Mare

In the silence of midnight, sleep seemed to have lost its way. Outside my room stood a car, trapped in the shadows of the darkness. My mind kept telling me that bullets had once pierced through its windows. Perhaps someone had been shot and killed inside it. Dried black blood still clung to the interior, while thick layers of dust and earth had settled both inside and outside, slowly surrendering the vehicle to decay. Sleep wandered restlessly around the house, but fear and loneliness stood guard at the window and the doorstep, refusing to let it enter. I remained trapped in a state between wakefulness and sleep. Then, in the middle of the night, an unexpected phone call came. It was from a hospital. A voice on the other end urged me to come immediately, and then added one more sentence— "Your father is no more." At that moment, time seemed to stop breathing. An entire world collapsed within my heart. Unable to believe it, unable to cry, I found myself alone beneath a grief heavier than the darkness itself. Then... I woke with a sudden jolt. The phone was silent. The car had vanished. And my father was sitting in the next room, comfortably watching television. It had all been a dream. Yet even after waking, the fear of that loss never completely left me. Though much time has passed, the memory remains vivid. Even now, the weight of that dream rests inside my chest like a stone, heavy and unmoving.