Book of Dreams

by Traci Harding

  ‘Well, aren’t you the lucky one.’ Kyle was being facetious.

  ‘Kyle, my laddy … I do believe I’m going to marry that girl.’ Matt nodded to second his own decision.

  ‘Oh goody.’ Kyle raised himself to get them moving. ‘Then I’ll have the pleasure of her company all the time.’

  They blew a joint on the way home in the car. Dope was in plentiful supply, because Kyle grew his own — hydroponics being yet another of his unusual skills. Matt was buzzing after they’d had the smoke, and he bopped along to the tune on the radio as he drove, singing the words he knew and humming those he didn’t. Kyle was silently observing the storm that was lighting up the night sky in the west — the direction in which they were headed.

  The way Kyle saw it, Matt had every right to be on top of the world. A beautiful, young millionairess had just kissed him. He’d discovered a vocation he was truly excited about, and if Matt’s hunches proved correct, he’d have the chance to uncover a career-making story and save the heroine as well.

  ‘What the hell is wrong with me?’ Kyle shook his head at his own behaviour. ‘Why do I always assume the worst of people?’

  Matt snapped out of his joyous delirium when he realised how low Kyle felt. ‘It’s just a defence mechanism. You’re afraid of people leaving you, so you block that fear by never allowing them to get close in the first place … or some shit like that,’ he explained. ‘I read about it in one of the self-motivation books Zoe gave me to read.’

  Again Kyle was surprised at, and even a little envious, of the extent of Matt’s association with this girl. ‘Is that a fact? So why am I still hanging around with you then?’

  ‘Perhaps you don’t see me as threatening enough.’ Matt grinned his jester’s grin.

  Thinking back on the way in which they’d met, Kyle considered Matt’s explanation to be true enough. Kyle had been hard up for cash at the time, and living on the streets of King’s Cross. He’d been of a mind to rob Matt when he’d encountered him in a dark backstreet alley, but Matt had played out his fear so much that he had Kyle in hysterics. Kyle couldn’t bring himself to hurt such a clown. Kyle was always up for a good fight, yet had always felt compelled to defend any creature smaller or weaker than himself. Matt fell into this category.

  ‘So you think Zoe’s right about me living in the past.’ When Matt gave a noncommittal shrug, Kyle considered the idea more seriously. ‘I really don’t know about that. There’s so much of the past I don’t know, or want to forget, that it doesn’t really leave a whole lot of it to live in.’

  ‘Living in the past is just a figure of speech,’ said Matt. ‘What Zoe really meant was that you keep all your emotions bottled up inside.’

  ‘I express my emotions pretty well,’ Kyle appealed.

  ‘Yes, but not to the people responsible for invoking those feelings in you in the first place.’

  ‘Well, every son-of-a-bitch foster father I ever had is either locked up or dead, so I can hardly take it out on them, can I?’ Kyle justified. ‘And God only knows where my real father is … he’s the worst of the lot for abandoning me in the first place.’

  Matt never knew what to say when Kyle talked this way, having had a great upbringing himself and a solid family unit to fall back on. Should he be sympathetic, or was that only compounding the problem?

  ‘Maybe I’m just a natural-born arsehole,’ Kyle emerged out of his bitter contemplation to suggest. ‘I could’ve inherited the trait from one of my parents … but hey, how would I know?’

  ‘How can you say that when your mother died giving birth to you,’ Matt argued. ‘You owe her your life.’

  ‘Yeah, well she could have saved herself, and me, a lot of misery if she’d just opted for an abortion.’

  It made Matt angry to hear such talk; now Kyle was just wallowing in self-pity. ‘Then you never would have had the pleasure of my company,’ he advised lightheartedly. ‘And I would be short a best mate.’ This was Matt’s standard response when it came to Kyle’s ‘I wish I’d never been born’ complaint. Matt just couldn’t relate to it.

  Matt had a great outlook on life and the most uncanny luck that Kyle had ever encountered. This made Kyle feel all the more hard done by at times — times like now.

  ‘So, how do I lose the cross?’ Kyle asked, sincerely interested to know. ‘How do I confront the past and be rid of it for good?’

