The Unquiet Night

I’ve always been fascinated by dreams. From a very young age I can remember telling my parents about the fantastic visions that came to me in sleep. They always gave me the usual stuff about dreams not being real, just my imagination. But deep down, I always felt there was more to a dream than just imagination.

When I was in grade six, I had Mr Wolfe as my English teacher and everything changed. (Yes, I am aware of his name. He made a big speech about it on the first day and how we couldn't be silly and then made us all promise we would only do it once, and of course we agreed, so he let us all shout, at the same time: WHAT TIME IS IT MR WOLFE? It was fun.)

We were reading this book called Skellig and it's about this kid, Michael, whose baby sister is sick. Basically, he finds this man in his garage and, not to spoil it, but the guy is kind of an angel. (Don’t get mad at me! He has wings on the front cover, so it’s kinda obvious.) As the plot goes on, he keeps having these dreams that are really lifelike, so one day, I asked Mr Wolfe about it.

He told me there was such a thing as a lucid dream and he explained what it meant. I remember nodding, my jaw hanging open, feeling so seen by this man with his bushy beard and tired eyes - that was exactly like my dreams felt like! Then I asked him what he thought dreams actually were. Where did they come from? He sighed, looked off into the distance, and told me that dreams are tiny fragments of our consciousness that are all jumbled together. He explained how our consciousness was like an iceberg: part of it was above the water and that was the part that felt and saw and experienced everything around us. But, our subconscious was the part that was underwater.

I nodded and said that it was like our brains were swimmers and the part of us that was above the water was the arms moving and the head moving but underwater our legs were kicking, and even though you couldn’t see it, that was what really pushed us forward. He smiled and laughed, saying that’s actually a much better way to describe it. I was about to press him for more and ask him about having the same dream over and over but the bell rang and the next class started.

It was probably for the best, though. He had already given me enough to go on. He was one of those teachers that doesn’t just give you information, but makes you want to know more. It was like he sensed the curiosity in me and somehow managed to coax it out. Unfortunately, I don’t really have a favourite teacher at the moment. These days I’ve been doing a of ‘working from home.’ It’s what they call it to try and sweeten the deal and keep my spirits up. But I don’t want to talk about that right now. It’s not relevant.

I guess the one thing I feel bad about is not being totally honest with Mr Wolfe. I didn’t tell him about the dark forest, the place that all of my dreams had been that year and are still.

I didn’t want to scare him, to see that uneasy look come into his eyes. You know the one - it’s only the good teachers who get it and it’s this soft look that says they are worried, that they really see you as a person who might be in trouble. But it’s fine. The dark forest was my little secret.

*

When I open my eyes, I know I’m dreaming. The dark forest in front of me is a dead giveaway, but even more than that is how I feel. I feel light, like I might float away - ethereal, Mr Wolfe might have said.

As I said before, I’d been to the dark forest in my dreams many times. Here's how it usually goes: I wake up, because when you are dreaming it is kind of like being awake in a different sort of way. It is night, though it is not silent. It’s more of an unquiet night because in the distance I can hear something that is like music. The trees in the forest are huge and the moon is shining in the sky above me. I start to walk towards the forest. I know it’s a dream so I want to explore but every time I get to the edge of the trees I stop. I can’t really say why but it’s like there is some kind of forcefield around the forest. So I stand there and listen, looking at the trees and their leaves moving in the light breeze and before I know it, I’m awake again.

This time, it’s different. As I get to the edge of the trees, I feel something. It’s like there’s a magnet attached to me and I’m being pulled in. It’s kind of exciting and so I let it happen. There is a clearing in the trees now like a giant mouth. (If this was real life, I would have screamed, but it’s a dream and dreams don’t work like reality, so I just let it happen.)

Through the clearing is a path that is lined with flowers. I stop to look at one of them and notice it is a lily. When I look closely, I see that its petals are black.

I follow the path, stopping to examine more flowers as I go and am soon in front of a hut. It has windows but inside it is dark. There is a creak as the door opens and someone steps out.

The only way to describe this person is to say that it would be hard to say if they were a boy or a girl. Their face is soft and rounded but coarse like sandpaper. It all comes together to make the creamy complexion look striking in the moonlight. They look at me and smile: “Welcome.”

