Dream Boat.

There is no such thing as a horizon here. The sky is the water. The water is the sky. The greens of both domes meet and merge with no distinguishable line. Clouds float across both surfaces. There is a faint glow in the air, steady and not made by thunder. It simply is. Just like the two worlds, it is green. 

The boat moves through the dreamscape. It cuts through the sky. It moves through the water. It’s hard to tell in which hemisphere it exists. It’s hard to tell which is real, and which is reflection. Perhaps, it is of both. Perhaps, neither. Its bow cuts through the water. Waves separate and unfold like ripples in time. Clouds shimmer against the hull, dull diamonds against the deep green. The boat engine rumbles, its mechanical throb reverberates across the stillness like a beating heart. Its out of place. A foreigner amongst the quiet, eternal undisturbed. But it chugs along, churning the soup of water and air, twisting an anchor of reality into being. The boat moves through the dreamscape. A tendril of smoke putters from the stack, smudging the conscience of the place.

At the edge of the bow, he leans forward and watches the water pass overhead. He watches the breaking clouds roll upon themselves. Ahead, in the far distance, at the heart of the faint glow, he sees the lights appear. They are dim, and shielded behind a veil of mist. For now, the glow is singular, and although this is his first voyage on the boat, he knows that as they draw nearer, the singular will separate and explode into a multitude. The one will become many, and the many will become a thousand illuminated eyes.

As he leans forward, feeling the cool air against his skin, a hand slips into his. It is small and fragile. His hand wrap around it and encloses it entirely. He can feel the little fingernails beneath the tips of his fingers. They remind him of gentle seashells, just born from the breath of the ocean. He tightens his grip around the little hand, and feels the safety in that bond. 

“What is that,” his daughter asks. Her voice is soft. A whisper beneath the beat of the boat engine. 

He looks out, and studies the approaching glow. “Those are the city lights,” he answers. 

There is silence. No answer. He is about to look down at the her, and then she speaks. “What’s there?”

The question brings a frown to his face. He looks out over the sky, his eyes gaze over the flat water and studies the umbra of the city lights. He starts to answer, but catches himself before any sound can escape his lips. He’s not sure he can answer the question. “That’s where we’re going,” he answers, believing that will be enough. Belief is something different to knowing, and he knows he hasn’t answered the question. 

“But aren’t headed in the wrong direction,” she asks. 

He knows she is right, but he challenges her anyway. “What do you mean?”

“There, behind us, there’s the fire we left. There, behind us, is the fire.”

He looks over his shoulder and looks back to where they came from. In the distance, there is a warm light. It’s unlike the city lights. It’s solid and wholesome. Seeing it now, he realises he’d already forgotten it. It had slipped his mind when he stepped onto the boat, and with each crashing wave, with each folding cloud, it had faded from his memory. The fire. That is where they came from. He had forgotten it. He had just remembered it. Close, or far, he knew it would be full. 

He turns back to approaching island of lights.

“What’s there,” she asks again. 

He scours his mind, looking for an answer, looking to capture a universe in a bottle. “There are sounds,” he answers. “There are so many sounds. There is music. That city music pulls at your heartstrings. It draws you downtown. The sound is the light, and it makes your heartbeat. Day on day, it comes around, and you feel the rhythm of life. That is the sound of the city. That is the city music.” 

Deep down, he doesn’t think it’s a good enough answer. Sometimes, he finds the city music mindless. Sometimes, he found the city sounds thoughtless. But he always tried to find the rhythm. That was the secret. He tells her this as he sees the lights approach. “You have to find your rhythm in the music,” he says. 

She doesn’t answer him. And she doesn’t have to. He feels her little hand move between his fingers. He chooses not to look at her. He keeps his eyes on the city lights. She’s of the fire. She’s not ready for the city lights. There’s no need for her to say so. He can feel it in her hand. He can feel it in her. He looks down and watches the sky-water crumble before the hull of the boat. 

Her hand fades from his grip. His fingers close, and there is nothing there anymore. He straightens, and turns. The deck is empty. There is just the steady beat of the engine. She is gone. In the distance, against the backdrop from where he came, he can see the fire. He can see its whole glow burn against the green. It is full. It is perfect. But he is too far gone to go back there. He is of the city lights. She is of the fire. And she has gone back to where she belongs. 

He realises now that she would never belong in the city lights. He turns back, and looks at the approaching island. 

The lights don’t look so bright anymore.