The Department of Lost Dreams
Every unfinished dream ends up somewhere. Michael finally discovers where.
31 May 2045
Dear Thomas,
The letter arrived on a Thursday morning.
Which was unfortunate.
Nothing good has ever happened to me on a Thursday.
The envelope was cream-coloured.
Official-looking.
The sort of correspondence that immediately raises your blood pressure.
In the top corner was a government seal.
Beneath it:
Department of Lost Dreams
I assumed it was a joke.
Or perhaps a scam.
Governments are capable of many things.
Poetry is not usually one of them.
Yet the letter appeared genuine.
It informed me that I had been selected for a review.
A review of what, exactly, was unclear.
The document concluded with a date, a time, and an address.
Curiosity eventually defeated common sense.
Three days later, I found myself standing outside a building that looked more like a library than a government office.
Inside, the atmosphere was surprisingly calm.
No queues.
No security barriers.
No forms.
Just shelves.
Thousands of shelves.
Filled with folders.
An elderly receptionist smiled.
“Michael Turner?”
I nodded.
“We’ve been expecting you.”
Which is never a comforting sentence.
She led me into a small office.
There, waiting on the desk, was a single file.
My name was written on the cover.
I stared at it.
“What’s this?”
The receptionist smiled.
“Your unfinished applications.”
I laughed.
“I think you’ve got the wrong person.”
She shook her head.
“No.”
Then she opened the folder.
And my laughter stopped.
Because inside were copies of things I had completely forgotten.
Applications.
Proposals.
Letters.
Ideas.
Not official applications.
Life applications.
Attempts.
The first document dates back nearly forty years.
A proposal for a photography project.
Never submitted.
The second was a business idea.
Never launched.
Then a creative writing course.
A travel fellowship.
A local community initiative.
A workshop concept.
Several abandoned projects.
Dozens of them.
Some complete.
Some half-finished.
Some little more than notes scribbled in the margins of notebooks.
The receptionist watched my reaction carefully.
“Recognise them?”
I nodded.
“Some.”
Others felt like messages from another lifetime.
Because in a way they were.
The Department of Lost Dreams had been created after researchers noticed a strange social phenomenon.
Millions of people carried ambitions they never acted upon.
Not because they lacked talent.
Not because they lacked opportunity.
Because life intervened.
Responsibilities.
Fear.
Illness.
Work.
Timing.
Exhaustion.
The reasons varied.
The result remained the same.
Dreams are quietly placed on shelves.
Then forgotten.
The department’s purpose wasn’t to judge.
Or motivate.
Or shame.
It simply helped people revisit them.
Sometimes the dream still mattered.
Sometimes it didn’t.
Either outcome was considered valuable.
The receptionist handed me a document.
An application written by my younger self.
Age thirty-seven.
The handwriting looked strangely familiar.
And strangely distant.
The application asked a simple question:
What would you most like to do if success were guaranteed?
My answer filled nearly two pages.
Travel.
Write.
Photograph.
Create.
Teach.
Explore.
Tell stories.
I sat quietly.
Because although decades had passed, something surprising emerged.
The details had changed.
The themes had not.
The same currents ran beneath everything.
Curiosity.
Creativity.
Connection.
Meaning.
The younger man and the older man were not as different as I had imagined.
The receptionist seemed unsurprised.
“Most people think their dreams change.”
“Don’t they?”
“Some do.”
She pointed toward the file.
“The deeper ones usually don’t.”
That sentence followed me throughout the afternoon.
The deeper ones usually don’t.
Perhaps because dreams are often misunderstood.
People imagine dreams as specific outcomes.
A job.
A destination.
A business.
A title.
But beneath those things often lies something more fundamental.
A need.
The need to create.
To contribute.
To explore.
To belong.
To understand.
The surface changes.
The need remains.
Before I left, I asked the receptionist a question.
“What happens if someone realises it’s too late?”
She smiled.
“Too late for what?”
“The dream.”
She leaned back.
“Most dreams aren’t destinations.”
I waited.
“They’re directions.”
The room fell silent.
Because I knew exactly what she meant.
I would never be the twenty-five-year-old traveller I once imagined.
Never be the young photographer wandering Europe with a backpack and limitless energy.
That chapter was gone.
But the direction remained available.
Travel.
Observation.
Storytelling.
Discovery.
The form changes.
The essence survives.
As I prepared to leave, the receptionist handed me a single sheet of paper.
Blank.
At the top was a heading:
New Applications
I laughed.
“You expect me to fill this in?”
She smiled.
“We always do.”
Outside, the afternoon sun reflected off the windows of nearby buildings.
People hurried past.
Cars moved through the streets.
Life continued.
I stood there holding a blank page.
Not a record of what I had failed to do.
An invitation to decide what might come next.
And for the first time in years, Thomas, I realised something.
Perhaps dreams do not disappear.
Perhaps they wait.
Patiently.
Until we are finally ready to meet them again.
Michael
Reflection
The opposite of a lost dream is not a fulfilled dream.
The opposite of a lost dream is a remembered one.
Because remembered dreams still have the power to shape the future.
Next Episode
The House With No Clocks
Michael visits a home where every clock has been removed.
No watches.
No schedules.
No countdowns.
The residents claim they are not escaping time.
They are learning how to experience it.
And what he discovers there changes his understanding of ageing forever. 📖✨