“I don’t know,” Cassidy said. “But give me a few minutes and I’ll tell you a story about how the storm dreams.”
***
That night Cassidy dreamed of a dark man wearing nothing but a cotton loincloth and a white beard that almost covered his chest. He looked thinner and wilder than any man Cassidy had ever seen. A bushman? No. An Australian aborigine.
“You’re in a ‘Storm Dreaming’,” the man said. “The rainbow serpent just slithered by.”
“I’m dreaming,” Cassidy said. “Where’s the castle?”
The old man shook his head. “No castle tonight. This is your dream. Your first dream that you’ve created alone.”
A vast desert spread out before Cassidy. The sun was pale red. Rocks stood here and there adorned with odd pictures of men and beasts in what looked like white finger paint. “You know what I really am, don’t you?” Cassidy asked.
The aborigine nodded. “You’re an alien to the real world. You know that.”
Cassidy nodded. “But, I know there used to be a garden.”
“Before and after,” the Aborigine said nodding. “You’re standing in the desert of the Dreamtime. This is where my people come from. It’s where they return. You’ve been here too, but you must go back. Much further back.”
“I don’t understand,” said Cassidy. “Back to what?”
“Back beyond the Storm Dreaming. You’ve a long way to go.”
Cassidy stood silent in the dream, unable to take his eyes off the wrinkled man. “But I’m real,” he finally said. “I’m real now.”
The old man cracked a sardonic smile. “More real than you’ll ever know. All dreams are fingers and toes of the Dreamtime, but you’re something different. You are bound for a time when this desert becomes glass.”
The aborigine’s words trailed off as he faded into the air and the sand became smooth and transparent. A city of coloured glass rose to the sky, moving above him like the arms of a great mobile. “This,” said a strange voice that crept into his head, “is the dream of your dream. And you must find the garden.”
Back in the real world he knew April slept beside him. He remembered it as clear and clean as anything he’d ever known. But she was here, too. Somewhere. She meant something more than he could comprehend, but he would find her. He would know what she was.
Acknowledgments
A special thanks to everyone who helped this book come together.
My cover illustrator: Dave Groshelle
My editors: Carol Woods and Sumittra Wongsaprome
My English teachers: Ila Zbaraschuk and Keith Lindsey
My writing teachers: Don Whittington, Jon McCord and Jack Ballas
My first editor: Don Muchow
The Lesser North Texas Writers club and the DFW Writers Workshop
And of course the many beta readers who gave amazing feedback on what I know what was a challenging book to read:
Bill Francis, Shawn Scarber, Kristie McKay, Marc Morris, Krista Wolcott, Gerardo Delgadillo, Carl Droste, David Pflugrad, Ken Snow, Ed Sherrill, Janet Sherrill, Stan Sherrill, Connie Snow, Carmen Vargas, and probably a few I’ve forgotten to name. Thank you all.
About the Author
Jeb Sherrill has an oddly disjointed background. Having stumbled through everything from performing stage magic and kinetic juggling on French television and in Las Vegas casinos, to teaching martial arts and circus techniques, to competitive sabre fencing, film and stage acting, dance, songwriting, and his ongoing stint as a popular YouTube personality, Jeb has the ADD of a 10 year old. Writing, however, has remained his greatest passion since early childhood, having also written a barrage of short stories and poetry.
Pinning down his style is difficult, however. His liquid, psychotropic images, philosophical undertones and pure unabashed strangeness have made fans across generations. A great example of this was his first published work, a Victorian science fiction piece about a man slowly melding with an alien intelligence featured in an e-zine Would That It Were. Best known for insane worlds, over the top characters and sometimes heady subject matter, his work may not be for the faint of heart, but reading it is always an adventure. Many of his novels exist in a loosely connected universe which will only be complete at the end of several series. Be warned, you may never look at reality the same way again.
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