Chapter 4: Sasha
My dreams were troubled as Sasha appeared to me, smiling and loving, but it was a bittersweet apparition. The one time I had found something or someone who didn’t bore me, someone I had found interesting enough to want to spend my life with, I wanted to sacrifice my wants for hers, and she was taken away. This wasn’t the first time my dreams had been haunted by my deceased wife, but it was the most real.
“I hated how many hobbies you had,” she grinned as she reminisced, “...always learning a new skill and buying the gear that came with it. Only to get bored when you got halfway decent at it and pick up something else.”
I nodded, sadly smiling, holding her spectral form in my arms. “Remember that time I tried leatherworking?”
“You made me a coin purse.”
“And a leather-bound notebook.”
“Ah yes... your bookbinding phase. Three books. Then you decided to do something else... what was it?”
“Emergency Medicine. To be fair, I was a Volunteer EMT for like 15 years. That was something I stuck with at least.”
Sasha turned to me sadly. “With the exception of your music, the only things you stuck with were the things that allowed you to help people. It’s why you became a teacher, why you enjoyed volunteering, it’s why you love cooking and making people food.”
Sasha cradled my head in her hands. “It’s why you stuck with me. I needed you. And you need to be needed. Now, all those hobbies and studies and your desire for knowledge of obscure little things that drove me mad; they are going to serve you well.”
The morning light began to creep into my dream, and Sasha began to fade from my unconsciousness.
“This world needs you. Many more people are going to need your love and attention. Don’t forget about me, but I know what awaits you... don’t let my memory stand in the way of the happiness this world may afford.”
I was going to ask my wife what she meant, but an argument was invading my dream from the outside world and it seemed important. And, as suddenly as sleep had come, Sasha was gone, and it was dawn again.