Mino's Dream

short story | another time / another world

It was a ghastly dream at dawn that awoke Mino from an otherwise restful night of good, dark sleep.

She woke up in a terrible, thrashing daze, sick to her liver and spleen. She was bloodless in the face and hands, like a ghost wandering the shrub-grass in the deserted lowlands. Fear spread in the way of a poisonous sap through her interstitium, for nightmares at dawn are known to come true.

The sun was barely out. Outside the sleeping hall, a faint shell of cold light fanned out through the broad, crinkled leaves of the grandmother tree. The sky was purplish, as it often was in this late harvest season, when the voices of the ancestors come through with the northwesterly wind. The last stars of the night were dissolving into a milky trace, taking with them the dreams of all waking creatures.

But the memory of this dream, so grotesque, persisted up and down the length of Mino’s spine.

She ran out into the courtyard where her sisters and younger aunts were already awake. It was their turn to hull and separate grain for the village bread, before their lessons and work for the day began. In the murky dawn light, their faces were placid and near indistinguishable.

“Sisters! Aunts! The most terrible dream has come upon me.” Young Mino cried. She ran straight towards their arms.

“Afraid of the hollow wanderers again my dear?” Eldest Sister asked, clasping Mino’s hands and rubbing her palms. “If you stumble upon them in the lowlands, they will beg and beg to feast on your soul. They will play tricks on you and appear in your ear in familiar voices. But if you do not bend to their will, they cannot hurt you Mino.”

“No, no, no. It isn’t the hollow wanderers.” Mino whimpered, her mouth wobbling. “This was different. It was a vision.”

“I had a vision too last night,” Onima, Youngest Aunt, said teasingly. “A vision of true love. A theatre of desire for the ages.” The women spit out a guttural laugh that cracked the silent dawn open like thunder. They elbowed each other lightly and made an exaggerated show of fluttering eyelids,

“Youngest Aunt! Stop teasing.” Mino insisted. “This was a true thing that happened, true like the Sky Voice on harvest night. I had the most gruesome vision. I think it was of the future, or maybe the past. Maybe it was even another planet, a most wretched planet.’

Eldest Sister smiled at this childish whimsy that moved through the air like a spring grasshopper. ‘And what did you see on this planet?’

Mino’s face was solemn. ‘Sisters and aunts, I had a vision of a planet where the waters were all poisoned. In every darling river and ocean, dead fish rose to the top, swollen and stinking. And enormous instruments were breaking open the earth, breaking into her veins for dark sticky blood and the blood that could not sink into water spilt everywhere. And the world was ruled by the twin-sister goddesses of Envy and Disdain. And when a sick woman walked into a grand city, she had nowhere to sleep, no one to welcome her and soon her lungs filled with smoke and her bones would rot with sickness and no healer would tend to her. And the cities were glittering, there were stars in the windows. But women and men killed each other and did unspeakable things, things I have never seen, and they went to die inside of small rooms without windows. The others lived inside towers, where the floors were made of white, exquisite stone and the ceilings had the souls of stars, but they cried and they cried and they cried. The people even flew. Like large, frightening birds, sometimes dropping fire and venomous smoke, destroying harvests for seven generations to come. There was an animal made of rot inside of every woman, it was hungry, so hungry. They were severed from their earth-lines. And yet they had powers beyond our dreams. They could make pictures move and tame the elements. But all together, it was a vision of hatred. The soil dried out into a whistling dust and the children grew thin with swollen bellies. I can’t even tell you, sisters and aunts, I am haunted by this vision. The noise. There was only noise and noise and hatred and noise.”

Mino’s words slithered like a snake. She spoke in a single breath, as though another voice was moving through her.

Eldest Sister and Onima closed their eyes and invoked the elements to ward off bad luck.

Waayi, the eldest of her younger aunts reached out to soothe the inconsolable child. ‘What a terrible vision. My dear, sit with us. You are here with us, not there. After we are done with the bread, we can go berry picking. We can take the carriage out to town and sing with the drifting musicians. I’ll forgo my lessons for a day and help you forget this awful dream.’

‘But Elder Aunt, why has such a vision seized me like this?’

Waayi hadn’t heard of such visions in years. Maybe it was just the dying resentments of a passing spirit, discontent, preying on the gentle mind of a child.

‘Not to worry, little bird. The place between sleep and wakefulness is a mysterious land. There, the clever mind can play mischief.’

‘I woke up from the dream just as dawn was opening. Is that not a bad omen, Elder Aunt?’

Eldest Sister and Onima shared an uncertain look. But Elder Aunt, Waayi, had been to the Thin Place between worlds. She had touched hands and faces on the other side of the veil. Though her eyes could not see far, she did not seek to heal them, for her mind could see through walls and hearts.

‘Sometimes a nightmare is just a nightmare, little bird. Even at dawn. I have been across many lands and seas. I have seen furious walls made of water and hills made of sand and dead men talking. Yet I have never seen things such as these. Some things are too terrible to be true.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘As sure as a woman can be. It all sounds quite fanciful and impossible.’

With this, Mino was content. She wedged herself between her sisters and aunts and lay on Waayi’s lap, under the dense shade of the grandmother tree, where all split minds could be healed.

‘Go back to sleep now Mino,’ she said. ‘And we shall go picking dark berries when the village is fed and the sun is high and bright like a sweet lemon. In the evening we will pickle the berries and teach our sisters the tunes from the drifting musicians. And then the nightmare will be long, long forgotten. Soon it will be just another story to tell, of a planet that never was.”

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