It is one of our first trips outside Justin’s dream. We’re trying to discover the dreams and dreamers in our immediate neighborhood.
Joy is not allowed to go without both Master Mind and Justin.
I tag along, wanting to be with my granddaughter, and in this case also wanting to learn about this whole new world I was never aware of.
We all stand at the edge of the tunnel which leads into this new and unknown dream. There is a city below.
“I don’t recognize the city,” Justin says.
“I’ve seen this. I’ve seen this,” I say, but can’t remember where it was. “It’s really familiar.”
“Pirates,” Master Mind points to the center of the city. “Observe a flying man!”
“Where? Oh!” Joy sees him now. Then Justin. Then me.
There is a man flying upwards, rising slowly.
“What makes him fly?” Joy says.
He doesn’t have a jet or any propulsion that I can see. He just floats upwards, like that Superman movie when Justin was a kid.
We observe the man. He flies without waving his hands. He flies around a building. And that triggers a memory in me.
“Oh!” I say. “I think I used to have dreams where I was flying, too!”
Justin looks at me oddly.
“You used to dream that you were flying, Grampa, like a bird?”
“I think so. Yes. And then I would have to pee, and knowing I had to pee, that would bring me down.”
The man flies closer to the edge of the city and mountains begin to form outside it. A new mountain then forms with the famous giant Christ the Redeemer statue on it, with its arms open.
“Ah! We’re in Rio de Janeiro!” I say.
“Oh, yeah, right,” Justin agrees. “I couldn’t remember where that statue was.”
Justin motions for me to move aside a bit. “Dad,” he asks me when we do. “How do you know what your dreams were?”
“What do you mean? I dream, just like everyone else.”
“No, you don’t. You’re a dream. A dream I created. I don’t know what you dreamed about because you never told me because you never remembered.”
That’s a good point.
“And I know,” Justin continues, “that I have no effect on you now that Joy has made you permanent. So remembering that dream about flying didn’t come because we saw a dream about flying. I can’t influence you like that. The memory of that dream was in you already. How is that possible?”
Joy touches my arm. “He’s grampa. He used to dream when he was in your waking world. That’s how he remembers.”
Justin nods and we return to look at the flying man. But Justin’s question haunts me. Justin created me. So how do I know these things when Justin doesn’t?
—Told by Grampa Walt