Keigh was tired, which should have been unusual since they didn’t have a physical body to exhaust. It was the nature of all thinking things to grow weary with effort, though, and a long shift of walking through humans’ dreams was enough to make any person exhausted.
Humans. They were such frustratingly complicated creatures. They almost all defined themselves by their physical beings without grasping the sheer figurative mass of their existence, or utterly misunderstanding what it means.
The least kind of Keigh’s people saw humanity as a raw, unpleasant mass that roiled and pressed against the walls of their world. Wading through the very dreams that made up that border, Keigh could understand that point of view. They didn’t share it, though.
The world of humans was fascinating, existing in a way most in the Reaches simply didn’t understand. The very natures of physical permanence and defined space eluded most, and the idea of an entire world of people existing in that state was utterly alien. Keigh didn’t fully grasp it themselves, but serving as a dream-minder gave them at least some insight. You didn’t walk through the dreamscapes of humans without developing a nuanced perspective of these strange, ephemeral things.
Keigh’s burgeoning understanding of humanity didn’t assuage their weariness, though. Fortunately, their shift was almost over. Just a few more dreams to mind.
They approached the Boundary, forming their Image into a recognizably human shape. Keigh watched the rolling, churning plane, awaiting the formation of a familiar and unsettling whorl on the wall of their reality.
They felt a spot of darkness manifest, swirling gently, then spinning faster and faster.
With no lungs Keigh took a breath, and with no legs Keigh stepped through the Boundary.
***
It was a boarding house, perhaps a hostel or hotel. A modest place for travelers, built of wood with three floors and walls of dark blue or green or brown. It fluxed and shifted as Keigh approached it, the building keeping only a vague shape against its certainty of purpose.
The surroundings were just as uncertain, simultaneously sitting in the middle of a quaint, old English city and near a pier. Wherever it was in the city, Keigh could tell that the city itself was an elsewhere place. It was not the home of the dreamer, and that mattered more than its specific location. The streets were not important, and the signs were illegible.
It was elsewhere, and that defined it.
That, and the darkening sky across the streets and the sea. It was in the distance, approaching fast, and Keigh could feel it becoming a certain thing in the dream. Its existence hardened, and they knew it would not fade or become something else. It was darkness and water and force, and a fixed point growing closer. It was, for Keigh, a concern.
Keigh beheld the building in front of them, the walls flowing like water across the cobblestones. There was no door, no stairs, no stoop, no sidewalk, just the existence of the street and of the building. Like so many things in the dreams of humans, there was function with little form.
Clearly the dreamer wasn’t in the lobby. Keigh was fairly certain there wasn’t a lobby to begin with. They looked up, along the wobbling, shapeless walls of the first and second floors until- Ah. The third floor was another certain thing, and they were fairly sure the dreamer was up there.
***
“This one was less shaped than most. Simple ideas arranged simply.” Keigh recounted, their essence rolling noncommittally. “Building. Street. Storm. Water. Vague certainties.”
Vigh’s light swept over Keigh in lazy circles as they listened. “I’ll never understand that about humans. They are just about the most certain things I can comprehend. Absolute, singular form. In theory, they should be the most perfect shapers in existence.”
“And yet their dreams are swirls our most abstract artisans couldn’t hope to craft. Near-absolute chaos from near-absolute order. There’s a bit of symmetry there, at least.”
There was a gentle roll from Vigh, their light dimming. “Some time you’ll really have to explain that concept to me. It continues to elude me.”
Keigh shaped a flat circle between the two, letting it spin and wobble before willing it still. “It’s really not difficult. You can grasp this shape, yes?”
“Of course.”
A line formed across the center of the circle. Identical spots and curves appeared on either side of the line, mirroring each other. “What is true on one side is true on the other. One shape forms two equal shapes.”
Vigh flashed a few colors and spun, setting the circle wobbling again before Keigh held it still. “Yes, yes, I understand that. Mirror workings. I’ve minded enough dreams in my time to see matters of reflection.”
Keigh sighed, their form swelling and shrinking as the circle became blank again. They shaped the disc into a more substantial lump, extruding two pairs of crude extensions from the center and bottom. “I believe there’s an absoluteness on the other side of the Boundary that’s even more stark than we see in their dreams, but I sense your confusion regards less certainty, yes?” The top of the lump extruded into a spike, then was flattened down into a knob. Keigh offered it to Vigh. “Human symmetry.”
The lumpy homunculus floated before Vigh before they flattened it into a plane again, folding the shape across the vertical axis. It fluttered shakily away from the two. “I can’t say that I understand why their existence is so fixated on equal measures. Balance on two sides means you simply have one side repeated. It’s so limiting.”
