I ALWAYS COME to them in their dreams. When they sleep, abandoning their glare-lighted waking world for the larger and more varied realm that is my reality, I am free to make my presence known.
What do they think they see when I approach them? Sometimes I wonder, for I have never looked upon any of my own faces. Only occasionally I glimpse myself in the mirrors of their minds, and such views are always distorted. I know, however, that what they believe they see must be beautiful, for they pursue the vision with a covetous persistence otherwise inexplicable. I know too that perception differs greatly from man to man, for always I clothe myself in the fancies and deepest longings of each consciousness that I visit. Always, I am the essence of personal fantasy. And how do I make myself so? How do I sort in an instant through the junkheap accumulation of old ambitions, caprices, and fleeting lunacies to fasten so unerringly upon the truest desires? To shape my image accordingly? I might answer that it is my instinct and my function to do so; but that says nothing. In truth, I cannot account for my nature, any more than I can explain the character of the force that chooses the minds through which I must wander.
The dreamscapes of my explorations vary, shaping the succession of my guises; but some things never change. Every beginning is the same. Awareness of self—suspended for how long?—returns, and I am in a new place. Drawn insensibly through the darkness—or aimed like an arrow? How long before that question occurred to me? Always the land is strange, yet familiar. The surface may be murky, a swamp of melancholia; bright with ardor; placid or stormswept; deserted, prosaically populous, or home to creatures beyond description—all of this is infinitely variable; but the underlying mesh of hunger and fear never alters. It is not difficult to learn the surface. I am always quick to master the terrain.
Soon, I know the pathways. Only a little time has elapsed since my awakening, but it is enough; I was made for this work. I am prepared, and it is time to meet the dreamer.
I do not reveal myself all at once. I stir, I glide, and presently he senses my presence. He is inquisitive, as I intend him to be. But I am not too quick to satisfy his curiosity. He needs time, time to let his imagination do its work. I am there, I am not. He spies a shadow, a mist, a silhouette. A form, a profile, a gleam of dream-flesh, a beckoning hand. He is caught, intrigued. He follows, and I am gone. Back again, perceived, and gone once more. He pursues me along the tangled pathways of old memory; clutches, and misses. Misses again. And again. So the dance proceeds, for several sleep-spans at least, until his puzzling, dreaming brain is tired; and then perhaps I allow him to rest in some oasis of the mind, preferably beside a reflecting pool.
He watches the water. He leans forward. He has glimpsed a form below; pale or dark, willowy or bird-rounded, as his taste has molded me. He looks up suddenly to find me standing upon the far shore. It is his first clear view, and always he is astonished to confront the personification of his dreams. Our eyes speak, a moment only.
Who are you?
Always the same question, always.
I do not answer in words. I am not yet certain that I possess a voice. It is only once in millennia that ever I will think to attempt speech. For now, my face, my eyes, and my body must speak; all trained in eloquence. Beyond doubt, he understands me. Or rather, he comprehends what I intend to communicate. A moment only, and then I fade from his view.
Come back. Don’t go. Speak to me, please speak.
The same refrain, always the same; amazed, delighted, uncomprehending. Sometimes, I am almost sorry.
Wait. What is your name?
Unanswerable. I do not have a name.
His wish is shortly granted. I return. I do not speak, yet I allow him nearer. We touch; or perhaps he dreams that we touch. Thereafter, his sleep-spans increase in frequency and length. He is with me. He dreams.
He talks to me, always. He tells me of himself; his past, his future hopes, his grievances and triumphs. Always. I do not answer, but that is unimportant. My intensely attentive demeanor—my manifest sympathy and admiration—more than suffice to satisfy. My attentiveness is genuine. I listen closely indeed, for his revelations school me. Continually I modify the image that I have assumed, each tiny and almost imperceptible change bringing me closer in dumb show to the purest embodiment of his desires. I am skilled in this.
