An Interesting Response

I stumbled through another dream. I was in the backyard in the darkness of a dorm, picking through tangled bushes and overhanging trees, until a beam of light lit my face. I looked through a window to see young women talking and laughing, one holding a glass to her lips. My stomach growled with the smell of spaghetii. I climbed the stairs and tapped at the window on the door. A young woman answered, the others turned as I walked in. 

'Uh.. Sorry to bother you, but I was just wondering if Amy is here. She told me she was hitchhiking to a friend's house and I was wondering if she got back. She was supposed to be back this afternoon and I haven't heard anything...'

The girls looked at me and then each other. 

'Anybody seen Amy?'  They shook their heads. 

'She hasn't called any of you?'  They shook their heads. 

I had no news the next day and then the next so I returned to the dorm, only to be greeted with the news that Amy was not back yet. I asked the girls to please, please search the rest of the house while I ran up to her room. Nothing. My heart swam in my throat and every horrible thing I could think of passed through my brain. She's been killed. She's been raped and killed. She's lying somewhere and needs help. She's a hostage. She's hurt. She's been run over and in some hospital. Where could she be? I went home.

I rushed back to the dorm early the next morning, worried, exhausted, hardly having slept nor eaten. I came through the door just as Amy was walking towards the living room with a plate of food in one hand and a coffee in the other. I was stunned. At the look on my face she stopped.  

'What's yer problem?' she said, and continued on to the living room.