I watched them from a distance, I let them know I was getting closer. I was always getting closer. I wanted to capture them, define them, defile my own life that they might gain significance. I sacrificed my dignity. I begged the stars, wept, and pined.

And now, I see my dreams were merely reflections of a fictional life. I made the mistake of thinking was something other than ephemeral and incomplete, a closed circuit. I am a phenotype for my own soul, a propensity approaching verisimilitude, a faded simulation, a collapsing wave function, a purple bee, the breeze in an anecdote, a pile of Herzog laundry, emptiness.

This bustling nation was thought up – and mapped – by a guy from Australia named Ian Silva. By day, he's a train driver for Sydney Rail, the city's commuter train. But when he comes home he gets to work on his imaginary country (a portion of which is shown above). Silva's creation, which he's been working on for several years, took Reddit by storm over the weekend when he leaked a bit about his obsession in a thread asking how users spend their time alone. Amid posts about hobbies like knitting, geocaching, and gaming, Silva, who posts under the name ParisHL, told the community about his nation-building pastime and posted links to a few maps. Fellow obsessives swooned over the level of detail, and in a flurry of upvotes, Silva's revelation was accepted into the site's BestOf, widening Silva's exposure. In response, he gave the community a half dozen more maps and posted a brief overview of the islands. — This bustling nation was thought up – and mapped – by a guy from Australia named Ian Silva. By day, he’s a train driver for Sydney Rail, the city’s commuter train. But when he comes home he gets to work on his imaginary country (a portion of which is shown above). Silva’s creation, which he’s been working on for several years, took Reddit by storm over the weekend when he leaked a bit about his obsession in a thread asking how users spend their time alone. Amid posts about hobbies like knitting, geocaching, and gaming, Silva, who posts under the name ParisHL, told the community about his nation-building pastime and posted links to a few maps. Fellow obsessives swooned over the level of detail, and in a flurry of upvotes, Silva’s revelation was accepted into the site’s BestOf, widening Silva’s exposure. In response, he gave the community a half dozen more maps and posted a brief overview of the islands.

And emptiness scares my dreams. I refuse to admit they were never mine. I speak their names into the bolus of a small candle flame, eventually extinguishing the light. I am in darkness, and the waxy smell is all up in my nostrils. Trying to walk steady, but I got sea legs.