by Pera Barrett
“Perfect. And hey good luck in the new job.”
“Thanks, yeah, same to you with the park. I’m sure it will be amazing. I know it will be. Catch up soon.”
“Bye.”
David hadn’t looked back at the pretty soft lights. The bar door had swung closed behind him, and the sound of the music had died.
————
And now here he was, Second in Command for the most prestigious company in the country, in the world. The thought didn’t sound as exciting to David as it should.
Still, he found his thoughts falling back to Aimee and the water park. Had he really chosen the money over her?
For the first year in his new job, he had come home each night with the weight of somebody else’s world weighing down his slumped shoulders. He would step into his beautiful home, kiss his beautiful wife, and explain why his day had been so ugly.
It was one particularly cold morning that year, when he had checked in on Aimee for the first time. He hadn’t really known why — she hadn’t needed his help, and too much time had passed to even talk to her without feeling awkward. So he had stayed in his parked car, watching the scene framed by her bedroom window, instead.
————
Aimee floated out of bed wrapped head to toe in pink felt pyjamas with purple racing car print. Classic ‘Tomboy Aimee’ — like they had called her at school.
She stretched her arms up straight with her fingers interlocked and her palms flexing outwards. She’d pulled a white dressing gown from the back of the door and put it on, then tied the sash.
She bent and scooped up a tabby cat from her bed, wrapped her arm around it, and started patting its head in long strokes as it nestled into the crook of her elbow. David imagined the low purring noise it must be making.
She walked out of the bedroom and then back in again, carrying a coffee and a smile. She looked so happy to be setting out into the world. And why wouldn’t she be? It was the world David and her had dreamed of as kids. Every few months he looked up her progress on the office computer. Days Waterpark seemed to be going from strength to strength. It had become a landmark and an important tourist attraction for the city.
Aimee sat down at the desk beside her bed, her back to David — nearly close enough to touch. She was writing something he couldn’t see, two thin layers of glass between him and her shoulder — nearly close enough to peer over. Every now and then she stopped, lifted her head back up and took a sip from the steaming mug of coffee. He could almost hear her swallow.
David rubbed his cold hands together, squeezed their white tips, and stared.
Watching her wake up and live out her dreams didn’t help David. But he couldn’t shift his eyes away. Her smile was a slap reminding him how he’d gone from one alarm in the morning, to two, and now three. He told himself he wasn’t a morning person, but really, he wasn’t a happy person, and deep down he knew it. He woke and did what he had to do, not what he wanted to do.
His breath fogged the windshield in clouds of envy and regret. He finally tore his attention away from Aimee and turned on the air-conditioning, then reached into his glove box and pulled out the previous day’s output report. “Cog Team Three, another good result,” he had said to himself. Warmth flowing back into his fingers, he’d driven to the office ready to start his shift.
————
Tonight, sitting on the bed he and his wife shared, he wondered what had gone wrong. How had Aimee’s dream come un-done? Targets appeared in the Dream Defection report when they were vulnerable to a takeover. Hers had seemed more stable than most. It was well past the insecure, juvenile stage that David’s Sales Team usually targeted with their aggressive pitches, and their well-sold stories on how much better off one would be in a Cog Team. He had heard old Mrs. Day had become ill in the last few months. He wondered if that had anything to do with it.
He wondered if he should write to her. Ask if there was anything he could do. Don’t be stupid. You’ve got Jane and little Kathryn to think about now. He would quality check the data like he was meant to, and pass it on to the right people. The right people who did things that seemed so wrong. He didn’t understand the Dark Dreamers, and he didn’t want to. If the data checked out, they would visit her like they visited all the targets. They would fix her like they fixed them all.
10 PERFECT FOR CATCHING DREAMS
“We spent all our time at school dreaming and talking about doing this. That shouldn’t stop now that we’ve finished exams. Having a job and rent to pay doesn’t mean we can’t make an album on the side. Weekly practice sessions start on Wednesday — be there.”
Taipari Walker, 19 years old
————
The last light in the house flicked off with a click from downstairs.
It was 11 PM or thereabouts. Not that time mattered to the jumble of curves and triangles standing next to the bed.
A dim nightlight on the dresser painted a soft orange glow on the walls next to the sleeper, the rest of the room was blanketed in black.
The bundle of sheets and the body beneath lay in the corner of the bedroom furthest from the door. It was a man under the covers. But who was sleeping never mattered much. The Old Man’s assistant was here for the falling dream. Here for the catch.
There was a poster on the wall, just visible in the light: two men leaning against each other with folded arms. They were wearing thick gold rope necklaces and five-finger rings. There was a boombox beside them. ‘Go B-Boy Huia! Peace.’ was scrawled in black pen across the bottom of the glossy paper.
The assistant stood at the side of the dreamer, just one triangle head taller than the bed. It was short with long arms — perfect for reaching, perfect for catching dreams. It chattered softly to itself. The light leaked through its wobble of lines like a torch being run over picket fence gaps. If you were looking at it through the window, you might have thought the figure was scratched onto the glass and filled with black ink. Whichever angle you looked from, the lines stayed flat as if not really in the room. But it was. Maybe it shouldn’t be. The Old Man hadn’t sent it out to catch this particular dream. But then, The Old Man hadn’t been there to see it fall, so the assistant did what it was meant to do — what those triangle hands were drawn for.