But these monologues teach more than his preferences. They tell me much of that other world, that harsh world of inviolable physical principle that he inhabits when he is not with me. It sounds a rigid, unforgiving place, shackled in regulation. There are laws governing the motion of moon and stars, governing sea and land and sky, warmth and cold, light and dark, life and death, governing time itself. The laws are tyrannical and innumerable. I do not believe that I could endure them for an instant. Only once, in millennia, will I reconsider.
He dreams on. His sleep-spans increase in length and frequency. He is spending more time here with me. I rule and own his thoughts. It is easy to capture him—are they all so easily caught? Or have I somehow been directed to the ultra-susceptible? No answer, and no real need of one. His existence centers upon my world. The hard-edged other place recedes.
But does not altogether disappear. Intimations of that alien world drift through his dreams to me. Out there, his condition has not gone unnoticed. There is concern, curiosity, perhaps ridicule. If he is cared for, there is often alarm.
What’s wrong? Are you sick? Are you unhappy?
Are you drunk, are you drugged?
Angry? Thwarted? Bored? Is there somebody else?
Tell me. Speak to me, please speak.
The pleas, so familiar and repetitive, waft from that other world. They are not without pathos. Sometimes, I am almost sorry.
Always he ignores the queries and warnings. Perhaps he doubts; but never is he moved to turn away from me. I do not think he can turn away.
Our time together lengthens. He is asleep and dreaming almost continually, now. The voices from the other place have faded. He does not heed them, he does not hear. The dream world, the soft world of infinite possibility, my world, is the sole reality.
That is when it is time to leave him.
There is no explaining the inner voice that tells me when to go. My instinct specifies the moment. When his mind and soul are fully engaged—when he is wholly mine, when he is gone—then so am I.
Vanished. Out of his mind, out of his universe. I do not exist, I never existed.
What becomes of my dreamer, afterward? Surely he searches for me. Sometimes I catch the echo of his voice calling across the blind dark spaces. Perhaps he squanders his years vainly scouring the inner lands now dank with loss, now stinking with memory turned toxic. Perhaps, if he is wise, he finally abandons the hunt. And yet, somehow I know, that ultimate renunciation brings no peace; for his own world is thenceforth a desert—arid, meaningless, and forever empty.
And where do I go, when I depart? I cannot answer, I do not know. The dreamscape about me darkens, distances, is not. I myself am plunged into nothingness, for unknowable time, until I wake once more to find myself in a new place.
So it has always been; that is all my memory. Only once, in millennia, does it enter my mind to look for anything else.
❖
It begins in the usual way. Muted light, a fresh locale. Quieter, with greater extremes of dark and bright than most. Gusts and calms impossible to anticipate. Knotted network of paths and passageways, unexpected turnings; hidden clearings, peaks and chasms, dust and brilliance, doubt-roofed cities, oddly shaped pockets of intention, regret, determination, jagged indecision. In short, an uncommon mind; yet not so alien that I might not hope to learn its shape.
And so I wander, watch, and learn, as always. A maze of a mind, eccentric in its alternating simplicities and intricacies; startling in the vastness of its dreamscape—this last a function less of intellect than of pure imagination. Such magnitude can be no accident. My current dreamer lives often in his own imagination. He has built and cultivated there. T
he signs of his habitation are everywhere; so evident that I grow curious, and halfconcerned that I might stumble upon him unexpectedly, before I am ready to reveal myself. Mindful of this danger, I bury myself in shadow and mist; but it is not certain that these precautions safeguard my secrecy. Time passes, and I begin to sense his awareness. Despite all my care, he feels my hidden presence, long before I intend that he should. Such a thing has never happened before. I am astonished; even a little disturbed.
I have never been disturbed. That, too, is new.
I wonder; but proceed, nonetheless. The usual rustlings and stirrings, the usual tantalizing half-glimpses. Now he is very aware of me; intrigued and inquisitive, but hardly feverish in his pursuit. He follows, but without haste or desperation; as if relishing the novelty of the game. Clearly, he knows the territory of his own dreams. He is at home in this place, almost it seems his natural habitat. He is unusual, beyond doubt; still, like all the others, he follows me.
