The Rough Dreams
Morlynn
loved her job. She loved being a Rougher, taking the raw Dream-Stuff
her Harvester friends gathered, and shaping it into a general form, a
school or work building, the sensation of flight or of drowning. She
loved watching the Refiners take her sketched-in form, and turn it
into a fully-realized dream, full of color and sound and heightened
emotions. Most of all, she loved the thought that she was part of the
process of making people's lives and minds more interesting, of
showing to each of them some hidden part of themselves.
But
sometimes, before she could pass a dream on, it would escape,
lumbering off through the Curtain, to the waking world. They were
often the hardest to work even before they went rogue, twisting and
turning and straining under her hands, and each time it happened, her
curiosity grew as to where they went, and why they tried so hard to
get there. One day, Morlynn made the snap decision to follow one, to
finally learn the answers to her questions.
The
Curtain was strange, almost sticky, and she had to force her way
through, where the dream had slipped through lightly. The waking
world on the other side was bright, the colors sharper than anything
Morlynn had ever seen, and it was loud, and smelly... Morlynn was
regretting her choice, but she'd taken the biggest step, and now she
felt she had to follow through. As she adjusted to the assault on her
senses, she figured out that she was in a park, in the midst of a
crowd, many of whom were waving signs or chanting something angry.
The
people around her didn't seem to be able to see or feel her, which
was eerie, but it did make everything a little easier. The dream,
too, seemed invisible to them, but they still turned toward it,
seeking for it. To Morlynn it glowed so bright its light shone
through the people, and she found it simple to trail it through the
crowd, that restless, churning mass of humanity, to a young woman
standing near the edge of a stage.
The
dream gathered itself and leapt into the young woman, the glow
spreading out to fill her skin, to shine out of her eyes. She jumped
up onto the stage and grabbed a microphone. She began to speak,
passionately, gesturing and pacing, and with each word, a puff of
glowing Dream-Stuff popped out of her mouth and drifted into the
audience, who had turned toward her at her first word. The puffs
landed on one person or another's face or hair, their shoulder or
hand, then sank in and spread out under their skin.
Morlynn
was transfixed. All around her, the waking people were starting to
glow. Each glow was faint, but there were more and more of them with
every passing moment, and the crowd looked to her eyes like moonlight
on water. The people were now moving restlessly, turning to each
other to share ideas and glow, waving their signs more energetically,
throwing their fists up to agree with some point or other the woman
on the stage was making. Her speech finished with a feeling like a
silent thunderclap, and the crowd scattered, leaving in every
direction with intense purpose.
Morlynn
wanted badly to follow them, or the woman, but she felt herself being
dragged back. A painful moment later, she was standing in The Boss's
office, his luminous eyes fixed on her, though, she was glad to see,
not with ire. He rose, came around the desk, and led her over to a
sofa, where they sat. She looked down at her hands, then up at him,
nervously.
He
smiled gently, giving her a sense of calm. “And so you see, my
dear. For their ordinary lives, people need sleeping dreams, to let
their minds explore. But sometimes, every so often, they need waking
dreams too, to let their hearts expand.“ Morlynn smiled back. She
really, truly, absolutely, loved her job.
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