After a long tiresome day, there it is, her easiest hello and her hardest goodbye. Everything about the contrasting tones of blues and grays she sees before her causes a warm, yet lazy smile to spread across her exhausted, hollow-eyed face. Rapidly, she dives into the cozy abyss that resides in the center of her disheveled room. She quickly wraps herself up like a burrito in a sea of soft, fuzzy blankets to shield her entire body from the cold air that her dusty fan projects. Accidentally, she tugs her blanket too close to her weary face, forcing her to use her last bit of energy to become comfortable. Within seconds, she begins to drift into a deep, much needed, sleep.

As she drifts further and further away from reality, her imagination takes charge. In a space that was once a void of black nothingness, swirls of color begin to appear, as if her eyes are open looking at an artist's palette with a rainbow of colors scattered all over it in a chaotic manner. The hues become more defined the longer her eyes stay closed to where she can clearly depict what she sees in front of her. There are shades of vibrant neon blues, pinks, oranges, and purples spiraling across the walls. Sporadically, she would see a pop of highlighter yellow or even lime green among all the other colors. To her surprise, the colors upon the walls start to acquire lumescent features as the black lights hanging from the ceiling shine on them. She looks around to see at least thirty medium sized television screens with names of strangers and jumbled numbers, some surpassing one hundred whereas others were closer to fifty. Every few seconds, an animation appears that includes either a strange looking bowling pin-shaped person dancing, or instructions as to how many pins still needed to be knocked over. She notices a number of shoes consisting of different brands and sizes chaotically thrown across the floor throughout the building like a child carelessly throws their shoes on the floor of their room. Above the shoes are outdated, speckled light gray tables with squeaky chairs connected to the floor at the base with items on them. Some tables hold enormous trays of nachos doused with melted golden cheese and hot, greasy pepperoni pizzas, as well as crumpled up napkins. The other tables support jugs encompassing different liquids, which she can clearly determine whether they contain water, bubbly sodas, or alcoholic beverages. Towards the front end of the building next to the fingerprint covered double glass doors, there is an air hockey table surrounded by adolescents in the middle of various arcade games. To each side of the arcade, there are walls lined with shelves holding watermelon sized polyurethane balls of numerous masses. These, too, became engulfed in color, lighting up when the black lights hanging from the ceiling flickered in their direction. Now, she begins to look towards the back end of the building where she sees the somewhat ancient, ivory, vinyl flooring transition into exquisite maple and pine wood floorings. This side of the building is sectioned off into lanes with big lit up white numbers above each individual lane. She hears continuous loud booms as if thunder is clapping right next to her ears. After each boom comes either a praise of joy following a long sigh of relief, or a sound of utter disappointment followed by a series of various groans.

At last, she looks up to her right, the real reason why this is the happiest place she could have dreamt of. All of the chaos and loud sounds around her become foggy and almost nonexistent as if the world around her has stopped. He towers over her like a three hundred foot skyscraper in the middle of downtown Phoenix. In that moment, he looks down to her and she quickly becomes entranced in his seaweed green eyes. As she gazes into his eyes, his small grin transforms into a smile that stretches practically from ear to ear. Along with his genuine smile, his nose crinkles up as he chuckles at her witty jokes. They sit in the squeaky chairs, patiently waiting for a lane to open up so they can begin to bowl and make fools of themselves. As they sit, they become astray in conversation spanning from dislikes, to family, to hobbies. What had felt like a five second chat, had actually developed into a fifteen minute conversation. Time flew by faster than a jet at full speed. Mid conversation, an employee interjected to inform them that a lane had opened up, causing him to spring up exuberantly, prepared for victory, predicting he would surpass her by at least forty points based solely on the fact that “he believes.” She swiftly follows him as the employee directs them to lane thirty-one. Once the two arrive at their designated lane, they begin to put the tacky black and red velcro bowling shoes on, stopping every few seconds to momentarily glance at one another. Within minutes, he once again excitedly springs up out of his chair to type out their names into the brightly colored screen. While patiently waiting as he purposely misspells each of their names, she quietly giggles to herself. Immediately after, they go to pick out their bowling balls. Although, while she is walking, she begins to hear a strange noise to her right, almost as if someone is ringing a school bell directly next to her ear.

Brrring! She can now clearly depict the never ending sound that is going off beside her. Brrring! There it is again, it is the alarm on her phone that lays directly to the right of her as she sleeps. Her brain is quickly snatched back into reality by this dreadful sound. Brrring! She slowly wakes up in her cozy abyss, but this time there are tiny beams of sunlight protruding through her thin silky white curtains that hang in the opposite corner of her unclean bedroom. Although her alarm continues to ring, insisting she unwrap herself from her blankets to start the tiring day that lays ahead, she does not move a muscle. She remains in her current position, an unmoving statue. She decides she never wants to leave the comfort of her soft, fuzzy blankets. This is the one precious place that holds all of her late night thoughts, her conversations, and best of all, her dreams.