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Prologue
Each of us has our own Sweet Dream. The one that warms the soul on the coldest evenings, makes you smile for no apparent reason, and gives life that subtle, magical touch. It's not just a dream about a new car or a trip to the seaside. It's something more—a parallel reality that exists only within our hearts. Mine was called Alice.

Part 1: Shadow in the Cherry Orchard
I first saw her in the spring, in an old, abandoned cherry orchard on the outskirts of town. This place was my refuge, an island of silence amid the bustling metropolis. I would come there with a notebook to write—poetry, stories, whatever the muse, scented with damp earth and blossoming trees, inspired.
That day, the muse appeared tall and slender, with long chestnut hair fluttering in the wind. She stood beneath the most luxuriant tree, plucking flower after flower, and humming softly. The sun's rays, filtering through a cloud of petals, danced across her face. She was spring itself, embodied in human form.
I froze, afraid to frighten the apparition. But she noticed me. Her warm chocolate eyes widened in surprise, then lit up with a kind, shy smile.
“Sorry, I seem to have interrupted,” she said, and her voice sounded like the most melodic chime.
“No, what are you saying... This is a public place,” I squeezed out, feeling myself blush.
Her name was Alice. She turned out to be an artist looking for subjects for a new series of paintings. "A cherry orchard in bloom—it's a ready-made story about the transience of beauty," she said, and I heard a kindred spirit in her words.
From that meeting, the garden became ours. We met there almost every day. I wrote words, she painted. We talked about everything: books, music, stars, the meaning of life. Alice was a dreamer; she saw magic in the most ordinary things—the shape of a cloud, the pattern on a butterfly's wings, a drop of dew on a spider's web. With her, I began to see the world differently—brighter, deeper, more voluminous.
One day, when the cherry trees had almost finished blooming and the petals covered the ground with a pink carpet, she took my hand.
"You know, I've always dreamed of creating a painting that wouldn't just be an image, but a feeling. So that, looking at it, a person could smell the rain, hear the whisper of leaves, and feel that... that sweet, aching feeling of an unreal, yet so desired, reality. I'll call it 'Sweet Dream.'"
At that moment I realized that my own sweet dream was her. Alice.

Part 2: The Ephemeral World
Summer was our time of daydreams. We weren't a couple in the traditional sense. We didn't go to the movies or cafes. Our world was limited to the cherry orchard, my small apartment littered with books, and her studio, scented with turpentine and oil paints.
Alice was painting her "Sweet Dream." Our garden appeared on the canvas, not in reality, but transformed by her imagination. The flowers were brighter, the sky deeper, and the shadows more mysterious. In the corner of the painting, she depicted the two of us—two silhouettes merging into one under the canopy of the trees.
"That's us, but not quite," she said, laughing. "That's us in a world where there's no tomorrow, no obligations, only the eternal 'now.'"
I was happy. Madly, acutely, painfully happy. Every minute with her was like a sip of the most exquisite nectar. But the sweeter the nectar, the more I feared the cup would break. Because I knew Alice had another life. Studies at a prestigious academy, plans for an internship abroad, parents who envisioned her as a great, world-renowned artist.
And I was just a quiet writer, living in a dream world. My greatest achievement was publishing a couple of stories in a small-circulation magazine.
One evening, watching her work, I asked:
"Alice, what will happen when your dream ends? When will you have to return to the real world?"
She paused for a moment, brush in hand, and a shadow of grief crossed her face.
"I don't know. Maybe the beauty of a true dream is that it never ends? It just lives inside you, like a reserve of light for dark days."

Part 3: The Final Touch
Autumn arrived unexpectedly, bringing with it cold weather and fiery crimson foliage. The painting "Sweet Dream" was almost finished. All that remained was to add a few finishing touches.
Alice became thoughtful and silent. I felt something hanging in the air, like the inevitable was approaching.
And it came. That day, a light, persistent rain was falling. We were sitting in her studio. She looked at her finished work, and I looked at her.
"There's a plane to Paris waiting for me," she said quietly, not looking at me. "Tomorrow morning. A three-year contract. The Academy of Arts. This... this is the chance of a lifetime."
The world froze. I knew it had to happen, but that didn't make it any less painful.
“I understand,” I squeezed out, and these two words cost me incredible effort.
"You know that you... that this time with you was the most real, the most beautiful fairy tale of my life?" Her voice trembled. "You are my sweet dream, Artyom. The one who will warm me far from home."
We didn't promise to wait for each other. That would have been cruel and pointless. We were simply saying goodbye to the world we'd created together. Her final stroke on the painting wasn't a brushstroke, but that farewell.

Epilogue
Five years passed. I became a famous writer. My books, permeated with the theme of a lost but eternal dream, became bestsellers. Critics wrote about the "incredible lyricism and poignant nostalgia" in my writing.
I was sitting in my office, looking out at the rain. On the wall in front of me hung a painting. "Sweet Dream." Alice had left it for me on the day she left, with a short note: "Let it remind you that the most beautiful things in life don't always have to be real to be real."
I never saw her again. From social media, I knew she had become a successful artist, her work exhibited in galleries all over the world. She had a different life.
But in my world she remained forever. The girl from the cherry orchard. My Sweet Dream.
Sometimes, on particularly quiet evenings, I seem to smell the cherry blossoms and hear the echo of her laughter. And I realize Alice was right. The dream didn't end. It simply ceased to be real, to become eternity. And that was its bitter, yet oh-so-sweet truth.