  ‘Counselling?’ Matt suggested meekly, aware that Kyle wasn’t going to like the solution. ‘The book said there are people who specialise —’

  ‘That just goes to show what books know.’ Kyle threw his hands up in a disgruntled fashion. ‘I’ve seen counsellors, Matt. I’ve had therapy, and I’m still like this!’

  Out of ideas and energy, Matt shrugged. ‘I don’t know the answers, Kyle, I wish I did! Perhaps —’ He paused before suggesting Zoe might be able to help, because (a) he didn’t want Kyle moving in on his would-be wife, and (b) Matt didn’t feel Kyle would be receptive to the idea right at this instant.

  When Matt refrained from further comment, Kyle looked back to the spectacular electrical storm that was now almost directly above them.

  ‘There must be another way,’ he said quietly to himself, as the lightning flashed, the thunder boomed and the rain came bucketing down.

  CHAPTER THREE

  BIRTH OF A HERO

  Matt pulled the car into the curb in front of Kyle’s rundown, single-storey terrace. The overgrown vegetation in the tiny front garden was beginning to envelop the house; Kyle had never cut it back because he liked the privacy it provided. The rent on the place was cheap, as the building should really have been condemned. In fact, it was probably only the weeds that held the structure together.

  ‘I’ll catch ya.’ Kyle waved to Matt and closed the car door behind him. Although the rain was pouring down, he didn’t run for shelter. Kyle found the large, cool droplets beating down upon his body invigorating.

  Overhead, a large dark cloud seemed to rumble and looking up, Kyle was amazed to see a bolt of lightning lash out and strike the ground somewhere in the vicinity of his porch.

  ‘Awesome! Did you see that?’ As he swung round quickly to catch Matt’s reaction, the car took off up the road. ‘I guess not.’ Kyle opened the rusty old gate and fought his way through the jungle to investigate the spot where the lightning had hit.

  At the top of the steps, on the small porch, Kyle could see a brown paper parcel and for the slightest moment he could have sworn that a small, brown, furry creature, no taller than ten centimetres, was seated atop the package — as if guarding it. A spear in one hand, it appeared to be not unlike a small bear. It stood erect and had horns protruding from the brow of its rather ugly, flat face. Upon discovery, however, it jumped down behind the parcel and out of sight.

  Kyle dashed up the steps and grabbed the package, half expecting to expose the little beast.

  ‘One of these days,’ he mumbled, finding nothing.

  From as far back as Kyle dared to remember, he’d been visited by these unearthly creatures. Over the course of several unsympathetic sets of foster parents, he’d been beaten or drugged into believing they were imaginary. He recalled conversing with some of them when he was very young. Most were tiny, but Kyle recalled one in particular that had seemed like an absolute giant to a three year old. Nevertheless, the monster hadn’t intimidated Kyle; rather, he recalled having a fast friendship with the beast he called Ron. That is, until he’d been forced to take pills that made Ron and all the little monsters go away. These days Kyle’s only interest in them was for their artistic value — they made great subject matter for sketching.

  With the defining features of the creature committed to his memory, Kyle’s attention turned to the parcel in his hands. There was no postage stamp attached, no mailing address or sender’s details.

  All that was written upon it was ‘Kyle’.

  After consuming half a microwave pizza and a couple of cans of bourbon and coke, Kyle took up the
joint he’d made while waiting for the food to cook. It was a large Bob Marley number, which he sniffed and rolled in his fingers like a fine cigar, before he placed it between his lips and struck up a light. Kyle puffed away merrily for a few moments, then, finding his inspiration, he took up his pad and pencil and began to sketch.

  After a while, Kyle became aware that he was frowning; his head had shrunk into his shoulders and he was feeling genuinely agitated. ‘Rap music,’ he shuddered, hitting the off button on the television remote. As he looked around for the stereo remote, his eyes fell upon the brown paper parcel that he’d dropped in the other armchair on his way inside. ‘Oh, yeah.’ In his rush to get bent and sketch the critter while it was still fresh in his mind, Kyle had forgotten all about the package.

  He reached for it and stripped away the soggy paper to find an old leather bound book in beautiful condition. Kyle’s eyes lit up as he ran his fingers across its cover, for worked into the green leather were images of strange creatures and beings the like of which had plagued him as a youth.

