A field of yellow and pink flowers was spread out before me for miles in all directions. This is my favorite place, a place away from everyone, there’s nothing here to bother me. It reminds me of spring, my favorite time of the year… How I wish it was spring…

“Roxy…”

The scent of the flowers is both intoxicating and yet oddly comforting. Across the way, there’s a white cat playing in the pink flowers. I wonder if cats ever worry about their hair getting painted that way, I wonder if they care. I bet they do it deliberately.

“Roxy.”

Cats seem so carefree; I wonder what it’s up to? Lets go see. A warm breeze is blowing through the field, the perfect temperature for this time of year, the perfect time to be playing in a field like this cat. Upon sitting next to my furry little friend, they look up at me. Their eyes perfect heterochromatic diamonds.

I say to the cat, “Hello there! Don’t mind me, I’m just here to enjoy the flowers too!”

Its eyes pull me in closer. Maybe this is my spirit animal, or my protector? In history class we learned about all kinds of cat spirits like that.
Then it opened its mouth, and spoke.

“Roxy! Wake up!”

Huh?

“Roxy, are you in there? Class is already over! We’re gonna have to wait in line if we don’t get going now!”
And just like that, I was back in the real world, this world.
Looking up at the clock, they were right, both hands telling me it was the end of the school day. Another dark day almost over.
Wait a minute, what were they just talking about? Late for what? Oh, right…
I could feel the knot in my stomach as soon as I realized where they wanted me to go. Maybe I’m just overthinking it, maybe they want to go to the—
“We’re gonna stop by the new DopaDream place! You haven’t been right? You have to go, come on!”
Yup, that is where they wanted me to go.
“I—I don’t know, I mean, does it hurt? I saw a news thing where they talked to people who had used it and, it’s just scary is all.”
I really, really, really do not want to go.
But before I even get my bag slung around my back, my friends are whisking me off towards this place. Not like I really wanted to go home anyway, I never want to go home, but I don’t want to go here either.
We have to walk through the cold fall air and a not-so-nice part of town I’ve only ever driven by, I’ll be an icicle before I get there. Could it really be all that bad? Probably not, I’m probably just scaring myself.
After a brisk 45-minute walk, the three of us find ourselves in front of the building. It towered over the long abandoned shops in the adjacent lots like a cutting-edge castle. The logo was like a dragon, or the crest of a demon, with its sharp points and tail branded against the ghost white walls. Perhaps it was the freezing air around me, but my blood began to ice over at the sight of that futuristic symbol of sin. With a quick turn I started to move in the opposite direction as fast as my feet would let me, when out of nowhere, a pair of hands grabbed me and stopped me dead in place.
“Oh sorry Mister I—”
The man held me firmly but his demeanor was completely different than what I expected, he seemed…happy, joyous even. His hands were chilled to the bone, but he was wearing a T-shirt and shorts, blissfully ignorant of the autumn around him.
Then I saw his eyes.
He was a Dope.
That’s what I heard they were called when the news talked about them. These people who were regulars of DopaDream were always happy and smiling. They never got mad or got into fights either. But when you looked in their eyes, it was like looking into the hollow center of a tree, nothing was there. They said it was open to all ages yet they only ever showed adults on the news. I don’t know what he saw when I looked into his eyes, but he certainly didn’t see a freezing cold kid who just wanted to get the heck out of there.
“Hey there little lady, it’s alright, I know you’re probably excited to get in there too, but don’t worry.”
A sudden tug at my coat twisted me back around to two red-faced girls with pouting scowls.
“Jeez Roxy you’re embarrassing us, just calm down alright!”
At that point the last thing I wanted to hear was a lecture from anybody. As I went to yell the line started moving again, and I ate my anxiety.
The inside of the place looked like a doctor’s office. Our line went from single file to two separate lines against each wall. One sign read “Returning” the other one said “New User”, beyond them they took you into two different rooms. Sheepishly, I followed behind my two friends, who were giddily talking among themselves about how great it was going to be.
What have I gotten myself into?
In the waiting room, we saw a large screen against the wall, and opposite that was a row of seats. There was a stack of papers, pens, and small clipboards for us to write on, on a table directly in front of the chairs. I thought we were just gonna get whatever this stuff is and go on but I guess this makes more sense.

-Name:
Roxy Caldwell

-Height:
Uh…
4ft.

