I’d been standing at a window, or maybe it was a door to a veranda overlooking sparkling blue water. Sunlight glinted off low, rolling waves as soft breezes wafted through palm fronds in the garden below. It was beautiful, except for the twin-engine German bomber, smoke and fire trailing one wing, dropping its bombs as it headed straight for me. They struck, one by one, first in the ocean, then the beach, then closer to where I stood, and right before the last one, I felt someone by my side. We were holding on to each other, watching the last bomb hurtle toward us as the burning plane, nearly at treetop level, zoomed over the building and vanished. I awoke before the bomb hit and before I could turn to see whom I held. I awoke and wished I could go back to sleep, even if it meant dying in the explosion, if only I could see who was standing next to me. It was a woman, but not just any woman. She was the woman of my dreams. I realized she’d been in my dreams the past few nights, in the shadows, out of sight but always there, a presence, a reality I could never turn to fast enough to glimpse.
