Chapter 5

This next part is a dream sequence. I open with that because I don’t like those cheesy moments where the movie or author tries to trick you into believing something is real that isn’t and you have to piece it all together backwards, like, oh, that makes so much more sense. That’s just bad writing. And maybe telling you this was a dream is bad writing, but I’m just letting you know, I’m not tricking you here, or at the end of this book it isn’t going to be like Dorothy wakes up in the bed having never really gone to Oz kind of trick. I also won’t tell you that no one dies, because, well, the world, even at Safe Haven, is not that safe. But this, was a dream. Also, I have had lucid dreams, but this was not a lucid dream, but it was unique in its own way.

I found myself in a private library. There was a warm fire a glow in the fireplace, as opposed to anywhere else, right? And it was snowing outside. Loxy was sitting in the window seat, holding a book. She was wearing a gray knitted sweater, single piece that went to just above her knees, the sleeves were pulled up to elbows so that her arms were bare, and she was wearing black hose, and thick, knitted gray socks that came half way up her legs. I found myself unable to focus on the snow falling outside the window because she was absolutely stunning, sitting in the window seat.

The book she was reading looked familiar. I stood close enough to the fire to be warmed, but was staring at Loxy. She finally looked up from the book. The room was almost public library large, with large circular couch on one side of the room, opened to the fire, and on the other side, a scattering of lone lounge chairs with their own side tables and lamps. The ceiling was two and half floors high, with floating ladder to get access to the higher books, and a walk way half way up, with a second floating ladder for the upper walkway circling the room.

“You okay?” Loxy asked.

“Yes, thank you,” I said. “What are you doing?”

Loxy looked up and to the right and then back to me with a queer look. “I’m not quite sure how to respond to that. Sarcasm might trigger an old interaction pattern that I don’t think you want us to have.”

“I apologize for the question,” I said, seeing the wisdom in her comment. “I can see you’re reading. It was a dumb question.” If she had said it, I might have been angry, but mostly the anger would have been due to the fact I was already considering my own question as fairly retarded.

“You’re wanting to engage me in conversation, but aren’t sure what to ask or talk about?” Loxy asked.

“Kind of sophomoric of me, eh?” I asked.

“Not at all,” Loxy said. “Ask me anything.”

I didn’t know what to ask. I considered running away, but I felt strangely safe being vulnerable with her. “Um, what are you reading?”

“’To Your Scattered Bodies Go,’ by Philip Jose Farmer,” Loxy said.

“Oh, I have read that whole series!” I said.

“I know,” Loxy said. “This is your book.”

“It is?”

“This is your library,” Loxy said, pointing to the books.

“It is?” I asked.

Loxy smiled at me as if I were really slow. “Everything you have ever read is in this library,” Loxy explained. “The most recent books tend to be towards the bottom, easier to access, but the arrangement is kind of weird; it’s certainly not the Dewey decimal system. Anyway, this title caught my eye and I thought I’d give it a go.”

“Yeah, mine, too,” I said, meaning the first time I had saw it that it had caught my eye. “I had heard a choir song that had the lyrics ‘to your scattered bodies go’ and I thought that was cool, and put it in a notebook, and then when I saw that book, well, there was a connection. I must have read it four times.”

“You did, actually. You will find several versions of it on the shelf,” Loxy said, getting up and going to the shelf that was missing a book, about the size she was holding. “This is the original, author’s cut, verbatim, no errors. This one is your first reading, which is your memory of the book after it ran through your filters. I flipped through it, comparing it to the original. It’s not far off. The second reading is closer to the original author’s version and intent, but the verbiage clearly changed.”

“You’re telling me I got it wrong?” I asked, a little alarmed.

“Memory isn’t as solid and clear cut as people imagine it. Even the continuity of our lives are not anywhere close to what our memories tell us they are. Every time you take a memory off the shelf and examine it, the memory artifact changes, and you put it back on the shelf changed. This is really so with books. With books, your unconscious will have a fully memorize, eidetic copy, while your conscious mind will have its own copy, and the dynamic discord between the two is the color of our lives. It’s really quite nice, actually. Seeing how you see things, I mean. Take the sex scene when all of humanity woke up on the river world for the first time, naked, and hungry.”

“Oh, yeah, and everyone had like a lunch box, and there was gum in it that made them crazy wanting sex, and it was madness for a long moment, with rapes and orgies,” I said. “I remember that bothering me when I first read it.”

“Kind of reminded me of Orientation,” Loxy said.

Come to think of it, it was a lot like Orientation. “Yeah,” I said. “I don’t remember there being an explanation for that scene, but now I can imagine how if humanity was reborn, with all of their memories of their lives intact, but being separated from everyone they knew, well, that would be problematic, and so crazy sex might get them reoriented to their new lives fairly quick. I think maybe the God’s of the Riverworld wanted humanity to break up old bonds to encourage new patterns. Or perhaps they really wanted us to get over our old lives and recognize everything we knew was done and over, get on with it.” I became aware of speaking as if it wasn’t fiction but rather it had happened to me, us, or humanity.

“That’s a good premise,” I said. “I kind of imagined it was because they wanted us to recognize how society can limit our interaction patterns by our own submissive recognition of taboos and superstitions. At least, that is my understanding for one of the reasons why Safe Haven has Orientation. It’s harder to do magic if we’re restrained by the unspoken rules and expectation given us by society, and most societies have prohibitions against magic and sex.”

“I wonder why,” I said.

“I think society means well. ‘Society’ as a collective is like a parent, trying to guide the individuals, the children, and keep them safe. And we really are basically children, but eventually, we have to grow up and be self-sufficient, but at the same time, anyone who becomes self-sufficient, no longer needs society, and so there is dynamic tension trying to push us out at the same time as keeping us in. But, coincidentally, the tension is just right to make sure only those who are mature actually break out. So, not a conspiracy, just the way life works.”

“How did you get so wise?” I asked.

Loxy put the book down and embraced me, kissing me lightly. “How did you become so wise?”

“I don’t think I am,” I said.

“Your subconscious thinks so. It chose your personality set to speak for it,” Loxy said. “It would like you to listen to it sometimes, but over all, it trusts you.”

“Listen to it more how?”

“Well, it talks to you in your dreams,” Loxy said.

“You are my dream,” I said.

“No, you are your dream,” Loxy said. “And not, at the same time.”

“I am not sure I understand that,” I said.

“What do you understand?” Loxy asked.

“I know I want you,” I said.

“You have me,” she said, leaning into me so hard that I felt like I might orgasm from just her sheer touch. “And you don’t even need Philip Jose farmer’s gum…”

And, that’s where I woke up.