In the steel heart of a sailor was an untouched and unspoken dream. His oppressed muscles worked on deck, his anguished mind worked at sea, his soul never moved enough for him to find purpose in life. A goal in life? Well, he had never thought of such a thing! The very idea seemed alien, foreign; for how could he, an overworked sailor, a phlegmatic man, an ostracized human being, have such a thing? The sailor wiped away a drop of sweat, listening to the roars of the men around him, uncaring of the laughter that penetrated the air. . One of the men drank until his cheeks turned scarlet, another told pleasant tales of treasure and power to otherwise desolate men, and yet another stirred up the crowd with humorous jokes, sending bursts of laughter among the men. the atmosphere tormented by happiness, the sailor left the deck in a hurry; sneaking into the only place he could call his own. A few crates lined his square rhythmically, one always surrounded by another. It was what a prison cell should feel like: damp, mysterious, eerie, but charged with a sense of tranquility. And even though he had never been imprisoned, he felt locked in, more so than the stars above, free but never allowed to fly. This, he thought, could be considered nothing less than his home, a place that no other man could destroy or take away. He saw the sun's ray slide across the dusty floor, being sucked in through the portholes as the day drew to a close. Silence seemed to rock the waves, the boat, begging him to sleep and spend the rest of the night in peace. And so the night bathed the waves and the boat on board, the boat and the people on board, the people and their spirits. But the sailor stayed the night, unharmed. Maybe he could take... middle of paper ... his leg because the weight of the anchor was taking its toll. He wanted to go back! He wanted to feel this wind! “John?!” John!" he heard William scream. And as his body plunged into the icy water, the last thing he saw was that merciful William, diving after him. He woke up in a bed on which only the captain was allowed to And like the day he was reading poetry, all the other sailors were sitting around him, saying things like "We didn't know you were so alone, you should have said something or "What have we! - made us?!" But the sailor knew that his choice was the right one and that even if he died, he would not have regretted it. He would not have regretted the only thing that distinguished his dream from the others. He would not have let this dream slip through his fingers like a grain of golden sand Works Cited “A Dream Within a Dream” by Edgar Allen Poe."