The assistant’s chattering was frantic now; it sounded like a handful of rocks being shaken faster and faster. The dreamer’s forehead creased, its body shivered and rolled over.
The assistant unfolded its webbed hands and slid them under the dreamer, like an orderly lifting a patient. The black lines of its arms rippled and flowed against each other as they bent at what would ordinarily be elbows; its limbs were all curves and angles and straight lines and scribbles. The spider-silk sails slipped between the dreamer’s skin and bedsheets like a leaf of paper sliding back into its pile. The assistant’s hands came to a stop directly beneath the body. The tiny white hairs sticking out of the nettle fibre trembled. The assistant fell quiet. If it had breath to hold it would. Instead, it stood, lines vibrating gently, hands still and steady. Waiting.
The body of the dreamer jolted. His eyes shot open. Wide. Awake. His heart was punching at the ceiling of his chest. Panic. Confusion. He drew in a sharp breath. Rolled his eyes to one side then the other.
“Hello?” Huia breathed out a sigh. “Hello?” There was nobody there. It was just a bad dream, and it wasn’t so bad at the end. He’d been breakdancing on a square vinyl mat in the mall, twisted his ankle and fallen. A storm cloud of crows rained down as he landed; all black feathers, beaks, and red eyes. But before they could attack, like they surely meant to, a strange looking man reached down with a hand. Was it a man? Huia couldn’t remember the face, but the palm he pushed forward was huge. Huia pulled himself up against the stranger's weight. Upright again, his feet had started moving on the mat, no pain, no pause. The fire of the beat burnt everything else back. He’d danced.
The assistant tucked its legs up after itself as it climbed out the windo
w and onto the roof. Home through the night and back to The Device.
More sleepers to watch. More dreams to catch.
11 THE TERRAGULLS
“It’s nice to dream every now and then baby, but I don’t live in the fluffy cloud world of dreams, I live in the real life world of bills. Bills that don’t pay themselves.”
- Kelsey Roach, 46 years old.
————
Whoomph.
The dark shape in the sky dropped closer and closer to our little boat rocking in the ocean. I looked at The Old Man but he was staring out to sea unconcerned. The outline of a set of wings took shape. A bird then? It was huge. And it was coming straight at us.
Pointy clumps of panic started forming in my chest.
I held onto both sides of the boat. My muscles tensed, ready for the impact. This behemoth of a bird was about to crash straight into our boat, shattering it and probably us. That or it was going to splash-land in the patch of water to our side, and upend our little wooden teacup into the sea. Either way, we were going to get wet.
Instead, the monster landed beside us without so much as a ripple, and more importantly, without smashing our boat into splinters and smithereens.
The mammoth bird sat bobbing on the surface and glared at us with black smoke eyes. The whole beast was as wide as our rowboat and nearly as long. Out of the sun's path, its wings were white. It looked like a slightly off, grotesque, giant albatross. It could have been the grandfather ancestor to the modern day birds I’d seen on magazine pages in shops. It had the same dark stripe cutting from its eyes to the back of its head. The same massive wings that curved like a pair of arms puffed out and ready to fight as it landed. But it looked meaner.
Its beak was thicker than an Albatross’, still suited for snapping through fish and seal backbones, like secateurs snipping a stem. But it had a wicked hook at the end which looked perfect for ripping the flesh off an unsuspecting diver’s back. The feet it had just seconds before slipped into the water were still webbed, but I caught a glimpse of talons on their end that looked as vicious as the claws a giant eagle snatches sheep with.
I felt a wave of air being pushed, and another, identical, birdlike-thing landed on the other side of the boat with an equally calm splash.
The beasts looked at each other across the tops of our heads, turned their eyes to us, then both plunged their heads into the blue water at the same time, diving beneath our little boat.
I leaned over the edge and could see them crossing paths under the water, it was like watching fish in an aquarium, only, they weren’t fish, they were birds of horror with beaks that could take out a piece of our boat — the only barrier between us and the bottom of the sea.
They turned and came back towards the boat, crossing paths again.
Then turned back again.
And again.
And again.
By now, the birds were creating a vicious swell. Every time they shot past each other, two black torpedos, the water churning around each one collided. The wakes crashed and pushed upwards, throwing and rocking our boat even more than it was already moving.
And back again.
Faster, and faster, and faster.
I was gripping tightly to both edges of our woefully small warship now. Knuckles clenched white against the cold water smashing into them with every swell. My ribs were thrown against the hard plywood triangle in the front of the boat’s nose. Crash. The birds turned. Crash. Again.
“Time to go I suppose.” The Old Man slid the oars back down into the water and rowed.
We moved faster than we had before, but we were still just a rowboat in the never-ending sea, travelling with what little force those little wooden oars could push water with. The birds followed us, turning each section of water we crossed into a self-contained storm, starting and finishing just metres to the front and back of us. The rest of the sea stretched peaceful and flat from the edge of our little tempest to the horizon.
