A heavy mist of muted purple drifts over the worn shine of my boots, lifting me forward and urging me to continue on with my task. I step out of the frigid slush of the river and onto the dry, baked rocks on the river bank.

When the clock hit 4:02 AM, I was already flying down the bridge, bathed in an eerie early morning light. My empty bag thumped against my shoulder, matching the rhythm of hooves on the cobblestone. A harsh breeze filled my lungs as I slowed my gait when I reached the shore of the river. There were people awake on that side of the Lullaby, those who couldn’t afford the price for a dream to give them rest after a long day.

Step after step. Ignore the gaping holes that expose your bright pink Salvation Army socks to the light.

I stand on the bank, waiting for the sun to peek out from behind the dump, to shed some light on my mission. Carefully, I pick my way through ramshackle shelters and lean-tos, where the unfortunate stir in their heaps of stolen goods. I don’t see them, but I can feel the hungry eyes following me as I climb up a set of worn steps that will take me to the top of the cliff. Here, sheds crammed with everything you can think of squat and glare.

If I want to go the normal way, it will take much longer. For two years, I had been taking that route, going all the way around the scraggly strip of sheds to get to the admission booth, where I would have to pay a fee to enter the dump. Recently, I have been taking a shorter, albeit a little more dangerous, way to the dump.

Because City Hall has built the sheds to share walls, I can’t go between. Only last month did I finally realize that the planks of the roof were sturdy enough to support my measly seventy-six pounds.

I launch myself onto the building and land heavily against the wall. My fingertips sting as I haul myself up onto the roof, which is caved in from my pounce. I try to cycle through the different shacks every time I come so they don’t collapse from overuse, but it’s always easiest to use the clump that are closer to the part of the dump that doesn’t have a booth where someone could be watching me. The only rule in my family is “Don’t get caught” and I’ve never had much of a problem with that.

The Dream Dump is deserted when I get there, like always at this time. The field of cotton-candy-like substances is hardly ever “organized”, which makes it quite hard to do my job. But I manage, usually, and at this hour I can work until 10:00 AM, unless it’s a school day and I have to be back early so I can make the walk to school.

The good dreams can be anywhere in this jungle, so sometimes it can take me up to four hours just to find something worth selling. I stretch out a tentative boot to the brick wall, which is just a little higher than the highest point of the roof, then hoist myself onto the surface. It’s only as wide as the spine of a six-hundred-paged book, so I don’t hesitate long before I jump to the ground, wincing when a sharp rock bites into my exposed ankle.

The dump is alive with color. You would think different colors are some hint to different types of dreams, but it’s difficult to tell without taking a preview of the dream, which can range from something as short as ten seconds to something as long as ten minutes. If the previews are any longer than ten minutes, you can risk getting trapped in the dream, as they’ve been discarded into lost faith for a while.

Nevertheless, fuller, fluffier, and brighter dreams always promise that they are somewhat “good”. In relation to the familiar snack of cotton candy, you’d rather have a large, fluffy, and colorful stick of joy rather than a small, dull, and somewhat crackly twig with a few wimpy puffs. I scramble through a pile nearby, looking for something auspicious. It’s not unusual to go days without finding what I’m looking for, but my family has nothing else to rely on.

I move on from the current pile. For two weeks, my brother and I haven’t found much worth selling, and we fear that our shop could very well go out of business. I uncurl my fist, and then clench it once more. A crumpled list of the types of dreams I should be previewing sits unmarked in my hand. As I peer over the edge of it, a sparkling cloud near the edge of the Dream Dump catches my eye, standing out of the clump of solid clouds that feel as if they should only be illusions.

Finally, something promising.

By the time I get back, it’s only 5:30 AM, yet I already hear the soft bickering of my parents. I toss the bag across the counter, where it slides to a standstill. The bag can be light or heavy depending on what kind of dreams are in it, and how many, but today, even though there is only one hope, the light presence that dawns over and over in my head bestows its fluffy peace into my barely restrained faith.

“We can’t pay the rent anymore. We’re gonna have to move down the bridge again.”

We can’t move back there. I know it’s selfish of me to hold on, but I can’t bear the thought of leaving all that I have, everything that makes me normal.

My mother trudges into the room, her feet dragging through mud and whatever else is holding her back. Worry lines crease her forehead like crevices in the cliff I climbed this morning.

“Morning, Leia. You’re back early,” she greets me, but she doesn’t seem to expect an answer. I smile and nod, complacently sitting like a duck in still water because I’m not sure how I can piece together the shattered shards of my life.

“Some good news for you. We’re gonna be moving farther down the bridge, which means you won’t be able to get to school. But that’s okay, because you can stay at the shop and hang out with your parents more! And a smaller place means more family time.”

My mother is trying to convince herself that everything is going to be okay. I can’t bring myself to move. You won’t be able to get to school. You won’t be able to get to school.

You won’t be able to get to school. You’re going to head back to where the failures live. That will mean that you’re a failure, too. All I can hear are the mantras taunting me, chanting a melody of daggers that pierce me inside and out. My flesh shreds into ribbons of tanned apricot and curl all around me like chains, because they know how trapped I will be once I convince myself that this is reality.

She wisps out of the room like a soft breeze, and I can almost brainwash myself back into thinking she was never there, that the news she just delivered isn’t still drifting in my stomach, forcing me to my knees.

We open up shop later that morning. It is almost time for me to leave for school, for what might be one of my last days with a real, stable connection with sanity and the rest of the world. With a microfiber cloth in my hand, I toil away in my stable, a prison cell to keep me slaving. Towers of shimmering dreams surround me, and no matter how many I clean and get out of the room, they condescend on me, feeding me the worries from the depths of my mind, slanting like cold rivulets of fear. Repeated motions drown out the taunts of my grief. My job is to clean these dreams, though lately we don’t have many dreams to clean.

The process:

Get microfiber cloth.
Spray solution on the dream, careful not to use more than prescribed amount or some of the dream will be wiped away (and whoever uses it can get stuck inside), but also making sure to use enough so that the dirt clumps won’t clog up the dream (and you can get stuck repeating the same motions over and over again. Which sucks, in a nightmare.)
Carefully wipe away the dirt.
The next thing I know, the dream I found this morning is glowing in my hands, pulsating like the northern lights and entrancing me. The pastel colors of something that looks like it can almost be cotton candy, one of my favorite snacks, blink smiles out at me, saying, Trust me, I can work wonders. I can live with the guilt of using something for the good of myself rather than selling it in the shop. But I’m not sure if I can live with the pain of moving back to where I used to be, traveling back to a time where I had nothing. And at this moment, I do have something that can help me.

I can wipe away your fears, your pain, your grief.

“No, you can’t,”  I breathe. But in this moment, I don’t care if I can lose myself just for a short few hours. The captivating swirls float through my shaking fingers, giving me a feeling of ethereal peace.

I hold the dream up to my face and set my lips in a grim line, and dive in.