Graham Joyce - Dreamside

“I don’t understand.”

“I made it happen. By myself. I did just what you described, with the hands, I made objects appear in my hands in the dream, and then I made them go away again.”

“What?”

“What, what?” Ella mimicked heavily.

“But what about all the other times.” Lee sat up. “All your other lucid dreams. All that stuff in your dreamwork diary. All those lurid accounts you gave in the seminars.”

“No,” pinching his nipple between her teeth, “this was the real thing!”

“The real thing? What was the other stuff then?”

“It was… not the real thing.”

“Wait a second. You mean you made it up?”

“Sort of.”

“What do you mean sort of? You don’t sort of make up things like that! You mean it was all lies. Jesus! All your stories of lucid dreams were all a pack of lies.”

“Not exactly lies. More kind of half-lucid dreams.”

“Day dreams more like! It was all bullshit!”

“Don’t get so fucking superior—you’ve only just started lucid dreaming yourself, remember! You strung people along at the beginning.”

“But not with Technicolor big-budget cast-of-thousands pornographic epics like yours! Christ I believed every word; so did all the others. I’m going to enjoy telling them. I’ll enjoy telling Brad!”

“You won’t say anything. The important thing is that it really happened. I made it happen.”

“I’m going to tell them all! Miss Lucid Dreamer of the Year! I can’t wait to see their faces!”

“You won’t tell on me,” said Ella. She took his cock in her cold hands and rolled it like dough. Rain swept against the outside windows in great gusts, coming in through the open window, soaking the curtain and dampening the disorderly heap of books.

“Here is the church,” she said, “here is the steeple.”

He promised not to say anything.

From that night Ella stopped her I’m-more-lucid-than-yougames. She was a fast learner, and her genuine skills developed accordingly. She contrived to disguise the substantial change in the accounts she offered to the weekly seminar, and if anyone was made suspicious by her later reports being more modest than her early claims, nobody said anything. Even so, an unacknowledged hierarchy did develop in the group, with Lee, Ella, Brad and Honora clearly emerging as the people with the strongest ability to influence the course of their dreaming. Each of them progressed, without major effort, from being able to conjure small objects to switching locations and settings in which dreaming took place.

Professor Burns, when pressed, admitted that, despite several years of trying, he, like most people, had never experienced the state of self-awareness during dreaming which would allow him to manipulate the course of dream events. “I think I’m too crusted over by a life devoted to academic pursuits,” he confessed, admitting to more than a little envy of their abilities. “Besides which,” he added, “I don’t have the modern swagger of youth in the face of fear.”

End of term beckoned, and the round of dreamwork seminars was held to be a moderate success. Their efforts, Burns asserted, while not having lit up the skies of science and progress, had contributed to a growing body of research in the increasingly important field of parapsychology. To conclude matters, he added cheerfully, a miserly wine-and-cheese celebration on the expenses of the parsimonious departmental budget would be arranged for the final week of term.

The students made their arrangements for a long summer: Ella and Lee planned a backpacking expedition around the Greek Islands, sleeping on beaches and living on tzatsiki and feta cheese salads; Honora a trip home to beautiful County Fermanagh where she hoped to make a few pounds sketching portraits of tourists boating on the Loughs; while Brad, as a medical student, had work which would keep him at the university. Meanwhile June warmed the nights in which they lay in their beds and dreamed their lucid dreams.

Invitations to the wine and cheese party came as promised. The students dutifully spruced up and went along to the house. A stiff performance with an early finish was predicted, but they were surprised to find Professor Burns racing around in high spirits, his eyes enlivened by whatever share of the drinks he had already consumed, exhorting everyone to get stuck in to the crates of wine that had been provided along with the standard party fare of cubes of cheese and French loaves.

“Drink! It’ll probably be the last time we can get this out of the miserable blighters!” Burns danced around, lavishly topping up any glass within arm’s length, everyone’s congenial host. “Don’t be shy Brother Cousins, there’s another crate through there!”

Some group members had brought their partners, swelling the numbers to twenty or more young people freely availing themselves of the generous flow of wine and filling the house with noisy chatter. Burns held forth to a knot of students in the corner, his steady stream of university anecdotes and outrageous disclosures producing waves of raucous laughter. After an hour or so he noticed Honora standing alone in the middle of the room with an empty glass. He cha-cha-cha’d his way over to her. He had obviously been making the most of the departmental wine while the going was good. His jewel eyes blazed merrily and a long thin lock of iron-grey hair had become displaced from its habitual coiled groove across the top of his head. It hung gamely down the side of one ear.

“Wait behind, Miss Brennan,” he whispered as he refilled her glass of white wine from the bottle of dry red he was carrying, “after all the others have gone.” He winked, then cha-cha-cha’d back to the corner of the room. Honora, speechless, colouring, looked around to see if anyone else had noticed. Ella drifted by.

“L. P. is pissed,” said Ella.

“I know; he’s trying to chat me up.”

“No! What did he say?”

“He wants me to stay behind afterwards.”

“Then we’re in for three-in-a-bed; he asked me to stay, too.”

“What can he want?”

“We’ll probably have to suck his balls.”

“I’m not going to!” cried Honora.

“No, don’t,” said Ella, already regretting the joke. “But he’s a sharp old cookie. He must be up to something.”

Ella knew that Burns had also invited Lee to stay. She had a sneaking suspicion that Brad would also be asked. Indeed, when Burns shepherded out the last of the guests, Brad was still looking very comfortable in a large high-winged armchair, nursing his very own wine bottle. Honora looked deeply relieved.

“Yes, help yourselves to that; I don’t really want the incriminating stuff hanging around here.” Burns was carrying out empty and half-empty wine glasses four in each hand. Then he returned and closed the door behind him. “I did intend,” he said, holding out his glass to Brad, “to keep a clear head, but the road to Hell blah blah.”

“Blah blah.” Brad poured from his bottle, stealing a glance at the others.

“Quite right. Point being, why did I ask you four to stay behind?”

“Because we four are your most lucid dreamers—we’ve got nothing else in common.”

“Too right,” someone else agreed.

“Too right indeed. But the question is are the four of you interested in continuing?”

“Continuing? Continuing how?”

“Yes, Ella, continuing. Carrying on,” said Burns as if he was having to explain an obscure concept or an arcane word, “progressing, doing more, not stopping, going further. Some rather more intensive exercises, under more testing conditions, exploring the true potential of these… talents of yours.”