Sunrise was still a few hours away and the rain falling from the sky filled the air with a gentle, steady hiss. Yefim didn’t mind the rain. He’d always found it comforting, ever since he was a young boy. He held out his hand and caught a few raindrops in his palm. They were cold but not uncomfortably so. All the same, he turned up the collar on his jacket before stepping out from beneath the awning he had been sheltering under. He wished he had a hat as the droplets began running through his hair and down to his scalp but there wasn’t much he could do about that now. He never seemed to have a hat with him when he was here.

Where here was, exactly, had taken Yefim quite a while to discover. He’d been here countless times in his dreams and at first he’d thought it was all just an invention of his dreams. It was always the same, very early in the morning and raining and he was always standing beneath the awning. Yet after a while he began to notice things that couldn’t be invented from him. For one thing, everything was written in English, and he didn’t know English. He’d also found newspapers and they were always of the same day. Years ago he hadn’t thought much of it, but as that date drew closer he’d begun to wonder, and now he only had a week before the date was suppose to arrive. What was more, he’d been able to start remembering some of the lines from the newspaper and writing them down when he woke up. His friend Aleksei knew enough English to translate it and, as far as Aleksei could tell, it was all proper English. The snippets Yefim had brought to him were never anything too interesting, local politics, sports, weather, but last week he had been able bring Aleksei a line from the newspaper that identified where his dreams were taking place: Seattle, Washington.

Yefim knew nothing about Seattle, but all the same he wanted to know why it was he kept dreaming of this place, and of that early morning.

He strode along the damp sidewalk, looking around and trying to see what he could find. He’d wandered these streets and alleys so many times before that he wasn’t exactly sure what else he could hope to really find. He’d of course find the newspaper and memorize another few lines for Aleksei to translate but beyond that he would just wander around for a few hours. There were other people around, occasionally, but they never seemed to see or hear him and so he ignored them. He’d long since given up on trying to listen in on the few conversations he’d found since the sounds were so foreign to him that when he tried to recreate them for Aleksei it came out as gibberish.

“Maybe I should go to Seattle,” Yefim wondered aloud to himself as he often did in this dream.

He’d figured out what street his dream began on and so he was fairly confident that he could be there at the right time and on the right day to match the one from his dream. He already had a passport as well, but flying to America just so he could stand beneath an awning in Seattle in the middle of the night sounded crazy even to him. Besides, he didn’t know the language and the idea of going to a place where he couldn’t communicate did not sound like fun. Still, he couldn’t help but wonder what would happen if he did go. Would it be like it was in his dream? From the research he’d done on Seattle, it seemed like it was usually raining anyway, but there were so many other little details he’d picked up on over time. The places where he had found people. Various parked cars, stores, and other little things. What if his dream of that place, that night, was real? Why was he dreaming of it? What would happen after that date was passed? Would he get another dream of another place and time or was this it?

“Maybe it’s just my imagination,” Yefim said and he kicked a small rock along the sidewalk that skipped and bounced along ahead of him. “Maybe I just know some English, buried deep in my subconscious somewhere.” Yefim caught back up to the rock he’d kicked and so he kicked it again and watched as it bounded along once again.

He rounded the corner and continued on along the new street. This one was better lit and, even though it was all just a dream, he still tended to stick to the more brightly lit areas. He’d never been one to wander alone down dark roads.

The sound of running footsteps behind him caught his attention and so he turned to see what was going on. New things, new discoveries were rare though not completely unexpected. So much was going on all over and he could never explore every place at all the different times to see what all was going on that night in Seattle.

A woman was running along the street in his direction. She looked to be about his age, in her mid twenties or so. She wasn’t running in a frightened or hurried manner either and she even began to slow down as she neared Yefim. He watched her as she approached, and suddenly he realized that she was watching him as well. They both seemed to make that realization at the same time because Yefim stepped back in shock and the woman stopped running at once.

“You can see me?” The woman asked.

“Yes,” Yefim replied, realizing as  he spoke that he could also understand her.

He blinked and found he was awake and staring up at his bedroom ceiling.