It takes me a second to think of what to say. This kind of thing has never happened to me in a dream, so I decide to face it head-on: “So wait, if this is a dream, do you know it’s a dream? Like, how far does this dream stuff go?”

“I don’t know about any of that. Just follow me. I’ll take you to the others.”

They turn and walk past the hut and I follow. Soon the trees are fewer and I start to see what looks like houses. A street in the middle of the woods with houses on either side - I might as well be Alice having fallen down a rabbit-hole. Each of the houses is the same; even in the dim light I can tell that. Though I can see the end of the houses horizontally, they seem to go in depth as far as I can see. My guide stops and turns back to me: “Where are my manners! I haven’t even introduced myself. I’m Gabi. What’s your name?”

“Penny,” I say with a shy smile.

“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Penny. Let me show you around.”

I have been focusing so much on what I could see that I almost missed what I could hear - the music. It seems to float up from the ground, a gentle swell of strings, something classical that my dad would have probably listened to. Gabi walks on and I reach towards them: “Where is that music coming from?”

They turn back and shrug: “We take turns. Someone just thinks of something they like and… poof. Just like that, we can hear it. Kinda cool, right? It’s Jakob’s turn right now.” A half-scowl comes across their face. “He’s alright. Can be a bit of a pain and his music is boring but oh well. He doesn’t cause any problems. And because he’s a bit older the younger boys seem to listen to him.”

I nod and start to feel an uneasiness settle in my stomach. I feel as though I have been here for a while, and this in itself is alarming. Most of the time when I dream, time doesn’t really occur to me. (All of this should be taken with a grain of salt - I know I remember most of my dreams when I wake up, but does the dream me remember what I was dreaming last time? Is it the same me who is dreaming each time?)

A boy in front of a house catches my attention.

“That’s Emmitt,” says Gabi. “He’s pretty quiet. Some of us are.”

I walk past him and can’t help but glance: his skin is almost like the night and he wears a high collared-shirt. His doleful eyes lift from the dirt road and meet mine.

“Hi,” I hear myself say.

He doesn’t respond and picks up a pile of dirt and lets it fall through his fingers.

Gabi puts their arm around me and moves me on.

“Don’t be offended. He’s like that with everyone.”

“Okay,” I whisper, not wanting to upset him any further.

We walk on and most of the houses are dark.

“What’s this place called?” I ask.

Gabi chuckles: “Well, depends who you ask. You know how kids are. But we… I mean, us who are around your age… what, 14?”

I nod.

“Well, we usually call it The Here. Y’know, we like short forms and all.”

I start to ask what it is short for when I hear a shrill wailing pierce the night; it is the cry of a baby.

I look at Gabi with worried eyes and they give me a reassuring smile: “Don’t worry, it happens all the time. We take turns looking after the little ones. Here, let me show you the playground. It’s the place to be.”

I follow them to a door at the edge of the row of houses. Gabi opens it and we step into a place that defies description.

It is a room, but a room that has no definite boundaries. As far as I can see there are children playing. It would take too long to detail every single thing I saw, but to summarise, it was something like this: the surface was flat in all directions. Sports areas, playgrounds, swing sets, tables for board games, video games, libraries, movie theatres, easels and paint, costumes and more toys than I even thought existed - and even that doesn’t do it justice. The noise. It was like a thousand classrooms but on a rollercoaster holding loudspeakers. Still there, under the noise of fun there is the music, soaring strings and triumphant trumpets.

I turn to Gabi with wide eyes: “What… Where… What!” The magnitude of what I am seeing prevents me from saying anything - maybe that’s what it's like to be somewhere like the Grand Canyon, where it seems like human senses are not made to process what is in front of them.

Gabi looks at me and smiles again: “It’s a lot, I know. It takes some time to get used to it.”

A teenaged boy with red hair runs over. “Hey, Gab.” He is out of breath and I see a group of boys behind him playing basketball.

“This is Penny,” says Gabi. “Penny, meet Jakob.”

He extends his hand and I shake it. “Nice to meet ya,” he says. “Good music, eh? It’s Vivaldi. Need to get some culture for these kids.” He grins.

“There’s so… much,” I say, moving my hands through the air. “Where are all the adults?”

