The Garden of Unreality – 7. Visions in Dreams

I’ve had this same dream before, several times already, and I’m sure that’s exactly how it went. What I dream are reflexions of the real world and I, myself, am living only in dreams.
That’s where I found li'l sister. In the first weeks of my wanderings I knew naught of her, but one day she appeared to me in a dream. Only in our dreams can we be together, when we’re dreaming of each other, but having a conversation, like one does in the real world, is impossible. We read each other’s mind and are aware of the flow of thoughts and images that pass through our heads, at least, I have the feeling we are.
In this way I’ve learnt that she’s become a woman now, living somewhere in a forest which borders on an ocean. By day she’s roaming with her herd of roe and in the afternoon she’ll go to the shore to play with dolphins until sundown. She seems perfectly happy in a childlike way. A woman she may be, but still has the mind of a girl of seven.

At times, I can’t help alluding to the vial with the rainbow potion, but she’s always dodging the subject. It is as if she’s forgotten everything past, our father, our mother and aunt Ann. Apparently, she never dreams of them.

But I do! Everything that happened after our disappearance I’ve passed through. The despair of mamma and dad, the tears of aunt Ann, who could never forgive herself for leaving us alone that afternoon.
In the beginning she all but locked herself in, never leaving the house except out of sheer necessity. Every nook and cranny she’s inspected thoroughly hoping against hope that she’d find a trace of us, in the basement and in the garden, also.

One day, when the sun was shining, she put out a chair and sat staring into the shrubbery for hours. She must have been half-asleep and dreaming, for, all of a sudden, she rose and called: “Li’l brother, is that you?”
She faltered toward the pond and stared in my direction in total bewilderment. She may have sensed my presence as I was standing at less than three feet away from her, but she could no longer see me, her dream gone.
Hesitantly, she walked to the end of the garden where – in my world – the wood begins.
“Li’l brother,” she called in a broken voice. Then she shook her head and went back inside.