The roughly human butterfly glowed and sparkled, painting trails of color away from Keigh and Vigh. “It’s poetry, just a different kind than ours. It’s even more fascinating when taken away from form and used on concept. I’ve been studying an image some of them enjoy, that has meaning. Abstracted symmetry given concrete form. I still have difficulty forming it, though.” Keigh shaped another circle between them, a curved line undulating across the middle.
***
As Keigh rose along the side of the building, they considered what humans needed to perform the same task. More often than not, they climbed. Arms and legs lashing upward, affixing to whatever surfaces they could find to stabilize them as they moved upward. Rocks, ledges, walls, stairs. Especially stairs.
Ah, stairs. Keigh had seen so many stairs while they minded the dreams. Such an odd dance of certain creatures traveling diagonally with structures created solely for that purpose. It always looked so graceful and yet so silly to them.
Keigh simply rose. They were on the ground, then they traveled away from the ground. If the dream was more firmly shaped, Keigh might have indulged in a climb themselves, using their carefully formed Image to dance along those narrow little platforms. Alas, there was nothing to climb here. There was only the certainty of the building itself, and the certainty of the third floor, with the two floors below shapeless behind the colorless walls.
They heard the chatter of humanity as they approached the third floor, the side of the building firming into long rows of wood shingles, painted a dark green. Here there was form. Here there was shape.
Here there was a window, which Keigh considered quite thoughtful. They peered through a pane of glass at the great room inside.
It was warm, and loud, and full. Dozens of people mingled under the light of the yellow-amber lamps mounted along the walls. It was a scene of laughter and joy.
Keigh frowned, a visual response they picked up minding dreams. The happy, lively humans wandering around the floor had faceless blurs where their heads should have been. The laughter and joy inside was not to be enjoyed by the dreamer. They moved between windows, looking through the half-formless crowd until they saw a face among the faceless.
It was a young man, pale and dark-haired, dressed in a heavy, uncomfortable coat despite the fireplace next to him. His head was drooped, his attention set on a device in his hands as he tried to block out the sounds around him. After a few moments of unsuccessful distraction, he slipped the device into a pocket and began to meander around the room, eyes downcast.
That was, without a doubt, the dreamer. Keigh felt confusion and pity at the young man’s isolation, an island of quiet despondence in a sea of happiness. They had seen so many dreams take shapes like this, seemingly crafted to torment the very person who formed it.
Humans could shape such spectacular dreams in the Boundary. They had that capacity inside them. And yet, they far more often crafted elaborate shells of anguish around their essences. They took the endless potential of this space and used it to hurt themselves.
Keigh was tempted to slip into the room, but that wasn’t their job. They minded the dream, not the dreamer, and as uncomfortable as the scene was within those solid wooden walls, something more important demanded their attention.
The sky was a dark blue-black, and the clouds were getting closer. The water, both a few yards and half a mile away from the building, was starting to churn. The storm was almost here.
***
“I genuinely don’t think they’re aware of what they’re doing most of the time.” Keigh discarded the circle they had shaped, curves and spots dancing across the surface as it floated away and dissolved, forgotten. They still couldn’t get that shape right. “But I think you’ll understand that even less than you understand conceptual symmetry.”
Vigh puffed up, pinks and purples rolling along their form in offense. “Don’t underestimate my capacity. I am technically your superior, after all.”
Keigh wobbled apologetically. “I just meant there are concepts that I still don’t fully grasp, and you haven’t worked in the Boundary for quite some time.”
This satisfied Vigh. “That’s fair. So what are you talking about?”
“Consciousness.”
“Existence?”
“No. It’s-” Keigh trailed off in a spiraling sigh, attempting to form the right message. “According to the scholars studying the dreamers, the other side of the boundary carries existence separate from awareness. Humans have a concept of consciousness that doesn’t solely define them, because they can exist without it.”
Vigh shuddered, their form stiffening and shifting to an icy blue. “That’s absurd.”
Keigh glowed soft red, their own form curving along Vigh’s reassuringly. “I don’t understand it completely, but it’s true! They exist while spending lengthy periods without any awareness whatsoever. But then their awareness returns, and they continue as if nothing happened.”
“Absolutely mad. Must be a benefit from having a singular form. Not worth it, I’d say.”
Keigh rolled excitedly. “It gets more wild. Most of the dreamers? Some scholars think they only enter the Boundary during those periods of un-consciousness.”
Vigh curled tightly, vibrating. “That’s paradoxical! How can anyone shape dreams while not existing?”
“Ah, but they do exist, remember. And it gets even more confusing. Honestly, I can barely follow the scholars’ analysis.” Keigh bounced and flashed. “Humans apparently have many different states of consciousness they can occupy simultaneously! The dreamers are aware, and not aware, and a third thing as well.”