They look at each and laugh. “Ah,” Jakob says, “They go somewhere else. It’s pretty much an 18 and under situation around here.”

Before I can respond, Jakob runs over to a group of boys who are having an argument. When he gets there, his gestures are calm and the younger boys look at him begrudgingly before shaking hands.

Gabi looks at me and is about to say something. I can tell that it is significant because their face gets softer in the moonlight. Behind them, beside the door that brought us to this seemingly infinite room of play, there is a thin black membrane that seems to enclose everything. I follow it with my eyes, seeing distinct boundaries in the distance where the play stops - so it isn’t infinite after all, I think. Above the door there are thin shapes moving; they are spectral, wispy outlines. I stare closer at one and could swear that I see my…

“Ah, you’ve seen the outline. That’s everyone we’ve even known. Or ever will know. They are still with us, kind of. But the outline, it’s what separates us from, well, them. Keeps us here, y’know.” Gabi chuckles. “Can’t go back. Even if we want to.” Their eyes grow glassy and wet.

I want to say something but I don’t know where to start. I thought this was a dream. I thought I was exploring somewhere in my mind, the water under the iceberg, the unchartered territory of the mind. I thought I was supposed to be excited about this.

Gabi looks back at me and says, “You must have so many questions.”

It’s all too much to express with words. The noise, the outline, the code words, the sheer amount of children everywhere, Emmit, the baby crying and the fact that I still haven’t woken up yet.

Gabi starts to say something but I don’t hear it. I run because that is the only thing I can think to do.

Through the crowds of children, toddlers playing on carpets, pimply faced teenagers, skinny-legged girls jumping rope and everybody else, through all of these children and infants and adolescents gathered in this strange place that is inside of a dark forest, I run. The children turn to look at me because they can sense something. Perhaps they have seen it before. Some of them roll their eyes, some laugh, but I don’t stick around. There must be a way out. There must be a way to wake up.

I get to what seems like the back of this playground and see the membrane-outline thing again. It moves ever-so-slightly, vibrating, as if it is breathing.I scratch at it and feel the soft, porous fibres clinging to my fingers. I stick my face into it and wish and hope and pray that I will break through to the other side and go back...

Fine, I’ll tell you. Back to the hospital and that bed that has been my prison. Even that place where everything about it is miserable and dreary, with all the fear and the things that I chose not to think about because if I don’t think about them they wouldn’t exist - even that place would be better than this place. I just want to see my parents again.

The thing is, in my dreams, I didn’t ever think about that, so I didn’t feel like I needed to tell you. An honest storyteller should give you the real experience, and in those moments, in my dreams, I wasn’t thinking about what was happening to me in the real world. It was like I didn’t… know my other self. But now, after all of this and what I see next, it’s like something clicks. It’s like a jigsaw falling into place as everything that I know comes back to me. And it’s more than that - when I see that face, it’s like I know more than I should know. I feel the vibrations of something bigger than myself, something deeper, wider and more vast, something infinite.

When I put my face into the outline, I don’t see anything. It is only when I pull back that I see a face. My face. But I am older. Somewhere in my 20s, I think. My features are more defined, more angular,more grown up. It’s a spectral face, wispy around the edges and somehow unreachable. It’s then that I know I am seeing someone I’ll never really know. Someone I’ll never be.

I turn back to the playground with its blissful chaos, and realise it is my new home.

*

The window to the hospital room is open and it lets in a cool breeze. Sunlight shares its liquid gold with the room, illuminating dust motes that float aimlessly. Two adults stand in front of a bed. Their eyes are hollow and dark. Their shoulders are perpetually slumped, as if they have finally started to lose the battle against gravity.

In the bed, a teenage girl. Her head is bald where the waves of blonde once flowed. They watch her as she sleeps.

It has occurred to them that it feels like they, in fact, are the ones dying. That watching the person you love most in the world die is like dying yourself. But still, they had never expected it to actually happen.

The girl sighs in her sleep and makes a few erratic movements. They know she is dreaming. She has always had such vivid dreams, such a vivid imagination, and they wonder where all of that will go if… when…

Her movements stop and her face is calm. It is in that moment, they know, as if a voice undecipherable to the human mind has told them that she is gone.

All they can do is cry.

Cry and hope that wherever she has gone, she is happy.