I named her Dream.

Her eyes held a bazillion stories—stories untouched by judgment, wrapped instead in soft, jejune hues of days long lost. Her diaphanous mane flowed like those carefree days, and the single spiraled horn at the center of her forehead crowned her with a quiet, lost, otherworldly grace.

That morning, I mounted Dream’s saddle and forayed into the long-forgotten alleys.

The air shifted the moment we arrived.

I saw my friends—scattered across the turf of my old school. The play structures gleamed with a familiarity that tugged at something deep within me. Laughter rang out, unfiltered and whole, the kind that adulthood edits out.

Suddenly my gaze shifted toward Emma, my best friend from kindergarten days. She wore the same hand-sewn bonnet her grandmother had gifted her on her very first day of kindergarten. Not a thread out of place. Not a wrinkle of time upon it—or upon her. A cute li’l thing with her infectious level of energy. All of five years old, but capable of giving so much love ‘n warmth. I alighted from Dream’s saddle with the excitement of the same five-year-old. I raised my right hand, and waved at Emma with a childlike urgency I hadn’t felt in years.

“Hey, Emma!” I called. “Why didn’t you come to Pleasure Island Park for Dorothy’s birthday? I missed you!”

Emma seemed to be nonchalant and walked right through me with a wide smile. I turned back and spotted our friend Michaela, wearing the same Birthday gown, which she had worn for her sixth birthday.

Ohh… so, Emma smiled at her?!

A low murmur began to swell around me—the sounds of children talking, laughing, whispering secrets. It reaches a crescendo, before settling with an unmistaken familiarity.

I turned to Dream, my breath shallow, my scurrying thoughts splintering.

She looked back with those luminous eyes steadily voicing the unvoiced.

Michaela hugged Emma, her dimples blooming in perfect symmetry. They sat down together, opening their lunchboxes.

“I’m keeping this one,” Michaela whispered.

“Me too,” Emma replied. “We should store all the best ones.”

Store them?

A strange sharpness crept into my chest. I stepped closer, straining to hear.

“Everything no can come with us,” Emma added softly in her kindergarten language. “No change ones only.”

Probably implying “Not everything can come with us, only the ones that don’t change.”

The words echoed in a way that didn’t feel meant for me; yet somehow impaled straight through me.

Then I spotted Ms. Cunningham- our kindergarten teacher.

She stood near the puddles, her voice as gentle and warm as it had always been.

“Children, watch out for the puddles,” she said, smiling.

But she hadn’t aged even a day. Not a line, not a shadow of time.

“How is this possible?” I whispered, my voice trembling. “Why is everything… the same?”

And then, a sharper thought cut through—

Is it only me who changed?

Only me who was pulled forward into a world of expectations, judgments, and invisible weights?

A sudden desperation seized me.

I reached into the woolen satchel strapped to Dream’s saddle and pulled out a small jar.

Maraschino cherries.

“Michaela!” I called, stepping forward. “I got your favorite! Look—”

She remained impervious to my words. The jar slipped slightly in my hand.

Was I invisible?

Or worse—

Was I no longer part of this world?

The realization pressed against me, heavy and suffocating.

A middle-aged woman approached from the distance. My jaw dropped as she drew closer.

She looked like my mum.

Without a word, she took my hand. Her grip was warm, firm, real and familiar.

And for the first time since arriving, I felt… seen.

She led me away from the playground, away from the laughter that no longer belonged to me. My feet moved without resistance, as if guided by something older than thought.

We stopped before a familiar house.

The chestnut-colored door bore a wreath I recognized instantly. My gaze drifted downward.

My name- ‘twas written there.

A strange, flickering déjà vu washed over me, thick, disorienting yet real.

The door creaked open and then she stepped out.

I froze.

A small figure stood at the threshold. Bright, alive, and unfiltered.

A five-year-old girl in a unicorn tutu dress, her pink hair bouncing as she tilted her head curiously.

Her eyes sparkled with a light I had long forgotten.

Suddenly something felt at ease deep down. Was it because of that naive, uncontained wonder I saw in her eyes or is that subtle feeling of warmth of mum’s love?

The woman looking like my mum loosened her grip, I did not resisit; as I was still looking for answers.

But I believe now I’m safe from change, safe from the slow erosion of becoming with the lingering scent of beginnings.