Where Alph the sacred river ran,
Through caverns measureless to man,
From Zanzibar, down to a sunless sea...
She pushed the recorder towards me, "Tell me about your earliest dream."
"My earliest dream?"
"The first one you remember." she replied.
I closed his eyes and thought back. It was four years ago, I was probably three, maybe four. I still remember it like yesterday.
"From the crest of the grassy hill come two horses, working their way down the steep slope toward the water carefully, with two riders on each. On one a young girl, with an older girl. On the other, a young boy riding with an older boy. Their respective ages are about 7 and 18. I get the feeling we're riding with an older, more responsible version of ourselves. We're galloping down a steep hill covered with thick green grass. The warm sun feels good on our skin as we head toward the edge of a river. The light is reflecting off the water, enticing us to jump in.
"The young girl jumps in first, and I follow close behind. Our two older selfs are looking on in disapproval, urging us to climb back on to the horses so we don't catch cold.
I wonder to myself, why is this the first dream I remember? Perhaps because of the striking difference between the bright day and the dark night that soon follows.
"As night arrives, my friend has became very ill. So ill that she is locked alone in a one-room house made of logs and brush. In the darkness, steam fills the air of the house and rolls out from under the door. Her frail breathing can be heard faintly inside, like a whisper as I kneel down on my hands and knees beside the door."
"I had arrived with medicine, but could not get it to her. Taking out a small bow and arrow, I lay on my side by the door. I take out an arrow, dip it in the medicine, and fire in under the door, through the steam and into the darkness. Each of my arrows sails off into the unknown. I never knew if they reached her. She never came out."
"Describe the cabin. Give us as much detail as you can remember," said the woman in the lab coat.
"I wouldn't exactly call it a cabin. It was more of a large hut, made from earthen materials. Mud was packed between all the cracks in the wood, but in a very orderly fashion. Polished white wood arches formed the large overhangs of the roof. I recall they were smooth with a rounded point at the end of each curved timber. A set of several round pottery vases lined the wall beside the door, and some form of altar stood inside to the left of the entrance."
"The polished white wood pieces, could they have been tusks?"
I pause for a second, "Yes, I think they could have been tusks." I'd never considered that before, simply because they seemed too massive to have come from any elephant I'd ever seen.
Now, in the newer dream, Nima was too weak from a fever and dehydration to sit on her own horse, so Hamideh pulled her onto his.
“Suddenly, I saw it was a bright sky, and then I showed her the Milky Way," says Hamideh. “Her eyes opened up and she started talking about the Milky Way to me, and then asking physics questions. So I brought her back to — in a way — life.”
"Remember, she is the creator. You are the temporary..." Woke up. What does it mean? Felt there was some room for debate as things rushed backwards and I stood amid some dunes barely making out the edge of the city, and the rest of the life I'd just dreamt.
Todd, Keep going... I'm dying to know how this all ends
Me too.
The next time, I dreamt that Terri and I had a new baby girl. Adorable, with two pupils in her right eye. They overlapped like the shape of an 8. Rather like the two teeth which were fused into one that Ethan had as a baby. That was 2008, 10 years before double pupils became a way to detect Ai generated GAN images.