All tagged Amahle
Master Mind takes two steps forward, grabs Joy around the torso, and steps back.
“Hey!” Joy says.
Amahle’s spooky music rises.
“Guys, guys, there’s no need for panic,” Justin raises his hands. “This mummy is not going to move!”
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Colin, Madelyn, and Yumio enter our living room first. Then Justin does. Then Charlie and Joy, holding hands. Joy and Justin are the only ones who don’t seem afraid. Justin, perhaps, because it is his mummy. And I’m not sure why Joy isn’t more cautious. But at least she’s protected by five Dreamers who will leap to her aid if one Dreamer goes crazy.
Master Mind follows next. Suzy peeks through.
“Oh, my,” Suzy says. “There is a mummy in our living room!”
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It’s a busy morning on the deck of Bonny’s Revenge. We have all our dreamers here at once when Justin arrives: Amahle, Madelyn, Yumio, Charlie, Colin, and now Justin has joined.
Joy, Charlie, Madelyn and Yumio have been playing Catch in the Clouds, all wearing Yumio’s mechas. Colin has been drinking tea with Suzy and me on the deck while waiting for Justin.
When Justin appears, everyone gathers and tells him the plan.
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We wait for the Dreamers.
Madelyn appears first on Bonny Revenge’s deck. She says she heard nothing and knows nothing about the broken mirror.
Yumio comes next, flying in from her dream inside the body of one of her flying mecha robots that Joy had made permanent for her.
Yumio says she knows nothing.
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Can you create Glen Beach?” Madelyn asks Amahle.
Amahle exhales, and suddenly beyond Suzy’s and mine small island, Justin’s ocean is covered with a beach bustling with people. Suzy gasps. The sand is a different color, the beach umbrellas are colorful, too, and there are so many people here, families, friends, people who came on their own.
How could Amahle create such detail and such colors when she’s been blind from birth?!
“It is… magnifique,” Madelyn says. “I adore this place! And there is no need for suntan lotion!”
Amahle laughs. In a second, her clothes are replaced by a one-piece bathing suit with a kind of - I don’t know the name for it - the kind that has a kind of a skirt around it at the bottom.
“What is this?” Madelyn asks.
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“Stop,” Madelyn tells Amahle. “Stop with the music! Stop with the panic! Stop!”
Amahle looks desperate and the distant drumming doesn’t stop. “It is how I feel. I can’t help it.”
“I do not care how you feel,” Madelyn tells her. “I only care about you.”
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As usual, Amahle and Elvis appear on the deck of Bonny’s Revenge while Joy is still asleep.
“Amahle,” I call her from the porch, where Suzy and I are sitting. “Let me help you down.”
“I am perfectly fine, Walter.” She uses Elvis and her blind stick to lead her down the ramp which she already knows so well.
As she’s halfway through, Madelyn appears behind her on her wheelchair.
Amahle stops and listens. After a second, she says, “Hello, Madelyn. Comment ça va?”
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There is that silence again.
Is there a way that any of this, Joy’s life, can be explained? Is there a way that Suzy’s and my existence here for the last two years, more or less, can be explained?
It’s obviously possible, but how is it possible? How is it that a human girl lives in the Dream? How is it that she has abilities here that she wouldn’t in the waking world? How is it that I, a scientist, have never given it too much thought?
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Suzy and I are sitting on rocking chairs on the porch of our house on the small island I’ve come to consider my home, when Justin appears on the deck of Bonny’s Revenge.
I get up as I see him disappear into Joy’s cabin.
He comes out almost immediately, and motions for me to go back to my chair.
He says something to Master Mind, and the two walk quickly down the ramp.
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I can see Justin waiting for the exact right second.
It’s been a day for those in the waking world since the kids rode the flying elephants and since Justin decided it was time Joy somehow meet girls her age.
Madelyn appeared first. She rolled down the ramp to the shore of the small island of our small suburban home. After a few nice hellos, we helped her off the wheelchair. On her two arms she went into the sea and began swimming.
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Charlie has been on the flying elephant for a good fifteen minutes now. The elephant is flying right above the deck, just the way it was before Charlie fell and woke up.
Madelyn leaves for another corner of Justin’s dream to have her own dream. She takes Amahle with her, to leave at another corner of Justin’s universe and have her own dream.
“You can do it! You can do it!” Joy cheers him on from below.
