It wasn’t his fault. Not really. He was afraid of his dreams and so he fought the darkness. What had happened to his beautiful dreams? Once he had dreamt of other worlds and other times, when a man could be a hero, where he was free to live out his fantasies. But he had squandered his infinite dreams and now was left with only two.
In one, he watched a cup of tea fall to the floor, so elegant, so graceful, and shatter into a thousand pieces like a drop of rain as it hits the ground; and an inhuman screech filled his ears as brakes burned, tires slid and a car, all too close, collided with a brick wall. It was inevitable and he was bound to watch, over and over again.
But relatively speaking that was the good dream. In the other, he woke up in his bed to find Ammi lying beside him, worn by the passing of years but as beautiful as ever. And he would wake her up and tell her about the strange dream he had had, and how he had imagined the crash, and her funeral, and his sorrow, and she laughed and said “what a funny dream” and they both laughed together until Dinah came to find out what was going on; and she was so beautiful it ached his heart, and he told her about his strange dream, and how she had died and he had gone to her funeral and been unable to say a word, and he laughed because she was so full of life - they all laughed.
Joe felt himself falling asleep again and drove his nails harder into his leg - he had to stay awake. it wasn’t his fault that he kept falling asleep in this meeting. How could he go to sleep at night knowing what waited for him in the shadows?
His head jerked backwards and he knew that he couldn’t help himself. In a few minutes he would be asleep, and there was nothing he could do about it. No, he wouldn’t accept that.
Eli was still talking but it was just a senseless drone, like an itch at the base of Joe’s mind. He did not understand a word that was being said but couldn’t ignore it. He had to seem interested but to do that he had to stay awake. Rising from his seat in what he hoped was a surreptitious manner, Joe went over to the water machine and poured himself a large cup of water.
‘I need something stronger than water,’ Joe thought but then was immediately angry at himself for thinking it. He did not drink any more.
Clutching the polystyrene cup as if his life depended on it, he sat back down in the large, comfortable, leather chair. If he didn’t think of something soon, no amount of water would keep him awake.
A glance around the table confirmed his suspicions - they thought he was an old loser, past his prime. On each of their faces was imprinted an unmistakable message “what a sweet old man, losing his marbles but still trying to play a young man’s game”. Arrogant bastards. It wasn’t his fault, really. He’d read through the minutes later and then he’d understand. He would show them.
It was no use - even in his own mind it sounded unconvincing. Well, at least he had to give the appearance of being involved and paying attention. How? A game sprang to mind, and it appealed to his malicious thoughts.
He began with the woman directly opposite him, Anne was her name, or Jane, or some such thing. She was fairly short with dark hair but there was no shortage of material to work with - her eyebrows were arched ever so slightly, her ears slightly pointed. Her eyes were green but cold and hard, her lip seemed curled into permanent sneer of disdain.
She was the Wicked Witch of fairy-tales, cursing princesses to an eternity of sleep but she was too clever. She made no mistakes, and took no prisoners - no handsome prince would wake her sleeping beauties.
The man beside her, whose name was possibly Fred, was also easy. Taller than most people have a right to be, with incredibly pale skin and thick black glasses there was only one option - the man was clearly the result of a fantastic experiment, where the flesh of dead engineers were stitched into a monster. But this time no mistakes had been made - there were no diseased brains in this monster, he was as clever as he was cruel. Who said Dr Frankenstein couldn’t learn from his mistakes? If you looked really closely at his neck, you could even see the threads keeping his head on his neck.
And the man to Joe’s left, with olive-skin and half his right ear missing was obvious - it was the reincarnation of Van Goch, the soul of an artist bound into the body of a scientist - no wonder he sliced off his own ear - Joe wondered how it was that he did not kill himself.
The woman to the left of Van Goch was by far the hardest of the four. She was tall but not exceptionally so, with brown eyes and brown hair tied in a pony-tail behind her head. Nothing struck him as obvious. Then he had the idea - that was no pony-tail but was in fact a vestigial rat’s tail, bound in hair to fool all onlookers. No, he had a better one - she was the Snake, the arch-tempter himself, disguised in the body of a human female to search out weak-willed men and bind them to his will. His disguise was almost perfect but the hair was a give-away, straining to break free of its bonds, it could only be the end of the snake’s tail.
And Eli? With his grey, almost metallic, suit, bushy eyebrows and his dark eyes that seemed to dance around the room, could be no one but the mad scientist himself - the schemer, the megalomaniac bent on world domination. The suit he wore gave him super-strength and enabled him to fly - once he mastered the art of firing lasers from his eyes he would be ready to hold the world to ransom.
This was the meeting where the whole thing would be arranged, that’s why they were all here. And Joe? He had managed to infiltrate the enemy defences, sneak into the meeting, and then, when the time was right, he would expose them all for who they really were and would save the world.
Not the most inventive story he had ever come up with but it passed the time.
Then he realised everyone in the room was staring at him. What had he done?
“Joe?” Eliphaz asked, and sounded as if he was repeating himself.
“Um, yes?”
