[Fiction] Friday: Dreams

Dreams actually constitute a really important part of my NaNo story, tentitively named "Blue Melissae", as this is how my MC has her memories restored to her after 12 years. This is the first exploration of that realm.

This installment (which is chapters and chapters ahead of what I am currently writing) finds my MC Shet Harmon on the Planet of the Th-Urn in conversation with her guide Ka-Ru, a young Th-Urnian 'male'. You can read more installments of Blue Melissae here.

“It’s not so much a dream,” she said, “because it’s just voices. I don't actually 'see' anything.And it doesn’t make any sense, if dreams are meant to make sense.”
"Dreams are often symbolic rather than logical."

Shet rolled onto her side and stared deeply into his dark eyes. His eyes willed her to reveal more, but years of silence caught her.
“Why do you not want to talk about them?” he asked, wanting to reach out and touch her, even though he was aware it was inappropriate. He wasn’t even sure what made him want to do that.
“There’s no one to talk to about it for one.” She rolled away, lying on her back and staring up at the stone ceiling, the tiny lights twinkling, in perpetual chemical stasis enabling them to burn indefinitely. The balance meant that one did not consume the other. “And well it would throw out my balance. It’s best for me to pretend that they just don’t occur.”

But it was getting harder to ignore them. When she said it was only voices that was only partly true. On earth they had only ever been voices and occasionally the dream with the Jacaranda tree, waking as though she was being choked, but here the dreams were morphing and taking a life on their own. The voices were merging with music, and there were flashes of images.

She remembered reading about poker machines. One armed bandits they were called before they became electronic, where the punter had to actually pull the arm to set the barrels spinning. Something about being here had sent off something in her, something pulling an arm in her subconscious and she knew sooner or later that all the symbols were going to line up for the jackpot. But something about the moment terrified her. Her subconscious was trying to line everything up for her, every night was another attempt. When it poured forth, like the cascade of coins from the pokie machine she guessed that she would be trying to flee rather that to thrust her hands beneath to catch and scoop it all up.

“This need of yours to – hold on. It is not healthy, no?”

Shet wasn’t sure how long she’d been quiet for, lost in her own thoughts. Ka-Ru was lying beside her, staring at her.
“I said that I don’t have anyone to talk to. It’s healthy for me to keep it to myself. There is a lot I don’t understand and at the moment it’s all really confusing. Being here - has upset the balance.”

“Tell me about the dream Shet.”

His words had a lyrical hypnotic ring, that lulled her long enough to feel comfortable in sharing something.
“The voice, it says that I’m not good enough. It says that Dad left because of me. That it’s my entire fault. And it’s like I’m in a cave, the words echoing but rather than getting softer they get louder, until I can hear nothing and it’s just a chaos of words screamed at me.”

Shet rolled back to see Ka-ru’s face impassive. The Th-Urnian’s lack of facial expression continued to make her feel uncomfortable.
“How is this strange?”
“I have no idea who my Dad was. I was in an accident when I was 17 and I have no memories prior to that.”
“This is something that upsets you.”
“Why should it upset me?”
“I get a sense of it.”
“I’m not upset.”
“You keep your emotions locked away as well.”

Shet got up off the floor. She wasn’t going to have this conversation and she certainly wasn’t going to have it with Ka-Ru. Her emotions, or lack of them were her own business.
“I have a report to write and a broadcast to be sent back to Earth. You’ll have to leave - now!”

Ka-Ru got a sense that he’d pushed too far. He pulled his legs to his chest and then rolled onto the balls of his feet, standing in one graceful movement.
“I apologise if I have upset you Shet,” he said, turning off the translator, bowing shallowly and leaving her room.

Shet didn’t understand why Ka-Ru always managed to zero in on the confusing and uncomfortable parts within her and make a b-line for them. In the morning she’d ask for another guide to be assigned to her.


______ Ka-Ru arrived back in the Empress’s chamber and prostrated himself at her furry feet.
“What of the dreams Ka-Ru?”
“She says they are just voices in her head and denies any emotional connection. They make little sense to her.” He sat back on his feet looking into her deeply furrowed face.
“She is lying. Was there a change in her energy waves? In pheremones. The Old Ones were certain.”
Ka-Ru shook his head.
“Try again.”
“She does not trust me Mother.”
“Make her trust you.”
“Your will Mother.”