All in Age: 6
“I can see him,” Charlie says. “I can see him in my mind. I’m trying to bring him back.”
“Go ahead,” Joy says. “You can do it!”
Charlie seems to be straining. “Just the dad who plays with me, just the dad who plays with me, just the…” he sighs and opens his eyes. “I can’t do it!”
Joy puts her hand on Charlie’s shoulder. “Try,” she says. “I’ll help you!”
Charlie closes his eyes and now so does Joy.
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“You do it,” Joy tells Charlie and gives him the large iron key.
Charlie takes it with reverence. He puts it in the lock of the iron bar door and twists it.
It twists and his jaw drops. “It’s easy to open!”
“Now open the door,” Joy tells him.
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“Watch, Charlie, Grandma, Grampa,” Joy holds the shackles of one of the six Martian Space Pirates, who are just standing there on the deck of Bonny’s Revenge, and points in the direction of the doorway next to her cabin. “All you have to do is point and they go.”
“That’s right,” Justin says. “At this point the villains never resist. And Joy just leads them.”
Joy leads the prisoners. Charlie walks next to her, his eyes sparkling with excitement. Justin, Suzy and I walk behind them. Master Mind stays on the deck.
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“Grampa, Grandma! Want to help me put the Martian Space Pirates in prison?”
Suzy and I are sitting on the porch of our apartment on a small island in Justin’s dream, when Bonnie’s Revenge returns from adventure. Joy leans over the railing and shouts at us.
Joy, Charlie, Justin, and Master Mind had gone off on an adventure to find and imprison the Martian Space Pirates. Apparently, they’d been successful.
Suzy looks at me, then up at Joy. “Why, of course, we’d love to!”
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“Dad! What did you mean there’s a dream where you can’t get back out?”
Justin’s mind seems clearer now. He bends down and looks Joy in the eyes. With his scariest voice says, “It means there’s no exit, Joy. There’s no way to leave it! You can never ever ever go there because you can never ever ever get out!”
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I go to sit next to Charlie, who for the last ten minutes has been watching from one of the pool chairs.
“Charlie, this must be boring for you. I would think you just want to play with Joy.”
“Are you kidding?” he looks at me all excited and I see his eyes are dancing. He is happy. “Joy lives in a dream! Anything can happen! And she’s awesome! Look how strong she is! She’s Superman!”
“Hmm. Yeah, well,” I mutter. “She’s hardly Superman.”
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Joy comes out of the changing room.
“I’m ready!”
Madelyn has been waiting for her at the edge of the pool, not standing on the small stumps of her legs, but rather sitting.
“Come here, Zhoy,” she says. “You will be here. I will be here.”
Joy nods and stands in her own lane, next to Madelyn’s lane.
“Ready?”
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“Do you speak French, Joy?” she pronounces the name ‘Zhoy’.
“I don’t know,” Joy answers happily. “What’s French?”
Charlie peeks from behind Joy. “She doesn’t speak French, miss,” he says.
Madelyn takes a deep breath. “Then it is harder.”
Both Joy and Charlie are looking down at her. Even though Madelyn is clearly a tall woman, standing without legs she is shorter than them.
“Zhoy,” Madelyn speaks slowly, choosing her words. She knows English, but it is hard for her. “Do you know what it is like to… to win?”
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There are only a handful of people walking or sitting in the pool in Madelyn’s dream. They all have regular shadows, which means they’re all dreams.
I look around and there are no people with movies in their shadows, like the shadows of Justin and Charlie.
“There!” Justin points out. “Swimming in the pool! The tall woman!”
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I stand at the edge of the tunnel, which is one of the suns in a completely new dream, and I look down.
“I don’t know what that building is,” Justin confers with Master Mind and Joy, with Charlie watching. “But I don’t see any monsters or dangers.”
Justin has to make sure this dream is safe for Joy to go into. After all, any dream can kill her or harm her. But in this case, I think he doesn’t have to.
I laugh. “Justin, I can’t believe how little French you know.” Seriously, I’ve told him this all his life. We live in Canada!
He looks at me, eyes crinkled. “Just say what you know, Dad.”
“It says ‘Piscine du Grand Parc’ right there on the sign. It’s a pool, Justin.” I smile at them, “I’m afraid we’re not in North America anymore.”
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“What is it?” Justin says.
