The City of Dreams -- Part 18

[Serious stuff here. Not convinced that I really understand the reality of what I'm writing about, but it's where the story went, so we push ahead and hope Mr. Punctilious is wiser than I am.]


“Paint your scenery?” I asked.
"Exactly," said Mr. Punctilious. "This next play I'm putting together needs scenery, and I find myself decidedly short on dreams. Do you have one or two you could spare? A bit of color makes all the difference in a production of this sort."
"You're short on dreams?" I said. "I heard you were here all the time."
"Once again, you have understood the situation with exactness, young man. Now come up here and pull out your bag of dreams--that is, if you're willing to help. No one should be forced to give up any dreams, even the small ones, though I would be much obliged. What a masterpiece of dramatic staging we'll create together, you and I! The great artists of the world will wonder at our vivid blues, shed a tear at the pale of our most delicate yellows, and shout at the vibrancy of our greens like children on a playground."
I was confused on several levels, but I found myself walking toward the stage, laughing. "Do children on playgrounds shout at colors?"
"Always, Perry. A child's world is entirely made of colors. It's only when we are grown that we bleed the color out of our universe. Now get up here and help me make a waterfall."
I hopped up the steps to the stage and looked around for Not. I couldn't see him, and I didn't know what that meant, but I assumed he was hiding just out of sight, at the corner of my eye, and he'd show up again before I knew it. It seemed that he always did.
Mr. Punctilious had stood. "You haven't told me yet if you're willing, but I am assuming from your smile that your not opposed to giving up one of your smaller dreams in the interest of artistic genius?"
"Something like that," I said. "How do I help?"
"Pull open that bag--South American, is it? Very nice--and find us a dream of water."
I looked down at my shoulder bag and hesitated. "Last time I pulled something out of here it was embarrassing. Don't water dreams mean something?"
"In this case," said Mr. Punctilious, "it means that it was a dream about water, which is what we need to transform this sheet of silk into a graceful sheet of falling life. Start looking, Perry. Any moment someone might be shaking you out of your daytime repose and I'll be forced to wait until night to convince some other dreamer to share from his plenty."
I opened my bag and put my hand in--then hesitated again. "How do I find a water dream? I don't remember having one."
"You have over a decade of dreaming at your fingertips, young man. I can guarantee you have what we need close at hand. Just feel around until you find a dream that seems wet."
I shrugged and put my hand in, feeling around. One dream came into my hand, cold and...custard flavored? Not that one. I felt around for another, skipping past a gravel dream, a black-and-white TV dream, and a spelling test nightmare. Finally my fingers closed around a dream that seemed to flow through and around my fingers, blue and clear like a mountain lake--not that I'd ever been at a mountain lake, at least as far as I knew. Maybe mountain lakes were actually muddy, but there it was: a water dream.
"Will this do?" I asked, pulling it out.
Mr. Punctilious leaned forward, his hands behind his back, and peered at the dream. "Marvelous," he said, smiling. "You certain you don't mind giving it up? It is for a good cause, but you never can tell when you might need a dream, even one that you thought you'd put aside."
"I don't mind," I said. "I can always dream another, right?"
The round man's smile drooped a hair toward sadness. "Yes, Perry, you can. I'll just take this, then, shall I?"
I dropped the dream into his outstretched hand and he turned with flair toward the blank white sheet.
"Is that actually silk?" I asked.
"I needed something that would shiver and flow," said Mr. Punctilious, "so I traded a fashion designer for one of his many dreams of cloth. Now, with your help, we'll make this cloth into something special." Mr. Punctilious looked from the cloth to my dream in his hand, then back to the cloth. "I've forgotten my brush," he said. "I was prepared to strike a dramatic pose and show you a wonder, but now I have to wander off to find the right tool for the job. How often am I the cause of my own foolishness. Back in a moment." He strolled off toward a corner of the backstage, and Not hovered into my view.
"He seems nice," said Not.
I smiled. "Don't you think we're all nicer in our dreams?" I asked.
"I wouldn't know," said Not. "I've never been awake."
I squinted after Mr. Punctilious, thinking. "He's here all the time, right?"
"Every time I've come looking," said the dream.
WHY? I wondered to myself. As he came back out of the shadows, broad paintbrush in hand, I decided to ask the only person I knew who could answer the question.
"Mr. Punctilious?"
"Yes, Perry."
"Can I ask a question?"
"Clearly, you can, and yes, before you try to correct the phrasing of your question, you also MAY ask me a question. From your preface, may I presume that it is a somewhat awkward question?"
I nodded.
