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joegoda
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Emily's second dream:
She was a leaf, floating, floating in all her leafy splendor. Lazy and adrift, free from the branch and the twig and the tree that had kept her captive for all her long life. Drifting upon the warm wind, going where the breeze pushed her, feeling the remains of sap in her veins, knowing that she was short lived, but not caring.
She could see, with her deep green eyes, a pool of water, far below her, wet and clear and coming closer. The water would provide welcome relief to her, for though she was in a drifting state of bliss, as only a leaf can be, she was a bit parched, a bit dry.
As she got closer to the pool below her, her curled and frondly ears picked up the sound of music, bright and tinkly, chimes in the air. Water dripping and splashing playfully, played a minuet of water music of such that Handel would not have imagined and may very well have envied.
Closer and closer she drifted down and down. Each wafting thermal, trying to keep her aloft to play in the open air just a bit longer could not sustain her as her desire to reach the pool below her increased. Try as they might, they could not defeat the agreement she had made with gravity that this so, and it must be.
The droplets of chiming and ringing water crashed softly into the pool, creating not only chimes and rhythm and music, but ripples, cascading and out-flowing, growing in size, crossing each other, criss-crossing each other, merging, separating, and having touched, were changed in strength and momentum.
She gently, floatingly bounced down upon a ripple just as a droplet had created it, showering her with even tinier droplets. Droplets of droplets, a rather double-d of droplets. She felt refreshed from the shower and it perked her up to recognize that she was no longer a leaf adrift in the universe, but part of a greater whole, part of the pond of the universe, and she was riding the back of a small mound of slowly undulating wet as it crossed from here to there.
Bouncing upon it's back, she felt the undertow as the wave she was riding crossed faces with another, older ridgeback. Briefly she felt the old one give it's power to the younger one, and felt the younger one grow back in momentum and strength. She felt herself shudder when she realized that she could tap into the ripple and feel it surge with new found freedom.
The young ripple grew and grew, expanding the area it surrounded, crossing with old ones and younger ones, and from each one she could feel the ripple she was riding pulling her along until she felt that she was fairly flying across the pond. Oh, the joy! The exhilaration of the ride. She felt powerful herself, pulling from the strength of the ripple below her.
Then she turned, or more exactly, something turned her. She was being pulled from the ripple, her newfound friend, who tried it's hardest to hold on, hold on, hold on. She was pulled and turned and pulled and yanked away by a current that had run from the pond and was moving to... out there somewhere.
The young ripple watched sadly, before bouncing against the edge of the pond, changing his motion, gaining in age and experience, and moved back toward his beginning. As he went, she could sense his anticipation that as he grew older, he would be giving his strength and momentum to other, younger ripples. This was expected, and, in an odd way she didn't quite understand, desired. It would mean the end of him, and that seemed perfectly all right and the way it should be.
Without much sadness, because it was the way it should be, she placed her attention on where she was going. It was a lovely ride, not that the ripples in the pond hadn't been lovely and all, but this was adventure. She was excited. She believed, in her heart of leafy avocado heart that she may very well have been the first leaf to have had an adventure this great! It did not matter if it was true or not, it was true to her, and being so, it was so, and just the way it should be.
Faster and faster she moved, being pulled by the current that had taken her from ripple to stream. She bounced along on a winding ride on watery pathway that was lined on both sides by frondly friends and over head by tall trees with roots that sank deep, deep, deep into the bank. Her bounds of joy purely exploded as she traveled, seeing sights she was sure no other leaf had ever seen.
Here and there, on her journey onward to her destination, where ever that may be, she saw other things, creatures, some on four legs, some on two. Some with two wings, some with four, some with eight.
She saw a flying one, small, almost as small as a leaf flying above her. It had four wings, all dazzling bright and rainbowish, flashing colors so fast that she couldn't make out which color was which. Quick as a jitter, jeweled wings a flutter faster than sight, it danced upon the bouncing sunlit dust motes, checking each and everyone. Slick as a slipper, it dipped it's head and landed directly on her, which caused her just a moments of concern that it would dip her under the water and then she would be lost to the dreadful undertow and end up stuck on a branch or some other fate.
