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Dreams are delusions; the troubled body's sense of pain, a confused medley of chaos that usurps the mind, and the realities of life are all deranged thereby.
They stood on opposite sides of a black river, staring at each other; eerily quiet, and the words he spoke fell to the ground like stones. He waved. The figure waved back. He reached out: Take my hand! he pleaded, but the sound vanished as soon as it left his lips. He tried again, thinking it, willing it, stretching his arm out over the water. On the other bank, amidst the dead trees and shadowy hills, John smiled sadly and shook his head.
Then he woke up.
That was the first dream. John had been dead a week.
“It’s been twenty years. You’ve got to let go,” Richie told him, holding his hands and looking straight at him, sad blue eyes welling up with love and concern. “That’s why you keep dreaming of him. He’s gone, Paul.”
“I can’t let go. I don’t want to stop dreaming, I want to reach him. He’s there. I can feel him.”
“You feel his echo, that’s all. Don’t try to find him, Paul. Nothing good will come of it.”
When John was murdered, he spent months raging against the world and fate and time, incapable of containing his sorrow. It was crazy. It was anger. It was fear. It was madness. It was the world coming to an end.
George came to see him in Scotland, where he’d been hiding, all on his own, and stayed for weeks. George understood.
“I just want to hold him again,” Paul whispered miserably, sitting on the floor near the fire, forehead resting on his knees. “I dream of him, sometimes. He’s far away. But he’s there.” He paused, his mouth set in a way George knew only too well. “It’s not enough. He must want me to reach him. He wouldn’t leave me without something more. There has to be a way.”
He’d repeated this so often that George thought he could say it along with him. It pained him to the core: the loss of John and now, perhaps, the loss of Paul too, in another way.
“Maybe there is,” George told him with a heavy sigh. So he told Paul that maybe John was still waiting for Vishnu to reincarnate him, that he might be lurking, loitering on the Other Side till the time was right. And maybe Paul could reach him, maybe, for a little while, if he could achieve the proper level of consciousness: meditating, the right mantras, just before sleep, when the windows between worlds were open.
“Also it helps if you’re high,” George added.
“Always on his own schedule, our Johnny, late for his own reincarnation. Come on then, show us.”
“All right. But Paul, when I’ve gone, don’t come looking for me.”
And after that he was sometimes able to direct his dreams, to bring him back to the bank of the black river, under a black sky, in eerie silence. George had warned him: Never touch the water. If you touch it, you’ll forget everything. Everything.
He explored. He found a place where the river was only a stream, where perhaps, if they both reached out, they could touch; but John did not appear. How to call him, in this place where speech was useless?
And so he sang, an old song, one that they had learned together as young men, growing around each other like vines, once entwined, never to be severed, even by death’s sharp blade.
Let me hear you say
The words I long to hear
And finally, finally, John’s answer: Darling, when you're near
He appeared on the opposite shore, so close now, and his face was beautiful, youthful and mature, at once a boy and a man, the way he looked the last time they’d met, but also the old man he never got the chance to be. John’s voice filled his ears, his heart. And they reached out across the void of the water, fingers brushing, a sensation long-forgotten but long-desired. They sang together, and in that moment, Paul overflowed with joy. The connection was as alive as it had ever been.
He never wanted to wake up. And when he did, the world seemed like ashes in his mouth.
Even George had not grasped the depth of their connection, a synchronicity so profound that it had frightened Paul. They had dreamt together; they had moved together; they communicated without speaking. A touch, a glance: a novel, a history, a blooming garden. Days and nights in each other’s minds. The songs they created were alloys, perfectly balanced and stronger than the elements, more beautiful than anything they could achieve separately.
And now, at night, alone in the darkness—for his family knew too well when they could not comfort him—he stared up at the cold points of light, and the sense of irreparable loss overwhelmed him. He ached for John, for everything that John had been, had given him. It was a black gaping hole inside him that could never be filled, or soothed. He did not heal; he only learned new ways to bandage the wound. His grief was his shadow, no matter day or night.
