Dreaming Of A Simpler Life (Patreon)

Thomas really hadn’t signed up for the life he was living. He was a senior manager at his father’s financing business and while it helped make him enough money to live very comfortably, the work was neither emotionally nor mentally fulfilling. Every single day he felt like he was just going through the motions and there was little to break him out of his daily cycle: morning cardio at six, at his desk by eight, lunch with Greg at one, afternoon drinks with his father at five, home for a meal cooked by his chef at eight and then sleep at ten. He might as well be living through a Groundhog Day situation for all he could tell. Every time he tried to confide in his father or his friends about his frustrations though they would just scoff and remind him “how much better” he had it than other people and he was just being ungrateful for all of the opportunities that had been afforded to him over the years.

Before long his daily frustrations began to seep into his nights too, as he began dreaming of leading a life that was not his own. Instead of working in an office he was instead doing good hard labour in construction, slowly putting together an extension to a farmhouse that he both failed to recognise and yet also understood to be his own. Every single night his dream would take him right back to the same location, underneath the same sun, seemingly continuing on right from where he had left off before waking that morning. There wasn’t anything terribly exciting about the dreams themselves, in fact they were almost rather monotonous in their repetitive nature as he continued construction on the extension, but with every passing day he found himself strangely looking forward to visiting his dreamland escape more and more. There was something so comforting in the simplicity and honesty of the work compared to the corporate meetings he had spent the last ten years in, each of them might as well have been battlefields for all the hostility that hung over the air. There was none of that at the farmhouse, only peace. It was no wonder that he even began to prefer his dreams to his reality.

It wasn’t just the rural location that was different to what Thomas experienced on a daily basis. He hadn’t noticed at first, or perhaps they hadn’t been there for his first few dreams, but his arms were decorated with ink in various patterns and designs. As a young man he’d always wanted to go under the needle but his father had forbade it, insisting that it would damage Thomas’ credibility as a businessman. He’d never been good at standing up for himself to his father so he’d done what he was told and kept his appearance cleancut, even religiously shaving to ensure that his stubble never grew out into anything that could be mistaken for a beard. He had a monthly scheduled appointment with a hairdresser to ensure that he was able to maintain his professional style and completed a daily skincare routine each evening.

That didn’t seem to be the case in his dreams. His skin wasn’t quite so spotless and his hands certainly weren’t so smooth, but instead his pale skin was bronzed from working under the sun for long hours and the palms of his hands were calloused from what felt like years of experience in construction. His hair wasn’t so casually trimmed and whenever he pulled off his cap he was able to run a hand through a rather untamed mop and even scratch at facial hair that was steadily growing out. He was so far removed from his perfectly manufactured businessman image and felt good for it. He didn’t care if he looked scruffy because he was comfortable, and wasn’t that more important?

After a few weeks off the dreams they soon began to expand beyond his time working on the farmhouse as he found himself at a small town bar having a conversation with the barman, who he seemed to be on good terms with. Indeed, when prompted, Tom was even able to name every single guy in the bar which was strange considering he could hardly remember the names of half the people on his staff back in the office. In several dreams he was even joined by strangers he felt a surprising sense of camaraderie towards, most commonly Steven and Pete, two men who worked as an electrician and mechanic respectively. They shared work stories while downing beers and Tom listened politely as the topic turned to their home lives and Steven spoke about being a new father while Pete shared the wedding plans he had been making with his bride-to-be. 

Whenever the conversation shifted to him though, Tom was continually being confronted by the same question: “So are you thinking about settling down? Taking the slow road with us?” Every time he heard those words it felt like they were loaded with more gravitas than they first appeared to be. As he thought about the differences between his real life and the new life his dreams had crafted for him though, it was clear as day which felt more welcoming and rewarding to him. With every passing day he was getting less and less interested in listening to his father’s incessant demands of him and had even begun reading books on agriculture and trying his hand at a little woodwork rather than going for his afternoon drinks. His heart belonged to his dream reality so when Steven next asked him that daunting question, Tom finally felt ready to give his honest answer.

The misery that Thomas usually felt when he was pulled out of his comfortable dream reality and back into the disappointing world he truly lived in surprisingly wasn’t present when he rose from his slumber the next morning. Opening his eyes, he found himself greeted by a familiar ceiling, although it was not the one he was used to seeing every morning. Instead he recognised it from the farmhouse in his dreams and as he left the bed and began to explore, he quickly confirmed that he really had awoken a million miles away from his city apartment. There was ink on his arms, hair on his face and an itching to get to work that had long been missing from Tom’s mind. As he padded lightly down the stairs to start brewing his morning coffee, he thought back to what he had told his friends the night before: yes, he was more than ready to settle down and take the slow road with them!