Amelia Rochefort was a relatively quiet girl with relatively loud dreams. Her brother, Pierre, was an obnoxiously loud boy with obnoxiously deep sleep (and obnoxiously loud snoring, though this he denied heartily). That was only the beginning of their differences.

Amelia was petite, to describe it Frenchfully. At 5’1”, she squeezed a doe-eyed, freckled face through the vast, yet packed halls of a Texas public educational facility. The school pet was a lion. The school cheer was “Go Big or Go Home.” It was enough to say Amelia fell into the “Go Home” categorical variety.

Her father looked at her shamefully when she could not finish a triple-decker burger with a satisfied belch. Her brother poked at her stick arms as if asking, “Where are the biceps?” Her mother clutched her flat, lifeless hair and rained hair products on it, asking it to POOF FOR GOODNESS SAKE GET SOME VOLUME. Amelia was just not proportioned to live big; hence, she decided, she would not.

Pierre, on the other hand, sported a mildly toned-down Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson build. He could eat five burgers on a good day, six on a great one. He strutted through the halls in an XXXL Varsity jacket and accidentally knocked down kids of Amelia-esque proportions. Pierre was the pride and joy of the Rochefort family.

Tonight they were consuming five pounds of mashed potatoes and four respective T-bone steaks for dinner. As Amelia tuned out the boastings of Pierre and the swoonings of her mother and the disappointing glances of her father directed at her barely dented nourishment, she wondered. On nights like these, she wondered. What if she had been born with a couple more pounds on her? What if she could force herself to eat the close equivalent of an entire cow? What if she just lived on Mars, for goodness sake? How different would her life be then?

She thought these same thoughts all through the dishwashing and tooth-brushing and retainer-placing and finally bedtime. What if…

The sky was painted a sloppy red today with orange patches and white smudges and both vertical and horizontal strokes. Amelia was in New York City which was oddly situated on Mars, yet this new discovery made absolute perfect sense in the way they do in dreams. She saw a Times Square billboard advertising “Reliable UFO Rentals – Fast. Easy. Covergirl!” and dismissed it as if she had seen it a hundred times before. She waved at her fifth grade teacher (the one with the weird Elvis obsession), who was admiring a sign on Broadway announcing an upcoming musical by the name of “Pelvis – The Song Behind the Body Part.”

Suddenly the streets turned into beaches and she was feeling lost. Her favorite soccer player (that adorable one with the freckle above his lip) drove up in a fancy-looking car, asking her if she needed a ride. She informed him casually, “No, thank you. I have legs.”

He laughed that laugh one creates when realizing a common factor in another. “Ha, me too!”

And now she was wallowing in mud and it was sticky and gross and it was burning her eyes, why was it burning her eyes? And she could feel Mars spinning and her face compressing into her nose like someone tied a knot in it.

But who would tie a knot in her nose?

“I BET IT WAS PIERRE!” she screamed as she looked in a mirror and realized she only had one big, watery Cyclops eye. Aaaah, her brain told her, the ancient mud of the Haggebooder Cyclops, of course.

And now she was falling, falling into this fish-mouth volcano and she only registered she was scared as she simultaneously registered it was a dream and awoke


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Amelia knew she had weird dreams. She prided herself on this front. They made absolutely no sense and she woke up absolutely confused, yet in those dreams she was the star. She was never the scrawny runt in a family of giants. No, she stood in the front and got cursed with the freakin’ Cyclops eyes and strutted through the streets of New York City, Mars.

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Well, I suppose it’s due time to do introduce myself. I am the Dream-Giver. And yes, my job is perfectly described by my name. I must confess, I loved Amelia Rochefort. I loved her quiet acceptance of the world around her and her silent wisdom. I loved her wild imagination (most people are born with this gift, you see, yet lose it around the time they become consumed in what others presume of them. It usually occurs around the age of eleven and breaks my dream-bearing heart every time). You all remember dreaming as a child. But do you dream now? Do you remember your dreams when you wake up? That’s why my business deals mostly with your young.

I loved Amelia Rochefort, and thusly I gave her my very best, strangest creations. Pierre, on the other hand, slept deep, boring, drooling sleep night after night.

Yes, I am the Dream-Giver, and I get very bored in a world so focused on the here and now to wonder about the what if…