“Oh, don’t tell me there’s a third thing now.” Vigh flattened with sardonic humor. “Doesn’t that ruin their precious symmetry?”
“Probably, but I don’t even understand it. They say dreamers have existence they aren’t aware of, that shapes them. A form of sub-consciousness.”
Vigh tumbled, groaning.
***
The dark clouds rolled closer, flashing forks of lighting followed by muffled cracks of thunder. The storm was pouring a torrent of rain that spattered heavily across the surrounding streets and buildings and churned the sea indeterminately beyond them.
Keigh stood on the roof of the building to regard the roiling clouds. Or, to be more specific, they simply stood above the building. It had no sense of roof, just a ceiling from the perspective of the dreamer that enclosed the unpleasantly boisterous room he was in. So Keigh stood where the roof of the building would have been, above and out of sight of the young man who was dreading the approaching storm as much as he was shrinking away from the crowd surrounding him.
The streets between the building and the sea melted away as the storm grew closer, blotting out the sky with swelling clouds and spraying water. Soon there was only the building and the storm, and those two certain things in the dream were about to meet.
The certainty of the storm spread downward to the rolling waters below, forming tall, wide waves that nearly touched the clouds themselves. Keigh took notice of the rising waves and frowned. This would likely be a flood more than a downpour. They had minded enough dreams to know the difference. Storms could be weathered under shelter. Floods destroyed shelter.
It meant a greater danger to the dreamer, and more importantly a greater likelihood of the dream breaching the Boundary with the sheer force of the storm. Keigh steeled themselves above the dreamer’s floor, narrowing their gaze at the clouds and the water.
It wasn’t that bad. Not yet.
Keigh allowed themselves a glance below their feet to check on the anguished young man. The windows facing the storm had been torn open into a gaping hole through which he watched waters approach. Rain fell at a nearly diagonal angle as the waves splashed closer and closer with their own wet thunder.
The party-goers didn’t seem to notice the storm. They continued to mill about, talking to each other with no mouths, laughing and smiling with no faces. The dreamer tried and failed to get the attention of those cheerful mannequins before slumping to the floor, staring at the dark skies and darker water as both got closer.
Waves rose, looming higher and higher, almost as tall as the building itself. They crashed against the space between the building and the storm, which was no long distinct enough to discern as streets, or harbor, or rocky beach. It was just distance, shrinking as the water washed it away.
Keigh frowned, bracing their human Image against the roof of the building. There was very little roof to work with; the dreamer could see a ceiling with gaslight or candlelight over his head, but from the other direction there wasn’t much sense of being. He was indoors, and the vision of the outside of the building continued to fluctuate.
There was a chimney, though. It was a square island of gray brick rising from the amorphous roof, its presence vaguely defining just-as-dark shingles around it. Keigh pressed their foot back against it, leaning their temporary body back as they started to feel gusts of wind and splatters of rain.
***
“Oh, it certainly looked bad.” Keigh recounted, a gloomy puff forming in front of them. “Big, dark, cold, wet. And what it did to the majority of the dream that wasn’t certain… just melted it away.”
Vigh tilted, analyzing the dark wisps of clouds Keigh showed them. “It was melting the dream. You didn’t think to leave the Boundary and request assistance?”
Keigh let the image of the storm dissolve into empty space. “I had considered it, but at the rate it was moving, what it was doing to spatial perception, any help would have come too late. It was coming, it was close, and it was already there.” They started assembling a fuzzy approximation of the building in the dream, its miniature walls coalescing into form but failing to harden into a precise structure.
“And if you had the time, would you have requested assistance?”
“Oh, of course, of course.” The top of the building wobbled up and down, both a slanted and a flat roof at once. Keigh attempted to perch a tiny chimney on it. “But it turned out not to be necessary.”
Vigh flicked the tilting chimney away, demanding Keigh’s full attention. “The dreamer created a destructive force that was eroding the dream itself before you. Staying to observe was reckless, Keigh.”
Keigh glowed a gentle teal, sighing and forming another chimney to balance on the undulating building before them. “Self-destructive.”
“What?”
The chimney vibrated, but stood steady at an impossible angle on the ambiguous roof. “Self-destructive force, not destructive. I told you, there were two certainties in the dream: the storm and the building. Well, the water and the third floor of the building, but my point is that there were two. And the former was heading straight for the latter, as if it were created to do so.”
Vigh flashed violet for a moment, glaring at the building and at Keigh, then dimmed. “So the dreamer was trying to destroy their own dream?”
