‘But what about one dream recurring in one person?’ Jilia asks, and Random senses she is about to tell them about his dream, and wishes he had not told her anything about it. That was the thing about these camps. You ended up getting much more intimate with people than you would have in a classroom. Which of course was the purpose of them. But still.
‘And what if a person were to dream of something that was right out of the ordinary – say flying green monkeys?’ Jilia says. ‘And they dreamt this dream again and again. But it wouldn’t be the same dream. Just the same image coming back and back in different dreams.’
Jilia does not look at Random, but his heart is pounding.
‘The recurring image is the key,’ Mr Allot says, looking intrigued. ‘Green monkeys, eh? It’s odd you should choose that image; it brings me back to dreams recurring from mind to mind. I was teaching in America at a school called Indian Valley High and I was having trouble with one of the students in my class. I called his mother in and asked if there was anything wrong at home. You see, he had been so good up until then. His mother said he was having nightmares, but that the doctor had given them pills saying it was because he was hyperactive. But the thing was, the dream was about flying green monkeys trying to get into his window. I had completely forgotten it until you mentioned flying green monkeys. Such a peculiar thing.’
‘What does it mean?’ Jilia asks excitedly.
‘Did he let the monkeys in?’ Random asks, without meaning to. Suddenly he is wondering why he never let them in.
‘His instinct was to keep them out,’ Mr Allot says absently.
A tall skinny school counsellor leans forward. ‘What if these winged green monkeys are real creatures seeking refuge from their own dying dimension by entering our dreams? Again and again they try desperately to get in, but again and again our minds are closed to them . . .’
‘Do you want a marshmallow?’ Jilia says, offering a singed pink blob to Random on the end of a fork. She does not like science fiction. Before he can take the marsh mallow, mallow, a boy with very red lips leans across to put another log on the fire.
Sparks fly up into the darkness.
‘Wake up. You almost fell into the fire,’ the old woman says urgently.
Jilia sits up. Her mind is full of vague strange dreams each tumbling into the other, but already the images are fading before the reality of the crowded hut and the fire.
Old Man Random on the stool beside her frowns, his eyes full of leaping flames.
‘My daughter is lost,’ a man is saying to him. ‘My wife sent her to her grandmother’s and she never arrived. She was lost in the forest because she left the path.’
The man’s mouth is such a moist red colour, it looks as if he is bleeding.
‘I was lost when I was a boy,’ Random says, plucking at his beard. ‘I wanted to find the green monkeys but they hid themselves from me. I had no fear.’
‘Listen,’ the grandmother whispers, pressing Jilia’s arm.
Outside there is a whirring sound as if the air is full of birds.
‘It is them,’ the man with the lost daughter whispers, and Old Man Random puts his arm around a child in a stained nightshirt who has wandered over to warm its hands at the fire.
‘Why do they come?’ Jilia asks, wishing she was that child being cuddled in Random’s arms. She remembers when he used to hold her like that.
‘Does not the dream need the dreamer?’ the old woman asks sharply.
‘I do not believe they are dreams,’ the red-mouthed man says. ‘I think they feed on dreams and must sow them in us to harvest them.’
‘Let them in,’ the child whispers, looking up into Jilia’s eyes. She sees that it is fearless, and remembers, too, when she was not afraid. The fearlessness of innocence.
There is a tapping and Jilia looks over to the window. She can only see her face reflected as a pale firelit blur against the night, as insubstantial as if she and the room are the night’s dream, or the window’s. the night’s dream, or the window’s.
Jilia closes her eyes for a moment . . .
She hears a tapping and opens her eyes. She has dreamed the green monkey dreams again, but the memories are already leaking out of her, for they are too slippery for her waking mind to hold.
She looks across at the portion of window showing under the sly half-closed eyelid of the blind. Her bedroom, lit by the illuminated alarm clock, presses itself against the glass separating it from the dark night. Her Greenpeace poster of the Rainbow Warrior looms as a swirl of darkness against the lighter wall, and the handsome Balinese puppet has become a kind of bird. On the dressing table is a picture of Random, smiling forever.
She thinks how odd it is that she now dreams his green monkey dream, as if he left it to her as his most precious possession. In the dreams he is so real, she cannot believe he is dead. Sometimes she wishes she will not wake, but will go on dreaming so he will go on living, but the strange sequence of dreams is always the same.
She gets out of bed and walks softly to the window.
As she approaches the glass, a wizened face with grape eyes peers at her. There is a creamy smudge of movement behind it that might be a reflection of her nightgown, or of the creature’s wings in constant motion.
She lifts her hand to the window, and at the same time, a small paw touches the glass tentatively on the other side. Their fingers are separated only by a thin invisible barrier.
With her spare hand, she reaches up for the tarnished key that keeps the window closed fast, and in one smooth gesture, turns it.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My thanks to those editors whose requests prompted me to pen a number of the stories in this collection. The rest were written for this book, and I would like to thank the Australia Council Literature Unit for the grant and grace which gave me time and space to write them. Thanks also to my publisher, who agreed that it would be good to have all of my stories under my name; and especially and always to Erica Wagner, who edited and nurtured the voice of these stories – my truest voice.
In particular, as well as friends and family, I would like to thank Rachelle Moore, of Indian Valley High School in Ohio, who told me about the green monkey dreams, and Kerry Greenwood for rummaging through her vast store of arcane knowledge to source and find the exact wording of the Chuangtse quote for me.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
I sobelle Carmody is one of Australia’s most loved fantasy writers.
She is best known for her brilliant Obernewtyn Chronicles and for her novel The Gathering (joint winner of the 1993 Children’s Literature Peace Prize and the 1994 CBC Book of the Year Award). She has written many short stories for both children and adults and was co-editor with Nan McNab of the Tales from the Tower fairytale anthologies The Wilful Eye and The Wicked Wood.
With her partner and daughter, Isobelle divides her time between Prague in the Czech Republic and her home on the Great Ocean Road in Australia.
Also available
Isobelle Carmody, Green Monkey Dreams
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