I Dreamed...

The tide of people ebbed and flowed around me as I slept. I did not want to wake. It affected nothing...my sleeping. Life continued, no different without me.
From Dreams to waking and back again I traveled.
I dreamed of suspended Elders deciding my fate while they swam in crystal waters. I dreamed of cooking masterpieces and managing a better life. I dreamed of dreaming and I dreamed of waking. I dreamed of altering my job and I dreamed of altering my path. I dreamed of everything and I dreamed of nothing.
As my body battled the illness, my mind battled the enemy. I slept. I was unable to say my brow was checked, unable to say that I was counted absent or even if I was counted at all.
I slept riding a decision like a bull at a rodeo. Eight seconds to the whistle but I could not make it. The decision was close but, like the bull, it changed directions too quickly for me to hold firmly and I never made it to the whistle.
I slept waking only to take liquid in and let liquid out. Life moved on without me and I wondered if it even mattered.
The time had come to decide...to take my medicine like a man or run, to grab the bull by the horns, to lay in the bed I had made or get over it.
But I slept. I slept and I tried not to dream.