This life could not be more than a dream, I remember thinking as the sand enveloped my running shoes. Otherwise, my heart would shatter. This night—this place—is not real and this moment is not my own.

The Valencian moon bathed the silent abyss of the Mediterranean that night as the saline air pierced my lungs. I was chasing the lunar rays on this midnight run, the swatches of sinking sand pulling my Reeboks, desperately beckoning me to stay longer, drawing me to the opaque slumber for which the sky had settled.

I was a naïve and bright-eyed college senior, landing on a planet unknown: Valencia, Spain, for the year, turning my back on ill advisement of sensibility to remain in the U.S. to finish my studies. For years I knew pragmatism was not my destiny, and I surrendered the academic and debate scholarships, signed the $40,000 student loan, packed the cavernous suitcase, and did not look back to witness my parents’ silenced tears.

And so I found myself jogging across Malvarosa Beach with only the beaming moon and its reflection upon the silent waters to keep me company. The neon of industrial plants belched and hummed in the distance, but save for the squishing adhesion of my shoes to the sinking sand, I was alone.

The glow did little to illuminate him.

“Ay! Joder!” Oh, f*ck! The Spanish flew out of my mouth and I stumbled backward, hitting the soft wet sand with a muted thud. My senses were jarred, shocked, and I was unable to process the collision. Should I be scared? Do I fight? Run? Swim? Scream? Was this a ghost? Was my runner’s euphoria causing hallucinations? Was the moonlight creating this encounter?

Before I could pinch myself, his gnarled hand reached out to me, the stooped curvature of his elderly frame eventually sedating my shock.  His denture grin and wrinkled caramel complexion appeared in the night glow like a Cheshire cat.

“Ay! Perdon, guapa! Porque estas aqui sola?” Oh, sorry beautiful! Why are you here alone? I too questioned why the hell I was jogging solo at midnight. I pulled myself up, brushing the heavy sand from my aching legs. A flirtation of fear from possible kidnapping and murder on the edge of the Middle Sea drifted across my mind until I sized him up. He was the typical frail viejo stature, the top of his ivory head barely reaching my chest and with sticks for limbs. My years in kick-boxing drew me to his centers of gravity, and my youthful arrogance assured me I would be the only one to come out alive in case of an altercation.  As the adrenaline faded, I figured I would apologize for the collision and finish the rest of the run.

“Lo…lo siento señor. Tengo que…” I’m sorry sir. I have to…

“Ah! Alemana!” German lady!

 As I opened my mouth to correct him, he shook his wavy locks, the moon dancing upon his wire-framed spectacles and sagging olive polo shirt. I looked around, craning my neck to the right, waiting for the sea’s silence to give me answers as to what this old man wanted from me. And as I craned my head to the left, picturing Malvarosa Beach during the day—the sun bathing the crowds of bronzed matriarchs lounging in their striped lawn chairs, eyeing their rotund men and their gold chains and black Speedos, sashaying in the shallow waves. Running when it was cooler had made sense earlier that afternoon, when the Mediterranean September sun had drained me of energy to breath, much less exercise.  I desperately summoned the sun to deliver me from this awkward situation with the old man and this clear case of mistaken identity.

“Venga! Chica!” He straightened the collar of his wrinkled shirt, its Lacoste alligator wagging its spiky tail as he stood tall and stretched out his hand. Before I could inquire where we were going exactly or run from this embarrassing situation, his gnarled left hand was on my waist, his right arm holding up mine. His hunched frame started to sway across the sinking sand, transporting himself to some forgotten time. I followed suit, trying to match the syncopation of his mournful moonlight bambera and wanting to be the polite foreigner, assuring myself this was normal for Spaniards.  He pulled me closer to his skeleton body, disregarding my stumbling steps as he started to sing of lost love in the War. He floated, transcended, as the words poured out. For a moment I thought it quaint and quixotic, some lonely old man dancing to the solitude of the moon.

“Bella…amor…corazon que me muerte…Fantasma de mal suerte..” Beauty, love, the heart that kills me, this cursed ghost…

My mind wandered, questioning who his cursed ghost was—a girlfriend? A wife? His tenor was unfit for his frame, and as he continued to sing, I tried to talk myself into this whole situation being normal, reasoning that if this was some odd dream I was having, I would have already woken up. Then it hit me—this wasn’t a dream. A burning sensation started to encircle my stomach, becoming a heavy weight that started to pull within me, like the iron anchors pulling the fishermen’s vessels in the faded distance.

Sweat began to trickle down my temples as we continued to sway in the moonlight. My heart’s pace quickened and I started to flip through my mental dictionary, forgetting how to say, “excuse me, I am not comfortable.”   As the moments of midnight ticked by, he stood up straighter, his hair became darker, his grew chest broader, reversing his age. The mix of melancholy lyrics and his metamorphosis continued to suffocate my notions of romanticism and politeness and my throat closed as my mind blanked, unsure of how to excuse myself and leave.

The tide’s cool touch against my ankle caused me to jump back, but he was no longer aware of the approaching waves. He glided towards the water and as he continued to dance, his hand still on my waist, he pulled me closer to him.  The water at tickled, and my legs grew heavy as the waves crept above my shins as the sand dragged my white sneakers into the earth. My breath quickened as I attempted to step away from the dancer. Yet he continued his waltz, oblivious to the water around him as he continued his mournful ballad about ghosts and curses. My head pounded, racing with TVE noticias about a drowned American college student and visions of my parents, this time their tears not so silent.

I frantically took a deep breath and stepped back, resistance harder now that the water encircled my waist. Heart bursting, I pushed him hard in his caved chest, and I turned, pumping my legs through icy water, its height descending as I neared the shore. The sinking sand I had cursed at the edge of the water was what I silently praised now. I ran from the shore, the once-wistful illumination of moonlight a menace as I frantically sped towards the pavement, towards the trolley tracks that would guide me back to the dorms. “It’s a dream, it’s a dream…you’ll wake up in just a minute,” I comforted myself with, as the heavy thud of my sopping footsteps thundered across the concrete.

For reasons unexplained, I turned like Lot’s wife, compelled to witness the depraved city behind her. I turned, lungs bursting from the frantic sprint, expecting to glimpse the Spaniard, preparing for a confrontation. My hands formed fists and the adrenaline surged. I spun towards the sea and its tranquil waters. The Spanish niceties had escaped me as I started to scream.  

“Motherfu*cker! I’ll kill you!”

But I was met with only my own strained screams and pounding temples. The impeccable sidewalk flanked me and the sand a distance before me, the waters still and serene. Calm enveloped the late hour, as it had when I set out earlier on the run.   The old man was nowhere.

As I hunched over heaving, the pinch to my arm did nothing to transport me elsewhere. The light tap to my cheek, then the harder one, did nothing to yield an escape, either. I turned around once more, my sopping shorts and Reeboks a hundred pound weights on already strained legs, the moonlight had regained its benevolent glow. Its light stretched towards the shadows of university high-rises and student houses, hiding any notions of malice.

“Pa-ku! Pa-ku! Pa-ku!” My soggy thudding splattered the impeccable sidewalks as the high-rises neared. I would be there soon, ready to plan a new running schedule for the rest of my year in Valencia.  If life really was nothing more than a dream and the events merely their sequences, then it could keep its goddamn dreams, I thought.  I would gladly stay awake without them and stay alive.