Dreams for sale, dreams for sale!! Anybody wants to buy dreams, dreams about pure and eternal love, anybody? Seems like nobody really wants to buy my dreams, my precious dreams as the only noise I heard was the echo of my own quivering voice, the howling of this ugly dust storm, the banging of doors and windows of the abandoned houses and the constant clanging of the shade of the dim street light whose ever fading light was casting eerie shadows on the walls of the deserted town.

I started to wonder where everybody had gone; so far I had not seen anybody, not even a soul. As the dust storm picked up again, I clutched my dreams to my chest and snuggled behind a trashcan to take refuge.

I had sand in my eyes, grit in my mouth, my hair were dusty and blown back, my old patched up coat was covered with dust and the pieces of cardboard I had kept underneath my torn boots had slipped back again. My throat was dry and lips were parched.

The storm kept on howling and snarling and I kept huddled behind the garbage can embracing my precious dreams, the dreams I had painted with my eyelashes on the canvas of my life.

The dreams about a world where the dreams really come true . Where there is true love everywhere. Where you can walk on the air and float with the clouds. Where the air is always enriched with the aura of wild flowers and the season of spring stays forever. Where you can see the dance of butterflies and the romance of the lovebirds. Where flock of fireflies make miniature milky ways under the starry sky.

Where the waterfall sings and the streams runs. Where colourful bubbles float in the sky. Where the Water Lilies admire their reflection in the crystal clear water. Where the gentle sun plays hide and seek with the dispersing clouds. Where the Coconut Palms bend to whisper their love to the crashing waves. Where the White Swans glide on the mirror like surface of the water. Where the pebbly rivers are set on fire by the rays of the setting Sun.

Where the love is pure and eternal. Where the flower of longings finally bloom. Where lost love gets found. Where you can say whatever you are unable to and express your true feelings. This world is no doubt quite mysterious and enchanted.

As soon as the dust storm stopped lashing and the whirlwind of dry leaves and paper bags died. I got out of my refuge and started to walk again with a renewed hope that I might find a buyer of my only possession, dreams of my sleepless eyes.

Streets were absolutely deserted and the lifeless houses stood like tombs. Uprooted trees were strewn like unclaimed corpses. A black and ominous cloud veiled the moon. It was the dance of despair and the rule of the darkness. The town looked more like an old cursed Graveyard.

I kept on shouting, “Dreams for sale, dreams for sale, anybody wants to buy dreams?” Finally a door creaked open and I saw a suspicious eye looking at me through the ajar door. I stopped and looked back and after sometime the door creaked wider and I could see the silhouette of a women.

She said with a doubting tone “What are you selling?” “Dreams” I said; she came out and started laughing and twirling hysterically “Dreams for sale, dreams for sale…” she kept on repeating and laughing, “Who sells dreams?

Her hair were all matted, she had a look of frozen horror in her hopeless eyes, her dress was all patched up, she was frail and emaciated, flesh hung loosely on her bones, she was barefooted and looked quite bewildered.

All of a sudden she stopped laughing and asked me in a very firm tone “How many of those dreams came true ?” I said “Well to be very honest, none”, she again burst into a hysterical laughter and said “Whatever you are selling is worthless, who wants to buy those dreams that never come true ”.

I retorted “They never came true but I am glad I had them, and consider myself very lucky to have watched such beautiful dreams, dreams about pure and eternal love”, on hearing this she came near me and grabbed my coat collars and started tugging them viciously, “You are a liar, you are a fraud, there is no such thing as pure and eternal love, it is only a myth. Just look at me, what I got from loving somebody so deeply and so passionately? Only pain and loneliness!”

She kept on tugging my collars and after sometime started crying and and rested her head on my chest. After a while she asked me in a very hopeful tone “Do you think that he will ever come back?” “Whom are you talking about?” I asked her. She said “Him, who used to admire everything about me, who promised me that he will keep on loving me forever, with whom I had spend the golden moments of my life, who used to say that his love for me was pure and eternal”.

When I looked down toward her I found two gloomy yet hopeful eyes looking at me waiting for a response. I don’t know how I managed to press the choking lump down my parched throat and managed to say in a broken voice “I don’t know?” she quickly pushed her away from me and shouted “But you said that pure and eternal love exists, if it does, then he will surely come back to me, won’t he? Forty years had gone bye since I am waiting for him and not a single day had passed bye when I did not think of him.” I just kept looking at her unable to utter a single word.

I asked her have you ever dreamt ? she said "when i was young and madly in love with him, i was quite a dreamer myself, but know something it is not bad to see dreams, the bad part is when they are shattered by the hard rocks of reality.

All those years that is what i do all day long, gathering the fragments of my broken dreams, but till now i had not been able to put together one single dream, because those dreams can never be completed without him".

All of a sudden the whole sky turned purple and the city of the darkness turned white under the slate sky. The deafening crack of thunder rocked the entire town. Then the raindrops started falling like silver coins on the face of the earth. The sky opened up and the sheets of rain came tumbling down. The stench of sodden leaves and dead logs filled the air.

I asked her if I could come inside? She said in a very firm tone “No the only person who could enter this house is him and I would never let anybody else to come inside, if he comes and find you in this house he might go back and never return”. After saying that she slammed the door on my face.

I put my dreams on my head as a shade from the battering rain and decided to carry on, thinking about this poor old women who despite the elapsing of forty years was still hopeful that her beloved would return someday and how she beguiled herself all those painful years, trying to put together her shattered dreams.

This means eternal love does exist, had it not? How the poor old women had sustained herself in that eerie wilderness all those painful years? She had been running to the door, every time she heard the faint noise of someone’s footsteps, or even wind rattling the door made her jump with hope, that she might be able to see the face of the person, whom she had loved so purely and so truly.

I kept on walking with a renewed conviction about pure and eternal love and the truth that I had seen in my dreams. I was not a liar or a fraud after all as she might have thought. Rain kept on falling relentlessly, drenching my clothes and filling my torn boots with water and I kept on walking.

Finally I came to the end of the town and saw its nameplate lying face down. I could not resist the temptation of looking at the name of the town, which was so lifeless so abandoned and so deserted. I turned the nameplate over and wiped the mud off its face. Lightning flashed and I was stunned with what I saw. The name engraved on the plate was “A TOWN OF LOVE”.