She’s growing up, you see 
A curious story of a dream with a purpose

He was conscious that it was only a dream. And that worried him. He was the sort of person who liked things to be put tidily in their places. Things simply left lying about made him feel uneasy. And when he dreamt, he preferred to give himself wholeheartedly to the exercise, not - like now - to be aware that he was dreaming. It spoilt the magic of it.

So he watched the action that enfolded before him. He felt glad for the couple who were minding their newborn baby. A baby girl. This was emphasized for some reason, though he wasn’t actually told it in words. Not that it mattered. But it did matter, the mother asserted sharply, gazing almost aggressively into his eyes. The fact that the child was a girl was important.

And was there a reason why the two young people were dressed in their wedding clothes, he wondered. It seemed incongruous to him. But dreams were often like that. He tried to turn away, only to discover that he couldn’t. He was locked in place, forced to watch this young couple’s pleasure in their new acquisition. He wanted to go somewhere else, do something else. This struck him as a complete waste of time. Then he realized that the young couple had come specially to show him their new baby. But why would they do that, he wondered, suddenly snapping awake. Why would anyone take the trouble to show him their new baby. He didn’t even like babies. Lots of men didn’t. They weren’t particularly men’s things. And why were the couple still dressed in their wedding garb?

The questions haunted him as he turned over and tried to go back to sleep. What did this dream mean, and why hadn’t he forgotten it immediately, as he usually did? Why was he pondering it still, almost as though it had actually happened?

He gave up trying to get to sleep, it never worked in any case, and caught himself wondering why his latest girlfriend had suddenly ditched him like that. She’d only said, the last time they’d spent the evening together, that she liked him very much and particularly valued his friendship. Then why had she not returned his calls ever since? What had he done wrong? What had he not done that she’d wanted him to do? He had no answers. He’d had several penfriends who’d stopped writing recently. Why? The darkness of the night and the distant throbbing of traffic on the highway subtly enhanced his sense of loneliness. It was always worse at night. And in that dream, instead of being the one in which he was in a building with its confused mass of corridors which prevented his finding his way out, he’d been brought face to face with a baby - a baby girl.

* * *

The following morning, at work, during a slack moment when no one lined up to borrow books, he took down several volumes from the packed shelves on dreams, but quickly became disenchanted with them as they all appeared to contradict each other.

That night, directly on falling asleep, he found himself in a corridor of a house he frequently visited in his dreams. He opened a door at random, knowing instinctively that it wouldn’t provide him with a way out. None of the doors ever did. To his surprise, in the center of the floor sat a young child - a toddler. They regarded each other blankly for a long moment. He never knew how to behave with young children. He asked the child where its mother was, and why it was alone in this featureless room, but he received no answer, of course. He tried to back off, knowing that strange men frequently frightened young children, but found himself unable move again.

A young woman entered the room through a door he hadn’t noticed and picked up the child and, as she was about to leave with it in her arms, she turned and smiled at him, and said, "She’s growing up, you see," and disappeared through the open doorway.

He tried to follow her for he wanted to know what she’d meant by that, but he snapped awake in that instant. He lay on his back and pondered. Could that toddler have been the baby he’d seen the previous night? He somehow thought it was. But anything was possible in dreams. He’d discovered that long ago.

* * *

He didn’t dream for the next couple of weeks. In fact, in the excitement of getting to know a junior librarian with the most beautiful long hair he’d ever seen, he forgot all about it. He only invited her to have coffee with him after work one day on impulse, maintaining it wasn’t a terribly good idea for the head librarian to take out members of his staff, but they’d hit it off immediately. She loved good books with a passion that matched his own, and conversation flowed between them without any of those nasty embarrassing silences.

One thing led to another, and they were soon dating regularly, though they made a point of being circumspect during working hours. He began to think - and hope - that they might have a future together but, one afternoon, when he asked her if it was all right for that evening, she looked down and shook her head. He knew immediately that he’d received the inevitable brush off, and took it as well as he was able. He made no fuss, and accepted the situation with the best grace he could muster, and made a point of still being scrupulously polite to her at work..

That night, on falling asleep, he started to dream immediately. He was in a building again. But it was different this time. He immediately recognized it as a school. There were young children of primary school age everywhere. The place teamed with them. He couldn’t imagine how teachers ever managed to get order out of this confusion.

Then a bell went, and order established itself. They all went to their own classrooms. Doors slammed and he found himself alone in the corridor. He ruefully wished he could establish order in his personal love-life that easily.

