Chapter Eleven C: Dreaming

It seemed that every time he touched Pol his senses were heightened and his imagination went wild. It had certainly done that at the Dunes, and now as he drifted off with her held in his arms he could feel a wild and wonderful dream coming on. He knew he could cut it off if he wanted to, just go into the deep comforting sleep of exhaustion, but he decided to let it take him and see where it would go. And so he surrendered himself to the dream-ride of a lifetime.

It began with the standard reliving of most recent events as all the conversations he’d had with Pol through the evening were replaying in his mind, delivering all the pleasure of her company to him again. Occasionally he reminded himself that she was at that moment cuddled close to him on the sofa softly sleeping with her head on his chest. As he dreamt, they were suddenly up on the hill at Twelve Oaks. This time when he crawled from his car, however, he watched in slow motion as a bolt of lightning drove into the trees behind the church. The instant boom of thunder was so loud that his ears shut down.

So that was it. It wasn’t just the impact with the pole that had deafened him, but the crack of thunder. Had there been thunder and lightning the night of his accident? He reminded himself that he was dreaming, but the afterimage of the lightning bolt stayed in his eyes. As he tried to focus on the church, it seemed to narrow to a single hot white spot with a slender thread of light emanating from it and connecting to him. He reached out a hand and wound the thread around his wrist, then let it tug him up the hill. The church doors took shape around the thread and he glided through them and into the sanctuary.

Before this even his dreams of this night had been permeated with the pain of the broken ribs and concussion. But in the dream tonight he seemed to travel weightlessly through the night, following the thread of light.

In the sanctuary that his dream took him to the vast cathedral with its crowds was missing. The big stained glass window was no more than that, though the colors of the glass seemed to glow with a light of their own. What he saw now was Pol, radiant in the center of the front of the church. She was breathtakingly beautiful. It was as if he could see more than the quiet woman with such powerful vision for the country that he would follow it anywhere. What he saw now he realized he would follow whether she had a vision for the country or not. The thread of light that he followed came directly from the core of her being and he realized that he was willingly allowing himself to be wrapped in it and bound to her.

Nor was the union one-sided, for he saw that she, too, was being drawn toward him by the glowing thread. Aaron believed there was such a thing as love at first sight, but acknowledged that even his relationship with Rachel, his wife, had taken weeks to grow into an attachment. The bond that was growing in this image was frightening in its scale and Aaron could only categorize it in his overwhelmed mind as something that reached into their very genes and made it impossible for any other response to each other.

When at last they touched, the thread of light bringing them together, it was with such intense joy that it almost woke Aaron from his sleep. He fought down the urge to wake up so that he could continue the dreaming experience. They melted into each other, two separate beings occupying the same space and for the second time, Aaron saw the world around him in a new light. He realized that he could dive into the earth and see with its mind. He could detect where it was content and where it was in pain. He could see cities struggling to burst from their confines as new growth on the surface, and could feel the gouge of pain when great wounds were opened on the surface through man-made or natural disasters. It was as if the world were growing, if not in physical size, then growing into something other than it was. And like always, growth was painful and yet interspersed with the same rollicking joys that had overwhelmed him when he first touched Pol.

How could he stand all this feeling? It was as if he were caught up in the emotions of something that experienced with the combined intensity of the entire population. And having experienced it, how could he do less that love it and protect it?

As dreams do, it changed again and he was with Pol on the Dunes again. This time, however, there were no visions of earthquakes and poison. This time they were simply two lovers holding each other as they gazed across the wonder of the Great Lakes. And in that embrace, he remained until dawn.

Next

Previous

Table of Contents