Dreamside by Graham Joyce Page B

moon-washed grass and earth. His
Anglepoise lamp throws the disc of light around the paper on his desk and
illuminates his skeletal hand scuttling back and forth. The pencil whispers to
the page as it delivers its looping longhand scrawl, whispering, whispering as
it goes, stopping only occasionally, like a creature listening for prey or predator;
until the scuttling hand moves back in action to effect the compulsive writing
of the old academic who fears he might have found more to say than he has time
in which to say it.

ELEVEN
    Traveller
repose and dream among my leaves —William
Blake
    Ella was waiting under the tree,
a silhouette. From the distance Lee recognized the slope of
her shoulder and the fall of her hair. In the next instant he was beside her,
and she was smiling. He thought her eyes were like jewels, and then they were
jewels—twin sapphires—and then they were eyes again. Ella touched him and he
shivered. Touching almost broke the dream.
    Then Ella
was sitting in the tree. She was the tree spirit again. She blinked at him and
he was sitting on the branch beside her.
    —Did you make me do that? Or did I?—
    —Do what?—
    On
dreamside, communication existed in a zone between thought and speech. You had
spoken before you realized it. You thought after you had spoken. All
communication seemed wide open to ambiguity and interpretation. Meanings
generated new meanings.
    —Make me be here. In the tree—
    —In the tree?—
    The
muddle of the dreamspeak made them laugh. "In the tree" became for
them an expression to explain the euphoric but confused, dithering condition of
their dreaming state.
    —Why
all this mist?—It was a cobweb sheen, deadening all sound, filtering light
through a grey sky, soaking the grass with heavy dew.
    —Why all this mystery?—
    —In the mist tree?—
    They were drunk on dreaming.
    —It's us!
Us! See, Ella? We've fogged it. The mist. Tree. It's our own . . . dreamscape!—
    —Can we change it?—
    —Let's
get rid of this mist and bring a sun up. Think it. Over there—He pointed to the
eastern horizon. Ella focused.
    And
together they made the sun rise. Dreamside dawn was shell-pink and grey.
    —Bigger—said Ella. The sun swelled visibly.
    —More— The sun inflated again. It filled the sky, unnatural in its
dimensions and pulsating with light. All mist had evaporated. The dew on the
grass had dried.
    —Change
colour—said Lee. The huge, throbbing disc changed from pink, to blood red, to
tangerine, to liquid gold.
    Ella gasped.— It's incredible.
I feel like a painter! I feel like ... —
    —Like
. . . God—
    And so they
walked together under the huge sun they had wrought. It was a world still moist
from creation. They were afraid to touch each other.
    —Lee. I love you Lee—
    —I love you Ella—
    The
dream had a skin, a thin film which threatened to puncture at any moment. It
also had a pulse, more sensed than heard, that kept time with their beating
hearts and the throbbing energy of the sun. But this other pulse was
frightening. They knew that when it stopped the dream would split at the seams.
    —Do you feel it?—
    —Yes. Like something trying to get in—
    —It's frightening. Kiss me, Lee—
    Lee turned to Ella. The idea of kissing
her was more than he could bear. Even as he touched her, he felt the tiny
hairline cracks appearing in the very fabric of the dream, and multiplying at
astonishing speed.
    Then suddenly, the dream broke.
    The couple woke, shivering and exhausted.
    Further dreamside encounters took place,
characterized by that same intensity but always inhibited by an erratic sense
of control. Lee and Ella reported that the paralysis which had gripped them on
the first occasion had loosened and had opened up possibilities for further
interaction, but that they still sometimes felt like live figures trapped in a
painting. Any strenuous effort to act in a prescribed manner ran the risk of
breaking up the dream. But progress was made and every