She need not have worried. The flying thing was as light as light itself and gently stood at her greenish bow, surveying all it could see. Then it spoke to her. "This isn't real, you know. This is part of a dream you are having."
"What are you talking about?", she asked. She then had to wonder at herself. She couldn't speak, leaves couldn't speak. Leaves were just vegetable matter that grew and sprouted and fell and died. She began to be afraid.
"No need for fear, missus. It's perfectly all right and quite natural. The human mind tends to interpret images the way it wants to. That's the way it's always been." the flying thing certainly seemed calm, which was all right for it. Any sign of trouble and away it would just flitter on those diamond studded wings it had.
Emily realized that she was on a pathway, as a leaf, leading to somewhere. And since she knew, in her mind of minds, in her human body, that she wasn't a leaf, she realized that it would indeed be all right, just as the dragonfly had said. As this was a dream, there could be no harm come to her. She relaxed and would have been content to let the flow take her where it would, except:
"Don't get to comfortable, though.", the dragonfly buzzed. "Though there is nothing to fear as a leaf, since leaves don't normally fear anyway, you may have some considerable trouble ahead."
"Trouble?", she asked in her wispy, leafy voice. "What sort of trouble?"
"My, you do ask a lot of questions for a vegetable", was the retort. "I come from a gent you might know. Bit short, rather. Pointy ears, don't you know. He said you'd be a-passin' this way, and he assed me if I would maybe give you a little hand up right bout here bouts"
The dragonfly lifted just a bit to snag a small mote out of the air, which he promptly took a bite out of, as if it were a small golden apple.
"He said just one thing to me to give to you when you were headed this a-way. He said to tell you that no matter what, you was to avoid the undertoad. Now, there's only one sort of toad I know, and he ain't under nothin at all. He's a big shot, he is. Mr. Toady spiderish. I calls him that because no one's been able to hold 'im in one shape or another for very long"
"Toad!" exclaimed Emily, and some of her leafy tips shook in consternation. "I know toad, and I know spider. They are one and the same?"
"Oh yes, yes indeedy. Toad and spider are one an the same, missus. See, he's keepin his eye out here, seems. He's watchin' for sumthin, and I reckon I'm sitting right on 'er.
"Toad is watching for me? He knows I'm coming?"
"Oh hell, missus... Everyone, and I mean everyone that has any sort of sense about him knows you're coming. They just don't know which-a-way and they're not completely sure when. But they knows you're coming."
Dragonfly finished the moteapple and settled back down on his leafy perch at the bow. "Can you feel that pull, missus?", he asked. That's probably the undertoad, ol' teller told me bout. It leads to a whirligig in the water that'll suck you right down till seems the earth just swallowed you up. If'n I was you, I'd be careful and not get sucked down into it."
"Oh good lord! I'm a leaf!", fretted Emily. "What am I supposed to do? I can't very well swim away from it, now can I?"
"'Ol' teller said you say something depressing like that. He told me to tell you this if you did. He said to tell you that you are exactly what you believe you are. He said to tell you that it's not what you think you are, but what you believe you are. And that was pretty much it. Then he ran off to talk to some fellow who was going to climb a ladder to the moon. Pretty nuts, if you ask me." He sat about picking his teeth with one of his forelegs.
"Welp, I gots a job to do, just around this bend. That's where the whirligig thingamabob is. You be good, and if you can't be good, be good at it" With that having been said, he flipped out his flashy wings, strutted about for a second or so, just in case there were any lady dragonflies about (he didn't know that they ate their mates, but being a male, he tended to overlook such things, anyway), and took off, flying a bit ahead, and a lot above where Emily floated, helpless now it seemed, to stop her movement.
She drifted, lazy as a leaf, which is what she was, and bounced off a branch in the water. This movement pushed her into a snaky root under the current that she twirled around until she was directly in the middle of the stream, which is where the fastest motion lay.
