I have a favourite fantasy at the moment. It involves a very imaginary boy. He's pretty formless - i rarely picture him in a very detailed way. If pushed i might identify him as taller, or at least as tall as me, with dark hair, but that's about it. What he looks like isn't important. But the setting is rather specific.

It's dark; outside. There are strings of fairy lights and candles (tea lights) on tables. It has a vague air of a cafe. There could be a trellisy shelter, with some climbing plant growing on it. There are tiles of some sort of stone or clay on the floor, and aging brick work encompasses the space.

There are people at the tables, i think, but i'm not certain. They are just shadowy figures, but i think i might know them. They may be my good friends, but even they, no offence to them meant, are not important to this fantasy, which is too immediate, too focused on individual moments to accommodate the spans of all these lives. It is entirely possible that there is a babble of voices. They don't say anything but (In the versions of the fantasy in which they appear) they provide a background of warmth and friendliness.

Music plays. It might be live, but i've never seen the band as i've played the scene, so i'm assuming not. I know who the music's by, though. It's DeVotchKa, a band who make beautiful, beautiful music. I saw them in Sheffield, supporting the Dresden Dolls. It was a brilliant gig.

I don't think i'm playing a specific song by them. The fantasy prescribes quite a large volume of time, i think, so i suppose there are quite a few of them. I tend to have this fantasy as an accompaniment to the album, i suppose, which i play a lot.

We are dancing, this boy and i. We hold each other very tight and slow dance. (In real life i don't know how this is done.) Sometimes (If the song demands) we waltz. He leads.

It is beautiful. At that moment, it is all i want. I have such happiness. I can't really feel it, but i know it’s there. I can see it, i can nibble away at the edges, but i can't grab it for myself, not yet. It is only for the me i am when i dream, a person far more suave and likeable.

As i imagine it we don't say much, but we could be. There might be huge whispered (Well, not whispered, but quiet, so we depend as much as much on the rumbling on our chests as on our eardrums.) exchanges going on. Our expressions vary from seriousness to mirth at our seriousness, to a serenity that comes from our ability to laugh at ourselves.

He loves me. He may be unreal, and unformed, but i have no trouble imagining his feelings for me in full; they are a complete reciprocation of my own for him.

I'm listening to the waltz now. La Llorrona. We glide to it. I can feel the warmth of his love, and the tears slide down my cheeks.