“What? No!” he nearly shouted at once in shock and frustration.

The dream was suppose to last for hours, yet he’d only been there for a maybe half an hour. Why had it ended then? And who was that woman he’d met? Was she also just another part of the dream or was she real?

Yefim grabbed his cellphone and called Aleksei. It rang a few times and finally Aleksei answered in a somewhat groggy voice.

“Hmm? What’s going on, Yefim?”

“I met a woman!” Yefim exclaimed.

“Do you know what time it is?” Aleksei asked without trying to hide his impatience.

“No, no, I met her in the dream!” Yefim couldn’t contain himself and went on ignoring Aleksei’s tiredness. “But as soon as we met, the dream ended early. It’s never done that before. It always goes until sunrise but this time it wasn’t even an hour long.”

Aleksei, who had always taken a fairly pragmatic stance on Yefim’s dream, didn’t answer right away.

“What do you think it means?” Yefim asked.

“I think it means you’re getting bored of your dream,” was Aleksei’s response. “Haven’t there been other people in your dream before?”

“They never see me,” Yefim said, “but she did. And she didn’t speak English. She spoke –

“Yefim!” Aleksei cut him off, “are you going to Seattle?”

“What?” Yefim asked, confused.

“Are you going to fly to Seattle next week and see if this dream of yours is real? Because if not, then there’s no point in getting all worked up about this woman from your dream.”

Yefim didn’t know what to say to that. He wasn’t sure still if he would go or not.

“Would you come with me?” Yefim finally asked.

“I’m not going to America,” Aleksei almost laughed.

“What if I pay for you to go?” Yefim pressed, “If you go, then you can be my interpreter for English.”

“I thought you said the woman didn’t speak English?”

“Yes, but I’d need someone for the airports and the hotel.”

Yefim could almost hear Aleksei thinking on the other end of the call.

“Let me call into work and see if I can get some days off,” he said finally, “but you will pay for everything. Flight, hotel, food, everything.”

“Okay,” Yefim agreed and they ended the call.

It was then that it hit him. He and Aleksei were going to America to see if his dream was real or imagined. Yefim also had to pay for them both, which he was pretty sure wouldn’t exactly be cheap. He got on his computer and began looking up flights and hotels. He had a decent amount saved in the bank, but the cost of this trip, as he calculated it all out, was going to seriously deplete his savings. Still, he had to go. He had to know. And so he made the reservations and sent Aleksei a text to let him know of the dates.

You’re lucky, I got the time off, was Aleksei’s response.

For the next several days Yefim could hardly concentrate. He packed, unpacked, and repacked his travel case several times before deciding to just leave it packed. He was pretty sure his boss at work was getting frustrated with how distracted he was at work, but once he heard about Yefim’s trip (Yefim didn’t explain the real reason, just that he was going and very excited), his boss calmed down.

“Just make sure you’re back to normal when you get back,” he chuckled and left it at that.

As with so many things and anticipated events, the day of their flight seemed like it would never come until, quite suddenly, Yefim found himself turning off his alarm and sitting up in bed only to realize that it was the day he and Aleksei would fly out. They would have a day for travel, the flight itself was around sixteen hours long, then a day for recuperating and perhaps some sight seeing. Finally would come the morning he’d been dreaming about for so long. They would have a couple days in Seattle afterwords, but Yefim didn’t want to plan anything definite for those days in case the dream turned out to be real.

“Anything interesting in your dreams?” Aleksei asked Yefim when the taxi picked him up.

“No,” Yefim said.

He hadn’t had the dream ever since he met the woman.

“Well, we’ll just have to wait and see what happens,” Aleksei said.

It was still very early in the morning when they arrived at the airport and it was clear to Yefim that Aleksei was tired and not in the mood for much chit chat and so Yefim left him alone for the most part while they waited for their flight.

