It’s been a week since we’ve seen Amahle. She usually waits for Master Mind at the edge of her Shroom before any other Dreamer arrives. But she hadn’t come recently.
When Charlie arrives, he and Joy decide to go visit her dream, and I remind them to never leave the Dream, certainly not to Amahle’s dark dream, without Justin.
When Justin arrives, she convinces him to go, and we all go: Joy, Charlie, Justin, Master Mind as security, and me in the role of the-guy-who-just-wants-to-see.
We stand at the edge of the tunnel and look into the complete darkness that is Amahle’s dream. Even after spending a year with us, even after being able to somehow summon up and feel colors, Amahle’s dream is all darkness.
I know Charlie’s elevator is right there in front of us, taking us to the ground in her dream. But it’s drowned in the darkness of her dream.
“Joy,” Justin stands aside. “What do you see?”
Joy stands right on the edge. “Amahle’s right over there,” she points forward and down. “She’s sitting on a beach chair.”
“Uh-huh,” Justin says.
“Oh! She turned everything green!”
Charlie peers into the darkness. “Joy! How can you see colors?!”
Joy shrugs. “It’s just there so I see it. Ooh. She just tried orange.”
“So this must be what she’s been doing all week. Trying to see colors?” I say.
“Wow!” Joy points. “She’s doing a rainbow!”
“A rainbow!” Justin tries to squint at the darkness. “Are you sure?”
“She can’t summon a rainbow,” I shake my head. “That’s not something she can touch. She can’t understand what a rainbow is. It would be impossible for her to dream of–”
“And another rainbow! And another!”
“Awwww! I want to see it!” Charlie is disappointed even as I refuse to believe it.
“Whoa! Like a thousand rainbows!”
“Huh,” Justin says, looking at Joy as if seeing something new about her. “That’s crazy.”
“She just turned her entire dream into a huge rainbow! Everything is a rainbow!”
“Aw, maaan!” Charlie’s frustrated.
Me, I need to see it to believe it.
Justin takes Joy in his arms. “You are a miracle, Joy. You. Are. A miracle. You got Amahle, who is blind from birth, to create rainbows.”
Joy smiles and her cheeks redden.
“Let’s go in!” Charlie says, not reading the moment between them. “I want to go in!”
Justin looks at Joy. She nods.
He looks at me. I shrug and nod at the same time.
“Let’s go in,” he says.
(To be continued…)
—Told by Grampa Walt