“It’s like a tiny fairy with really big teeth,” Charlie says. “Is it going to eat me?”
“It’s just a fly,” Joy waves at it dismissively. “General Hawk and I saw a cloud of them. They don’t do anything.”
Justin reaches out with an open palm, inviting the creature to land on his hand. But the creature flies up, circles around Charlie’s head, then flies towards the stem behind us. The Shroom’s stem is thick, thrice as thick as Justin’s body. And I can see a handful of these glowing creatures are already resting on the stem.
“They’re are quite cute,” Master Mind says with his robotic voice. “Petting them would bring me pleasure. As would crushing them between my fingers.”
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Joy is the proof that this place is real. The Dream is real! Dreams happen in a real place! Because Joy lives here. Joy can make dreams like me real, she can make us stay. I have never thought, never believed, never supposed…
If there was a way to get this information to the outside world, to other scientists…!
“They’re called Shrooms,” Joy said. “I named them!”
“That’s my Shroom over there!” Charlie points down. “It was above us when I came here.”
Now it’s a couple of meters below us and to the side.
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Justin goes first. Joy follows him, holding Charlie’s hand. I try to cross, but as soon as the plank wobbles, my legs shake and I almost lose my balance. Master Mind grabs me, then just jumps into the tunnel.
As the group continues to Joy’s first authorized ‘outing’ into other people’s dreams, I look back through the tunnel at Suzy, standing on Bonnie’s Revenge’s deck.
She waves at me.
I know that face. She’s afraid for us, she’s afraid one of us isn’t going to make it, and she’s trying to hide it.
I want to tell her we’ll be fine. But right now my heart’s beating fast, and I’m not as brave as I thought I would be.
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“Dad! I’ve been on adventure a million times!”
We are all standing on the deck of Bonny’s Revenge and everyone’s excited.
“Last time you went to other dreams, I almost lost you forever,” Justin tells Joy. “And the dreams I went to, some of them you would never have survived. So: Let’s go through our checklist. Does everyone have jetpacks?”
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“You going somewhere, son?” I ask.
“Yeah, I just, I just have someplace to go.” Joy looks at him over her shoulder again. “Joy, you’re okay with Master Mind and your grampa, right? You don’t need me to protect you, right?”
Joy, pleased, looks ahead. “I’m fine. I don’t need them, either!”
“Dad, Master Mind, Charlie, take care of her. Joy, go see a movie, don’t follow me.”
“Yeah, yeah,” she waves him off.
He rises into the air.
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Suddenly, Joy emerges from the door, looking like she’s mostly asleep.
I stand up immediately, as Suzy asks, “Dearie, is everything okay?”
Joy doesn’t stop. She walks forward, and begins to climb the ramp.
“Joy, is everything okay?” I ask as we both scramble behind her up the ramp.
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“You look tired,” I tell her.
She nods. “I’m not ready to go to sleep yet.”
“Dearie,” Suzy tells her. “You know, we have a room in our house. It was your father’s room when he was a kid like you. It has a bed. You know, you don’t have to sleep on the ship. Do you want to sleep in his old bed?”
Joy jumps up in excitement. “Can you show it to me?”
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“... And that is why General Hawk was the greatest soldier who ever lived and will be remembered by us forever.”
A soldier of General Hawk’s Fifth Flying Regiment had spoken for a couple of minutes and now he was finally wrapping it up.
“Thank you,” Justin says. “We have one more thing to do before we can say goodbye.”
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“This is all my fault” Charlie shouts, crying.
“Charlie,” Justin lowers Joy and she takes a step towards Charlie. “What’s your fault?”
“General Hawk died because my dad killed him! My nightmare killed General Hawk!” Charlie is crying. “And he’s dead because I couldn’t kill my dad! Because I killed my dad!”
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“General Hawk,” Justin turns to the grave. “You protected my daughter when she was all alone.” Joy clings to his pants as he speaks. “You saved her life at the cost of yours. You became a dear friend to her.”
Joy buries her head in Justin’s pants. He puts his hand on her head and continues. “You were a hero and a great man and a great friend. I will always thank you for everything you did.”
Everyone nods. The dozens of bird people filling the backyard of our apartment on this tiny island is nodding as well.
Justin takes Joy in his hands. “You want to say a few words to General Hawk?”
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