Tahiti, French Polynesia.

"Ahuura?"

The ceiling fan was turning.

"Ahuura… You've been sleeping for three days now."

The young woman opened her dark eyes. Teheiura, her older brother of six years, was looking at her with concern, gently caressing her tattooed shoulder. Indeed it had been three days since she had barely moved from her undone bed, laying there in just a tank top and panties. During the night, or at various times of the day, she would semi-consciously get up, take a glass of water and take a shower before laying down again and falling back into this strange slumber that was difficult to wake her up from. Sometimes she would appear to regain her spirits for real and walk the five minutes separating her from the nearest beach to sit there, get into the water, submerge herself in it for ten to fifteen minutes, sometimes up to half an hour, with only her face poking out of it as not to drown. Then back home, shower, toilet, glass of water, and back to dreamland without a single word. Her family was understandably worried about her, as it was not the first time she was acting this way, but she had certainly never been in this state for three whole days and on other times, she was actually grabbing a light snack.

"Ah”, she murmured. “I'm starving."

"No wonder why. You haven't eaten at all this time."

"I wasn't hungry, or maybe I didn’t realize I was.”

In fact, Ahuura's heart felt filled to the brim with love, despite her body screaming for nourishment. Typically one who is that weakened feels sad, but her insides were aglow.

"Grandma prepared some vanilla freshwater shrimp earlier today.”

“Is she here?” Ahuura asked, weakly raising her head from the pillow.

“In the yard with the chickens”, replied her brother. “Now get up, you need to put some food in here before you starve to death.”

Teheiura helped his sister lift herself slowly as not to drop her blood pressure. As she was starting to sit up, he looked at her wrists, then her arms, her cheekbones: she was not quite unhealthily thin yet, but definitely not as plump as usual, and her legs seemed to slightly shake.

"I think I'm craving something fizzy too", she said. "Got sparkling water nearby?"

"I left you the last bottle of lemonade in the fridge. If you want though, I can go get you a can of Perrier from the store."

Ahuura's stomach was eating itself from the inside. Indeed she had not realized she had slept for this long without any food whatsoever. It was a good thing she was naturally big-boned: anybody with a petite build would have already fallen underweight.

"No, lemonade is good. I think my blood sugar needs some help getting back up first."

Teheiura suddenly let go of her and got up from the bed.

"No, wait, I'll bring it to you."

"Teheiura-"

"You're going to faint from how weak you are and then we'll have to call an ambulance", he cut her off. "I'd rather bring you food here and have you regain strength than see you in the hospital.”

“Okay”, Ahuura sighed, though still grateful for his concern. "Whatever you want."

He walked through the wooden pearl curtain.

“...not that I wouldn’t mind going there, though”, she whispered with a guilty smile.

She remained there, sitting on her bed, looking around her room almost as if to make sure it had not changed, thinking about this long dream state that she was just out of. She was getting better at making those last: in the past, she could only sustain it for a couple of hours at most, and now it was going on for three days with barely conscious shower, drinking, and bathroom breaks. Not only that, but she could still feel the presence of the beautiful woman she had been with, blissfully unaware of the reality of her encounter.

“Do dream characters know they are dream characters anyway?” she thought. But this was no ordinary dream after all, and this was no typical dream character, either. Not only did this dream feel too real to be purely a manifestation of her subconscious, it was also too tangible to be merely an illusion. There were no strange physics like in most dream states or even the ones that were purely for fantasizing purposes: she was really somewhere else, far away from Tahiti, and she knew exactly where it was. At the beginning of her otherworldly adventures, she could go to her neighbours’ place, then outside her neighbourhood, then further away to Papeete, then to the other islands of Polynesia, reaching as far as Nuku Hiva. Then even further, swimming in the middle of the infinite Pacific with no land in sight. And now, not only she could go further than that, she could also remain there for days.

This was a path not many could tread on. Her body seemed not to handle it too well, but Ahuura mentally patted herself on the back. It was no easy feat going this far for this long, and the many years of practice she had at it had finally born fruit. She had started around age twelve or thirteen, when puberty and her budding wish for independence brought her a curiosity towards various esoteric practices, both traditional and Western, but also when a certain inclination of hers, something so strange that she knew she had to keep strictly under wraps, became clear.