The years passed. The dreams came but rarely, no matter how often he tried. His life swept him up, busy with family and legacies and the music that still seemed unfinished without John’s touch. And through the years, the deaths piled up like snowdrifts, chilling him to the bone, cutting off light and air. One after another, so close to him, all the pieces of his past, his childhood, his life; they slipped away as he tried to think of them.
His Mum, who cherished him.
Tara, who delighted him.
Brian, who honed him.
His Da, who raised him.
Mal, who protected him.
Robert, who freed him.
Linda, who saved him.
George, who grounded him.
He let them go, all of them, to find the peace to which they were entitled. And they did not haunt his dreams.
So the dreams continued, only now it was John singing to him, his voice fainter, more desperate. He was still there, on the Other Side, but his form was faded, like a photograph left out in the sun. Paul sang to him, with him, the beauty of their blended voices a thrill like no other, but he was afraid. What would he do when he stood alone on that dark shore, and John did not come? When he was no more than a whisper? When Paul was truly alone?
He tried to put it into music. Paul sang his grief with his guitar and spoke to everything, living or not, in the world; the trees, the rocks, the wind, the seas; humans and gods learnt about his sorrow and loss. The music was love and yearning, desperately seeking answers that would never come; he sang of the darkness that filled his soul, the strength for which he searched, the bone-deep need to know and be known. In song he cried out for John but never spoke his name.
For you, I would face the gods’ wrath with a smile
For you, I would visit the land of spirits and shadows
And he was heard.
“Paul, it has been twenty years. You’ll find out soon enough, won’t you? Be patient. You must live without him,” Richie told him. Something in Paul had changed and made him afraid.
“I can’t,” Paul said, his voice cracking.
“Stubborn bastard, like always,” Richie said, and hugged him long and tight.
He talked to mystics; to shamans; to priests of every sort, to no avail. Finally he found a doctor, a dream expert who was willing to consult with him.
And he told her about his life, and John, and the dreams that were the only thing that held meaning, anymore. He spoke of sorrow and loss and the grey clouds that filled his days, and how cold he felt, as if the sun would never shine on him again. He needed sleep, but sleep meant seeing the one thing he could not have. He was weary beyond measure.
“He’s waiting for you,” she said at last. “I think that’s why he’s there, by the river. He won’t be reincarnated, or go wherever he might go, because he’s waiting for you to join him.”
“Yes,” Paul said immediately, knowing it was the truth. “But…I’m not ready.” He paced around the room, his steps growing more frantic as he paced. “I think he knows that. But he’s asking me something and I can’t answer him. I’m torn in two. I can’t live like this, because this isn’t living.”
“Then you must wait,” the doctor told him gently. “Until it’s your time.”
Paul looked at her then, his exhausted face set with determination. “No. There’s another way.”
She drew back from him in astonishment and fear. “No! You mustn’t. It’s a bad idea—a very bad idea.You don’t know what you’re risking, what you’re asking for.”
He laughed, without mirth. “That’s just what Richie said.”
She tried one last time. “Let him go, Paul. You can’t undo death.”
“I can,” he said. “And I will.”
And when she saw that he would not be moved from his course, she told him what she knew, knowledge dearly bought with tears and blood. It was what George had told him, but more, and deeper, and this time she handed him the key: a capsule of a drug he couldn’t pronounce.
“You have one chance at this. It’s not a game. If you fail, you must accept it. John will.”
“I’m not John. And I won’t fail,” he said defiantly, and left her clean and tidy white office. She stared after him for a while, certain she would never see him again.
He told his children he needed time alone in Scotland, and prepared himself for the voyage. His hands trembled with excitement and dread.
It was late at night when Paul laid on the floor in front of the dying fire, desiring sleep above all else but still resisting, for fear of what dreams might come. He felt the drug take hold, and fixed his gaze on the jade cobra that George had brought to him from India, wound around a brass tree: it was muscular and lustrous green, its small bright eyes glittering in the firelight.
