All tagged Amahle's Dream
There is that silence again.
Is there a way that any of this, Joy’s life, can be explained? Is there a way that Suzy’s and my existence here for the last two years, more or less, can be explained?
It’s obviously possible, but how is it possible? How is it that a human girl lives in the Dream? How is it that she has abilities here that she wouldn’t in the waking world? How is it that I, a scientist, have never given it too much thought?
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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.
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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.
I am surrounded by darkness. I’ve been here before, in Amahle’s dream, a dozen times at least. But it doesn’t get easier. And it doesn’t get less spooky that there isn’t even a little bit of light, so your eyes never get adjusted. We are right next to the sun in her dream, and yet there isn’t a photon to be found.
But then, that’s not the only change. As soon as I walk into Charlie’s elevator in Amahle’s dream, there is music. I don’t recognize many of the instruments. But I do recognize the voice. There usually isn’t a voice when Amahle’s music is played outside her head in the Dream. But now… She’s singing. Without any words, just singing…
“The music is making the hair on my hand stand,” Charlie says.
“It’s beautiful,” Justin says.
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Joy lands on Justin’s Shroom a few meters above us and disappears from view. She’s probably going back to Bonny’s Revenge.
We are all awkwardly left on Amahle’s Shroom: Amahle who has just told Joy that she believes her to be her dream, Justin who just found out Amahle can always hear him breathe and recognized him as the man responsible for killing her in the dream and almost killing her in real life, Master Mind and Charlie.
Justin’s face is red. He is looking down. He doesn’t know what to do.
He opens his mouth to talk, then closes it.
Amahle stands and listens.
“Charlie, I can hear you standing near me. Why didn’t you disappear with Joy?”
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Joy and Charlie lead the way out of the tunnel. Amahle holds Joy’s shoulders and moves forward. She doesn’t have her cane or Elvis, her seeing eye-dog. They disappeared when she left her dream.
I’m behind Amahle. And Master Mind walks silently behind me.
Justin is ahead of all of us. He waits outside, silent, afraid to make a noise.
“Careful, now, careful,” Joy says as Amahle takes the first step into her Shroom. “You are now on a Shroom. Stop here.”
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It is our fifth time in Amahle’s dream.
Joy and Justin have had arguments that had gone back and forth many times in Justin’s dream about re-introducing Justin to Amahle. Back when Joy had run away from home on her sixth birthday, Justin, on my advice, tried to convince Amahle in her dream that he was killing her. He had hoped that when she woke up, the darkness of her dream would disappear and he would find the way out to save Joy.
But weeks later we had discovered, upon returning to Amahle’s dream, that she had died in real life and was brought back. What Justin had done had almost killed Amahle. Justin did not want to face Amahle. Joy wanted to become Amahle’s friend and wanted them to talk and meet again BS fUB.
Joy had won the argument partially - Justin agreed that they could show Amahle the way out of her dream and into The Dream with a capital ‘D’.
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Amahle is the first Dreamer to appear on Bonny’s Revenge’s deck. Since she is in South Africa, she always begins her dreams hours before Justin or Charlie. Madelyn, however, moves around in the world, and her dream time is often unpredictable.
Joy is still asleep in her cabin, and Master Mind, with his paper heart and his two halves sewn together, stands guard by her cabin door in case a dreamer appears on the deck and accidentally sends a danger Joy’s way.
Suzy and I are in our home, but we notice the sky darken and the clouds come. We look out the window.
I go out to the porch and see Amahle with her seeing eye dog, Elvis. But then the suns flicker off and on, off and on. Suzy grabs my hand in fear. They’ve never done that.
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“I am not the White Man!” Joy protests.
“Yes, you are,” Amahle says calmly.
“I am not the White Man!”
“Well,” Amahle says in her smooth tone, “Let us agree that you are not Zulu, either.”
Joy folds her arms and makes an angry face. “For now,” she grumbles.
Amahle smiles. “For now.”
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“Have you never heard of the Zulu, Joy?”
“Amahle, I don’t know almost anything,” Joy’s voice sounds like she’s so sad and helpless.
Amahle takes a big breath. “That is not all right. You should speak to your father.”
“I will. Definitely,” she raises her voice, knowing her father is right there.
“Charlie, have you heard of the Zulu?”
“Not much. They’re an African tribe, right? They’re Native Africans.”
Amahle laughs. “That’s an interesting name to call them. They’re Africans. The Zulu are the fiercest and mightiest warrior race that ever was.”
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I hear Amahle ask, “You can hear the music?”
“It’s all around me, like it’s moving,” I hear Charlie say.
“I can hear it. What is it?” I hear Joy ask. “It makes my heart pound, but I don’t know why.”
“Walter,” Amahle calls out to me. As far as she’s concerned, it’s just me here with the kids. Master Mind and Justin are keeping silent and therefore invisible. “Do you hear the music?”
“I can hear it, Amahle. It’s very beautiful. Is that music from South Africa? Who wrote it?”
“Nobody wrote it, Walter. I hear music in my head. All the time. It’s how I feel… How can you hear my music?”
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“You know, my mother used to sit me with here right on this bench when I was a child,” Amahle says.
“Yeah?”