She looked behind herself: her squid plushie was still there, at her side, ready to be hugged tightly. It did not take long for her to do so. None of her childhood toys remained anymore as throughout time they all went to her younger cousins, but she had brought this one stuffed toy home a few days after her twenty-first birthday. Surprisingly, it was from a souvenir shop intended for those white tourists that come to Polynesia just to take pictures, admire pleasantly chubby vahines and grab some rays with a juicy coconut, but it just looked too cute not to come home with her. She had the money, nothing was pressing, so soon enough, it was hers to hold. Nameless, it looked almost like a cuter version of the scroll at the back of her room, which featured a large squid painted in a Marquesan style.

A nice smell came to her nose as Teheiura came back with a plate of their grandmother’s vanilla shrimp and a small glass bottle of lemonade. Everyone in the family was fond of it, though their other siblings and cousins would kill for Fanta or Sprite rather than regular old lemonade. But Ahuura and Teheiura both preferred simpler flavours. Not to mention the lack of harmful chemicals that the other sodas were packed with. It was no secret that they were on the lighter side compared to their other family members.

“Come on, eat now”, he said, giving her a fork. “Not too fast, otherwise it’s going to be like last time when you threw it back up.”

“Hard to do”, Ahuura chuckled as she took a bite, then another. “I really am starving. Silly me got too caught up in her dream.”

“What were you dreaming about?”

Ahuura stopped eating, feeling a mild sense of dread in the pit of her stomach.

“If I were to tell you about that, you’d think I’m weird. Really weird. The kind of thing you can’t really imagine.”

She resumed tentatively, trying to hide her anxiety.

“But I got some moments, too. Beautiful ones. I had a home, and I had someone.”

“I see you don’t want to go into detail.”

“No. You know I don’t say much about what goes on in my big dreams, anyway.”

“That’s right, you don’t”, Teheiura smiled. “My sister is an enigma… but that’s how I love her.”

She carefully finished her plate, then gave the cold lemonade to her brother, who opened it. She then took a big gulp of it. The freshness of the glass in her hand, the feeling of the bubbles in her mouth and the taste of lemon were absolutely priceless.

“Thanks for keeping it for me, bro.”

“No worries, it’s normal.”

Ahuura took another big gulp of it, nearly downing two thirds of the bottle before she stopped to breathe and hold back a big burp that she thought would bring her lunch back up. The delicious shrimp stayed down, thankfully, and she sighed in relief, her eyes still teary from gagging.

“Wow… I really thought that was it, this time.”

“I told you you shouldn’t go too fast”, Teheiura patted her on the back.

“But I feel better now”, replied Ahuura. “All thanks to you and Grandma. That’s the beauty of family, isn’t it? Always here to save you when you go too far into your dreamy adventures.”

She was about to get up when their grandmother lifted the pearl curtain.

“Ahuura, my dear, you’re up!” she loudly exclaimed. “Are you alright? Have you eaten well? We’re so worried about you when you sleep like that!”

She hugged her tightly.

“We thought we would have to call an ambulance for you! If your brother hadn’t been able to wake you up… oh I cannot imagine what would have happened, just like that time when you took too many pills...”

Oh, the accidental overdose incident. Ahuura had taken eleven pills instead of one that evening. She remembered this experience, the sensation that something was off before her state warranted the famous call, and the soul-crushing guilt of having provoked such a wave of panic in her loved ones, but could never afford to spill the tea on how the whole thing truly felt to her: it was not terrifying, not traumatizing, but incredibly erotic. Hazy, full of gaps and jumps in time, but the sensation of going in and out of consciousness, the paramedics’ voices, the lights of the ambulance, and most of all, this lovely breeze on her face from the…

“But I am here, Grandma, I am awake”, she reassured her, trying to hide the sensations taking over her body as the memories were flashing back. “I just need to eat well and be careful not to oversleep. And I haven’t taken anything, by the way.”

“I’m just so afraid you will end up like your grandfather, going to bed one night and not waking up!”

“But Grandma, I’m twenty-four and my heart is fine. There’s no reason I’ll succumb to an eternal dream, if you see what I’m getting at.”

“Oh, still, it would break me… how would I tell your father if that happened?”

Teheiura watched as his sister and grandmother hugged once again. Ahuura looked at him with a bittersweet smile. Their grandfather had passed from natural causes a handful of years before, and their grandmother had never quite got over the jarring feeling of waking up to a dead husband. They went to bed together, she got out of it alone. His heart had given out, but at seventy-eight years of age, his time had simply come rather than it being the result of whatever tampering or illness.

“Oh, but my dear, look at your hair, it’s all tangled up!”

Indeed, Ahuura’s long and luscious curls were all caught in knots. She could usually get away with not brushing for a day, but three days of sleep was a bit much for them.

