The Unlimited Dream Company

by J. G. Ballard

  I looked down at them, recognizing the once familiar townsfolk, now veiled from me as if they were standing on the floor of a glass lake. My true realm was the vivid air, this commonwealth of space and time where we shared ourselves with every photon. Drawing Miriam after me, I climbed higher into the clear sky and took her on a tour of my domain.

  Arm in arm, standing in the gondola of an invisible airship, we flew across the rooftops of this jungle town, I in the rags of my flying suit, Miriam in her resplendent wedding gown. Her eyes were open, but she seemed almost to be asleep, staring at me like a happy child excited by a strange dream in which she has glimpsed her first love. Holding her cold hands, I felt that she was now dead, that her body stood in the streets far below me, and that I was flying away with her soul.

  We reached the film studios, where the antique biplanes sat on the grass runways. There we turned and followed the trajectory my aircraft had taken when it first approached Shepperton. Far away, the rest of the world, the small towns of the Thames Valley, the winding river and the busy motorways seemed to be veiled by the intense light. We crossed the shopping mall, the supermarket and post office, and flew over the park above the elms to where the Cessna lay drowned beside the beach where I had woken to my second life.

  We hovered above the water, Miriam’s wedding dress like the spirit of this drowned aircraft. I turned Miriam to face me, overcome by the need to embrace her. She placed her hands on my bruised ribs, even in her sleep trying to ease my pain. As I drew her to my chest a corona of light shivered in the air around us. I pressed her against me and felt her trembling skin. Her face touched mine, her lips forcing themselves against my bruised mouth.

  Without pain, our smiles merged into each other. Her cool skin passed through my own, the loom of her nerves ran its quicksilver through mine, the tides of her arteries poured their warmth and affection into the remotest corners of my body. As we embraced she merged with me, her rib-cage dissolved into my own, her arms merged with my arms, her legs and abdomen disappeared into mine. Her vagina clasped my penis. I felt her tongue within my mouth, her teeth bite against my teeth. Our eyes merged, their retinas fused. Our vision blurred, multiple images seen by the faceted eyes of this chimerized being.

  Then I saw everything around me with twice my sight, through Miriam’s eyes as well as my own. Within our minds I felt her nervous vertigo, her confidence in me and her love for me. Every flower and leaf in the park shone with an even greater brilliance, a forest of illuminated glass created by a master jeweller.

  I searched the air, but Miriam had gone, slipping away through the hundred doors of my body. I myself now wore the wedding dress. I felt the weight of its huge train and panels, like the wings of the Cessna. Turning my back to the river, I soared across the park to the centre of Shepperton. There I hung over the roof of the car-park, the wedding dress filling the sunlit air, displaying to the silent people below the chimeric union of Miriam and myself.

  As I alighted on the concrete roof David and Jamie ran forward. They held the quivering train of the dress, tethering me to the roof, this strange aircraft that had strayed into the air-space of Shepperton. Standing on the ledge, I let the wings subside and waved reassuringly to the crowd below. Their faces seemed dulled, as if they were unable to grasp what they had seen. Even Father Wingate, fanning himself with his straw hat, seemed stunned by everything, suspended between belief and disbelief. Mrs St Cloud wandered across the road, scanning the air over her head. In some way the sky had mislaid her daughter.

  However, I felt stronger for them all now, confident that I was more than merely alive. Miriam’s spirit and body had recharged my own. I was tempted to keep her within me, a princess locked in the fierce castle of my soul.

  Already I missed her. Aware that there were others I could take into myself, and on whose spirits I could feed, I walked to the centre of the roof. Opening my arms, I released Miriam to the sunlit air.

  She stepped backwards from me, taking the wedding dress with her. Her face was blanched by a profound trance, the deep sleep of my body. Seeing her materialize in front of them, Jamie and David ran forward to greet her, Rachel scuttling after them with her blind smile. Together they took her hands. In the street below the retired soldier cheered and waved his shooting stick.

  His voice seemed to wake everyone. Rallying themselves, people climbed down from the roofs of the cars, and began talking to each other, aware that the flying display was over.