“We sat right here, and she would describe everything to me. See how everything is green, Joy and Charlie?”
“Very green.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” Charlie mumbles.
“It’s beautiful,” Amahle says. “She’d describe everything to me. Right behind me is a tree that comes out of its roots in three trunks.”
“That’s right!”
“How the path continues to the right, over there, and to the left. She talked to me about how the leaves of the trees cover everything above us and how the sun’s light comes in just so beautifully between the leaves.”
“Yeah,” Joy says.
“And I would have that picture in my head. Of the entire park. And my head would translate it to music.”
Music begins to play all around us, soft and beautiful.
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“Right now, I am lying at home, in my bed,” Amahle says. “My mother is there. And my friend, Sandile. They don’t let me do much because I was just released from the hospital. They’re very worried.”
“Tell them you don’t need them,” Joy says.
“What happened?” Charlie asks. “Why were you in the hospital?”
“Well, I, uh, died.”
“You died?!” This is Charlie’s voice.
“For a couple of minutes, yes.”
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We go into the elevator and into complete darkness. There is no sliver of light anywhere, not a faint light, not a star in the sky, not a single photon from the sun we are coming from.
“This is creepy,” I hear Charlie say.
“My logical response to this place is 82% stark fear,” I hear Master Mind’s response.
“Hold my hand if it helps,” I hear Justin say.
“My emotional health is not that fragile,” Master Mind says.
“I meant Charlie!”
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Something changes in Justin as soon as he is able to absorb that Joy can see into the dark dream while no one else can.
His back straightens. His voice becomes like that of a military commander, when he says, “Joy. Tell me what you see.”
She nods. “We’re at a beach. The woman is over there sitting on a beach chair.” Joy changes, as well. She isn’t the child asking her father for something she cadn’t have for the thousandth time. She is the adventurer I’d heard about. She’s giving a report of the hostile environment. “She has a beautiful dog sitting next to her. There are a few other people who came for the beach. And, I think, oh!”
“What?”
“A couple of penguins just came out of the water.”
“Monster penguins?”
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“Joy, stop kidding around!” Justin tells her.
“You stop kidding around,” she shoots back. “Tell me what’s dark here!” We’re standing at the edge of a dream so dark that there isn’t an iota of light anywhere. It is the dream of a woman called Amahle, who has been blind from birth and so her dream has learned to never show light. And yet, Joy insists there is no darkness.
“Those three buildings over there, they’re not dark! That woman over there with the dog, she’s not dark.”
Justin’s face goes white. “Amahle does have a seeing eye dog. I never told you that!”
“The clouds are not dark,” Joy points forward. “Those birds on the trees!”
Charlie steps to the edge and squints. “Joy, are you really seeing those things? I can’t see anything.”
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We prepare to go to Amahle’s dream: Justin, Joy, Charlie, Master Mind, and me. Suzy refuses to make the jumps from dream to dream. I am still getting used to Master Mind carrying me during those jumps, but I wouldn’t miss it.
Everyone including me gets jetpacks that Joy has touched and made permanent.
Justin creates a long, strong rope that Joy touches to make permanent even if Justin wakes up. That rope is tied to her abdomen and to Master Mind’s abdomen even before we leave.
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It has been a couple of weeks since our journey to the Night Planet. Joy hasn’t mentioned wanting to go to the dream with no exit since then, but Justin, Suzy, and I all know that it’s a matter of time.
For the last few days I’ve been keeping a closer watch on Joy, half expecting her to go off by herself when no one is looking.
But the trouble this time does not come from Joy.
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We all go down the ramp to the peer on the Night Planet.
I must admit, even to myself it is unsettling standing, walking, handling myself in a completely new place where I can’t see anything, not even a sliver of light.
Suzy holds my hand. “I don’t like this place,” she tells me.
“Me neither.”
I hear everyone getting further down the dock. We stay standing.
“Do you want to leave?” I ask her.
“Do you?”
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Justin guides Bonny’s Revenge into complete darkness.
One huge planet hides the suns and in its shadow, somewhere, is the Night Planet, a planet of perpetual night.
Joy holds Charlie’s hand.
Suzy stands next to me. But when darkness comes, I can’t see her or anything else.
There is silence, now. Not a yelp. Not a scream. Not a whisper.
“Joy?” Justin says after a few seconds. “Are you all right?”
“Mmmm-hmmmm,” she says. But her tone is forced. She is not all right.
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By this time, Charlie has arrived and landed on the deck of Bonny’s Revenge with his jetpack. He has been filled in.
“All right,” Justin takes a big breath. He’s taken us into outer space, and Bonny’s Revenge rests in front of a big patch of empty space. “Ready for the Night Planet, Joy?”
She braces herself and nods.
“Mom?” Justin asks.
Suzy looks at me. This is her first official time going on an adventure. This is not her life. It is not what our lives have been up to this point.
Master Mind has rejoined us on the deck while the two have been arguing. He is ready. He does not need to be asked.
“All right,” Justin says. “Just let’s be clear on the rules, okay? I’m going to bring back the Night Planet. There are not going to be villains on it. The whole point is to get Joy used to darkness and maybe get over the fear. That’s it. Whenever you want, Joy, Charlie and I can create light. Okay?”
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