Page Thirteen

“I cannot sleep. I cannot dream. Liba, do you not sing a blessing over our dreams as they ride the night’s passage? Then why do mine manifest such dreadful images of death and destruction? For last night, my nightmare weaved its final sequence. As I have suspected all along, it desires to devour my very soul. All it needs is for me to close my eyes one last time and it will finish me off.” Gwenliba paternally embraces Gide and pleads with him,

“You cannot go on any longer in this condition, my wonder-filled child. Please, tell me this nightmare. Allow me an opportunity to interpret it for you so that I may derive some meaning behind it, releasing you from its mysteries.” Yet Gide refuses,

         “Never! To utter one damnable moment of the dream is to relive it. Yet!” Gide stares blankly, his body still as the realization strikes him,  “Something unusual happened this time. The scream. That terrible scream.” He creates a fist. “Shrill and full of suffering, did it wail. But I heard it whilst awake, for it was real! Right outside my window, beyond those mountains!” He springs from the bed like a young doe, pointing at the horizon; arm outstretched over the railing, “There! It came from that direction. Oh, I shutter to think of it! Could it be…could it be that my nightmare discovered a way to extend its gruesome meddling into my consciousness? No. It can’t be. I must be imagining all this.  Such things cannot happen, could they, Liba?”  Gwenliba guides him back to the bed, safely away from the morning’s cold gale. He explains in a confident and comforting timbre,

      

   “Now, now, now; don’t you go worrying my loving Gide. Nothing in the world of nightmares will ever cross that extensive divide between the dreamscape and us. With a deadly wisp of my palm I’d send phantom prowlers back to their shadowy vortex, if one dared to lift its claw at my precious ones. But alas, my powers and insight are limited by your withholding of details about the dream.” Gwenliba sighs.  “Nothing will convince you of otherwise?” Gide faces away from Liba, sadden by his indecisiveness.  “Very well. I understand and will not push the matter. But there is one thing I can offer: a powerful amulet capable of eradicating those vivid visions and renewing sleep’s potency. How’s that sound?”  With a heavy heart and a drooping head, Gide agrees to the treatment,

“Yes, something, anything. So I can return to some normalcy, for I am so tired.” With that Gwenliba connects his hands together by their fingertips and then pulls them apart, creating a fine strand of light that burst with leafy shapes in alternating colors. These shapes later solidify and become feathery like fabric. Gwenliba applies the wreath to his head as it emits a pulsing halo. In no time at all, Gide’s eyes begin to shut, his body reclines, and the covers drape over his shoulder. Gide enters a restful slumber that no ill begotten could pierce. Nevertheless, Gwenliba lets the wreath sit on the issar’s head a bit longer, watching it very closely until it stops its pulsation. He removes the sleep aid that doubles as an extractor, for Gwenliba purposefully failed to mention his intention to trap the dream inside. The wreath is placed safely in his robe’s pocket, but it flinches like a serpent’s sliced-off tail as the dream rages within. 

   As he leaves, Gwenliba takes one final look at Gide’s sweetly curled body, smiling over the peace the boy must feel now. Then his eyes linger on the landscape, curious whether it would spare the same scream in his presence, or stubbornly continue to conceal it in the serenity of the dawn.