He suddenly had the urge to go into one of the classrooms to see what was happening, but found that none of the doors would open to him. Then, when he was about to turn away, he noticed a young female teacher beckoning to him through the square of glass in the upper part of a classroom door at the end of the corridor. The door opened easily to his touch and he entered the room, somewhat apprehensive of the sea of children’s faces which looked up at him. He turned to the teacher who, he realized, was the young bride he’d seen in the first dream, who smilingly pointed to a little girl in the second row. "She’s growing up, you see," she said, exactly as she’d done before.

He followed the outstretched arm and returned the slightly hesitant smile the little girl gave him. He instinctively knew - or was he told? - that she was the toddler and the newborn baby. In the dream, it made perfect sense, though he knew it wouldn’t when he awoke.

Nor did it. He lay, sleepless, for a long time, wondering what it all meant, wishing he’d asked some questions, like what was the girl’s name, and why was he being shown her growing up at an accelerated pace like this. But he hadn’t. And it was too late to ask any questions now, for he was back in the land of harsh reality, the dream remaining merely a disturbing memory.

* * *

The next week at work was taken up with annual stocktaking. He never liked this time as it disrupted the orderly running of the library, and irked borrowers who found staff in their way and books not in their anticipated places.

On the Saturday evening, when the stocktaking was finally finished, he sensed he was going to dream again. Nor was he disappointed. He immediately found himself seated on a grassy bank overlooking a sports oval. It was clearly a junior high school this time, and he wondered what he was doing here. He casually watched various activities for a while, enjoying the warm sun on his face which was such a pleasant change from being cooped up in a stuffy library all day.

He was suddenly aware that one of the youngsters was approaching him. A tall, slender girl of about twelve or thirteen, dressed in brief shorts and plain white top, with her long hair drawn back in a businesslike ponytail. She walked unselfconsciously up to him so that she cast a shadow over him. He immediately felt that the shadow itself was an omen. He immediately sensed that something important was going to happen.

The girl smiled down on him, a mischievous twinkle in her eye. "My mother usually says, ‘She’s growing up, you see,’ the girl said with an ingenuous smile that instantly captivated him. "May I sit down?"

He nodded, judging the girl to be about twelve or thirteen. And he sensed that his feelings were immediately attuned to her in a strangely possessive way.

She sat beside him and stretched out her long legs before her. Her every movement was carefree and quite without guile. He immediately decided it was nice being with her

"I don’t understand," he heard himself say, for he realized the truth of the matter now. This was the same girl each time, though she was progressively older each time he saw her.

"Why do you have to understand?" she asked with the easy acceptance of youth. "Why not just go along with it? You see, I don’t understand either. But it isn’t necessary to understand everything, is it?"

And, in the habit of dreams, he accepted that enigmatic remark at face value. "What is your name?" he asked, remembering one of the questions he’d wished he asked.

The girl tossed her head in an alluring manner. "My name’s Felicity. But you can change it if you like."

He shook his head. "No, I like it. It suits you. You appear a happy person..."

"I will be when I grow up," she remarked wistfully.

"You are waiting to grow up?" he asked her. He’d been like that in his youth too - impatient to get on with adult living instead of suffering the restrictions of youth..

She nodded, sending her long hair in all directions so that it sparkled like so many strands of spun gold in the rays of the sun.

"You know that, do you?"

She turned to face him. "There are lots of things I know...but am not allowed to know."

And he was was forced to accept that ambiguous remark.

He suddenly wished he had something he could give her, so he put his hand in his pocket and encountered a polished stone which he’d picked up at a secondhand shop during his vacation last year. It normally resided on his bedside table. It didn’t strike him as strange that it was now in his pocket. After all, this was a dream. He offered it to the girl, who took it with a display of obvious pleasure.

And then, suddenly, without any warning, he was awake, feeling bereft, confused by the abrupt transition. He reached out with the intention of taking the polished stone in his hand to see if that would reconnect him with the unfinished nature of the dream.

It wasn’t there. He switched on the bedside light and searched the floor surrounding this bedside table. No polished stone. He felt in his trouser pockets, only to discover he was wearing his pajamas, which possessed no pockets.

What did it all mean? he asked himself for the hundredth time. Felicity was an attractive child. He’d been instantly drawn to her. Anyone would, she was such an outgoing, sunny personality. She’d offered him the opportunity to change her name. That was strange. Why had she done that? In a way, it almost seemed that she wasn’t merely offering him the chance to change her name, but anything else about her. Yet how could he do that? And why was he so attracted to this child? He’d never experienced such an overwhelming sensation before.

