Mind if I ask a question?

There is no artificial lighting in the hall, but the moon is shining through the glass ceiling.

People are hurrying back and forth. They glide past me, dark shapes; I can't see their faces or hear their footsteps, all I can hear is their voices. They cluster in groups, laughing, chatting. I try to push through the crowd but it's too dense, I can't move.

I look at the clock hanging above the hall. It's five past four, I'm late, I have to move...

My gaze falls back down, to the sofas in the middle of the hall.

And there he is.

He has an enormous box of popcorn under one arm. He spots me; his eyes light up in surprise. He smiles and pats the space next to him.

I sit down.

He plunges his hand into the popcorn. Half the contents spills over the edge of the box and I reach out to stop it. Too late; it's tumbling onto the sofa, onto the floor.

"Careful!"

He gives me that grin. "Doesn't matter, no-one here to see us."

I look around us. The hall is empty, silent.

I fix him with a stare. "Mind if I ask a question?"

He's shovelling popcorn into his mouth, head tilted back at an angle. "No, go ahead."

"Who are you?"

He methodically chews the popcorn, and swallows. "I'm Bernard." He says it in a precise, mystified way, as if he's giving me the answer to life, the universe and everything.

"Right. I'm Jacob. Nice to finally meet you."

Bernard frowns. "We've met loads of times."

"In the flesh, I mean."

He frowns even more. His eyebrows are practically touching the top of his eyes.

"As apposed to a dream."

Bernard makes a weird expression now, something between a frown and a smile. "This is a dream."

A dream.

I look at my hands, look at Bernard, look at the sofa, look at the hall. All so crisp, liquid, clear.

I'm dreaming.

My senses are slipping. Wind sweeps around me, swirling, crackling. Bernard and the hall are gone. I can't hold on. I'm waking up...

Brother and Sister

I'm sitting on my bed, watching drizzle crawl down the window. It's cold but not cold enough to snow. The sky is mustard yellow, lit by the town. My reflection stares blankly at me like a police mugshot.

My door is shut but I can hear Laura bustling on the landing. I know this house so well I can build a mental picture of what she's doing by listening to the floorboards. She's picking up another box, passing the bathroom, taking it into her room, setting the box down, arranging its contents on the floor, sorting through it. It's getting on my nerves. How much stuff can she need? Maybe I'll understand when I go to university.

I feel hopeless. I'm just sitting here. I'm a passive observer, floating in a bubble while everyone else goes about their lives. It's like some kind of fog has settled over me.

I'm seeing him every night now, and think about that more than anything else. When I'm at college, or on a bus, or eating dinner, I think about it. I picture our previous meetings in my head - the setting, how it looked, how I felt - or think up new ones, imagining conversations, planning what I'll say to him. All through the Christmas holidays, all I did was think about it. I feel like I've missed out, missed a fragment of my life.

Is there something wrong with me? Does this happen to everyone? Is it my age? Do I need help?

A hasty knock on the door. I mumble something that's meant to sound like "come in" but comes out as a grunt.

The door clicks. I twist my neck and Laura is there, hair dangling like a pair of coiled springs. I swear she looks more like our mother every day.

"You're sitting in the exact same position you were in an hour ago."

I shrug my right shoulder.

"Jacob are you all right?"

I try to raise my eyebrows in a positive fashion. "Yeah."

"You're not."

She comes and perches on the other end of the bed, putting her chin in her hand in false ponder. "Is it because... you've got to go back to college on Tuesday? Or because I'm leaving?"

"Don't start that again."

"What?"

"The "is it because" thing. It doesn't work. There's nothing wrong with me."

"Are you depressed?"

"No!"

She stays silent for a while, her eyes darting about behind her glasses. She's looking at everything in my room; books, posters, laptop, DVDs, earphones. Laura is so intense, so precise. She notices everything.

After scanning the room she turns back to me. "I'm only worried about you, you know."

Well if I told you, Laura my dear, you'd worry even more.

"If there ever is anything bothering you, know that you can always tell me."

"I can't, you're away most of the time."

"What about Facebook? Or phone me, even."

I wrinkle my nose.

"Or mum! Talk to mum about it."

"About what?"

"I know there's something the matter, but I've accepted the fact that you're not going to tell me today. I just want you to know that if you do want to tell someone -"

"There's nothing the matter."

Laura grins, stifling a laugh. "I'm two years older than you. You don't remember the first year and a half of your life, but I do. I've known you longer than you have."

She stands up and stretches. "I do miss you, you know."

I give her a quizzical look.

"When I'm at uni. I'm just so busy I don't have much time to keep in touch with people, even family. People think I don't care about them but I do. You'll understand one day."

"If I ever go."

"'Course you will! You want to be an artist don't you? They do all sorts of art-farty courses at my uni."

Mum is calling up the stairs. The soup's ready.

Laura makes for the door. "Make the most of me, I'll probably be gone before you're even awake tomorrow." She looks over her shoulder and sees I'm still sitting. "C'mon lazybones!"

With a smirk I get up and follow her, and we playfully push and shove each other on the stairs.

Who is he?

Every night, he’s there. Arms folded, hair askew, a great big grin slapped across his face. He’s always grinning. We talk, sometimes. Then I wake and it’s like it never happened at all. I go about my day – playing music, drinking coke, loitering at the skate park. Then the following night, he’s back.

I used to like it. It was an escape; something to look forward to. But now I don’t want these dreams anymore. They feel too real and that makes me uncomfortable. I want to be normal, live in the real world, but I keep thinking about the dreams. Keep thinking about him. Who is he? No-one. Not someone I’ve met, not someone I've seen on TV or in a magazine. He’s not real and never was.

So why do I have the dreams? Why every night?