-Weight:
Sheesh, is this really necessary? Alright.
90lbs.

-What is it that makes you happy?
Happy… What is it that makes me happy…

The question to end all questions, and I’m supposed to know what that is? I don’t even know what I want for dinner! A lot of things would make me happy, getting my braces removed, getting out of school, not being here, not being home, not being anywhere really…
These can’t be the only three questions on the paper, right? I flip over the paper, but it’s blank, that’s all there is, just these three simple questions.

“Roxy…”

-What is it that makes you happy?
Spring flowers…and cats!

After finishing this agonizing three sentence question thingy, I notice everybody else just sitting around everywhere. The blood rushes to my face and I try and covertly as possible push the sides of my coat around my face. I guess everybody knows what makes them happy.
“Hey Roxy? You finished right?” my friend eagerly prodded me.
“Yea…” I chirp back, still hidden within my fortress of coat fur.
“What did you put for the last answer?”
“What do you mean what did I put!? You’re supposed to put what you want, this isn’t a test!”
Abruptly cutting off our conversation, the large screen begins to play something.
“Hello, and welcome to DopaDream!” the man on the screen looks like a doctor, his words accentuated by hand gestures at the end of every word, this feels like being back at school.
“If you’re watching this video, then you have decided to take a journey into a new world, a world transformed by what makes you happy, what thrills you, and what will transform your outlook on life, forever.”
Forever… that’s a long time.
“The process is simple and painless, we take this state-of-the-art technology and stimulate this particular part of your brain, and when you wake up, the world you interact with will be what you want it to be.”
The graphic on screen following his words shows some kind of large mechanical arm injecting…
I cover my eyes with my face, a giant needle? Painless!? I doubt it!
What do I do? I want to chicken out, I hate needles! But what if my friends make fun of me? I’ll never be able to go back to school.
My coat became department store camouflage as my vision disappeared deep within the coat. They’ll never find me in here, for sure. An arm reaches out and touches my shoulder, bringing me back to reality. A woman in a blue nurses outfit is standing there.
“Hey there, It’s your turn to go in.”
“What?” I blurt through my armor. Everyone is gone. My internal freak-out must have lasted longer then I thought and time just flew by.
I can’t do it.
I can’t, I just can’t.
What even happened to my friends? Had they gone in already? Oh crap, I don’t want to walk home alone! Why didn’t they tell me they had already gone in?
Before another battle rages in my head, the woman assures me that everything is going to be alright, and ushers me to the corridor. The room in which this is all happening actually looks pretty similar to what was in the video, I think. Everything was the same color, there was a framed picture on the wall, but it was the same color as the walls. That’s kinda weird. Around the table are two chairs, and between those is the machine. The giant scary machine I had seen in the video.
Every time I thought about leaving, about running away, there was a part of me that couldn’t. It was like my body physically would not let me. The thought of turning around now made my feet like lead, but the thought of moving forward kept them moving.
“Just relax, and think about what makes you happy, Roxy, and soon that’s all you’ll see.”
All I’ll see…
I closed my eyes, and waited.
And waited.
And waited some more.
Then I felt a weird tingling sensation in the back of my mind, like a good feeling from the past, or remembering a memory of something that makes you happy.
Wait a minute. Happy feelings…
My eyes immediately flew open. What I saw I could not believe, but even more I could not believe how I felt. All around me the walls had become a bright vivid yellow with lavender trim around the edges. The painting that had once held nothing but the color of the wall, now included a large flower, a beautiful dandelion in Spring. When my eyes caught that detail I jolted backward, almost falling off the table. The doctor and his assistant were saying something to me, but I couldn’t hear them. All I could do was focus on that painting. I had to touch it, I had to feel that it was real. Each petal of the dandelion was grooved, the entire thing was embossed, as if it was made to be that way. But that’s just a flat wall, I saw it when I walked in here. Rubbing my fingers together, a few specs of paint had come off from the painting.
“How do you feel Roxy?” the doctor asked in a tempered but eager voice.
I looked at him, and on both of their faces were smiles, waiting to here what I had to say, waiting for me. All I felt was the warmness of love, and I smiled too.
“Happy,” I jubilantly reported.