"Then," said Mr. Punctilious, "let me reassure you that, as long as you don't intend to include any intentionally hateful racial slurs, there is little you could do to offend me. Does that help at all?"
"A bit," I said. "I was--I heard that you're here a lot."
"Always," said Mr. Punctilious. "I'm guessing that you heard that I'm here always. Is that correct?"
"Yeah."
"And you're wondering why?"
"Is...something wrong?" I asked.
"Well, isn't that quite the question," said Mr. Punctilious, looking down at the dream and paintbrush in his hands. He took a deep breath and looked up at me. "I don't know, not for sure." He smiled at me, a strained smile. "I haven't been awake to find out. What I can tell you is that I have been sick for quite some time. I was doing better for a year or two, but I must conclude, from my continuous presence in the City, that several months ago things must have taken a turn for the worse."
"You're in a coma," I said. The words came out of my mouth before I could pull them back, a shock from between my lips.
He nodded. "I believe so."
"On life support?"
"Perhaps."
"That's really..." I said, then ran out of words.
"Yes," said Mr. Punctilious, smiling. "It is, isn't it."
"What do you do about it?" I felt like there had to be some way to fix it, not that I was sure what 'it' was. "Can't you tell someone about it? I mean, I could try to find your family, and I could do...something."
"That's very nice of you, Perry, but no. Someone comes to my family and tells them that their father and husband is trapped in a dream world? What would they do? If I am in a coma, it means they're doing their best medically, and it's not enough. We knew this was coming, Perry, my family and I. We prepared for it, spent time together, said all the words we could. I even went fishing with my grown-up son, something he'd never been able to convince me to do before. I'm not ecstatic about it, but I've come to accept that my waking life is over. This is the life I have now, and I intend to fill my sleeping world with all the wide-awake wonder that I can before my time here is up as well."
I looked at him, and Mr. Punctilious looked at me. I was empty of words. I had the weird feeling that I was talking to a dead man, but anyone who had seen this round, energetic man on the stage could only think of him as very much alive.
"Is there a Mrs. Punctilious?" I asked.
"There is, though I must confess, 'Punctilious' is a stage name. My real name is much more prosaic."
"Couldn't I at least take her a message?"
"Oh, Perry. After thirty years of marriage, if she doesn't already know how much I love her, it's far, far too late for me to tell her. You can let it go. It's all right. I have enough here to fill whatever days remain to me." He turned and raised his arms to take in the entirety of his theater. "Consider, Perry. What chance would I have had in the waking world to preside over a company of this sort? I was a law librarian with an enthusiasm for literature, not a stage performer. Just to be on this stage is a dream come true. And I have a chance to meet with so many pleasant people. Brie and you, for example. Would we ever have found each other in the waking world? Perhaps." He looked at me. "But we found each other here. I'm not a man with enough time left to turn my nose up at any chances that come my way."
I looked away. I was full of mixed colors and emotions. I'd grown up with death in the news every day--war, disease, murders from every city across the entire country. It was all piped into my house with the press of a button, but I'd never seen death up close. I didn't know what to say when I knew it was there, just around the corner, for a person I barely knew, but liked. It shook me like a Boggle game, and all the letters in my mind were tumbled out of order, and I couldn’t make any words out of them.
"I'm sorry," I said finally. I looked up to see Mr. Punctilious smiling at me gently.
"It's not something you need to be sorry about, Perry. Life is full of opportunities that are all twisted together with tragedy. The secret is remember the one while caught up in the other." He took an expansive breath and turned back to the waiting sheet. "But now is not the time to worry about these things. Now is the time to paint a waterfall. Are you ready to see the magic of the stage?"
"Sure."
"'Sure,'" repeated Mr. Punctilious. "I find that your response lacks enthusiasm."
"Yes," I said, more firmly. "I want to see the magic of the stage."
"Much better. Here goes."
He held out one hand, my dream cupped in his palm, and in a high, dramatic arc, swung the paintbrush in a wide sweep that ended by dipping it into the dream. Then, with a quick flick of his hand, he snapped the brush out toward the white silk.
The air flowed with water--not quite water. It was there, but it wasn't, like I could put my hand into the stream and scatter drops across the stage, but my hand would still be dry when I was done. The arc of blue sparkled, shimmered, and touched the hanging cloth, flowing into it, filling it from top to bottom, like a glass filled upside down. Then the water was gone from the air and, where before had been silk, there was the translucent curtain of a waterfall.
"It looks like it's actually falling," I said.
"You picked a good dream," said Mr. Punctilious.
I watched it in silence, how the water streamed down and then was gone as it reached the floor. "It's beautiful," I said.
"Life so often is," said the dying man.