Do you have a dream?

— Mom, do you have a dream?

— Dreams are for storytellers and helpless romantics.

— So are you saying it is a bad thing to have dreams in life?

— I am saying that it is better to have goals. Concrete, feasible aims and clear steps towards them.

— Dad always dreams.

— He dreams about impossible, unreal things. What’s the use of that?

— I don’t know. It makes him happy.

— Delusional happy. Nothing changes for him in reality. Don’t ever day-dream. Don’t waste your life.

— Have you ever had a dream?

— No, I don’t know how to dream. I don’t have enough imagination.

— So, even when you were a little kid, you never had a dear dream?

— Mm, the only thing I have ever dreamed of was to be like my sister, to look like her, to live her life, to always be together.

— You must have loved her so much.

— After she died, I stopped dreaming. Because dreaming is unreliable. You cannot control dreams. You will only get disappointed when your dreams are crushed in the brutal reality of the world.

Silence. What else can be said?

She went to her room, thinking, “If the world is so cruel, can the dreams be our comfort?”

“Unreliable, dangerous, useless, delusional,” she repeated the words without stop until she fell asleep. And in her dream, she saw her aunt take her hand and look deeply into her face. “Don’t be afraid to dream,” she said, “don’t be afraid to believe in the impossible.”

She woke up with a smile on her face and a dream in her heart.