I sit in my Archie Bunker chair in the living room while Amahle and Suzy sit around the living room table and talk. For a moment, this feels exactly like it did in our home - in this home - back in Toronto. I notice that for a moment I didn’t think about the fact that our suburban home is on a small island in an infinite ocean in Justin’s dream. But the second I note there was a moment, that moment is gone.
Bonny’s Revenge docks outside, and in a few hours, perhaps when Justin and Charlie wake up, Joy and Master mind, at the very least, will return here, to Justin’s dream.
But in the meantime, it’s just like back home, with Suzy talking to one of her friends.
“Suzanne, I do think I see colors.”
“Mmm-hmmm,” Suzy says empathetically.
“At least I feel colors.”
“Mmm-hmmm.”
“I’ve been doing it for weeks now. I can feel the colors without Joy’s help. I just feel them. It’s…amazing. It’s like nothing I’ve ever felt. It’s very strange.”
“Mmm-hmmm.”
“But when I wake up, Suzanne, I do not remember my dreams. I cannot see colors. I cannot feel colors. Everything I have learned about colors and their feelings, it doesn’t exist in my ‘real’ life. It doesn’t exist at all.”
“Mmm-hmmm.”
“I feel sad at that, and also happy.”
“Why, Amahle?”
“I am sad because I’m missing out on all these amazing feelings. The colors - I will never know what they are like in my real life.”
“Mmmm…”
“But I am blind. It would anger me to find that I want to have sight when I can’t. You are good as you are and I am good as I am. And that is that. And I shouldn’t see! Because I am great the way I am!”
“Yes, you are.” I catch Suzy nodding from the corner of my eye. I try not to look at them while they talk, but to stare at the blank TV.
“But I am missing something that I am feeling. Right here in the Dream! I feel bad that I feel bad, if you know what I mean.”
“Well, sure.”
“Oh!” Music fills the room. Sad and beautiful music. I’ve heard it before, when walking in on Amahle a month ago in her dream. This was the music she gave to her experience of the color blue. “Oh!” she says again as if realizing something important.
The volume of the music grows higher and higher. I look at her. She stands up. Suzy stands up, too.
“Oh-oh-oh!” she says again, all excited. “I have to wake up! I have to remember! I have to wake up!”
And with that, she disappears, and our home becomes silent in an instant.
“Hmmm,” Suzy says. “She’s in a bind.”
“What do you think she realized that got her to wake up?”
Suzy shrugs. “Beats me. Let’s go outside. Maybe she’ll fall asleep and tell us.”
I smile. “Milady,” I offer my hand. “Your flying limo awaits!”
She smiles and takes my hand. We walk to Bonny's Revenge.
(To be continued…)
—Told by Grampa Walt