- Eva -
I approached the tree. I was finally going to be able to choose a dream. Surrounded by all these dancing spheres, I was hoping to come across a dream that would take up the elements of Chinese mythology with large temples guarded by talking animals. Or, a much more down-to-earth world, a world full of charming young single men who would be entirely devoted to me and who would grant my every wish. Unfortunately, we were not in my dreams but in Remi's, and I could not see him indulging in this kind of dream. Among all the colours, an ochre bead spotted with orange called out to me and I grabbed it. Its touch gave me the feeling of a soft caress and immediately, one of the waterfalls changed colour.
Did I make the right choice? I couldn't wait to discover this dream and went first, even walking past Erwan for once, taunting him.
Everything was black. There was not a sound.
- 'Are you there?' I said worried.
All answered positively, but it was impossible for me to see them, or even touch them. Stretching out my arms in front of me, I slowly started to grope and pray not to get into anything.
- 'Remi, could you tell us what's going on?' I asked, my voice slightly strangled by anxiety.
I have the unpleasant feeling of being a ghost.
- 'I can no longer see the waterfall to return to the lighthouse,' Vaness worried.
- 'Don't worry, it's normal,' Remi said in a calm voice.
No, "normal" is not the first term that comes to mind.
- 'When I sleep,' he began to explain, 'I mainly have two types of dreams: lucid dreams in which I can intervene directly on the course of history, as in the village dream, and narrative dreams that tell a story in which I am a spectator as it seems to be the case. So don't worry.'
At his words, a gleam broke out in the darkness.
- 'The moment of truth! I hope it doesn't suck,' Erwan commented.
Tic. The image of a drop of water falling on a liquid surface appeared. The waves of the impact spread harmoniously, revealing the vision of the universe with its billions of stars, comets and other celestial bodies. The music began.
I immediately recognized the first notes of Remi's favourite song. Gravity of Love, by Enigma.
Not quite my style, I admit, but there is something in this tune that doesn't leave me indifferent either.
He had introduced me to this music one day at his house. The volume was at its maximum on the speakers, the windows vibrated, and he knew every word, every variation, every silence. He must have listened to it a hundred times, if not more.
The scene moved up to the level of a small nebula with sparkling shades. It came to life to the rhythm of the notes, the colours danced. Purple, orange, fuchsia, turquoise... intertwined, intermingled. Strength and gentleness never ceased to love each other. The light intensified. This condensed set of images called upon the deepest sensations and emotions to extract them from the shadows. Love, compassion, sadness. The pace is slowing down. There was silence again. The intensity of the scene increased. The nebula stretched across the universe, the colours dispersed and everything exploded into a gigantic firework display.
At the end of the show, and without knowing how, we reappeared in the lighthouse room, with stars in our eyes.
- 'The film is over!' exclaimed Erwan. 'Well, at first, I was afraid to be bored, but the final was something! All these explosions in all directions. It was like being in the middle of an interstellar war.'
We had just witnessed the birth of a whole galaxy, and he thinks of war...
From the corner of my eye, I observed the salty traces of Vaness' tears on her cheeks and found myself beating my eyelashes to make mine disappear. This momentum made me realize that there were still so many things I didn't know about Remi.
A real mystery, that one!
- 'Come on, Vaness, it's your choice now,' Erwan said eagerly.
Carefully, Vaness came to stand under the tree and looked up to the sky.
- 'So, Vaness, what are you doing?' Erwan cackled after a few minutes. 'You'll see that she's still asking herself a million more useless questions.'
- 'I was just wondering if the colour of the spheres and their position around the tree created a kind of dream classification? Dark colours for dreams of action? Light colours for emotional dreams? Is a dream at the bottom of the branches less intense than another at the top of the tree?'
- 'No, but seriously? Pick any one, take the one that shines the brightest. Isn't that what girls usually do?' he said, turning towards me.
I took the opportunity to stick out my prettiest tongue at him. What a jerk! Thin as coarse salt.
- 'Well? Should I call the fire department?'
Confused, she then hurried to touch a red and pink sphere, halfway up the tree and, once through the waterfall, we found ourselves sitting side by side in a wagon. Immediately, the safety bar engaged and individual harnesses fell on our shoulders.
- 'Why do I have a bad feeling about this?' I stammered.
- 'I don't know,' she replied, 'but I have the same strange...'
In a squeaky noise, the wagon started off in a hurry. Right turn and left turn followed by a slow and long jerky climb. When it reached the top, the machine came to rest for a few seconds on a steep slope. Behind us, I heard Erwan yelping with happiness and clapping his hands.
- 'Let's go!' he shouted as the wheels started to move.
I just had time to tighten my fingers around the harness as the wagon slid into the void. Descent to ninety degrees then triple looping ascent, wavelet course, twisting ascent, head up, head down and again a descent. The wagon was going so fast that my cheeks, and those of others, slammed in the wind. Tears ran from my eyes, while Vaness' cries accompanied mine, covering the boys' laughter.
- 'Mommmyyy, I want to come down!'
- 'Aaaaaaaah!'
After what seemed to me to be an eternity, the wagon finally stopped in a crash, leaving us both dishevelled and our cheeks reddened by the cold.
