JAMIE SUE AUSTIN

“It’s all love poems in here,” she ripped another yellow sheet from the ledger, crinkling it up and tossing it away with the same disgust she showed the last.  They scattered like striped yellow mice on the floor. Scuttling, barely alive.  ”You should try outside.  There’s a window over there.” 

I drew my finger through the dust to peer at the world.  It was dark.  Two children fought over bread-crusts.  A dead solider slumped over a mailbox. A milky trickle of rain and soot.  It was obvious that several people nearby were reading the History of the First Great Conflicting Reality.  Again. The book had been a popular selection among the Escapists. Four reprints in the last two months.  For weeks portions of the living text had made their way into the streets and people’s homes.  The trend would end soon enough and I would be able to open the cupboard again to crackers and can goods instead of live chickens pecking at the unpalatable pink paste of mechanically separated poultry.  If it wasn’t for my neighbor’s interest in Award Winning Italian Restaurants I would have starved.  Luckily, chapter five had included appetizing descriptions of decor and dishes bright enough to evoke the existence of several small Italian bistros, if only temporarily.

“No thank you. I’ll just sit here and wait.”

   ”The Dream Maker is busy.  You won’t be seen today.  But, feel free to pick up a love poem if you want.  We’re overflowing with them.”

I had love poems.  They were a frail substitute for the real thing.  I wanted something else.  Something more real.

“No, I want…  something different.  Maybe a manifesto.”

    “The Dream Maker doesn’t do manifestos any more; too controversial.”

“A drama then?”

    “All out.”

“A novel idea?”

    “None left.”

“Well when will you have something real?”

    “When the Dream Maker isn’t busy anymore.”

I sat by the window.  I sat and waited.

A mortar shell exploded about five blocks south, trembling the desk, and causing the little yellow scribbles to whimper and quake.  I kicked at a few and they scurried off into corners to hide. The apprentice looked up from her ledger, annoyed, eyed the clock and then me.  ”It’s been six hours.”  She was curt.  ”They say you can tell the time by the blasts.”  My attempt at conversation was thwarted with a hard look.  She bent down her head and began writing again.  Another two hours ticked by.

A Dream Maker’s job is an unique combination of talent, imagination, science, technology, and magic.  There were few such trained individuals left in the world as training replacements was costly.  A poorly written plot line could leave a reader (or unwitting bystanders) victim to a never ending and altogether confusing reality.  Several London streets were entirely uninhabitable because of prowling lions and abstract critiques on London traffic.

I heard pages rustle.  I looked up from my lap.  The apprentice held the ledger pages down with her elbows while she forced ink on them.  Her eyes were glazed over, her breath was shallow, she was pale.  The pages rattled, lifted up, and tried to get away, but she kept forcing them back into place so she could write.  She was creating something.  It was was being born.  I bit my thumb.  The apprentice was on the verge of evoking a second or perhaps even a third Conflicting Reality.  Maybe even a fourth, depending on if the office was real or part of a science fiction novel.  It didn’t really matter on either occasion.  That was a concern for Dream Makers to ponder.

I always imagined that Dream Makers were beautiful people, uncontaminated by the world outside, but I suppose, with enough practice, anyone could be eventually become one. Even the drab and unpleasant girl behind the desk might have the potential. Some spark not seen behind her glasses.  Some brilliance belied by her sensible shoes. 

With her last flourished marks the pages curled around her wrist, she jumped, startled, as they ripped themselves from the ledger.

“Is that what I think it is?”

Her eyes locked wide on me.  She nodded cautiously.  

“Well?!”

“I think it’s a short story”, she stammered.  ”But, there’s no way to be sure.”

“Could I?” I asked as I reached for the pages. They jumped from the desk, flitted across the room, and climbed a potted plant.  

“It’s your funeral if I’m wrong,” she replied flatly.  There was a weight in her words that made me queasy.  She sat back down at her desk, cupping her face in her hands.

I slid across the room.  I reached out my hand, the pages came toward me with trepidation, like a dog to a stranger.  They bent down to graze my fingers, drew back, then in a decisive move collapsed across my palm.  I read.

I was in the mountains.  There was the smell of pine and the sound of wild things.  It was windy and nippy.  I could see the smoke curling up from a distant fire.  I walked towards it.

In the office the apprentice stared at the empty spot where I had just stood.  She was a Dream Maker now.  She ran to tell her master.