text: Raul searches through the forest for the origin of that distorted yet beautiful soft tune. The melody hums like a long lost friend, yet he can’t understand the words sung by the feminine voice. Though Raul’s thoughts slip away with each second, he knows he’s been here before. He picks up his pace to a run attached to the rhythm of the song, realizing there’s only so much time he has left to find her before it’s too late. Some moments flow slower than others. It feels as though the dream song envelopes him in molasses within those instants. Somehow, he reaches the clearing in time. She sits on a boulder right in the middle of the circle of trees. Her long, wavy dark brown hair kisses the edge of the cherry acoustic guitar. The pale woman continues singing and playing as though he weren’t there at all, but he still can’t understand the words despite seeing her full lips move. Her eyes meet his for a brief second, and the music stops. “Felicity Sp-” Raul jolts up from his bed, cold sweat running down his forehead. It’s dark. He reaches for his phone on the bedside table, pulling it off the charger to hold it closer. 4:44, the front screen reads over the abstract art image wallpaper. “I saw her this time,” He mutters to himself. “But she couldn’t be real.” Raul unlocks the phone screen and searches Felicity Sp. Brands pop up in the search results alongside many Facebook and Instagram pages. None of the social media profiles look like the woman from his dream. ***** Felicity rushes to the back of house to see if table twenty-three’s order is ready yet. The older woman of their party has already called Felicity over twice to check on the wait time for her Chicken Caesar Salad. “Hey Stan!” She calls. “How’s that chicken breast looking?” Other servers swerve by her, some picking up full hot plates and placing them on trays for their tables. Without glancing at her, the cook says, “Almost ready. The customer probably doesn’t want a side of blood with their salad.” Felicity holds her tongue. She’s noticed some of the other servers giving the cooks attitude after customers give them attitude, and she doesn’t want to add to that. She taps her foot and waits for the order since her other two tables already have their food. Stan smiles as he places the salad next to the two other orders of table twenty-three. “Thanks for waiting doll.” She’s never felt entirely comfortable when anyone she’s not close to calls her by a name like that, but she simply smiles back and places the food on the tray. “About time!” The graying slender woman exclaims as Felicity places the food in front of everyone. A few hours later the last customers finally leave the restaurant, and she lets out a deep breath. Lana, who Felicity barely had a chance to talk to all night, strolls towards her. “So, I saw you have tomorrow off too!” Her friend smiles, short red hair curling over her rounded cheeks. “Yeah,” Felicity replies, merely a small smirk over her tired face. “Let’s go out tonight.” “Oh, I don’t know. I’m so tired tonight, and I’m in the process of applying for grad school. Next time though?” Lana sighs and says, “Fine. But next time really means next time, like next week. Okay?” “Okay. I’m going to work on the application a lot tomorrow, so I should be good after that.” Felicity barely even remembers the drive home as she sits in her apartment’s parking spot. Once inside, she glances at her guitar for a second but continues straight to the bed instead. It’s been a long time since she’s been inspired to write about something anyways. ***** Felicity awakens in a forest, but words flow around her as though on multiple invisible screens. They spin so fast that they’re illegible in the moment. She looks in every direction, and there’s nothing but words and trees. She tries to touch some of the spinning white words, but her hand zips through just the same as it does through the air. “They’re lyrics.” A masculine sounding voice says from behind her. “Whose lyrics?” She turns around and sees a handsome tan man with slightly shaggy black hair. “Yours, mine, ours.” “I’ve never written with anyone before, and I don’t even recognize you.” She replies. “Time isn’t linear in the dream world. Not even so in the waking world, but it’s more obviously scattered here.” “So these are from the future or something?” She glances at the words, then realizes. “Wait a minute. I know I’m dreaming now.” She jumps, trying to fly. Though her leap is higher than normal, Felicity still falls back to the ground. He chuckles. “There are still some rules to this particular dream world. I guess you could say I’m from the future though compared to your timeline. Listen to Mr. Firefly.” “That name sounds familiar.” She says, as everything fades away. ***** Raul shuts the laptop he uses for work, mind still swimming with code. Sometimes