The bend in the stream came, she dosey-doed around it, quicker than she would have liked to and saw, just on the far side, a sight that she would rather not have seen. The toad sat on the edge of the stream, big as life and twice as toadish, waiting for her. It could have been any toad, if it had not been wearing a crown. It could have been any toad, if it had not been halfway through shedding it's spider skin and had only four legs, instead of eight. It could have been any toad, but it was not. It was The Toad with a capital T and a capital T.
The water below The Toad was churning and bubbling and burbling as if it was inside a mad tea kettle. There was no steam from it, as there might be if it had been inside a teakettle. Instead, it made a horrible sucking sound, rather like the sound that can be heard at a dentist's office, right before he says "Now, that didn't hurt one bit, now did it. You can rinse and spit. The nurse at the front desk will arrange your next appointment and have a good day".
It must have been that horrible whirligig thing the dragonfly had told her about, and it was sitting there, just waiting for her. If it had been in the middle of the stream, she would have already been sucked into it and whirled and whirled her and sucked her down and down and down till she was not a leaf any more, not anything at all anymore. Dream or not, this was terrifying to Emily. Dream or not, she did NOT want to be sucked down till it seemed the earth swallowed her up at all period nosirree.
Just then, the words that the dragonfly echoed in her ear. "What I believed I was, rather than what I thought I was.", she thought. "What I think I am, here, right now, is a leaf adrift in a situation I may not get out of. What I belief I am is ... is... Oh my! Also a leaf adrift in a situation I may not get out of." She shut her eyes and tried to calm and think.
Soft as kitten's down, soft as ducks fur, she heard a whisper in one of her other ears. "Pity you couldn't believe you was a lady dragonfly, missus. It surely would make this a bit more enjoyable by half a mite, let me tell you."
A dragonfly! She could be a dragonfly, yes she could. With her glistening wings all fluttering jewel cases colors she would lift out of this stream and fly above it all. With her eyes closed, she could see it. She could picture it, just barely. With a bit more thought, a bit more concentration, it came sharper into the focus of her imagination. Closer she dialed the aperture of her mind’s camera, tighter and with a bit more adjustment to the contrast and color. There!
She could feel the hum of her blood coursing through the wings and feel her legs tucked up under her. She could sense the water just below her, rushing, rushing, splashing her abdomen with wetness and making her wings heavier. She was barely able to stay aloft, and if she got much more damp, she would surely sink back into the water! Straining hard, she pushed her new wings down and rose, inches, inches, then feet.
"It would work a lot better", she heard, "if you opened your eyes, missus." then she heard a slow, long, whistle of admiration. "You did a fine job, there missus. A number one class as job, if I do say so myself, and I do, yessiree"
She opened her eyes and saw, not one version, but sixteen versions of the world, all being sent to her brain from her two very large complex eyes. It was disorienting at first, but her brain, now a dragonfly's brain, took it in, processed it, yawned as if it were nothing at all, and digested it. She could see The Toad, sitting directly across from her, and she could see the whirlpool, sucking leaves and branches, water bugs and small fish into it's waiting gorge.
She could hear the buzzing of the other dragonfly, but she could not see him. She didn't know where he was, but she knew he was around, in that way that dragonflies have of knowing where other dragonflies have. With the beating of her wings, hovering above the rushing stream, she felt safe again, for the smallest beat of her dragonfly heart, until she realized that The Toad was looking directly at her. And smiling.
"Very good!", he croaked. "I thought you might have realized that you could get away from the whirlpool, but I was certain that you wouldn't have the knowledge to do it. Not yet anyway. You are still so young, and so arrogant in your belief. You actually believe you know what you are and what you're about. Simply astounding. You should have gone back to that spot where you felt the safest. That spot where your mommy tells you what to do and the memory of your dead daddy holds you from crossing the street."
His words hit her where it hurt the hardest. It hit her in her heart. It bruised the ventricles and the atriums. It cause the tricuspid to stop for not quite too long, and the mitral to hiccough in response. Her superior vena cava did not feel all that superior any longer, and her inferior was considering therapy. His words were not just mean... they were cruel.
