Benja scoffs. “Sounds like heaven.”
She scrunches her face. “Hardly.”
“Oh? Does someone have an opinion on this matter?”
“I don’t like the term heaven. It implies we can’t make this earth, this present, into a wonderful place. That humans only deserve it after death—and only if we follow some predetermined set of rules. I think the act of striving for an idea instead of living it is ridiculous.”
“Well, that’s harsh,” he says with a laugh.
“I mean, you’ve read history. How many wars were waged because one group wanted to save the souls of another in the hope of attaining paradise?”
“The human paradox,” he says.
“You end up killing those you want to save. That’s genius.”
“But human nature is what it is. We want to own and expand. We want to compete to be on top. We want to be right.”
“It’s lucky we have Tabula Rasa then,” she says and stretches languidly.
Maybe Benja’s use of the word heaven isn’t wrong, she thinks. How is this place different from the Old World concept of a paradise where no one goes hungry and peace exists among men? Yes, the price of admission is your memory. But isn’t there a cost to everything?
“I want to remember,” Benja says. His voice is wistful.
“I know. I just don’t understand why.”
“Don’t you ever get the feeling that you’re stuck in a loop? Like sometimes in the middle of doing something new, you find yourself feeling as if you’ve already done it,” he says.
“You mean like déjà vu?”
“Yeah. How can you know a new experience isn’t an old one? For all I know I could be writing the same story over and over again and never finishing.”
“So you want to know the past so you don’t keep doing the same thing?”
“Yeah—but not just that,” he says, “I think there’s something I’m supposed to find out about the past.”
“Like?”
“I don’t know. But I keep getting these dreams.”
“Dreams aren’t real, Benja. They’re just your mind firing synapses, making connections, cleaning out junk.”
“They feel real to me,” he says.
She thinks of her own nonsensical dreams and how they, too, feel real to her. But they are just dreams. They’re not links to the past nor premonitions of the future. And even if one could visit the past, why do it?
To her, Tabula Rasa is a gift the Planner had bestowed on humanity. Every four years minds are erased of all the reasons to hate so everyone can coexist in harmony. Every time she gives the children a tour at the museum, she is reminded of how fragile peace is. Scattered human skeletons. Scorched sky. Collapsed buildings. She will gladly take this version of reality over the alternative.
Yet Benja’s foolish words on dreams and memories burrow into her brain like firefly larvae. She fears what they will do come the night.
Dreams are not real.
Metis gazes through the gray haze of the window to the backyard. Blackberry brambles cover the land in its entirety, burying it under their sharp thorns. He almost did not come inside the first time he was here. How different his life would have been had he not set foot in this forsaken place.
“The Interpreter Center erased Bodie’s dreams,” Metis says. “The police arrested him for public disturbance, and somehow he ended up at the Interpreter Center.”
By some means that Metis doubts was Bodie’s will, he underwent the Dreamcatcher treatment. All Dreamers know the consequence of dream erasure. Once erased, the memories attached to those dreams are gone. They will no longer resurface. Not even with Absinthe.
The Crone’s aura brightens, casting white light on his arms, making them look ghostly. He turns to her. The Crone’s ancient face distorts in anger.
“Their answer to every human weakness is to wipe it from existence. No choice. No learning. How do we move forward if we keep repeating the past?” she says.
He knows her anger. It is the same one he has toward Tabula Rasa. They are stuck in the web of perpetual forgetfulness—bound to make the same mistakes over and over again.
“I failed Bodie,” says Metis.
The Crone turns to him. Her glow dims. “All Sandmen face this at one point. Don’t blame yourself.”
“Will he be okay?” he asks.
“There are side effects to Dreamcatcher. Just as all brains are different, they’ll vary from person to person. We can’t know its full impact on Bodie. Until we do.”
Aris places the now empty picnic basket and the blanket under a tree, in a bin labeled “Take Me Home.” It sits with a collection of things in perfect condition. She pulled this wicker basket out of a similar bin on her way home from work last week. She wonders who its next user will be. Sometimes she ponders the same about her apartment. Who will live in it next? Where will she be?
She looks up at the blue sky above. It’s an Indian summer day—sunny with a light breeze. Lucy told her there is no rain planned.
“Let’s go through the forest,” she says to Benja.
They enter under the shade of giant trees presiding over a primordial forest. Aris’s feet sink into a layer of decomposed leaves, branches, bark, and needles that have fallen from above. The scientist in her knows that underneath are invertebrates, fungi, algae, bacteria, archaea—an ecosystem of decomposers working to repurpose the organic materials to support life. The creative in her feels as if she is cradled by the collective nature. One day her body will join it, recycling into the earth and breeding more life.
She is not the only one attracted to this area. Here and there hang hammocks of woven rope. Aris hears singing coming from one. She is reminded of old folklore about fairies, monsters, and witches. In the green haze of the forest, it’s easy to imagine magic seeping out of the crevices of the old trees.
“How long do you think we’ve been living here?” Benja asks.
“Between two to three hundred thousand years.”
“No, in