Waiting for me outside, were my two friends. They were excited but not in the way I was.
“Oh my gosh Roxy are you alright?” they both sounded so worried.
“I’m great, in fact, I feel happy! Don’t you?”
They looked at each other than looked away and seemed to not want to look at me.
“Oh, well, we kinda—”
“We couldn’t do it!” the other blurted out.
Somewhere in my mind, maybe I should have been mad, but it just wasn’t there.
“We’re so sorry Roxy! We brought you here and now you’re—”
“Happy, I’m happy! What’s there to be sorry about? If it wasn’t for you two, I would still be unhappy!”
As a matter of fact, it was then that I looked around out there for the first time. All around me, the world had changed. Gray and brown washed-out buildings looked like they had been washed and painted with beautiful, bright, saturated sky blues and strawberry reds. Across the street from us was a small park that was filled with iridescent flowers. I could feel a smile crossing my face from ear to ear.
This was the greatest day of my life.
The breeze around me was also so much better. I don’t know how it got warmer, but I started to take my coat off, when my friends stopped me.
“Roxy what is wrong with you? It’s freezing out here!”
I pointed past them to the park, and right where I pointed, just at the edge of the park, was a white cat staring back at me. It was somewhat faint, but I was almost certain that it was.
“But it’s gotten so warm! Can’t you feel it? And look at that cute kitty on the edge of the park, we should go play with it!”
One of my friends looked out at the park, and another gave me a worried look and put her hand to my forehead.
“Roxy…I think we should head home now.”
“But…” I protested, pointing back to the cat. But when I looked again, it was gone. Must have gone home.
Everything changed after that.
The life I had wanted, the warmness I had longed for, was there. I could wear whatever I wanted and I felt great, getting through school was so much easier and every class felt exhilarating. Even the things that happened at home were…
Even the people around me seemed happier. Well, I don’t know if they were happy, but they were always smiling! How did the world survive without this procedure? And why isn’t everyone doing it!
Oh well, I’m still happy.
Every day was the same. Every day was amazing, just like I remembered them being. Imagine waking up every day and feeling good. Imagine being excited to go to school, where the spring breeze whistled through my ears and my skin felt like it was being touched by angel hands.
Then one day, a month or so later, I found a hole.
I was sitting in class, and I heard it.
“Roxy.”
We were all sitting in class, English class, I didn’t love English, but I came to love it! I couldn’t hate it, I felt too good to hate anything. I looked around the room, but no windows were open. The sky was the same gorgeous blue sky that it always was, with just a dab of fluffy white cloud in the center.
Hmm, it must just be me hearing things.
“Now, class, I want you to read through chapter four silently and we’ll talk about it when you’re all done.”
I smile at the teacher, and quickly follow where I had my bookmark.
“Hey Roxy! What the heck? Why did you hit my desk?” the person behind me whispered angrily.
Every word on the page.
Was my name.
It was just Roxy, over and over and over again. When I saw that, I had slammed into the back of my chair. Then I heard it again, the wind, this time I knew it was real. Without even thinking I just left my desk and followed the sound, maybe the teacher would be mad, but they didn’t seem like it. Nobody did really. There, there it is, in the bathroom.
When I opened the door, I saw what looked like a dark gray spot right under the stall farthest away from me. Maybe there’s a person in their calling my name, no, I could see it now, the wind, it was real. I could actually see the wind, like it had a body or a shape, and it was moving towards this space. Very, very slowly, I moved my body in that general direction, like it had an eye that could spot me if I wasn’t careful.
“I’m coming in!” I proclaimed as the door sheepishly creaked open.
No one was inside except for that hole.
Now I knew there was something not right about it. I felt along the wall over the hole, but there was no difference between the gray of the wall I could see and the beautiful white tile next to it.
So I picked at it.
And as it grew bigger, the sound disappeared just a little bit.
I picked more of it.
And it grew even bigger, and the sound kept getting fainter. I used all of my strength and began tearing at this intruder in my world. Mania came over me, I couldn’t stop it, tile after tile tore away the bright colors around me until there was no more wind. Sweat droplets began pooling on the ground, and my chest felt like it was going to explode. When I looked back, I saw the old bathroom, not the bright white and blue and pink one, but the one I remembered.
I always hated how that look—
Oh god, it’s gone.
My beautiful world was gone, it left me, I’m back here, oh god why?
The only thing that welcomed me now was the cold tile against my skirt, and my frigid fingers burning against my body. How am I supposed to live this way? How can you live when you’ve seen and felt paradise?