Then a strange thing happened. Her inferior decided that it didn't need therapy, it was fine just the way it was, and if Toad didn't like it, then it could take a flying leap into a lily pad. Her superior, seeing it's sister grow an attitude like a second head, flexed it's muscles and pushed for a second vote. Her tricuspid and mitral picked up the beat and found a new rhythm, one with a more jazzier tone, and her ventricles and atriums... well... they just decided that a bruise is one way to get stronger, so they grew a thicker skin.
"I will have you know", she said quietly, hovering there in front of that massive Toadish face, "that my parents, as they were, were trying to protect me from the world that frightened them." Her voice grew stronger, but did not increase in volume. "MY parents perhaps shielded me from things that would have made me stronger, but in doing so, they created the only me that I could have been. They tried their best to give me what had been handed down to them, and by god, they did a pretty fine job of it."
Now she raised the volume, just enough to cause Toads eyes to raise and it's horrible toadish smile to fade just a tiny, toadish, bit. "I may have missed a lot of my childhood, and there may have been things that I could have done as a child, but they rose me to be responsible and to be aware of the things around me. Well, Mr. ToadSpider whatevertheheck thing you are. I'm aware, all right. I'm aware that I make my choices. I'm aware that I decide what and who and where I am. and I'm aware that you are really just a sad and a bit ugly, thought it pains me to say it, toad sitting all by himself on a lily pad. You will not dictate to me what I think, and how I think it!"
Her voice quivered with emotion. Her eyes shone with the fevered look of one who has seen battle with themselves and come out victorious. Her words hovered there in the air as though it were a song sung in honor of the brave and wounded and missing. Perhaps it was.
"Oh, very good." smirked Toad. "Very, very good. You are growing yourself up just right here and now, and though impressive, there is just one thing you should.. no.. there are a few things you should know."
"One," and he raised up his froggy feet and ticked the points off as if they were dear to him. Perhaps they were. "One, you are a human in a dream. A human dream. Granted, this dream is not quite like most human dreams because here, you are aware you are dreaming."
"Two," a froggy digit ticked, "Though a dream, it is very, very real to you. Else you would not feel fear as strongly as you have, else you would not feel pride as strongly as you have. This is a real dream, and real dreams, though still dreams, are very real indeed. This means that a part of you has crossed over, bounded between the boundaries of your world and this one, this dream world you crafted from bits and pieces of what you think it should be." This bit of news was something that frankly, startled Emily. A Real Dream?
"Three." Frogs, by the by, have only three toes and one thumb. This means they can count to eight and anything over eight is known as 'More than eight'. That is the way it is, and that's the way it has always been.
"Three, in a real dream, things happen that can affect you in YOUR real world. Let us look at the facts of the matter as they stand right now, right here. You are a dragonfly, hovering in front of my face. I, on the other hand, am a toad. What do you suppose, Miss Emily, toads and dragonflies have in common? What do you suppose is the linking thing between toads and dragonflies?"
Emily thought, quick and fast. She may have read something, long ago, in the library. Think, think, think, she thought to herself. Toads and dragonflies.. what was it.
"I'm sorry," grumbled Toad. "You were an excellent contestant, but you didn't get the answer out in time." He stretched out and up, till he fairly filled her entire sixteen fold view of the world. "What the connecting point between toads, especially Toads, with a capital T, and dragonflies is this. Dragonflies are, and always will be, dinner."
Emily reeled with shock, and quick as star's blink, tried to fly way, fly away. Toad was quicker, faster than a two headed snake fighting over poor Mr. mouse. He opened his enormous mouth and flung his sticky horrible tongue directly at her. She could feel the flick of the air as it just missed her, and a part of her mind wondered how. Her dragonfly eyes, being able to see behind her, which is something many folks have always envied about them, gave her the answer.
Just as the tongue was about to wrap itself around one of her hind legs, another dragonfly flew in, grabbed the nasty long wiggly thing and was pulling it straight up into the air!
"You see, missus," said her savior, "a mote a day, keeps the Toady at bay!" He laughed like a loon and flew round and round Toad's head, wrapping the tongue like a thin red necktie around Toad's neck, which, of course, enraged Toad, as he never wore neckties.