- 'I love roller coasters!' Erwan shouted as he got out of the car. 'Again, again!'
- 'No! No! No!'
At the sound of this violent cry from the female heart, Erwan's smile disappeared.
- 'My organs need to recover...' I added nauseously. 'I am gagging. Can we sit down somewhere?'
- 'I need a break, too,' Vaness said. 'I thought I was going to die!'
- 'We are in a dream, no one dies,' Remi replied with a mischievous smile on his face.
- 'Perhaps, but you don't know,' Vaness replied, with one hand on her heart.
- 'What do you mean?'
- 'There are many things we don't know about this world.'
- 'My dreams are not dangerous. I know what I wrote anyway,' he replied, obviously somewhat offended.
- 'But you don't know what you forgot to write,' I added.
My words left him perplexed for a few seconds and I saw him get lost in his thoughts.
- 'Nevertheless, we can still try to satisfy everyone... How about a little ride on the Ferris wheel then?' Vaness suggested, pointing the attraction just next door, to try to relax the atmosphere.
- 'Oh no, it doesn't move enough, it sucks,' Erwan grumbled. 'It's a girl thing!'
Suddenly seized by a desire for murder, I looked at Erwan with a frosty look and made him understand that only his silence could guarantee his physical integrity. As an apology, which he would not make, he advanced first to the Ferris wheel by dragging his feet.
At a height of about a hundred meters, it had on each side two large yellow stars with eight branches where all the spokes of the wheel converged.
- 'Say, don't you think it's strange that we're the only ones in the park?' I said surprised.
- 'We are in a dream, Eva, we have to learn to be less Cartesian,' Vaness explained, surprisingly ready to put aside her almighty logic. 'Then, as for being alone, I find it rather pleasant not to have to wait for hours in a line that doesn't move forward.'
- 'I completely agree,' Erwan nodded with a big smile.
- 'But still, no one to run the attractions?'
- 'It's still logic,' Vaness continued. 'Forget about it. Say Remi, you don't have anything to tell us about this dream, by any chance?'
Remi remained silent.
- 'Aren't you going to answer us? Something is fishy,' I accused him.
- 'As long as the story isn't about clowns, that's fine with me!' Erwan trembled. 'I don't like them with their permanent smile and their vicious little eyes.'
Remi still didn't answer anything and had a fleeting look.
- 'Haha! Your face doesn't lie. There were clowns,' I shouted. 'I'm not sure I want to know the story, I'm not a big fan.'
- 'I have no more affection for them and they don't make me laugh, but I want to know,' Vaness announced.
- 'You want to know everything, anyway,' Erwan whispered.
- 'All right,' Remi breathed. 'The rest of you, cover your ears.'
Erwan instantly put his hands on his ears while mine remained suspended in the air. Finally, my curiosity got the better of me and I came closer to Remi and Vaness to listen to the park's history.
- 'This park was controlled by a myriad of clowns with a failed make-up,' began Remi, with a dark face. 'Sad that no one ever came to visit them, they had become mean. To get revenge, in the evening, they would kidnap children from nearby towns and villages in their sleep to "clown" them by entangling them. There you go! Satisfied?'
- 'What? The story ends there, like that?' Vaness exclaimed with emotion.
- 'No, no, no,' he reassured her. 'I saved the children, managed to get people back in the park and made everyone smile. All's well that ends well.'
- 'So, the clowns are back to being nice?' I hoped.
- 'They always have been, they were just blinded by their pain.'
Sad clowns.
- 'It's okay, it's over? We can go?' Erwan spoke loudly, keeping his hands on his ears as he walked.
- 'Do you think we'll meet them?'
- 'I have no idea,' Remi smiled.
If they're here, they're very shy.
When we arrived in front of the Ferris wheel, we sat in the blue, padded nacelle at the quayside. While Remi locked the safety latch, the day gave way to the night.
- 'And the sky, as if by magic, instantly donned its night appearance, a delicate coat of darkness with velvet reflections, embroidered with constellations,' narrated Vaness aloud.
She seemed to be reciting a poem.
The wheel activated. Slowly, the cabin rose. All the lights in the park came on, miles of garlands and multi-coloured lanterns. The view was breath-taking. We had a panoramic view of the park that extended beyond the horizon: ice pyramid, bumper trucks, ghost town, shooting ranges, duck fishing, water games... The list seemed endless.
Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!
My stomach rumbled loudly. I tried to hide these sounds by pressing it, but it was a lost cause.
- 'I too am starting to get hungry,' Vaness said in an outpouring of female solidarity.
- 'Lucky for you, Erwan is here. I spotted a giant pink meringue. I'm sure it's a candy store or something. It's right next to the carousel, look,' he pointed out.
As the wheel completed its revolution and stopped, the sun reappeared instantly and the lights went out. Quickly, we went out and walked, pressing our step to reach this sweet Holy Grail. A few meters further on, he was finally there, the sweet Eden. A masterpiece of pastry.
- 'It almost makes me want to cry,' Erwan enthused.
- 'Please don't hold back,' I laughed with a sly smile.
A crying man... I've always wanted to see that.
- 'Not until I see what she's got,' he announced, pushing the store's swing doors.
We all followed him, hungry and curious to discover what was in this magical pastry shop.