  At the staircase Miriam turned and looked back at me, seeing me for the first time since our flight. As she smiled I knew that she now acknowledged my rule of the air. Her face was still blanched, as if her body had died a little as it made its departure from this small town.

  I was certain now that through her, and through the ascending spirits of the people of Shepperton, I could at last make my escape.

  CHAPTER 27

  The Air is Filled with Children

  ‘Blake, can we fly?’

  ‘Teach us to fly, Blake …’

  Dozens of children surrounded me as I left the car-park. I amiably fended them off, and gazed round with some pride at the flower-decked façades of the stores and supermarkets. After so many exhausting days I now felt transformed, my confidence restored. Not only had I been able to fly again, but I had taken Miriam’s body into mine. Like a great bird, I had mated and fed myself on the wing. Could I feed on the people of this town, use their eyes and tongues, their minds and sexes to construct a flying machine that would carry me away? I was almost sure now that my powers were limitless, that I was capable of anything I wished to imagine.

  The children tugged and argued with each other while I stood in the shopping mall among the television sets and bedroom suites. A flock of sparrows fluttered around my feet, chasing a scrap of breadfruit. Everywhere the birds were rising into the air again.

  ‘David! Jamie!’ I decided to distract them. ‘All of you – watch me!’

  As the sparrows skittered through the bank-notes I trapped them with my hands, taking them into my palms like a conjuror. They merged quickly with my flesh, and I felt their small hearts flutter within my wrists, a babble of nervous pulses. The children stared open-mouthed, and with a flick of my fingers I released a stunned cock-sparrow. While it straightened its crushed feathers a young falcon perched on a nearby car lunged towards the sparrow. I clapped my hands and absorbed the heavy bird, feeling its resisting talons in my elbows, its powerful wings within my back.

  Amazed by these apparent sleights of hand, the children squealed with delight and embarrassment. Jamie hooted at the sky, warning it that I might be capable of anything. Only David seemed uncertain of me. In the doorway of the supermarket he murmured to Rachel, unsure where all this might lead. But for the next hour I strolled around the precinct like a conjuror, applauded by the watching crowd. I drew dozens of birds into my body, snatching them from the air and bundling them through the trap-doors of my hands.

  My body was a cluttering madhouse of angry birds. I stopped outside the supermarket when David stepped back defensively, muttering a warning to Rachel. While the children clamoured at my legs I released a dozen tits and a toucan, the rumpled falcon who razored away from my shoulders with a cry of disgust. Bending down, I let an ungainly flamingo struggle from my back, extending its long legs like a nervous cripple. The children screamed as it clambered on to my shoulders and took off towards the filling-station. I hid my face, then poppéd a hummingbird from my mouth. In a spectacular finale, I vented the last of the birds from my body, filling the shopping precinct with a torrent of wings and feathers.

  Delighted as I was to amuse the children and their mothers, I remembered how I had tried to play Pied Piper in the London parks. Had I, in some way, anticipated that I would one day possess these powers? I wanted to teach these children to fly, capture birds with their bodies, I wanted husbands to merge with their wives, young men with their sweethearts, children with their parents, ready for their last flight to the unseen
paradises of the air.

  Flying fever swept through Shepperton. Children raced around the shopping mall with model aircraft and badgered their parents to be taken on an aerial jaunt. By the time I reached the war memorial on my way back to the river a procession of several hundred people followed me.

  Beyond the memorial the road shelved towards the park. Swept down the incline, the crowd of frustrated children and parents ran after me, pulling at the rags of my flying suit.

  ‘Blake …!’

  ‘Stay here, Blake …!’

  Fighting my way through this mêlée, I clambered over the heads of the children and lifted myself into the air. Three feet from the ground, I moved along at the head of the procession.

  ‘Take us with you, Blake … P

  Free to breathe at last, I turned to face them. As I hovered there they clamoured up at me, like refugees fearful of being abandoned in this jungle town.

  ‘Come on! All of you! Fly!’

