This is our third trip to Amahle’s dream.
The dream is still completely dark and scares me. We are literally in the place of nightmares. What if a nightmare comes?
But Joy is happy. She is the only one of us who can see in this darkness. And Amahle, whose dream this is, has the most easy-going and comfortable air of all the dreamers we have met so far.
Joy says we’re in the park. So this is a park in Capetown, South Africa. Justin hangs back. As usual, he is afraid to make a sound, afraid that Amahle will recognize his voice and what he did to her, and how she died because of him in the waking world.
Joy and Charlie sit on the bench, next to Amahle, and the three of them just talk. It’s as if they’ve always known each other.
“You know, my mother used to sit me with here right on this bench when I was a child,” Amahle says.
“Yeah?”
“We sat right here, and she would describe everything to me. See how everything is green, Joy and Charlie?”
“Very green.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” Charlie mumbles.
“It’s beautiful,” Amahle says. “She’d describe everything to me. Right behind me is a tree that comes out of its roots in three trunks.”
“That’s right!”
“How the path continues to the right, over there, and to the left. She talked to me about how the leaves of the trees cover everything above us and how the sun’s light comes in just so beautifully between the leaves.”
“Yeah,” Joy says.
“And I would have that picture in my head. Of the entire park. And my head would translate it to music.”
Music begins to play all around us, soft and beautiful.
“I know you can’t hear it, Joy, but in my head there’s the perfect music that describes the park, the leaves, the sun coming through the leaves.”
“I can hear it,” Joy says.
“Me, too.”
Justin grabs my arm and leans in and whispers into my ears. “Holy cow.”
“Mmm-hmmm,” I nod. This is amazing. The music is so beautiful and touching and wisps through the air so close, as if it’s notes playing in the air, that I can almost touch it.
We are inside the head of a musician!
—Told by Grampa Walt