Once on the plane itself, Aleksei fell asleep even before takeoff. Yefim, who had the window seat and no one to talk to, spent the first several hours of the flight just staring out the window as the land and water passed away beneath them. He wondered what he would say if he really did meet the woman in real life. He also wondered what would come of that meeting. He wasn’t looking for a romantic relationship at the moment. He was pretty comfortable with his life the way it was and didn’t want to complicate things.

The worst fear he had, the one that always seemed to crop up time and again, was what if there was no one there? What if he wandered all night and nothing happened? What if it was all for nothing?

All of his wondering and worrying carried him through the entire flight. Aleksei was mostly quiet, alternating between reading one of the books he’d brought and watching one of the in flight movies. He fell asleep again a couple hours before they were due to land but awoke suddenly just as they were coming in to land.

“Ooh,” Aleksei moaned, “sleeping on a plane during landing is not the best idea.”

His face was tinted green by the time the plane had taxied up to the gate but he managed to keep from being sick, though he did make Yefim wait a bit before they got up from their seats and retrieve their luggage. Yefim was worried that he’d be too sick to handle getting them a taxi to their hotel or to even read the signs directing them out of the airport but Aleksei recovered quickly once they were out of the plane.

“This way,” Aleksei directed them and they wove through the maze-like airport until they’d found their way outside.

It was midday in Seattle but the heavy cloud cover kept it from being overly bright. The city itself smelled damp and there were puddle in the road though it wasn’t currently raining. There was a heaviness to the air that Yefim had felt ever since they’d stepped off the airplane and for a moment he thought he might have trouble breathing in the dense, moist air.

There was a row of taxi’s waiting along the street curb but Aleksei walked right past them.

“Don’t we need a taxi?” Yefim asked.

“There’s a train,” Aleksei said and pointed to a sign that bore the silhouette of a train on it and an arrow pointing the way ahead of them. “I looked it up a few days ago and it should take us to within a few blocks of the hotel.”

Yefim shrugged and followed after Aleksei. To Yefim’s relief and delight, as much as Aleksei had been grumbling about this trip ever since he’d agreed to go on it, Aleksei seemed to be really excited. As they rode the train and looked out at the surrounding city and all of its greenery he kept pointing things out to him and remarking about places he wanted to go. At last the train crested a hill and they could see the city of Seattle properly, the tight cluster of skyscrapers, the strange tower that was called the Space Needle tucked off to the one side, and the vast bodies of water that cut into and around all of it.

The train ducked back down and suddenly they were underground. They rode the train for a few more stops and then, at Aleksei’s prompting, they got off the train and began working their way back up to the street level.

“Look at all the moss,” Aleksei remarked and pointed to the side of a building they were walking by. The edges between the bricks and the little ledges on top of the columns were filled with fat lumps of moss. “I’m surprised there isn’t more of it on the ground, though maybe there’s too many people walking everywhere for it to grow there.”

Yefim nodded. He’d seen much of this before, though never during the day. He recognized this street and, after asking Aleksei to remind him what intersection the hotel was on, took the lead in guiding them to it.

They got checked into their hotel room and then took turns showering and refreshing themselves after the long flight. Even though they’d been sitting for so long, they were both tired.

“If we go to bed now we’ll be out of sync with everything else around,” Yefim remarked. “Best to just stay up and try to keep to the local time.”

Aleksei agreed and they set about discussing what they should do or where they should go that day. As it turned out, Yefim was just too distracted to really pay any attention to the places they ended up going.

“Are you even enjoying this trip?” Aleksei asked that night when they got back to the hotel. “I feel like I’m here by myself and you’re just some stranger who keeps following me around.”

“Sorry,” Yefim sighed as he flopped face down onto his bed. “I’d say I’m just tired from the flight but…

“But that’s not the truth,” Aleksei finished for him. “Not the full truth anyway.”

Yefim shrugged, still face down on his bed.

“I’ll be better tomorrow,” he promised.

Neither of them spoke anymore that night. They were both quite exhausted and they fell asleep quickly. Yefim hoping to have the dream just one more time whereas Aleksei just hoped for a more engaging friend the next day.

