The City of Dreams -- Part 4

[I hope you don't mind the editorial comments at the beginning of these posts.  It's fun to talk about the writing process while I write.

[In that vein, I am remarkably in the dark as to where this story is going.  Every time I sit down to write I feel like I'm walking into a dark room blindfolded.  Though, since the room is dark, I'm not sure why the blindfold makes any difference, but there you have it.

[If anyone else figures out how this book ends, let me know.]

We jumped up the steep stairs—carpeted, by the way—into the barn-on-wheels.  Away from the moonlight puddling in through the open doors, most of the room was dark except for a stage that occupied one end of the barn.  A short strip of lights on the floor wiggled at us to get our attention then started scooting off, inchworm style.

“It’s showing us to our seats,” whispered Brie, and she pulled me along.  

To be clear, I was liking all the hand holding and pulling, but I didn’t quite know what to do with it.  I am not, by nature, a person who touches other people.  Casual contact is never casual for me.  I am not ‘huggy,’ or ‘cuddly,’ or ‘touchy.’  In my daily life, I would say that I am ‘carefully reserved.’  My sisters would say I had never held hands with a girl and that I had ‘virgin lips.’

That’s right.  Before that night, in the City, I had never held hands with a girl.  Though, technically, I was dreaming, so I guess I still hadn’t.  If I were into macho-style contests with other guys, I admit, I wouldn’t have known how to count that night.  Though really, the kinds of guys who have macho-style contests probably aren’t having hand-holding competitions.

As strange as those thoughts might have been, Brie’s hand attached to my sleeve—and all the accompanying pondering—were what kept me busy and distracted until I slightly-stumbled my way into a chair on the aisle, Brie taking the seat just next to me.  They were folding chairs, but the nice, padded variety.  The light string wiggled at me, I whispered a thank you, and looked up to the stage.

A spotlight shone off the bald head of a round, black man.  His suit was tasteful and impeccably tailored and straight out of somewhere in the 1800’s.  He stood proudly, feet together, speaking with the confidence of a man who owns the stage he stands on.

“‘It is true,’ said Lord Godiva, ‘my wife does enjoy salad,’” and here the man on stage paused and cocked an eyebrow.  “‘But she eats it without dressing.’”

Around me there was a chorus of groans, including one from Brie, and a few laughs.  I didn’t make it all the way to laughing, but I found myself smiling along with the broad grin on the face of the man who had to be Mr. Punctilious.

“It doesn’t get better than that, ladies and gentlemen.  Humor at its finest, but—unfortunately—all good things must come to an end, and the players are ready to begin!”  This announcement was greeted with a few cheers and applause from the audience, as well as a good natured shout of ‘It’s about time,’ which Mr. Punctilious acknowledged with an even broader smile and a nod.  “I present to you, without further ado, but with great pleasure, Mr. Punctilious’ Fabulous and Often Exciting Traveling Troupe!”

The stage disappeared.  My mind informed me that they had simply turned off all the lights, but my gut told me that the stage and, in fact, the entire end of the barn had been sucked into nothing.  The same nothing that was on the other side of the river that ran around the City.

“It’s still there,” said Not, whispering in my ear.  “And I’m here, too.”

“What brings you here?” I asked quietly.

“What’s that?” whispered Brie.

“I’m Not,” said Not, and then the lights came back up onstage, and he really wasn’t.

“Did you hear that?” I asked Brie.

“Shhh,” she said.

Then the play started.  

Mr. Punctilious walked onto the stage, book in hand with a bookshelf thumping along behind him.  He looked up from the pages with a gaze that I would have labeled ‘soulful.’  He dropped the book on the floor and a small footstool scuttled out, sniffed at it, and sat on it contentedly.  Mr. Punctilious put one foot up on the stool and leaned on his knee.

“Alas, these many years I’ve searched for her.  But nothing.”

“Searched for who?” asked Mrs. Absinthe, walking onto the stage in a raincoat, shaking water from an umbrella.

“For whom,” said Mr. Punctilious.