  Two young men in motorcycle jackets jumped up and down in the road, trying to climb on to the air. A middle-aged woman struggled with the sunlight falling into her face, wriggling her hips as if trying to shed her corsets. Below me everyone was shimmying and cavorting, laughing to each other like people attacked by a plague of amiable insects. Only the children watched me with serious eyes. A dozen of them clustered around me, trying to touch my feet.

  ‘Blake, please …’ A ten-year-old girl with blond pigtails offered me a sweet as a bribe. I leaned down, took her shoulders and lifted her into the air. Squealing with delight as she held down her skirt, she floated free on the noisy air, leaned over and helped her younger brother into my arms.

  Suddenly the air was filled with children. They shrieked happily when they looked down at their kicking feet, already well above their parents’ heads.

  ‘Sarah, be careful …!’ Chasing her daughter with raised hands, an anxious mother left the ground. Legs pedalling furiously, she soared into the air and embraced her daughter, smiling happily as they sailed towards the park.

  Followed by the procession, I set off down the road, the head of a huge kite drawing its heavy tail along the ground. Those left behind were kicking and jumping, doing everything to climb on to the air. A young man broke free, then helped his girl-friend up beside him. The old soldier with the shooting stick rose stiffly into the air. Sailing along, he waved his stick at me as if he had already learned a thing or two to tell me about flying.

  While we swept forward to the park entire families ran from the side-streets to join us. The sometime executives playing truant for their third day threw away their briefcases to join the tail of the procession, laughingly locked arms and mimicked the high-kicking efforts of the people in front of them, only to find to their astonishment that they too were in the air.

  By the time we reached the park more than a thousand people were following me. The last stragglers joined in, film technicians and actors from the studios wearing antique gaiters and goggles, a butcher in a white apron who was giving away the last of his meat to a happy circle of dogs and cats, two mechanics in greasy overalls from the filling-station.

  From the door of a telephone booth the village policeman watched us with a look of deep suspicion, obviously debating whether to caution the whole town for a serious infringement of the by-laws, some medieval statute against miscellaneous and indiscriminate flying. Then I heard him shout out, aware that he was alone in Shepperton. He threw away his bicycle and ran after us. Helmet in hand, he clambered on to the air and sailed along serenely at the rear of the procession like the guard of an aerial train.

  Last of all came the three crippled children, hurrying down the deserted high street. Jamie jumped and twisted on his iron shackle, as if all along it had been a secret catapult which would propel him into the air. David lumbered behind him, out of breath and too puzzled to explain to Rachel where everyone had gone. The blind girl tilted her head and pressed her hands to her ears, confused by the hundreds of familiar voices over her head, the squeals of the other children falling from the crowded air.

  I waited for them to join us, and held up the procession when we reached the park. The policeman and a film actor leaned down to take their hands. With a last effort David climbed on to the air, eyes wide at the sudden lightness of his great head. After him came Jamie, crippled legs pedalling in long and elegant strides. But Rachel, muddled by the shouting voices, swerved in a panic across the pavement and lost herself among the dish-washers and television sets. Before I could help, David and Jamie waved to me and jumped down on to the ground to comfort Rachel.

  I was sorry to leave them behind, but already I was looking into the sky and the waiting sun. Like an airliner at take-off, the procession rose into the air behind me, watched by the curious deer feeding among the trees. There were gasps of astonishment when Shepperton fell away below us and the long bend of the river appeared. The swordfish and porpoises, the dolphins and flying fish leapt from the silver water, urging us on our way.

  Silent now, we soared in a wide circle three hundred feet above the rooftops. The cool air quietened everyone. Beside me the children sailed along with their faces raised to the sun, hair streaming behind them. Imitating me, they held their arms straight out at their sides, they and their parents, the old and the young with the same rapt expression, sleepers waking from their long dream.