The following morning arrived and Yefim had not had the dream. Still, he felt rested and was determined to enjoy the day. He and Aleksei plotted out the day, listing the various museums, odd shops, and attractions that they wanted to visit. They tried to avoid going to the most touristy places, since most of those tended to be less interesting in real life than they seemed in pictures and travel brochures. Still, they couldn’t avoid them all. The Space Needle was the most obvious one that they both wanted to see.

“It’s funny,” Aleksei said about halfway through the day while they stopped for lunch.

“What?” Yefim asked.

“We have museums back home,” Aleksei said, “but how many of them have you ever visited?”

Yefim thought for a moment, trying to remember if he’d ever gone to any of the museums back home.

“I’m sure I’ve gone to some of them,” he said at last though he wasn’t at all sure that he had.

“Mm? Which ones?”

Yefim played with his food for a bit, thinking hard, before giving up.

“Maybe I haven’t after all.”

“First thing when we get back,” Aleksei said, “I’m going to look up all the museums and go to each one. You’re welcome to join me if you like.”

“After this trip,” Yefim admitted, “I’m not sure I’ll be able to afford any more museums. Not for a while at least.”

Aleksei looked down, his smile fading.

“Yefim,” he began, “I’m sorry I told you to pay for all this. I’ll pay you back when we’re done.”

Yefim waved him off.

“No, if this is the price for being able to come here, then it’s a price I’m happy to pay,” then he added, “Even if my dream turns out not to be real I’m glad we came.”

“Well then I will pay for you to go with me to the other museums back home,” Aleksei said, brightening up.

“Agreed,” Yefim said and as they finished their lunch they spoke of the various other places back home they’d never gone to see that they wanted to now.

As the day wore on, Yefim almost forgot about his dream and the approaching night. It was a sign of how much they’d enjoyed the day that, upon returning to their hotel room, Aleksei turned to Yefim and said, “Do you want me to go with you tonight?”

“No,” Yefim replied almost at once. “I want to be as true to the dream as I can be.”

To pass the remaining hours before Yefim needed to leave, they watched a movie on the TV. Aleksei did his best to translate as it went but mostly they were just watching the film for the explosions and action sequences. At last, the alarm on Yefim’s cell phone went off, signaling that it was time for him to get ready. He made sure to dress the exact same way as he had been dressed in his dream. He wanted to bring a hat, but since he didn’t have one in the dream he left it behind.

“Good luck,” Aleksei called after him as Yefim left the room.

Stepping out of the hotel, he turned down the sidewalk and began making his way to where the dream always began. He didn’t need to go far, just a few blocks. The clouds had been low and heavy all during the day but hadn’t rained. As though on cue, the moment Yefim stepped beneath the awning, the clouds opened up and it began to rain. Everything was exactly as he remembered them. The hiss, the smell, the slight chill. He held out his hand and he caught a few raindrops in his palm.

“Here we go,” his said under his breath and he began to walk. He wanted to go back to where he’d met the woman, taking the same path he had trod before. “I could be dreaming and I wouldn’t know it,” he murmured. Everything was so perfect, so exact to how he’d experienced it in his dreams.

He saw the small stone on the ground and he gave it a kick. It bounded away, just as it had done the last time he’d been in the dream. He walked back up to it and kicked it a second time. It bounced and rolled, again just as it had done in the dream.

After what felt like an eternity of walking but what was more like just a half an hour, Yefim d reached the place where he’d met the woman. He looked around, expectant.

A minute passed.

Yefim paced up and down the bit of sidewalk and checked the time to see how long he’d been waiting and then resumed his pacing.

“This is where we met,” he muttered, “if she wanted to find me, this is where she’d come looking.”

A car passed by and Yefim tried not to look too suspicious though he knew anyone standing outside in the rain this early in the morning, pacing up and down the sidewalk would likely seem suspicious.

He checked the time again. Another minute had gone by.

Time was crawling by. He knew he was being impatient. He’d only just arrived. He needed to give her more time. Besides, in the real world, a woman walking alone at night was hardly without its risks. Maybe she had decided it wasn’t worth the risk to go out alone to meet a complete stranger.