“What an odd name,” said Mrs. Absinthe.

“I search for my true love,” said the round man, walking to the front of the stage and looking out into eternity.

“Aren’t we all,” said Mrs. Absinthe.  “Have you got anything to eat?”

“What do I care for food?”

“I care for food.”

“But I’m not you.”

“Agreed.”

“Wonderful.  Where was I?”

“Getting me food.”

“I was not.”

“Then what were you doing?”

“Pining.”

“Pining for what?”

“For whom.”

Mrs. Absinthe shook her head.  “I still find that an odd name.  You sure you heard it correctly?  Where did you meet her?”

Mr. Punctilious looked down into the crowd.  I know he had the stage lights in his eyes and couldn’t see us, but I swear, it seemed like he was talking to me.  “I met her in a dream,” he said.

An umbrella stand rolled its way onstage, Mrs. Absinthe dropped in her umbrella, and that was where I lost track of the narrative.  I don’t think it was a complicated story, but after that bit about meeting his true love in a dream, I became hyper aware of Brie sitting next to me.  Super-extra-hyper-aware.  She seemed completely engrossed in the story, laughing when everyone else was, and a few times when they weren’t.  Occasionally she glanced over at me, smiling as if to say ‘isn’t this great,’ then the stage had her attention again.

I found myself leaning back and only looking at her, wondering what it was I was feeling.  Part of me still wasn’t positive any of this was real, holding onto the fact that this was, after all, some flavor of dream.  The rest of me, though, was pretty convinced that tomorrow, in English, I was going to look over my shoulder and find Brie there.  I didn’t expect her to actually do the finger-wave, but it would be funny if she did.

The problem was, assuming I did look over, and she did acknowledge me in some way, and I walked across the room, and we talked—how would I feel?  What would I feel?  As nice as it was to be here, sitting next to her, grinning like an idiot when she leaned over laughing to bump her shoulder into mine—that’s right, a shoulder bump—what would it be like to see her when I was awake?  To my credit, I was not worried that she would somehow end up ugly.

I was much more worried about me.  When I was awake.  When I had that heavy coat back on.  Would I feel even close to the same?  I didn’t think I was in love, but I was certainly sliding into like (an almost instantaneous process for most guys, I think), and it was a different feeling than when I liked a girl and was awake.  More filled with hope and yellow and puppies.  Liking girls during the day had more gray and pessimism and wilting flowers.  How would she feel, getting to know the happy me, the me I didn’t even know, then waking up and finding the rainy-day me?

The stage lights went dark and I joined the rest of the audience applauding.

“Wasn’t that great?” said Brie, almost shouting over the noise.  The small audience was very enthusiastic, and I was beginning to wish I’d paid better attention.

“It was fun to watch,” I said, not really lying, because she had been fun to watch.  Brie had a crinkle around her eyes when she smiled that had demanded quite a lot of my attention.

“Mr. Punctilious dreams all his own plays.”

“Wow,” I said.

“You should have seen the one about his battle of wits with the man-eating store.  Somehow Pork Chop managed to get an entire store up high enough to the back of the barn that it seemed like it was on stage with the rest of the actors.  Of course, someone else had to do the store’s lines for it, but its acting was very well done.  It had expressive windows.”

“I have a question,” I said.

“I know it’s crazy to have a store as an actor,” she said, “but you get used to it.”

“That wasn’t my question.”

“I can’t think of anything else I said that was strange,” said Brie.

“Pork Chop.”

“Oh!  He works for Mr. Punctilious.  Speaking of which, now that the crowd is breaking up, let’s go meet him.  I think he’ll like you.”

I didn’t especially want to think about people liking me at the moment, but I did want to meet Mr. Punctilious, another difference between awake and asleep.  During the day, meeting new people was a chore that ranked somewhere in the area of toilet scrubbing, except that I didn’t really mind scrubbing toilets.  In the City of Dreams, it fell more in the area of jumping into a leaf pile without any fear of slugs.

"Let's go," I said.