Dear son,
For the most part, your nightmares seem to have fled. I’m relieved. I like to glance across the room and see you sleeping soundly.
Maybe the dream-fairies have shifted over to me, for I had the strangest dream last night.
While you were at school yesterday, I spent some time contemplating the model of the solar system you made. You cut out a rocket to paste onto the back-screen. I found myself daydreaming about the rocket.
Your song about the far star began playing in my head.
Moonshine! Moonlight.
Smile shine. Smile bright.
–something-something, something else–
And when worlds turn and stars burn
We’ll find where our home is…
By the far star…
One of the parents at the forum asked about the far star. I’m guessing this parent’s kid is one of the ones you’ve been singing to all these years, but maybe it’s something else. Maybe you and the other kids have memories, genetic memories or early imprints, of your home solar system. In fact, the longer I studied the model you made, the more I realized that this was not our solar system. Did this come from your memory or from your imagination? Is that sun in the center the far star?
You were busy with homework, so I didn’t get a chance to ask you about this. And then you went to bed early.
While I lay in bed, trying to fall asleep, I kept hearing your song.
It’s far. We’re here.
Let’s go. Have no fear.
I’ll see you in my dream
You’ll see me in yours.
And when worlds turn and stars burn
We’ll find where our home is…
By the far star…
I fell asleep with it running through my head.
And that’s when the dream came.
I dreamt of a strange light. I was pulled towards it.
It wasn’t moonlight: it was a saucer, as in all the old sci-fi movies I watched as a kid.
I had to chuckle at how, even when dreaming, my imagination was formed by B-films.
With laughter, I woke up inside the dream. I used to practice lucid dreaming often, back before you came to live with me, so the experience felt familiar. I noticed details. The space craft wasn’t really like the flying saucers in cinema. The center glowed like an eye, and strange membranes pulsed with light around the iris.
I began flying, lifting up, like I’ve done in a hundred lucid dreams before. It felt as exhilarating as ever.
I was drawn upwards into the eye.
After that, the lucid dreaming stopped. It’s almost as if the dream stopped. When I think back to that time, I feel heavy. It’s that feeling one gets after a massive study session: the mind is full of data, and the brain hasn’t yet created the structures needed to store or process it.
I felt like I was downloading terabytes of information and knowledge.
When I woke back up, I was still inside the dream. I still couldn’t access what had happened during my non-lucid interval.
A shaft of light carried me down towards ground.
I heard distant voices, though what they were chanting, I couldn’t distinguish through the echoing.
I landed softly, without a stumble. I didn’t want to step out of the light-shaft. It felt warm, and surrounded by it, I felt happy.
I must have sleep-walked, for when I woke up, I was in the living room, dancing, full of an overpowering feeling of peace, well-being, and contentment.
You came out of the bedroom and found me there.
“Pops?” you asked. “Are you all right?”
“Rebelforcesarestrongerthaninjusticefortheyfightthegoodfightwithlove,” I said.
“Pops?” you said. “Spaces, right?”
I chuckled. “Thanks, son. It’s true what they say: Kindness really is stronger.”
“You feeling OK, Pops?” you asked.
“Kinda sleepy,” I replied, and I shuffled back to bed. I kicked off my shoes, and as I crawled between the blankets, I wondered when I’d put my shoes on in the first place. I didn’t go to sleep in my clothes, did I?
Strange times, son.
–Your pops
Cathy Tea's SimLit Anthology 