“Excuse me?” a woman asked from behind Yefim.

He started and turned quickly to see who it was.

The woman stood there, looking uncertain yet excited.

Their eyes met and Yefim felt a thrill run through him. She was real! The dream was real!

“Look at you,” Yefim found himself saying without meaning to, “you’re here! You’re actually here!”

“Yes,” the woman laughed somewhat nervously. “And you are also here and real.”

They stood there in silence for a time, each taking in the wonder of the moment.

“I’m Yefim,” Yefim said at last and he held out his hand.

“I’m Iya,” the woman said, and she took Yefim’s hand.

They shook hands, somewhat awkwardly and then each took their hand back.

“How long did you have the dream?” Yefim asked.

“Maybe five or six years,” Iya told him. “You?”

“About the same,” Yefim replied.

“Are you from Seattle?” Iya asked.

Yefim laughed.

“Oh no,” he said, “I had to fly here from Moscow.”

Iya cocked her head.

“Really?” She asked, “because so did I.”

“No, really?”

Iya nodded her head and Yefim chuckled before they both fell silent once again.

“So what do we do now?” Iya asked.

They were both getting quite soaked from the rain and neither of them was particularly dressed for the weather. It was one thing to get soaked in a dream when you knew you’d just wake up and be fine. It was something altogether different to stand out in the rain in real life.

“Would you like to join me tomorrow?” Yefim asked finally.

“Sure,” Iya replied, “I’m here in Seattle for another couple of days.”

“Me too.”

“Oh, and I came with a friend, to Seattle. Is it okay if she joins?”

“That’s perfect,” Yefim said, “I also came with a friend.”

“Alright then,” Iya said.

“I guess I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, my hotel is back this way,” Yefim said, pointing back the way he’d come.

“Oh, so is mine,” Iya said. “Mind if I walk with you?”

“That would be great,” Yefim replied and they began to walk back along the sidewalk.

As they walked, the talked about Moscow and their jobs. As it turned out, they both worked for the same company, but in different department. What was even more surprising though, was when they found out they lived in the same apartment complex.

“I’ve lived in that same apartment ever since I moved to Moscow!” Iya exclaimed. “Ever since I got that job.”

“Me too,” Yefim said and the number of coincidences that were adding up continued to astound him. “How is it we’ve never seen each other? I’ve gone to most of the community parties for our building, and the summer work parties.”

“Same,” Iya said, “but there’s always so many people at those parties. I’m not really all that surprised we never met.”

Yefim looked up and was surprised to realize they were already back at his hotel.

“Well this is where I’m staying,” he said and turned to possibly give Iya a hug before leaving for the night.

“Is this really where you’re staying?” Iya asked.

“Yes,” Yefim said, “why? Are you staying here too?”

Iya pulled out her hotel room key card. Yefim pulled his out as well. They were an obvious match.

“Room two thirty,” Iya said.

“I’m in two thirty two,” Yefim said.

Again they could only stand there and stare in amazement. However, after another pause, Iya looked away as concern began to encroach on her face.

“What’s wrong?” Yefim asked.

“It’s just,” Iya began and she was clearly struggling to find the right words. “All of this is incredible, and unbelievable, and like something from a movie, but…well I want you to know that I’m not looking for a relationship.”

Yefim could have laughed out loud. He hadn’t brought up that subject himself because he quite honestly didn’t know how. Under most circumstances this sort of thing would be expected to lead to some whirlwind romance but he still felt the same way he did before. He liked how his life was, without a serious relationship complicating things.

“I feel the exact same, actually,” Yefim told her. “I was so nervous coming here, worrying about how our expectations might be different.”

Iya relaxed at once.

“Well my friend on the other hand,” she said as she lead the way into the hotel, “she might actually be more interested in meeting someone.”

“I think my friend might also be open to certain possibilities.”

With that they began planning how and if their respective friends might hit it off and whether or not their dreams were really meant for them, and not for Iya and Yefim. Whatever the reasons, Yefim was excited to see how the rest of their trip was going to go.