  We were soon more than a mile above Shepperton, this jungle town surrounded by its palisade of forest bamboo, an Amazon enclave set down here in the quiet valley of the Thames. The streets were deserted, and everyone was with me, except for the old people at the geriatric unit and the members of my family. Father Wingate stood on the beach among his archaeological specimens, waving his straw hat to encourage me. Mrs St Cloud watched from the bedroom window, still unable to believe her eyes, but delighted for me all the same. Stark stepped from his hearse, unfurling the canopy of a hang-glider as if tempted to join us. Even Miriam, my sky-bride still wearing her wedding dress, stood on the lawn among the eager pelicans, waiting for me to come down from the air and rescue her from these suitors.

  Directly above the church I halted the procession and waited for us all to take up our station. Shepperton flew behind me with outstretched arms, the members of a congregation about to worship within the cathedral of my aerial being. Their faces were expressionless, sunk now into an entranced wakefulness. The cool air ruffled the girls’ skirts, and flicked at the hair of the small boys. Their parents stared at my shining figure as if seeing themselves within me for the first time.

  Nearest to me was the ten-year-old girl who had joined me in the air, her right hand still clutching a sweet. I held her wrists and drew her towards me, holding her gently in my arms.

  ‘Sarah, dear … wake now.’

  I waited for her to release her breath, which she held tightly for fear that she might slip suddenly and be dashed to death in the empty streets.

  Then with a surge of confidence in me she seized my hands and embraced me eagerly. I pressed her against my naked body. The cool air rushed furiously between us, opening a hundred vents to our deaths below. But the sun fused our skins together, and I drew her into my flesh. I felt her heart race within my heart, her little lungs pumping within the great canopies of my lungs. I felt her slender arms, steering me as I reached across the bright air to embrace her younger brother.

  ‘Stephen … come here.’ I heard her voice speak from my throat.

  The boy hesitated, his round face reflecting the sun like a mirror. He threw himself into my chest as if diving into a warm pool. His head pressed against my sternum, his hands searched my hips and stomach, hunting for a doorway into my body. Calming him, I took him into me, swallowing his mouth, his cool lips and sweet tongue, inhaling his hot breath, letting him enter my flesh and pass through me.

  Stronger now, recharged by these small spirits, I moved through the procession, beckoning towards me the hundreds of men and women poised in the running air with outstretched arms.
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  ‘Emily … Amanda … Bobby …’ Quickly I embraced the rest of the children who had followed me all day, taking their narrow hips into mine. When their parents watched me anxiously I released the children from my body, disassembling myself like some gentle marine monster exhaling the minnows that had taken up residence within his mouth. They hung around me in the air, waving and smiling when I drew them into me one by one.

  I moved on, and touched the shoulders of a young mother whose son I had taken. Her strong body seized mine with an almost violent embrace. I felt her long thighs and hard hips, the sharp bite of her mouth within my jaw. Her bones once more held her son’s within the deeps of my marrow.

  A mesmerist moving through a sleeping audience, I embraced the rest of them, the old men and women, the husbands and wives, the policeman and the retired soldier, bodies gross and slender, clumsy and graceful. In their eyes, as they held my hands, I saw the same confidence and pride in me. I drew the last of them into me, a young actor from the film studios in his antique flying gear. He embraced me happily, entering my body like a lover.

  Alone now in the sky, I moved in huge strides across the air. I had become an archangelic being of enormous power, at last strong enough to make my escape. Far below me the thousands of stranded birds cowered in the airless streets, helplessly flicking their wings at the scattered bank-notes.

  I hovered above the motorway, ready to land in the nearby fields and abandon my passengers, set down the inhabitants of a complete town in the waist-high corn among the startled farm-workers.

  But as I sped northwards through the air a strange gradient turned me against myself. The wind leaned its great back upon me. Every tissue in my body, every nerve and blood-cell held me in their grip as the people within me pulled at my heart with the draw-strings of their affection. A thousand needs and loyalties formed an immense embankment around which we sped in an invisible circle.

  Swept back towards the centre of Shepperton, I found myself once more above the deserted streets. Exhausted, I hung passively between the soft bolsters of two gentle clouds. The ground fell away below me. The sky was brightening as we rose through the cool air. I felt the townspeople lying serenely within me, sleeping passengers in this ascending gondola propelled by some profound upward dream. They were carrying me away towards the sun, eager to lose themselves in that communion of light.