Separate Worlds Monthly Contest

She’s walking along a passageway. The floor is a glittery white and the tiled walls are a polished pink and silver. Along these walls are mirrors, each showing not her reflection as would be expected, but beautiful landscapes found all over the world. The door is at the end. It opens, showing rolling sky blue mist and blue lights that flicker like candle flames. The dreamer feels calm and relaxed, but vaguely wonders why she is wearing a dress – she doesn’t even wear dresses!

The dream has changed. She can’t see herself now, but observes the ghost of an old woman sat at a low wooden table surrounded by Native Americans. Her hair is silver rather than grey, and worn in a long plait. There are only a few wrinkles that can be seen on her face. In front of her, in a hole in the table, a fire burns, its glow lighting the faces of the people around it. The Native Americans appear not to be able to see the ghostly lady, for they do not talk to her. The old lady is smiling, as if she approves of what the Native Americans say. They are telling stories of their “dreamtime legends”.

Now the dreamer can see herself again, and can see, as well, a pretty young maiden with flowing red curls down to her waist standing at the platform of a train station. Who is this redheaded girl? Nobody she can think of that she has ever met. In the dream, the train station could be anywhere. It does not occur to her to look for any signs that would tell her what train station she is standing at. A train rushes through, a blur of many colours, and then disappears. So does the girl. Could have asked her who she was.

There’s another change of scene. She’s holding the hands of a little boy and girl, and they are looking down a pitch black hole. The hole is dark, but a man plays a haunting tune on a cello. If only she could stay here forever, the music is so hypnotic and therapeutic. There is a rainbow, spilling colours into the starry night sky.

Then all this vanishes, and as if told to by an invisible person, all three look up at the sky. They are surrounded by nebulae, and can see a star here and there twinkling through the clouds. The dream-children disappear and she is left alone, but once again she is invisible to herself. Who were these children, she wonders, and why didn’t she ask them who they were when she had the chance?

Invisibility still cloaks her, but she can now see a teenage girl lying on her back on the grass, looking up at the fairy toadstool houses and the tall trees surrounding her. Another person that is unrecognisable. She sees fairy folk flitting amongst the tall grasses and around the girl, and in the sky. Her heart takes a leap as she sees something very few people do. Nobody sees her. Just as she decides to ask the dream-teenager who she is, the youth and fairy folk disappear, to be replaced by another vision.

The dreamer stands on rocks, visible to herself again. There, seen among the roaring turquoise waves of the sea are fish, dolphins, and mermaids, whose beautiful haunting melodies seem to lift her spirits. Mermaids! Her heart takes another excited leap. Very few people have seen fairies, even less have seen mermaids.

Then she is somewhere looking down from the sky. It gives her an elated feeling. The wind howls and shakes the trees of a dream forest where nothing but weeds, nettles and brambles are growing. She is glad to be above out of the gales way. A dream fire tears through the forest, the wind pushing it and howling its encouragement, where the tall trees block out the light, making it dark and dismal. As the forest fire travels rapidly through the sinister looking woodland the forest changes. Trees fall, allowing younger, smaller plants to grow, the nettles, weeds and brambles are destroyed, and flowers and other plants sprout in their place, and the forest is lit up, as the rays of sunshine finally penetrate, and a rainbow shines over the treetops. A smile lights up the dreamers’ face, as if she is a person who knows that good has triumphed over evil.

Toyanna wakes, to see familiar faces at her bedside. She looks up at her parents and her brother who look puzzled and a wise man who has been studying her while she has slept.

“Take heed. These dreams tell us of the future,” says the wise man. He leaves them to wonder what he means.