The usual pursuit and teasing evasions. But no, not quite usual. It is not so easy to elude him. Sometimes, he seems almost to anticipate my movements. He dares to follow me through the midnight storms of his mind. He is swift as thought, too. What if he were to catch up with me, before I decide that it is time? I do not know what would happen, then. It is outside my experience.
I do not prolong the chase. I do not wish to prolong it. It is time for us to meet, more than time. Thus he beholds my reflection in the pool; his fancy has fashioned me slim and silvery as dream-brightened starlight. And he? It is my first clear sight of him, and this once, I am curious. The image that walks the dreamscape does not always mirror the outer self; but the figure I now see before me does so, I am certain. He is a young man, absurdly young; thin and narrow-shouldered, with a pale, mild face. There is nothing to betray the existence of the imagination that stretches, vast and flamboyant, behind that unremarkable façade.
He looks up. He sees me. His face changes.
Who are you;’
That question again. Perhaps he is less uncommon than I had supposed.
And then he adds, You were never horn here.
I am startled. How does he know that? I am, after all, formed in the image of his own fantasies. And yet, he knows. I am confused. I retreat.
Where have you come from?
I do not know. I am almost afraid. I vanish.
But it is inevitable that I return. I compose myself. I am with him again, and now it is better. He is drawn to me, ensnared, entangled and entranced; perhaps against his better judgment, but caught all the same. He is not altogether unlike the others, after all.
Together we wander the gorgeous realm. Suspecting no harm, he talks to me at length. I do not reply, I never speak. And yet, for the first time, I think of answering. I do not know if this is possible, but once the idea has taken hold, it is not to be dislodged. I consider. What would I say to him, if I chose to speak, if I could speak? It is a new and astonishing puzzle; even a source of pleasure. I think of all that I might tell of what I have seen, and done, and been; all that I have never told, to anyone. There is no end at all, I realize, to the things that I might say.
But I do not try to say them. I listen, as always, while he tells me of his life. A placid, ordinary existence, on the surface of it. He lives in a timelocked northern hamlet, armored in ice throughout the endless winters. He has lived in this town all his life. He teaches children at the local school. The pay is meager, and he cares little for the work; but his education in literature and art has left him fit for few other forms of employment. And it is not all bad, by any means, for he is free throughout the slow summer months to walk in solitude and to live his inner life undisturbed. That inner life, as I well know, is rich, full and extraordinary as his outer life is colorless. He lives alone, and it suits him. He has few friends, for he has always been different, and considered strange. There is, however, a girl; another teacher at his school. She is not pretty, but her voice is melodious, and she too dreams.
The effect of this last revelation is astonishing. Alarm sweeps through me. There is doubt and confusion. And there is something more, something unfamiliar, which I finally identify as anger. Yes, that is certainly it—I am angry. I fade away, to leave him calling after me.
But I do not stay away for long. I have a mission, after all. Moreover, the colors are dull, the silences empty, when I am alone. Solitude has never troubled me; but it troubles me now. I return to him quickly, and he is glad. For the moment, it is enough.
But not for long.
Where does he go when he is not here with me? When he is in that other place, when he is awake? With none of the others have I thought to wonder; but that has changed now. He spends too much time away from me, I feel. Or is it that any time away is too much? I want to know what he is doing out there; what he is saying and thinking every moment that he is gone from my sight. I want to know when he is alone, and when he is walking under the trees with the girl he spoke of. He willingly tells me of his other life. But how do I know that he is telling the truth? And how do I know that he is telling everything? For I need to know everything. I will find a way to know. I will follow him to that other world if I must.
Follow him—out there? Another new and extraordinary thought.
I wonder if I can do it. I wonder if I even dare to try. And if I do, then how shall I begin? Where is the exit from the land of dreams? He passes back and forth with ease, but can I do the same? And if I succeed in breaking through, will the waking land support my existence? Is it not possible that I might even cease to be? Dangerous folly, the sort of madness exhibited by the dreamers I have abandoned. I will think of it no more.
