A Dream I Had, Laying in Bed, Before Sleep Could Take Me  

The sun is behind me, it's bright light stretching my shadow as I pull my hood up.  The emptiness of the desert gives way to small huts and kiosks... a market.  Salesman display juicy looking fruits, jewelry, strange and undefinable treasures... slaves.  One peddler is surrounded by cages, selling monkeys and birds and smelly, annoying, canine animals.  While the salesmen are loud and wear bright, strange clothing, the shoppers seem more like ghosts.  They are silent, except when they communicate with a vendor, and all of them solitary, none travel in groups.  They wear cloaks that conceal their entire bodies, colored in dark blue, maroon, or dirty beige.  Their large hoods are pulled forward in a manner that completely shadows their faces.  Even their genders are a mystery to me.

I approach a salesman who is selling reflective glass.  Circular pocket mirrors are displayed, along with a rectangular human-sized one.  Walking away from the table I catch a sight of myself in the mirror and realize I am no different than the people around me.  I am wearing a blue cloak, my own face concealed from the sight of those around me by my hood.  I wonder where I come from, how I got to this strange dream-desert.  Am I the only foreigner here?  Or are all the hooded figures here travelers as well?

I turn and continue through the seemingly endless rows of street vendors.  I stop in front of amusing charlatans and excitable entrepreneurs, before continuing on my odd street hike.  At one booth I admire some crystalline dragon eggs, wondering if they are genuine.  There is another silent shopper standing closer to the kiosk.  The only way in which they stand out is the fact that their cloak is more clean than most, they must have just left their home.  A hand slips out from within one of the cloak's arm holes to inspect an egg.  I know this hand.  Its unique.  Its "stripes," its shape, color, and texture, instantly recognizable to me.  Immediately I reach out with my own hand and touch it, its feeling even more familiar than its appearance.  The cloak turns towards me, and for the first time here I can see a face.