It was dusk, and I was in a clothing shop trying on dresses. I slipped into a white summer one, running my fingers across the smooth cotton, pressing it flat against my body. Dark hair sat on my shoulders in loose spirals.

I left the shop and began to wander the crowded streets. Children ran past me, dragging bags full of candy behind them and holding tightly to their masks. It was Halloween, and the sun had faded to an orange glow on the horizon.

The lights from a carnival flashed brightly as I passed beneath them, silently pushing through the lines of people.

I was no longer wandering; I had a destination.

I entered the bar through the front, my destination sitting behind the long table that many treat as pew and alter. He polished a glass with an old rag, as bartenders do. The place was empty but for the two of us.

“How do you like my dress?” I asked on approach, twirling in a small circle before the bar.

He didn’t answer me.

“How are you feeling?” I asked, more sympathetic.

“Like I’m living with a ghost.” He responded flatly, raising his eyes from the glass, finally meeting my own. Though he had changed, his blonde hair buzzed short and the lines around his mouth now deepened, his eyes were the same. Blue; depthless, the darkest part of the ocean.

I knew that I should not have come here. That it was wrong to keep visiting him. But this was our day, and I was longing to reminisce, even if it opened old wounds that, for him, had not fully healed.

“The carnival rides are still running.” I told him, eagerly.

And then we were spinning through the air, held up by long, mechanical arms covered in rust and grime. “How did I let you talk me into this?” I cried against the roar of the wind, the screeching sound of gears in motion, and the hum from the crowd below.

The air smelled like popcorn.

I was trying to hold back the sick feeling in my stomach. The writhing snakes in my guts that were begging for release. I grasped the machine tightly, taking one last look at the bartender’s smiling face before I shut my eyes.

Had I shut my eyes?

The lights were gone and so were the people. The carnival had gone quiet. Dark… except for the pale light reflected by the moon.

I looked down from my seat to see the bartender standing alone at the metal gate, watching me with a sullen expression. His eyes were two black pits.

I couldn’t smell popcorn anymore.

When he unlocked the door to our house, I noticed boxes scattered across the living room, but our things remained in place. Untouched.

“Are you moving?” I asked him as I walked deeper into the dim room.

“No,” he told me from the door way. His body was a dark shadow against the light flooding in from behind. “These are Laura's things. She’s moving in.”

As he spoke, a small frame sitting on the coffee table caught my eye. It held a photo of a girl, holding my husband close, smiling brightly at the camera. It did not belong there.

A cold revelation ran through me. I remembered.

I was dead.

And all at once the world seemed to melt away. A return to darkness.

End.

This was a dream I had a few years ago. I wrote it down in the form of a short story and sent it to my husband and then forgot about it. I just found it and thought I'd share.