But the wake-spans of his absence are unendurable. He is not enough mine. If he were wholly mine, if he belonged to me utterly, then he would never leave me, not for a single instant. Where does he go, what does he do, and with whom? I will know, it is worth any risk. The next time he leaves me, I will follow him, and I will learn the way out.
I do so. I am stealthy as newborn malice, but my care is unnecessary. He is of a guileless nature, and he suspects nothing. I am close behind him, watching as he rises, floating lazily at first, but then moving more purposefully, like a diver seeking the surface of the sea. He passes from my view. I hesitate, then follow, mounting to the very roof of the world, a place of lightning-shot mists. Formerly, such lightning has barred my path; but I will not allow it to do so now. I ascend. I am blind, chilled, lashed by the winds, and lost; but resolute as never before. I persevere. The mists are behind, and sight is restored to me.
I am in the other world. Never, never, have I envisioned such a place—so crushing, so remorseless in its solidity. The elements of my world are shaped and transformed with a breath, a thought, the shadow of a wish. But these present surroundings are all but impervious. The whole of my strength hardly serves to stir a particle of matter; and I, accustomed to flight’s freedom, must now plod heavy-footed through a world that resists every movement. It is inexpressibly alien and fearsome.
But now is not the time for fear. I am here with a purpose. I must find him, watch him. Where has he gone? I look about me. This place, despite its unforgiving mass, possesses a certain heavy grandeur; but I do not recognize it. At first I imagine that I stand in a vast labyrinth; then it seems a machine, pulsing all about me, tremendous and unimaginably complex; and finally, I see that it is both labyrinth and machine in one. I have passed from his mind into the weighty physical structure whose mechanical function supports that mind. I trudge the convolutions of his brain. I am inside him, yet blind to his doings. That is not good enough. I search, I explore. The light attracts me. Slowly I make my way to its source, and I look out through the windows of his eyes.
He is in a room, roofed away from the sky. How small, how dim and shabby a room it is. Nothing at all like the jewelled chambers of his imagination. I can barely see the room, for there is nothing to see. He is not alone. The girl is there with him. She is not garbed in silvery
radiance, as I am. She is squat, dull-fleshed, mud-colored of hair and eye. She conforms in no particular to the lyric fantasy-image that has shaped my current guise. She is drab as the room in which she stands, and surely she is nothing to him.
There is, however, the matter of her voice. He has praised her voice, and she is speaking now. I cannot hear her, but his eyes are turned to her face, and I can partly read the movement of her lips. The silent, splintered phrases fly to me:
... Something wrong, so very wrong...
I do not hear his reply, if any.
... Worried about you... Afraid... Distant, as if... lost in a dreamworld...
She is not stupid.
... Miss you... Come back... Let me help...
... Doctor... appointment... Only talk...
Promise... promise... soon.
Promise, promise, what has he promised her? I could not read it all, what did I miss? No matter.
The same phrases, the familiar, useless pleas that have so often found their way to me from this world. I have nothing to fear, nothing at all to fear from this girl. I am reassured. I am free to return to my own place. I know now what I will do.
When next he comes to me, I am ready. It is finally clear in my mind what it is that I want to say to him. When I speak for the first time, my voice echoes the richest silver music of his dreaming:
I love you.
Centuries elapse.
His smile is rueful:
You are not real.
Not real? This is his answer to me? This is what he believes? After all that has passed between us, surely he must know that I am real. But he abolishes my existence with a word. My sensations are unfamiliar, chaotic; but one I recognize. I am angry, as I was when he first spoke of the girl in the other world. But it is stronger this time, so strong I cannot contain it. My anger is all that I am.
He is staring into my eyes, and he shrinks from me as if I were suddenly ugly. He draws away, and then he is abruptly gone. In the other place, he has awakened. For the moment, he is beyond my reach.
Lovers and Other Monsters Page 19