he wonders why he studied computer science in college, but then remembers he has to make a living somehow. His music’s started gaining some traction on the internet, so maybe he can quit his job soon. Only time will tell. He walks into the music room. A few electric guitars, one acoustic, and a ukulele lined on the grassy green wall. Today feels like an ambient electric kind of day. He lights the lavender scented candle before setting up a microphone next to his desktop. Muscle memory of each note connects to his soul’s communication, and he makes a new tune in the moment. Longing to know the woman and music of his dreams. The tempo starts slow, curious. Still ambient style, it grows into a faster sound enveloping the entire room. It’s almost as though the fire of the candle swerves to his rhythm. Hours pass without him realizing the time. In the deep night, Raul’s recorded a few takes of the new song inspired by his dream. Still in a focused state, he stays up to edit the music. It’s about four in the morning by the time he finishes, and he immediately publishes it to YouTube along with a few streaming sites. He names the song Felicity. ***** Felicity recognizes she’s awake, but remains under the covers with her eyes closed. It can’t already be the next day, can it? Eventually, she decides it’s futile to try to fall back asleep and gets out from under the covers. The alarm clock says 4:44. A vague memory crawls to her from the other side of consciousness. She walks over to her laptop and searches for Mr. Firefly, opening the YouTube page that pops up in the results. She gasps at the song that was posted merely thirty minutes ago and clicks on “Felicity” on the artist’s page. The video screen is a blue abstract background, reminiscent of the sea. The opening welcomes her into another world, and the music blossoms into a new setting after the first minute. It calls to her like a siren, and she writes the first comment on the video. “This is beautiful, and my name is Felicity. I only have one song posted on here, but I would appreciate it if you would check it out.” Her writing doesn’t do justice to how she feels about the music, but she posts it. A notification pops up on her phone ten minutes later. Mr. Firefly wrote back, “I listened to your song. I would like to do a collaboration if you’re able to. Email me at mrfirefly@music.com.” She stares at the reply for a few extra seconds, is it really possible her dream led her to this? She’d never thought of fate much before, but maybe it is real. Felicity takes a deep breath and types, “Hi Mr. Firefly. This is Felicity. I’m emailing about your request to collaborate. First, what’s your real name? And second, how exactly are we going to collaborate?” His email reply is quick too. “My real name is Raul Garza. You can add me on Facebook if you want. It might be easier to collaborate from there, because we could video chat. Also, here’s a picture so it’s easier to find me, and I live in Cayucos, California.” He actually lives really close to her. Felicity’s in San Luis Obispo. His picture is posted below the message, and he looks just like the man from her dream. Her mouth drops slightly. She logs into Facebook and searches for him. A wave of tiredness washes over her as soon as she hits the add friend button, and she falls back asleep for the rest of the morning. ***** She looks just like the woman of his dreams. Raul tugs at his ear as he thinks of what to write for the first message. He starts typing out, “Hey Felicity, glad you-” then deletes everything. He tries a few more times and ultimately settles with the waving emoji on Messenger. She doesn’t respond right away. After a few minutes pass, he decides to log out and finally get some sleep. ***** They both wake up in the forest clearing, standing face to face. Raul’s eyes widen at the site of her, and she glances down. “Hi,” He says first. “Is it still you from the future?” She asks. His eyebrows furrow in confusion. “We’ve never actually talked in these dreams before. Have we?” “I saw you just last night. You said you were from the future, and it’s what got me to listen to Mr. Firefly.” “Well, guess I’ll have to thank future me one day.” His smile is charming, teeth pearly white and straight. Felicity glances to the side and notices her cherry red acoustic leaning against a boulder. “Maybe we could try out our first collaboration here instead of through the internet.” She gives him a grin. “Sounds like a good idea to me. Though, I wouldn’t mind meeting you while we’re both awake one day. Make some music and record it. I noticed your profile says you live pretty close to Cayucos.” “What are the odds?” She asks. He shrugs. She picks up the guitar and starts finger picking. He hears everything clearly in the dream for once, and they take turns singing to her peaceful tune.