All tagged Yumio
Master Mind takes two steps forward, grabs Joy around the torso, and steps back.
“Hey!” Joy says.
Amahle’s spooky music rises.
“Guys, guys, there’s no need for panic,” Justin raises his hands. “This mummy is not going to move!”
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Colin, Madelyn, and Yumio enter our living room first. Then Justin does. Then Charlie and Joy, holding hands. Joy and Justin are the only ones who don’t seem afraid. Justin, perhaps, because it is his mummy. And I’m not sure why Joy isn’t more cautious. But at least she’s protected by five Dreamers who will leap to her aid if one Dreamer goes crazy.
Master Mind follows next. Suzy peeks through.
“Oh, my,” Suzy says. “There is a mummy in our living room!”
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It’s a busy morning on the deck of Bonny’s Revenge. We have all our dreamers here at once when Justin arrives: Amahle, Madelyn, Yumio, Charlie, Colin, and now Justin has joined.
Joy, Charlie, Madelyn and Yumio have been playing Catch in the Clouds, all wearing Yumio’s mechas. Colin has been drinking tea with Suzy and me on the deck while waiting for Justin.
When Justin appears, everyone gathers and tells him the plan.
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“Yumio, you want to take Joy and Charlie to Mecha Planet? I’ll drop off my parents and join you.”
Charlie and Joy smile at each other in approval.
“Sure thing,” Yumio says. She jumps off the railing and into the air.
One of these big robots I’ve learned to call mechas - one of those mechas takes form around Yumio, and with it she is as tall as the mast.
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We wait for the Dreamers.
Madelyn appears first on Bonny Revenge’s deck. She says she heard nothing and knows nothing about the broken mirror.
Yumio comes next, flying in from her dream inside the body of one of her flying mecha robots that Joy had made permanent for her.
Yumio says she knows nothing.
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Charlie and Joy are still riding the flying elephants. Following from behind on Bonny’s Revenge, Justin is lost in thought, and Suzy’s and my attention turn to him completely. Master Mind, next to us, watches over the kids.
“Um…How do I do that exactly?” Justin says.
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Master Mind has brought Amahle from her dream back to Justin’s dream, where we’re all waiting for her.
Back on the deck of Bonny’s Revenge, Elvis, her seeing eye dog reappears. Along with the cane in her right hand, which she moves to her left.
We wait for her to explain what the danger was that she sensed around us before she disappeared and woke up.
“I do not know what it was,” Amahle says. “I have never felt anything like it. It felt like someone was hitting me in the head.”
“What?” Joy is concerned. After all, nothing had been close to any of our heads.
“It was a pounding,” Amahle continues. “From inside my head. Like something was pushing me to the ground.”
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There is a deep sense of strangeness when Amahle disappears. Johannesburg disappears. The sunset disappears. And the full light of the two suns return. The half-darkness, was caused by Amahle. Now that I think about it, its creation was also aided by Joy holding Amahle’s hand.
And then there’s silence. Strange, awkward silence.
“What the hell happened?” Colin asks.
Joy is looking at her own hands.
“Joy,” Justin moves closer to her. “Do you know what happened? Do you know what she was talking about?”
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Amahle puts her right hand to her temple. “I will try.”
The last sunset disappears and all around us, on top of the permanent ocean, the streets of Johannesburg appear.
“Can you see it, Joy?”
We all look around. “We see Johannesburg, Amahle,” Madelyn says. “But there is no sun.”
Joy reaches out to hold Amahle’s left hand, but Amahle raises it to her temple as well. “Sun,” she says. “Sun.”
And a sun appears right above the horizon. An orange sun about to set. Unlike all other sunrises, this time the sun’s light does not influence the sky. The blue sky doesn’t change color. Just there, at the bottom, there is powerful, setting orange sun.
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“Joy, do you want to see a sunset from Japan?” Yumio says.
“Yuh-huh.”
Everything around us changes. In front of us is a river. Far ahead is a mountain, and the sun is setting behind it, its orange colors spreading across not only the sky but the mountain and the river.
Joy stares at it with eyes agape. Suzy gasps. Madelyn takes in a deep breath.
“Fantastic!” Colin said. “Where are we?”
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“Why are we here, Madelyn?” Justin says.
She had asked to take us to the middle of the ocean.
“I think it is time to show little Zhoy the things she cannot see in this world.”
“Like what?” Joy says.
“Zhoy, in this world you can see anything. But one thing you have never seen, I believe, is a sunset.”
“What’s a sunset?”
“In the…uhm…waking world,” Madelyn says. “The sun rises on one side, goes up, and goes down on the other side.”
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Joy is tired, but she refuses to go to sleep. Suzy and I join her and Master Mind as she takes the ship to the ice mountains of Mars and climbs them, then skids down on the ice, then does it all again and again and again.
She does this for hours. Even when she clearly can’t really walk anymore, she climbs up very very slowly and does it again.
“What is she doing?” Suzy whispers to me as we watch her put one foot in front of the other.
I shake my head. I have no idea.
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Suzy shakes her head. “She’s so cute. She’s so beautiful. But look at her, she only grows wilder with every year.”
I nod. “She can’t be tamed.”
Suzy throws me a look. “I don’t like that word. That's not a word you use on people.” Then she nods, “You’re right, though. She can’t.”
“I don’t think she should, Suzy,” I tell her. “She would never survive the Dream outside if she was tame.”
Suzy sighs.
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Justin is in a terrible mood the second we get out of the dream with the mecha suits battle.
“Dad, let’s try that dream!” Joy points to a Shroom to her immediate left.
Justin’s lips are closed tight, and he shakes his head. “We’re going home,” he manages to say.
I have only seen him this angry when he was a kid, and during those times he wouldn’t say more than a few syllables in hours.
Joy tries to argue, but Justin ignores her. “Master Mind, Dad, let’s go!” He activates his jetpack and flies off the Shroom.
Master Mind looks at Joy, who is miffed at being ignored. Then he follows Justin upwa
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“Dad, Dad, Dad! Pleeeeez!” Joy clings to Justin’s clothes as we stand in the tunnel, looking at a full blown space war and two mecha exoskeletons taken out of what Justin has identified as an Anime TV show battle each other. “Put me in! Let me help her!”
Charlie steps to the edge. “Maybe I should go in?”
Just as he does so a laser cannon from the big alien ship blows up a small fighter spaceship and it explodes.
“Nope, nope, nope,” Charlie takes a step back.
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A giant blue-green exoskeleton lands on top of the alien ship. Inside, I can see a woman with long black hair, but she’s too far away.
The giant alien ship, green, all full of bumps and large antennae, makes its way through an asteroid storm. From behind the asteroids, multiple alien ships appear. These are small, maneuver fast, and fire lasers at the big ship.
The giant exoskeleton makes its way, step by step, towards a pretty big bump: No doubt the way inside.
But then a huge doorway opens in that bump, and a mean-looking red exoskeleton appears.
“So coooool” Joy says.
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