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It turns out it’s not that easy to get off flying elephants.
Justin returns, all smiles, just as Joy and Charley want to get back to Bonny’s Revenge, but the elephants’ wings prevent them from getting too close to the deck of Bonny’s Revenge while we’re all flying among the clouds.
No one’s really worried. Justin or Charley could just summon something up. Amahle and Madelyn, who have joined our dream in the meantime, could do the same. And Joy has the jetpack in case all Dreamers disappear. But the kids want to find a way to jump off.
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Charlie and Joy are still riding the flying elephants. Following from behind on Bonny’s Revenge, Justin is lost in thought, and Suzy’s and my attention turn to him completely. Master Mind, next to us, watches over the kids.
“Um…How do I do that exactly?” Justin says.
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“Joy, what’s going on?” Justin takes a few steps towards her with arms open after she asks everyone to get off her ship.
Joy shrugs and looks away.
“Joy, did I offend you?” Amahle says. Elvis, her seeing eye dog, appears at her side, and she begins to walk in Joy’s direction.
“GET OFF MY SHIP!” Joy yells at us, her face red. “Now! Everyone!”
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He docked the ship right outside one of the suns, and Master Mind went to check, quickly returning with Amahle.
“But even though I forgot my dream, my heart was pumping! I felt I had a great inspiration! There was music inside me. And I was certain I could feel what the color blue was, even though I knew I’d never seen it.”
“What?” Justin says. “Really?”
“You could see blue in the waking world?” Charlie asks, just as surprised.
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It’s been a month since we’ve seen Amahle. Master Mind had been checking every day to see if she was waiting for us on top of her Shroom. But since she hadn’t been there for a long time, we’ve gotten out of the habit of looking every day.
It has been a month since we’ve gone into her dream and learned she was experimenting with colors and finding music that fits those colors.
We’re headed out today to Madelyn’s dream: Joy, Charlie, Justin, Master Mind, and I - when Joy spots Amahle standing atop of her Shroom.
“Amahle!” Joy yells.
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It’s been a week since we’ve seen Amahle. She usually waits for Master Mind at the edge of her Shroom before any other Dreamer arrives. But she hadn’t come recently.
When Charlie arrives, he and Joy decide to go visit her dream, and I remind them to never leave the Dream, certainly not to Amahle’s dark dream, without Justin.
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When Justin arrives, she convinces him to go, and we all go: Joy, Charlie, Justin, Master Mind as security, and me in the role of the-guy-who-just-wants-to-see.
We stand at the edge of the tunnel and look into the complete darkness that is Amahle’s dream. Even after spending a year with us, even after being able to somehow summon up and feel colors, Amahle’s dream is all darkness.
I know Charlie’s elevator is right there in front of us, taking us to the ground in her dream. But it’s drowned in the darkness of her dream.
“Let’s go,” Suzy tells me as soon as Justin takes our little granddaughter to her cabin to tell her a good night story.
For a change, Joy’s been up for quite a few hours before Justin arrived, which means she’s just tired enough for her father to put her to bed.
“Where are we going?”
“To talk to Justin,” she says.
We walk slowly up the ramp to the deck of Bonny’s Revenge. Master Mind is standing guard silently near the wheel. Justin is still in Joy’s cabin.
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I am surrounded by darkness. I’ve been here before, in Amahle’s dream, a dozen times at least. But it doesn’t get easier. And it doesn’t get less spooky that there isn’t even a little bit of light, so your eyes never get adjusted. We are right next to the sun in her dream, and yet there isn’t a photon to be found.
But then, that’s not the only change. As soon as I walk into Charlie’s elevator in Amahle’s dream, there is music. I don’t recognize many of the instruments. But I do recognize the voice. There usually isn’t a voice when Amahle’s music is played outside her head in the Dream. But now… She’s singing. Without any words, just singing…
“The music is making the hair on my hand stand,” Charlie says.
“It’s beautiful,” Justin says.
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We are on an island Justin created for this purpose, in the middle of the ocean in his dream. Bonny’s Revenge is docked to the side. Master Mind remains on the deck. He is always ready to leap into action, but with two dreamers protecting Joy, there’s probably not going to be a need. Quite possibly, it’s more likely he’ll protect Suzy and me. We stand right next to him, just in case.
“Ready,” Amahle says.
“Ready,” Justin says, fists tightening.
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