  ‘Righteous, man, this is cool.’ He smiled briefly before searching for a card or note, but there was none. ‘Only Matt knows about my Otherworldly interests.’

  Matt knew Kyle liked to sketch weird creatures; he just didn’t know Kyle saw them on a regular basis. Kyle hadn’t risked telling anyone about them since his childhood. ‘Has to be from him.’ Kyle tossed the wet paper aside.

  The title page nearly took Kyle’s breath away: Book of Dreams it read, in an iridescent lettering that made the words appear to sink to an infinite depth. Around the lettering were depictions of the creatures that Kyle had drawn all his life. In fact, they were exactly the sketches that currently lined the walls of his house.

  ‘This is impossible,’ Kyle mumbled, raising the book to compare it with the images on his wall. The pictures were identical, although the size and colour differed. ‘No way … Matt couldn’t have done this without me finding out. No way.’ He sank onto the lounge, excited and spooked. Such moments of mystery were what made life worth living in Kyle’s opinion, as it was with the unexplainable that he’d always felt most at home.

  Turning over the cover of the book he encountered a blank first page. Flicking through all the pages, Kyle found they were blank. ‘Must be a sketchbook,’ he deduced, and the thought of filling the pages with images made him smile. He ran his fingers over the embossed leather cover as his eyelids began to droop.

  A loud pounding on the door startled Kyle awake, and he sat up too quickly for his hangover. ‘Ouch.’ He refrained from further movement, to soothe his splitting headache, but as the pounding on the door only amplified the pain in his brain, Kyle rose to answer it. ‘This had better be important, Matt.’ He opened the door to find his friend positively beaming with excitement. ‘You finally got laid?’ Kyle took a guess as to the reason for his mate’s good cheer.

  ‘Better!’ Matt played up the suspense as he backed Kyle out of the way and headed inside. ‘I got a break,’ he informed Kyle, once granted entry. ‘It was like a gift from God or something! I’m driving home through the city when I come across all these police cars, television crews and shit … there’s this big siege going on! A couple of police had been shot, along with a Channel Nine cameraman who got too close to the action. Risking life and limb, I helped pull the injured from danger.’ Matt ducked and weaved as he spoke and then stopped to scratch his head. ‘Well, actually, I rescued the camera. I wanted to check it out before they had a chance to reclaim it. There was so much going on that no one even noticed until it was all over.’

  Kyle lost interest in Matt’s tale and flopped back onto the lounge. ‘Wow, amazing … you got to hold a real camera. Whoopee!’

  ‘I’m not finished yet.’ Matt sat on the coffee table in front of Kyle. ‘I placed the camera on my shoulder, to get a feel for it. And at that precise moment, the gunman exited the building with his hostage in tow and attempted to flee. I aimed the camera at him and kept rolling.’ Matt paused and grinned. ‘I got the morning lead and two hundred bucks cash … the producer loved me for it!’

  Kyle was astonished for a moment, but then his jealousy took hold. ‘I don’t believe it! Why is everything so easy for you?’ He stood to vent his frustration. ‘You decide you want to be a current affairs cameraman and the next day you’re shooting the lead story.’

  ‘Yeah. What are the chances, eh?’ Matt couldn’t wipe the smile off his face; even he couldn’t believe his luck in this instance. ‘What’s the time?’ He noted the hour on the video player. ‘My story should be on soon.’ He switched on the television and searched for the right channel.

  ‘You really shit me, you know that?’ Kyle wandered into the kitchenette to make coffee.

  ‘Yeah, I know,’ Matt retorted, unfazed by Kyle’s mood. ‘I work really hard at it, too.’

  As Kyle poured the coffee, he remembered the book that Matt had left on his doorstep and decided that he really couldn’t continue in this disgruntled state. ‘Thanks for the present, by the way. I gather I’m supposed to use it for sketching?’

  ‘What present?’ came Matt’s reply. ‘I haven’t bought you anything. I’ve been saving all my spare funds to buy my own camera.’

  Coffees in hand, Kyle returned to the lounge and handed a mug to Matt. ‘You didn’t send me that book?’ Kyle pointed at the floor, where the gift had dropped from his lap the night before.

  ‘What book?’ Matt replied, as clearly there was nothing there.

