2A Dream About Dreaming
What a strange sort of reality. The sky shouldn't be this blue, nor the sun as wet as fresh-cracked yolk. And the wind smells clean, spicy, without a hint of rot.
Elster doesn't know how she knows this. She's given to daydreaming of late, cooking in the summer heat at the back of the classroom, anticipating only the next stray breeze. Idly, her fingers doodle a rose-shaped prism. The Mandelbrot Polytechnical School isn't particularly known for its engaging didactics. "Achtung, achtung," drones the German language teacher. "Wir alle sind in Gefahr, aufwachen…"
When she wakes up, the sky has darkened to the color of a bruise. The classroom has already emptied. Ariane stands in front of her desk, nudging her with a bag of art supplies.
"Nice nap? School's over. Clubs are over. What were you dreaming about?"
Elster appreciates that nobody's waken her early. She's earned a reputation for solitude. And she prefers this: her and Ariane walking through the streets as the day winds down, the sun just bright enough to cast shadows. Rotfront's nascent klimaforming weds industrial apartment complexes to swathes of white hills, mixes factory smoke with billowing gas clouds. It leaves the city like a stranger overlooking vast fields of frost. Elster doesn't remember the planet being this beautiful.
They stop for ice cream by the street cart. Elster orders mango, which she doesn't like but Ariane does. Ariane, as expected, 'samples' half of Elster's.
"Do you remember our promise?"
Of course, Elster replies, though truthfully she's not sure. They've promised each other so many things. They promised to go to the dance together, and they did, Ariane in a white ballgown that matches her achromotrichia. Elster, awkward in her suit, fumbles all the steps, but of course Ariane doesn't mind, laughing, leading, the other dancers swirling as if underwater.
"One day we'll be explorers," Ariane says, resting her head against Elster's chest. "The two of us on a journey to discover new lands. Nobody else. Just us."
Broken paint brushes scattered across Ariane's desk. Paint upended on her white hair. Neither of them fit in, but where Elster dwindles, forgotten, Ariane shines. And what people can't match up to they stamp down.
No wonder Ariane craves escape. Such a dreamer will be happy even in a cage, as long as she can see the stars through its bars.
On the weekend they go to the beach. White bones stud the shore, and the screech of gulls reverberate off enormous stone pillars. They're not supposed to be here. They steal a boat owned by a businessman who also owns this whole property and who comes once a year for vacation. (Think of the poor boat, Ariane said the first time to a reluctant Elster.)
Elster rows in smooth strides. The water is flat and without waves. The air is dead. The boat slides along the surface, the only object in motion in a world that's still.
The impressions of twin mountains loom on the opposite shore. Where are they going? This, too, she doesn't remember, only that it's vitally important they get there –
"Hello? Hellllooo? Rotfront to Elster! I swear, you should get that fatigue of yours checked out."
Elster blinks slowly against the harsh brightness of Ariane's dorm lamp. She's fallen asleep while listening to radio, body slumped against Ariane, who's reading a tattered copy of a yellow-covered book. Drei, neun, vier, sechs, the radio buzzes. Sieben, drei, neun, vier…
Ariane's dorm smells like commercial paint. The scent makes Elster want to weep. Ariane's working on another painting, too abstract or too unfinished for Elster to identify, a sphere inside a sphere like a red eye. The air conditioning is cryogenic cold. For a second Elster thinks that Ariane's asleep also.
"You've been here before," Ariane says, only it's not her voice. "This isn't how it happens. Remember our promise."
No, please, Elster begs. Let me stay longer. I don't want to remember. Let me stay –
Wake up.