The snake moved. He knew it would not harm him, and watched, mesmerised, as it came down off its perch and glided gracefully towards him.
The snake murmured in his ear: “Sleep.”
And he fell into the void.
He arrived at the familiar realm, on the banks of that black river, only this time there was a boat—but no ferryman. There was a box beside the boat, full of offerings, coins, locks of hair: whatever would gain passage to the Other Side. All he had for payment was the bracelet, engraved with his name, the one that John had given him, decades ago. He slipped it off his wrist and dropped it in the box.
The black water was solid. It showed no reflection.
The Other Side was dark, darker than it seemed from far away, and he walked carefully, passing by shapes of people unknown, sighing mournfully, the sounds again falling to the soft grey ground. There were no buildings, only boulders strewn about and huge jagged holes in the earth, like the aftermath of a great earthquake or hurricane. The air was still, close and oppressive, smelling of metal. He needed no map, for there was but one path, and it led to a cave that opened into the side of a steep hill. There were no guards except a huge dog, grey and black fur bristling, eyes flashing fire, which growled at him as he approached.
He thought of his own loyal dog, long gone now, who had kept him company in the worst of times, the darkest of nights. So he sang a little of the song he’d written for her, and the eyes of the beast softened, and it wagged its tails, and allowed Paul to handle its terrifying heads. He was permitted to pass.
From the mouth of the cave there issued a cold breeze, chilling him like icy water.
Yet inside it was light and he could see a great open space, filled with thousands of tiny lights, all ringed around a stone chair, black and unadorned, upon which was a swirling mass of colours. He moved through the crowds of insubstantial spirits, his footsteps silent; all he could hear was a curious, constant hiss, soft and unhurried, the sound of sand running in an hourglass.
He did not fear the god, for it was surely a god, or many, perhaps, that settled on the stone chair. This was its realm, and he was a guest.
The god was a moving shape, solid and transparent, shifting, undulating, now black, now red. From beneath the silver crown two gleaming eyes regarded him, glittering with power but kind, so kind, full of sadness only gods could know. They spoke in a low rumble; the words formed in his head.
“We heard your music, son of Calliope. There should be no communing of the living with the dead. Yet you have done it. You seek to lead him, your most beloved, from the darkness into the light. Why should we grant this to you?”
“He was taken from me too soon, and I can’t go on without him. We are two halves of a whole. We should never have been parted. I came here to plead for me, and for him.” Paul's voice trembled but held strong.
“Show us, in your music,” the god commanded, and Paul now held a lyre; an instrument strange to him, but he found his hands knew how to play as if he’d been born to it. And so Paul played with his instrument a song so heartbreaking that every being on the Other Side stopped to listen, and to weep with compassion; his voice was pure with grief, pleading for his love, for his heart to unbreak, praying for a second chance in the mortal world, for him and his beloved, to lend him, for just a little while, until they both should return. The sweet notes of the lyre filled the cold air with warmth, and the spell of his voice enchanted all who listened.
As the last notes faded away, all the beings in the cave were mute and motionless, the very air tense and listening.
The god called to John and he appeared, walking to them with slow steps, yet halting from his wounds. Paul cried out in anguish and dismay, for John had not looked like this in his dreams. There he had been the John of memory, younger, older, but whole and handsome as he’d always been. Now he was pale and stained with blood, his narrow face half-hidden in the shadows, his eyes cast down.
“Will he be all right?”
“He will be changed.”
And their eyes met and the connection sparked into life again, just as it always had. The radiance of it rippled through the cave, casting a golden light into the dark corners. John came slowly to his side and then the bond was complete, and even the spirit lights in the room grew brighter.
The god had no face, but Paul knew they smiled upon him.
“We will not deny you. But you must accept the stipulation, strange and special. Even here there are rules.”
“I accept on any terms,” Paul said, voice trembling. He turned to John, suddenly terrified he would choose to remain. John looked down at his mortal form, bloody and broken, and spoke, a whisper:
“If he will take me, I will follow.”