* * *

He slipped into the dream with infinite slowness. And that was unusual. He was always simply where he was going. But not this time. It was almost as though he was being shown the way to get there. But not quite. He couldn’t see anything, but he was aware he was traveling.

Then she was with him. They were sitting at an outdoor table sheltered by a gay umbrella. He immediately realized he was in Paris. And love was suddenly in the air.

"I’ve grown up, you see," she said, smiling at him eagerly, toying with the drink in the tall glass she held in her slender hands.

"You look lovely," he said, immediately embarrassed by the gaucheness of his spontaneous remark. She had a sun-drenched looseness about her lithe young body that left him feeling breathless, her voice had a musical quality that captivated him beyond endurance. He admitted to himself that he’d fallen in love with this lovely girl, that he’d fallen in love with a girl in a dream.

"Thank you," she said. "And I still have the stone you gave me." And she produced it from the pocket in her circular skirt, and then coquettishly returned it to its hiding place.

"How old are you now?" he asked her, judging her to be about sixteen.

"Does it matter?" she asked him with a wry smile.

"I suppose not." There were so many other things he wanted to ask her, but sensed there wouldn’t be time. The knowledge made him nervous and apprehensive. "What does it mean, Felicity?" he begged her, fervently wishing this were reality, not a dream which would end at any moment now.

"What do you want it to mean?"

He couldn’t put that into words. After all, she was still so very young, she was still only a child.

"Do you want it to end?"

He shook his head. And woke up still shaking his head vigorously. He pummeled his pillow and, as he had so many times after dreaming, tried to get back to sleep again so that he could continue the dream where it so abruptly left off. As usual, the exercise was doomed to failure.

* * *

He didn’t dream for the next month. And that left within him a void such as he’d never experienced before. He felt so empty and depressed he very nearly canceled his annual holiday trip to Paris. He felt the dream he’d had had spoilt it before it had even begun. Whatever happened there would be an anticlimax after the vividness of that last dream.

Last dream? Was it really going to end like that? Without resolution? Leaving him hanging in the air, his nerves all of a jangle?

He picked up the phone several times, about to call the travel agent and cancel the holiday, but each time a borrower came up to him and asked him something. So, in the end, he simply let the matter rest and when the day came, he boarded the flight to Paris feeling a deep sense of letdown that simply wouldn't go away. He’d never gone to Paris feeling depressed before. He was only going because something seemed to be driving him.

* * *

He sat at a pavement table looking disconsolately at the noisy traffic which effectively mirrored the maelstrom of thoughts that cascaded about in his confused brain. He couldn’t imagine why he was even here. He wasn’t going to enjoy this holiday. It was going to be the disappointment of his life.

A shadow fell over the table as someone approached him. He looked up. It was a beautiful young woman dressed in the latest Parisian fashion. "May I sit down?" she asked in a slightly breathless voice - as though she had been hurrying..

He nodded. What did it matter? What did anything matter?

She sat and regarded him intently for a while, then reached into the pocket of her skirt and took out a polished stone and placed it on the center of the table between them.

He looked at it for a while, then picked it up and scrutinized it carefully to make sure. He replaced it on the table, a talisman that either separated or joined them in some strange way. It was the stone he’d given her in a dream. He was positive about it. There was no doubt in his mind at all. "You must be Felicity," he murmured, totally unable to deal with the kaleidoscope of emotions that surged through him.

She nodded. "I am Felicity," she agreed, regarding him almost playfully.

"And you are real?"

She smiled broadly, and emitted a lighthearted little trill of laughter. "Of course, I’m real. Touch me."

"But you weren’t before...in those dreams," he heard himself say, still unbearably confused by this turn of events. He forced himself to reach out and lay the tips of his fingers on her sun-warmed bare arm. She felt incredibly real to him.

"There are different forms of reality," she murmured, looking down as if embarrassed. "And it was necessary for me to grow up quickly, you see. Quicker than usual."

"Yes. And I’m glad you did." He reached out and took her hand. It was warm and solid. He’d been afraid it would be cold and ethereal - dreamlike - despite discovering her arm was warm a few moments ago.

"It’s worked exactly as planned," she smiled, her face showing the relief she felt.

He wondered what she meant by that, but decided not to ask now. There would be plenty of time to ask her later. For he sensed that time and reality were, surely,  now on his side. The dream had become real at last!

- Warren Roff-Marsh