She went from door to door, carrying nothing but a worn down rucksack, almost filled to the brim, begging:
"Could you spare me a dream, kind sir?"
Most homes she left empty handed, their tenants already having replaced their dreams with a cubicle job, with children, with a family life, with a big car, a big house, a bigger paycheck, and even bigger disappointment.
When she got to their doors, they'd meet her with the sort of demeanor you'd assign to a pallbearer laying someone to rest. Which, when she thought about it, was exactly what they had been doing, all their lives.
But if she was lucky, she got to a doorstep just as the people on the other side of it felt their worlds crashing down all around them.
They'd always smile at her, having finally found one of their like. They never asked why she wanted them, or what she was going to do with them. They only smiled, and smile they did, mouthing two words each and every time they gave her everything they could:
"Good luck."
She'd sit on their porch, and have a good look at their dreams before moving on.
And then she'd smile too.
The dreams she got from them were always broken.
She didn't mind, of course, for this was exactly what she was looking for. She'd hold them close to her own self, inspecting them with a sense of disconnected bliss.
But not to fix them, no. How could she go about doing that for others, when she never managed to fix her own?
She'd then sit on the side of the road, and sift through her bag, filled with dreams upon dreams, prised and begged from countless strangers, and pull out the only two artifacts among them that belonged to her: an elegant easel, cracked after it was thrown in a fit of rage eons past, and a framed Masters degree that once adorned her parents bedroom.
She'd hold her dreams next to theirs, and enjoy the warmth these dreams gave her, revel in the fact that she wasn't the only one who'd walked down the dreary path of watching their hopes and aspirations shatter into a million brilliant pieces.
And then she'd move on, content.
But not for long before she would have to start begging again.
