Dreamside - By Graham Joyce Page 0,32

the know, in the way we've talked about before, the dreamside way of knowing. That sense which is more than a belief, it is a confident knowing that such-and-such is so, and in that way I knew that Lee would be waiting. There was no question about it. I didn't pause to think of Honora or Brad. The feeling of excitement was overwhelming. It was elation and anxiety mixed: that's what it was, that's what caused the kind of paralysis we both felt." Lee was nodding vigorously. "It was sexual too; we've discussed it and we both felt almost like the moment before orgasm. The tiniest mundane things were incredibly stimulating, and exciting things were unbearably so. That's why we hardly did anything, we were paralyzed by this feeling. When I touched Lee's face it was the most I could do; I mean the most. That's why, when he started quoting Shakespeare I thought it the most clever, profound and appropriate thing that could possibly have been said at that moment—less so now but at the time it was overwhelming!"

"But like I said, I didn't seem to have anything to do with it," said Lee, "and I wasn't trying to be clever. I went to say something like 'hello Ella' and the other stuff is what came out."

"But what was remarkable," Burns observed, "is that not only did you meet, as previously agreed, but you also passed on a gift, a token, a message which you then brought into the objective reality of waking life. Do you realize what you've done? You've punctured a tiny hole in the membrane that separates the dream world from the waking one. Now we have to keep that hole open, and get Honora and Brad involved.

"Now; why that choice of place? Did it have resonance for Lee and Ella, but not for Brad and Honora? What we have to do now is find a tree where all four of you can, as it were, scratch your initials. I'll give the matter some thought. Meanwhile, see if the experience can be repeated. It should be possible to do something to overcome the paralysis you describe. The potential to think and move and act on dreamside, just as you would here, must ultimately be available to you. Brad and Honora—you must familiarize yourself with this particular spot in the park. At the moment that's all I can suggest. We may be moving towards a point where I can no longer give you advice. After all, you four are the practitioners, and my few theories are quickly being left behind. All I can do now is offer you an objective critique of the experiences you describe, evaluation at a distance. "Now I'm feeling tired. Shall we call it a very big day?"

With the four of them gone, Burns sits hunched over his study desk, his window open to the thickening dark and the smells of 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,