Toad roared a great croaking toadish roar and reached up with one of his icky front feet and Snatched the dragonfly out of the air. "Taliesin!", the roar came, when Emily could finally recognize what was being said. You try holding your tongue and speaking. Not easy is it? Especially words with Tees and Esses in them!
"Taliesin!", the Toad roared again, holding the dragonfly before him. "You have meddled in my affairs for the last time!"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know what, toad? I just hate it when bad guys can't come up with any original lines." The dragonfly twisted in the clasping grasp just enough to face Emily, who hovered, shocked, not far away... not far enough away, anyway. "Don't be stupid, missus. I ain't done yet. Get your happy butt outta here!" And he punched Toad in his big, fat, toady eye. "GO! Fly to the Library! It's just over that rise! Go, dammit!"
Emily, not quite as shocked as she was, shook herself and started flapping her wings hard as she could, sprinkling rainbows, rainbows everywhere and scattering sunmotes as she went. "I won't forget you.. what ever your name is", she called back.
"The name is Taliesin, good lookin'. Now hie that pretty abdomen outta here!" And that was the last Emily heard of the battle, except for one very large, toadish gulp.
*************************************** Chapter four
"Oh my, oh my, oh my." Emily oh myed as she fluttered and flew and flitted and flung herself as far as she could away from The Toad, who she could hear crashing thought the underbrush behind her. The sounds of crashing came to her dragonfly ears as if he were flinging small trees out of his way with every far reaching hop, every leapish leap, that brought him closer to her. She could almost feel the slimy touch of his tongue on her slim ankle, and the thought was more horrible than any horrible thought she had ever had.
"You might as well give up, Miss Lankshorn.", Toad roared croakishly. "You can't go far. Dragonflies are great at maneuvering, but their long distance flight sucks. They don't have the stamina. I will catch you, and I will eat you."
"Oh my, oh my, oh my!" Emily litanied as she dodged and dipped and drove herself as fast as her ruby sapphire wings would beat.
Out over the bulrushes, out over the reeds, past the beginnings of field she flew, hard and fast, all the while hearing Toad get closer and closer.
Her little heart beat furiously. Her little wings were growing more and more tired as she dragged herself through the air. She couldn't fail, she simply couldn't. Not after Taliesin sacrificed himself, not after all that has gone before. She knew there was a way out, she knew there had to be.
Singing. Up ahead, somewhere nearby in the field, singing reached her ears. A child's singing. Boy or Girl, she couldn't make out, but there was singing. And where there was song, perhaps there lay ... hope.
Driving and dodging, flapping and flinging glittering rainbows of multicolored hues everywhere, she went in search of the song. Here! There! Over there! She headed in the direction her sixteen eyes told her about and she found the child, a young girl, no more than eight years old. She was standing amidst a small patch of dandelions, blowing them into snow flurries and singing a song that had no words, but contained the absolutely blissful words of eight year old joy.
She quickly, as she was running out of steam in her steam engine of a heart, fluttered before the eyes of the young, brown haired, brown eyed girl. The youngster laughed with the unrestrained happiness at having been given such a gift as this! "Hello flaggonfly... do you live around here?", said the girl in her young fluty voice.
'Oh hurry, hurry, hurry', thought Emily. And quick as that, the little girl reached down, brought up a picnic basket. "Would you like to come home with me, flaggonfly?" And without waiting for a polite answer, scooped Emily up in the open basket and closed the lid.
The croakish roaring of a frustrated Toad seemed to go on forever.
Darkness. Then flickering light. Then flickering candle light, which is so much more pleasant than flickering light by itself.
She was sitting in an overstuffed chair. Very overstuffed, and very comfortable, and very, very blue. It wrapped itself around her and she had never before felt so safe, so tired. She slept, which, when she thought about it was very odd to be sleeping in a dream she was having. Fortunately, she was not awake to be thinking about it, and that way did not interrupt the flow of her story, which, even though she was writing it, she wasn't aware she was. When she woke up, that would be a different shuffle of cards altogether.