"Then listen well. He will walk behind you; upon his face or form look not until he passes the boundary of this domain. Do you accept?" the god asked.
“I accept.”
“Then,” they said, sparkling like onyx, “You may depart. The way is not easy, but your Side waits at the summit.”
Suddenly all was changed, the lyre gone, the space empty, and he stood at the bottom of a long narrow passage upward. The silence rang in his ears. He was alone; if John was there, he could not perceive him. He must be true to his word, for himself, for both of them; he must trust that John would follow.
Paul picked his way in silence, up the steep and gloomy path of darkness; every step was agony, like wading through tar, the very earth pulling at his feet, imploring him to stay. He could not hear John behind him. Every cell in his body demanded he turn, just to be sure, just to know it wasn’t a trick and that he’d made the journey for nought. He fought it. He fought and climbed and sobbed, desperate to leave this Side, desperate to know that John was with him, and finally he started to sing, the simple tune that they had sung together a thousand times. He sang to comfort himself, to drive away fear.
Hold me close and
Tell me how you feel
Tell me love is real
John's voice joined his. They sang together, their voices blending as they always had, light and dark, perfectly balanced. Paul felt the correctness of it in his heart. He was strong. He could do this. The steps grew steeper but he persevered, his soul growing stronger as he approached the dim light and the clear air beyond. He could not look, but he reached a hand behind him and felt the lightest touch on his fingertips, unmistakable. His throat ached. His eyes burned.
With one final burst of his dwindling strength he took three quick steps that thrust him out into the light. He fell to his knees.
Behind him he heard a roar of flames, and John screamed.
When he could see and speak again, the magnitude of his madness was revealed to him.
The god had spoken the truth. John was changed.
Whatever had happened on the border between worlds left him a wreck, in a body not meant for mortal worlds. Most of the skin of his head was burnt black, missing in patches, and the little hair that remained was pure white, half-covering what was left of his face. The ears were mere holes, the fingers, twigs. On his body the burnt skin peeled up like dead leaves. Arms and legs moved as if they had the wrong kinds of joints, or perhaps too many. He needed neither rest nor food; his body neither healed nor decayed. His voice was a rough, cracked thing, a damaged instrument that could not be repaired.
He smelled like the freshest snowfall. A breeze at dawn. A summer afternoon in paradise.
Paul had deprived John of whatever peace he might have found, on the Other Side. Now he must live on, in this shadow existence, his renewed life-thread bound up with Paul’s until they both would arrive at the end of Paul’s life.
Paul could not support his guilt.
But John comforted him. He cupped Paul’s face in his ruined hand, smiling with cracked lips, his one gorgeous brown eye twinkling.
“I came because I wanted to. Any terms, and I agreed. Besides, what should I complain of—your great love? Where have you sinned?”
He had brought John back to this world, but all that he had now of the world was John, and the space they occupied.
And so they remained in Paul’s stone house, together, alone. No one entered. There were guards and fences now. Paul left the house rarely now, communicating with the world through letters. The word was that he’d gone mad; his family mourned him. He could not explain what had happened, for who would believe him? The crushing weight of his secret was his own.
Richie came; Paul would not let him in. On a cold clear day they stood outside the house and spoke quietly, as if reluctant to disturb something. Paul kept glancing back at the curtained windows.
“Was it worth it?” Richie asked.
“For me? Or for him?” Paul held Richie’s hands in his own, studying the lines, the creases. When had they both gotten so old?
“Remember, Paul. Remember how it used to be, the four of us. And tell him I love him too.” Out of the corner of his eye Richie saw the curtains twitch.
“Yes. I can’t leave, you know. But it’s OK,” he lied, and Richie left him alone with his heart’s desire.
And so time passed, agonisingly slow and all at once; until one day when Paul, very old and very weak, laid himself down in the bed in his Scottish fortress, at last ready to let go: of himself, of John, of the dreams they dreamt together.
And the two lovers found one another again, in that shadow kingdom on the Other Side, and they fell into one another’s arms, finally healed. But they never sang together again, in that world or any other.