“What do you think about it?”
He could feel his cheeks going red. They were laughing at him, they were all laughing at him.
“Sorry, I phased out for a moment, what do I think about what?”
Victoria, or whatever her name was, barely managed to stifle a childish snigger.
“About the weather control system.”
Eliphaz always treated him with respect but then he owed Joe more than words could ever say. Beneath the surface, who knew what he really thought?
Joe made what he hoped were appropriate, vaguely committal noises. There was a moment of unbearable silence. But Eli had the kindness to move on to another point, and once again Joe lost track of the conversation.
He didn’t know why he had agreed to be part of this team. What had he been thinking? Actually he did. To terraform the moon, to build a paradise in the desert, to give life to the lifeless - there was no way he could have said no. But he’d been to countless meetings and had understood barely one word in five. He was past his sell-by date and it was becoming impossible to think otherwise. No wonder he had never finished his time machine - he was surprised he could even string coherent sentences together.
And this whole trade secrets thing was really starting to bother him. Now he had to wear a security pass to get into the building, and scan some zebra markings into the red eye of a laser before he could go to the toilet. ‘To protect our secrets’ he had been told, as if they didn’t trust him. His only consolation in this area was that the young people had to wear the cards as well, but it didn’t seem to bother them. He was old and disliked new tricks.
Maybe, when all this was done, he’d move out to this new lunar city, and live out what remained of his days gazing up at the stars. But somehow he knew that it was never going to happen - he had too many nightmares and too many demons.
But he was so tired. Tired of talking, tired of climbing stairs and making polite conversation, tired of his grey house and its grey walls - so tired.
And as his head fell back, he knew he couldn’t fight it any more.
He sipped his tea thoughtfully and pretended he was reading the book in his hands. What had he been reading? He did not now know.
And then a car screeched like a demon, and crashed like a bolt of thunder. Joe’s tea fell to the floor and splintered but he was already by the front door, pulling it open.
Eliphaz staggered towards him, staring at his hands in shock and total disbelief. Red rivulets of blood began to pour down his arm.
“What happened? What!?”
Eli could only stare dumbstruck at his crimson hands. Blood began to drip from his forehead and gushed across his opening mouth.
“What!” screamed Joe to his friend, becoming furious with fear.
“Joe!” he answered, in a harsh whisper, “JOE!”
And then Eli was over him, shaking him, and he had aged at least thirty years.
But Joe was no longer dreaming.
“Sorry, sorry,” he mumbled, “no need to shake me like that.”
“Joe,” Eli replied, in a worried voice, “I’ve been trying to wake you up for nearly five minutes. Everyone’s gone but you wouldn’t wake up. Another few minutes and I was going to call the doctor.”
“I’m fine. It’s just, I’m just tired. Sorry about the meeting. Did I miss much?”
“Some, but not much,” smiled Eli, thrusting a pile of papers into Joe’s arms, “it’s all in here. Same time tomorrow?”
“Sure,” muttered Joe. He gathered up the papers as best he could, and stumbled out the door.
* * *
He was sitting in a warm, comfortable leather armchair by the fireplace, the same place he did all his thinking, a warm cup of tea in his hands. The fire was burning brightly below the photograph.
And he thought to himself, how do I know I am not now dreaming, given that I have felt exactly these feelings before in a dream? How do I know I am awake?
He pinched his left arm and felt no pain.
Oh, he thought, I am dreaming after all, no wonder I cannot taste my tea.
He got up, watching with fascination as his cup fell to the floor - the false floor - and shatter into a billion fragments of dream.
What shall I do now I know I am dreaming? He stuck his hand in the fire and it did not burn. The fire danced beautifully, such elegance, such grace. In the flickering flames, he thought he could see his future.
And then he sat down, pulled out his notes from the meeting (though he could not have said from where) and began to read them. No sense in letting this dream go to waste, he thought, there’s never enough time.
So he read and read.
But the words muddled themselves up and changed mid-sentence. On each reading the words came out different. This was no use at all. But he pressed on anyway, eager to reach the end.
And then the words formed themselves properly, and the diagrams crystallised - he could see everything, how it all fitted together.
The whole scheme locked together in his mind, the interconnections, the sheer genius, the revolution of its design. From its mighty defensive shield to the smallest plasma inducer, it was perfect. The moon would endure for an age or more. A feeling of peace spread through his mind.
But then, like a fungus or a cancer, a blackness seemed to steal over the pages he held in his hand, touching on words, on symbols, on diagrams, burning a thread of destruction through the ink, until the whole paper caught fire.
Ow! It burns! But this is a dream, it is not real. It burns! It BURNS!
Joe woke up and almost leapt out of his chair in his attempt to escape the flames. No, the fireplace was as cold as death, the dust lay thick upon it.
But when the panic faded, it dissolved into unease and fear. It may have been only a dream, but he had seen truly. A scan through his mountain of notes and minutes confirmed it - he had found a flaw in the defensive shield, a flaw so critical, that if the project went ahead, the shield could catastrophically fail, instantly killing everyone in Luna-city.
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