  ‘Where the hell is it?’ Placing his mug on the table, Kyle got down on all fours to hunt up the missing article, tossing aside rubbish, scraps of paper and articles of clothing in his search. ‘It was right here! I’m sure it was.’

  ‘Forget it.’ Matt directed Kyle to the news report on the television screen. ‘Check this out.’ He pumped up the volume to hear the newsman at the desk saying, ‘The siege lasted most of last night, with five people injured, including one of our own cameramen. The gunman attempted to shoot his way out of the building at around twelve-thirty at night.’

  The broadcast ran Matt’s footage. A little shaky at first, the camera steadied to show a gunman running from the building with a hostage, shooting at police in his attempt to flee. The camera zoomed in on the gunman as police officers overpowered him and the hostage escaped unharmed.

  ‘This footage was shot by a brave young passerby,’ the voice-over continued, ‘who pulled the camera out of the firing line and filmed these events as they unfolded around him.’

  A shot of an exhilarated Matt being interviewed after the event came to the screen. ‘I’ve wanted to shoot news for a long time,’ he explained.

  ‘A long time!’ Kyle scoffed at the lie.

  ‘I didn’t have time to think about what was happening really. It just seemed like the natural thing to do.’

  ‘You look like a total dork,’ commented Kyle, inwardly green with jealousy, as he took a roach from the ashtray and lit it up.

  ‘Now there’s a young man with a big future ahead of him,’ commented the newsman before moving on to the next story of the day.

  Matt hadn’t even heard Kyle’s dig. He punched his mate on the shoulder, impressed with himself. ‘Hear that?’

  ‘Yeah, I heard.’ Kyle offered the half a joint to Matt, who screwed up his face. ‘I can’t … gotta stay alert. Some of the guys offered to show me round the station this morning.’

  ‘Your loss.’ Kyle dragged hard on the roach to hide his envy.

  Matt shrugged rather than voice disagreement, and didn’t comment on Kyle’s obvious lack of excitement. ‘Well, I gotta motor. I want to grab a shower and get cleaned up before I head down to the station.’ He rose, while Kyle wreathed himself in a cloud of smoke. ‘Wish me luck.’ Matt fished his car keys from his back pocket and made for the door.

  ‘Why?’ Kyle retorted, raising himself from the lounge to see Matt out. ‘You obviously don’t need any. It’s you who should be wishing me luck … I’m the one who�
�s got to face the dole office today.’

  ‘Oh, yeah.’ Matt recalled Kyle had been fired the day before. ‘Well, good luck.’ He attempted a little good cheer.

  As soon as he closed the door, Kyle regretted putting a downer on his friend’s good news. ‘Why can’t I just be happy for him? At least one of us is making something of his life.’ Deep down, his lack of purpose haunted him.

  Everyone likes to think they are special, different from everyone else, but Kyle knew that he was different. He kept expecting that one day his purpose would be made known, and then his luck would change. Perhaps he’d find out that his father was a millionaire who’d been searching for his long-lost son for twenty years, or a secret service agent who’d been trapped in a foreign country, which would be acceptable too. ‘Yeah right.’ Kyle mocked his own delusions, and wandered back to the lounge room. ‘He was a devil worshipper more like, and that’s why I am constantly being confronted by creatures from —’ Kyle was startled to find the missing book on the lounge room table. ‘ … hell.’

  His eyes drifted back to the front door. Was Matt playing a trick — could he have put the book there when he wasn’t looking?

  As Kyle’s attention returned to the book, he noted it was open at the introduction. What had been a blank page the night before was now filled with text. ‘Impossible,’ he mumbled, circling the mysterious item at a distance. ‘Am I losing my mind?’ He considered this thought momentarily. ‘I know I’ve always hated reading, but this is ridiculous!’ He planted himself in front of the book to admire the amazing text. It was a veritable rainbow of colourful calligraphy, so original in its formation that one would have thought it handwritten, but the way the text glimmered and continually changed colour Kyle knew it couldn’t possibly have come from any pen he had ever encountered. ‘How could I have missed this?’ He flicked through the pages, now all inscribed with the colourful text. ‘All of it! I must have been gone!’ With a shake of his head, he began to read.