I have to go back.
It was now November, a mere two months had gone by since I went to that place, but here I am now dead sprinting towards this building, this bright haven away from the dark world, my salvation. Screw school, I’ll make up some excuse. Snot is dripping down my face as I stop not far from the building. It takes me a moment, but I recognize the street, and the beautiful park I had seen before was wilted and cold and unwelcoming.
Almost there, almost there.
This time there isn’t much of a line, guess that’ll happen when you do it in the middle of the day, the model student that I am. As a matter of fact, I’m the only real young person in there. No one asks me my name, no one assures me of anything, I just get into my line, and wait quickly as we move forward. Everyone here is just like me, they all have that look, they all must have found the hole too. The hole that takes them back to the real world, the real world they’d rather forget.
Is it even the real world, when it doesn’t feel as real as the dream?
Eventually, it’s my turn, and I quickly plop myself down onto the table. I see two different people this time, happy grins replaced by stone-cold grimaces. But when I get there, the woman assistant doesn’t look angry, but disappointed. Probably because I’m the youngest person here. I don’t care, I just want to go back.
With my eyes closed, I smile a desperate smile and try not to let on that this is really awesome and the greatest thing that has ever happened to me ever.
Wait for it, wait for it.
I know it’s com—
Ah, there it is.
Happiness.
If it wasn’t for the fact I had to, you know, live my life, I could get used to laying there like that with that feeling. Imagine what it looks like when you close your eyes. It’s black, but not quite, there’s a little white slipping through that makes this gray also look a little blue, like you’re looking into your own soul. When the happiness comes it turns pink, and grabs me like a blanket. It covers me and makes me feel good.
Something feels different about this time. There’s no one around me. That’s kinda weird. No pitter-patter of feet, no voices, it’s quiet.
Oh well, I like it better that way anyway.
Making my way to the front, there’s no one in the front either.
Wait a minute.
Right out of the corner of my eye, I see a white spot immediately outside of the building.
The cat, my little friend!
Oh boy, I’m so glad he’s still around, I think I’m gonna go play with him! That’d be the best.
“Hey, wait up!” I call out, running to the door.
My little furry friend crosses the road with the most graceful leap, like he had wings or something. When the door opened though my jaw dropped, everything had transformed. There was no more road in between us, the little playground where the furry cat had sat was now the beautiful field that I saw him in from my dream.
I remember this place, this was in my dream. How is this possible?
The spring breeze I loved was blowing, and a torrent of yellow and pink flowers flew out and around us. It couldn’t get more perfect, this is everything I wanted right before me. Plopping down, the grass and the flowers and the ground felt so warm beneath me. This had to be real, it feels so real. To make it even better, the cat came in close to me, but he never stopped looking at me, and right in front of my feet he sat on his butt too.
All I felt was happiness, everything was perfect, the warm feeling of tears began to well up on my cheeks.
“None of this is real, is it Mister Cat?”
His eyes were so deep that you’d swear they could suck you in. I never really noticed it before, but it was terrifying at the same time. He didn’t answer, just kept staring at me. Everything was perfect, but all I wanted to feel now was sad. But I couldn’t, it just wasn’t there, like it had been turned off by that machine.
Was it really the machine? Or was it me? Would everyone feel sorry for me? They can’t blame me; how can you blame me? I just wanted to feel good! I just want to feel validated! Other people do it too!
All of it was so overwhelming, I didn’t even want to look at it all anymore, so into my knees my face went, hiding away from this perfect world.
“What would you do different Roxy?”
A soothing voice had called out to me, and when I raised my head, it was the cat. Wiping away my tears made it hard to focus, but there was no mistaking it was coming from him.
“Don’t get lost in the past, or you’ll be trapped in your memories forever.”
“Clear! Come on Roxy!”
All of a sudden, a weird pressure was pushed on my chest. I pulled my head to look up from my knees, and as soon as I blinked, I was staring at the ceiling. I couldn’t hear anything, my world was spinning.
Yep, that’s pee, I wet myself.
There were voices all around me that I couldn’t understand.
Is that the sound of rain?
Somebody in the crowd around me leans over.
“Roxy!? Oh god, you’re alive, how do you feel?”
At that moment in time, the only thing that came to mind was…
“Happy.”
That’s when my eyes caught it. Inside the empty frame on the wall I had once run my hand over was the picture of a white cat sitting in a field of flowers.
With two different colored eyes staring right at me.