“I was about to do it”, she replied. “After eating. One thing at a time.”

“Please don’t ever scare us like this again, darling!” Grandma urged her. “We all love you here!”

She gently put a hand on her grandmother’s arm, then got up from her bed and started walking towards the pearl curtain, just stopping to take her tape player with her.

In the bathroom, Ahuura put the cassette player on a shelf and took a good look at herself in the mirror. Indeed she wasn’t looking too tired, but she had lost some chub in her body shape, her face lacked brightness and her hair was a mess. After rapidly washing her face, applying her cream and brushing her teeth, she pressed play without really checking what was inside. Any music would be good for background noise.

It was one of her numerous tapes composed of whatever nice song she heard on the radio. She didn’t actually own many albums: her favourite way of gathering music was just waiting for the right broadcast. Every now and then, between a cheesy pop song and irritating rap tunes, a gem would come, ready to be recorded. The intro was often slightly cut off, but that was okay: the most important part was the rest of the song.

She started getting to work with this mane of hers.

“I guess this is what happens when you go too far for too long”, she thought while disentangling this chaos that was on her head, holding one section at a time. “Not gonna stop me anyway. I bet one day I can find myself on the other side of the world. Conquer the seven seas if I want to.”

Every brush stroke freed her hair a little more, but some knots just were too tight to unravel. Strands fell off the young Tahitian’s hands.

“I wish I could leave that body right there”, she continued quietly. “Or not have one in the first place. I could create anything, be anyone, and go anywhere that I like without all of that getting in the way.”

That being thought, there came many perks with having a body. For example, feeling the pleasure of touch, of cuddling with someone you love, the irresistible sensation of a tongue on her lips, her nipples, and further down. The taste of lemonade, too, but not just that: the taste of something way more intimate. Of the delicious dewdrops coming out of a certain type of flower when it’s taken care of enough.

And of course, indulging in this forbidden pleasure of hers that she could not talk about, but that was tied to something so simple and vital that nobody would even think some get off to it.

As Ahuura remembered this part of her dream, a wave of heat swept across her upper body as her heart started pounding in her chest, her stomach tingled and her mouth salivated. It took everything in her not to touch herself even just a little to the idea. That was the kind of thing she couldn’t do here in Tahiti, where the word would go around so fast everyone in the family, the neighbourhood, the other half of the city she didn’t know and the whole island, at last, would know and look at her with either disgust, curiosity, or simply a kind of puzzled surprise. “What’s got to you, Ahuura?” they would ask. “Why?”. And she would be unable to answer. “I guess I’m just sick, profoundly so”, she’d probably reply.

Although it would be perhaps easier to live her life in mainland France, she had no interest in flying twenty-four hours to a place she was not quite thrilled about. Nothing interested her there. Her oldest sister, who was studying in Normandy and planning to marry her French boyfriend, was certainly well-adjusted there, but Ahuura did not feel like her experience would be the same. Of course, she could decide to do it for anonymity, but it would not even grant her this privilege: a Tahitian girl, unlike an African or Arab, would always stand out from the crowd. Everyone would know her still. And the more one sticks out, the more apparent are one’s quirks, especially the biggest ones, would become. No, this was not a good idea. Polynesia was what it was, but ultimately, it was what she could do best. Not only that, but imagining life without an ocean around her at all times felt almost unnatural to her. The ocean keeps secrets, at least. The land remembers too much. Besides, the idea of being permanently this far away from her loved ones was a scary one.

At least, there were her dreams… and those dreams, or whatever they truly were, were her best back door. While she could not document the details in her diary in fear that somebody, particularly a younger relative, could get too curious and find out things, she still noted down her achievements as to study her progress at this unusual and seemingly impossible endeavour. Perhaps one day she would be teaching someone. Who knew, after all.

Once her hair was untangled, which took at least fifteen minutes, Ahuura opened her accessory box, which was full of jewelry and flower clips. While she did not wear much makeup due to how expensive it was and how badly it was faring on her skin with that humid heat, jewelry and flowers were her best friends. This time, it would be two tiare flowers that would be in her hair. Only one behind her right ear would attract men in search of a soulmate, which was not what her heart craved, so she would wear one on both sides. Not only that, but the symmetry was satisfying to her eyes.

A sprinkle of perfume later, she went back to her room to get dressed, still thinking about the delicious dream she had indulged into for three whole days… and eager to come back as soon as it would be humanely possible.