If they’re trying to sink us why don’t they just attack the boat? My inner voice had to shout over the noise of our private storm.
The sky was getting darker, and the constant crashing of water over the lip of the boat had soaked through my jacket and pants.
The sea was a monster, the protuberances on its body unpredictable and unimaginable, and it was throwing every bit of its weight behind the waves in an attempt to break through the walls of our boat.
Panicking again I moved one hand to the other side of the railing so I could turn, and glanced back to The Old Man.
He was sitting in a sunny, dry seat.
There was no water hitting the sides of the boat around him. He was smiling and whistling as he rowed.
There were no claws of white swiping at him from the crests of the waves. No chaos. No beasts in the swell. It was as if he sat in a clear, calm bubble — while I was doing battle with the world outside it.
What the hell?
12 THE INSPIRINGS
Fist turns to brick,
broken bones knit
Watch out!
The Inspired will never submit.
- Stencil spray painted on Southgate Mall
————
The busker woke on a camp stretcher. His knee felt like hell, and his head was trying to get there too.
He looked down at his thickly bandaged leg, then around the rest of the room. Not a room, a tent. The floor was concrete with painted lines, a school playground maybe? There were other drab olive stretchers dotted around the sides of the tent. Old army stretchers likely. Some were occupied by bodies or blankets, most were empty.
“OK, guess it happened again,” he said under his breath.
“Fist fit?” a voice to his left said.
The busker hadn’t noticed the man on the stretcher next to his own. He was covered in a dark grey blanket, with only a set of eyes and a mop of brown hair exposed.
“Yeah, third one I’ve had,” the busker said. “What a trip aye. You ever had one?”
“Nope, not me. Wish I had though. I got beaten up good this time. One of those fits would have sure helped. What’s it like?”
“Tell you what, it doesn’t feel like nothing I’ve felt before. And I’ve... experimented with a few different mind-altering... things, in my time.” The busker laughed. “You know, the last camp I was in called them the Inspirings, and I’d say that’s a better description. Your fists clench up like they’re wrapped around a gun, and the blood shoots down your veins like bullets being loaded into the chamber.” He held his fist up.
“Nice.”
“You feel invincible. Hell, you pretty much are invincible. Unless you run into one of the further-ups like I did this time. God, he moved quicker than a freight train, and he hit about twice as hard.” The busker winced at the memory.
“Poet?” Brown-hair said.
“Nah, singer, guitarist, mostly. Drummer when I can find a set. How about you?”
“Story-writer. Though I haven’t actually written much, as of late. I suppose that’s why I haven’t had a fist fit, or an Inspiring or whatever.”
“Yeah maybe,” the busker said. “They say it happens when your dream becomes big enough for more than just yourself. They’re turning into a bit of a cult thing now, I hear there’s a group down south called The Passions — not the band from the Eighties — they reckon they can help any dreamer reach enlightenment, like a community of modern day monks.”
“You don’t say,” Brown-hair said.
The busker’s eyes moved to the lady standing in the centre of the tent. She had an army cap pushed down over most of her face. She wore fatigues stained with paint. White, blue, and green splotches, on a canvas of olive camouflage patterning.
“Good to have you back with us soldier. Welcome to Camp Freedom, I’m Sergeant Sutherland.” The vein on the side of the sergeant’s neck stood up straight, and her shortened words punched through the air. “That damn Cog Team protection unit got you good, but we’re gonna
get you patched up. You’ll be back out there fighting the good fight in no time.”
The tent flaps moved in the wind, the busker could see an ant hill of activity outside. Rag-tag lines of people in eclectic outfits marched past the tent’s entrance in organised chaos. One after the other. Single file.
He could see wire mesh fences set up in a perimeter around the camp. Someone had tied short strips of multi-coloured fabric to the wire, forming a word:
“LIVE”
The loose ends of the fabric fluttered in the breeze.
“We’re at war.” The Sergeant’s voice drew the busker’s eyes back to her. “It’s our imaginations versus the machinations of the industrial conglomerates. Your country needs you….to rest. Then we need you to fight again.” She said it with the practice of a joke made before but grinned nonetheless.
The busker shifted to sit up on the stretcher and winced at the pain in his knee.
“I’m expecting both of you to be back up and running in tomorrow’s drills. Till then, thank you for your service.” The sergeant turned on one black-booted heel and strode out of the tent.
Sergeant Sutherland with her polished silver stars was a legend in the busker's unpolished circles. Everybody knew her story, and everybody knew you never talked about it. Not within megaphone distance of her military grade hearing.
She was what happened when you listened too closely to the praise, the applause, and the happy sound of sales being ordered. The story went that she had sold a few big-ticket paintings to a man with deep pockets from up North. She had enjoyed the success so much that she had tried to paint every next canvas the same as those that she’d sold, in the hope that Mr. deep-pockets ordered again. But of course, every artist knows that at least some of the brush strokes need to come from the heart, or the paint won’t dry. That’s how art works.