“His, and not precisely. You haven’t patrolled the boundary for a while, Vigh, and you didn’t really take to the subtleties of humans there before you accepted your current role.” Keigh brushed the building aside. “You should dive in occasionally. You’ll learn just how strange they are quite quickly.”
“They aren’t just strange, they’re a danger. You know what happens when dreams bleed through the Boundary to us.” Vigh groused.
Keigh sighed again, glowing gently. “Of course I know. And you know how rare it is, considering just how many dreamers enter the Boundary constantly. They don’t even know there’s anything on the other side of it, from their end. And almost all of them are completely incapable of forming the kind of force necessary to penetrate it.”
***
The waves rolled upward and thundered downward, covering the side of the building as rain continued to pour overhead. The wall appeared to hold against the steady splashes, the already-present gash that replaced the windows remaining steady as the dreamer watched the scene in horror.
It held steady, until it simply stopped doing so. In one great crash of water, the wall was torn open, leaving a gaping hole that dug down into the floor and up over the ceiling in a wide oval. Jagged boards extended from the edges of the hole, giving the impression of a grinning maw.
The young man below Keigh’s feet reeled away from the broken floor, pressing up against the far wall. The faceless forms around him continued to dance and laugh, oblivious of the waves now spraying across the room. The dreamer’s own face was warped with anguish as he appeared to be the only one in the crowd witnessing the damage of the storm.
Every crashing wave took with it chunks of floor and wall, and the pouring rain appeared to further erode the previously solid contours of the building’s third floor.
Soon there was only the back wall and a few inches of warped floor for the dreamer to scramble against, desperate to keep his footing. Paradoxically, everyone around him seemed to exist completely separate from the storm and the carnage it was causing. They talked and mingled and played games amongst themselves, standing on solid wood and under warm lights that simply no longer existed for the dreamer.
Keigh frowned at the scene, but acted without panic or fear. They ducked behind the chimney, which kept its shape even as the roof ceased to exist in the storm. They watched the dreamer struggle and try to get away from the massive hole before his feet.
Rain fell across the young man’s face, streaking water down his cheeks as he moaned unhappily. The wind whipped around him, and the device in his coat pocket vanished into the storm. His coat soon followed, ripped away from his body by the tempest.
***
“You said the storm was a destructive force-”
“Self-destructive force. And a common one. They turn these concepts of darkness on themselves, again and again. Maybe it’s some form of training for them. Maybe it’s a strange sort of self-mutilation. The scholars have theories about that.”
Vigh’s glare lessened. “And what do you think?”
Keigh paused, again considering their words. “I think it’s involuntary. That ‘consciousness’ concept I told you about. If dreamers are both conscious and unconscious in the boundary, then their thoughts both exist and don’t exist. So maybe they just don’t have control, and the dreams are their two halves of being trying to resolve themselves. Again, their strange symmetry.”
Vigh was silent for a few moments, cycling through colors and brightness as they tried to understand what Keigh was saying. Finally, they responded. “That sounds like a lot of speculation on your part, Keigh. It’s a very wild theory.”
“Perhaps, but all of the other minders have been seeing the same things and coming to the same conclusions. And the scholars have expressed an interest, as well.”
There was another, longer pause. Vigh vibrated, dark red. “If all of the other minders agree with you, why haven’t any of them mentioned this in their reports to me?”
Keigh winced and shrank. “Well, they don’t think you’re interested in hearing them. They only know you as the person they report their patrols to, and- look, I’m saying this but I’m not saying it- some of them find you dismissive.”
“They think I’m just a bureaucrat.”
“I’m not saying that. But you haven’t gone into the Boundary in a long time. There might be a bit of an impression that you don’t care about the subtler details as long as there aren’t any incidents.” Keigh hovered, looking away from Vigh, who again paused before speaking.
“And the scholars?”
“You could go over their recent research a bit.” Keigh hummed quietly. “Get in touch with the work we do, really find a feeling for it.”
Vigh slumped. “Maybe you’re right.”
“You’re always welcome to join me on a shift. You’ll really appreciate just how strange it is, seeing how these dreamers function in the Boundary. And perhaps you’ll learn to sympathize with them a bit.”
“They really are just so strange.”
Keigh waved at Vigh, forming their vague effigy of a human again. “More than you know, but we still share the Boundary with them. Whether they understand what that means or not.”
Vigh stared at the doll hovering before them, then looked to Keigh. “Do you think they have any concept that we’re here? Or the threat they present?”
“Vigh, from everything I’ve seen, they have a hard enough time maintaining a concept of themselves. I don’t think they understand the Boundary, or are even aware of what it means.”
***
The rain had stopped, the waters had receded, and the sky was bright, if cloudy white rather than sunny blue. The building had been reduced to rubble, but there seemed to have been no casualties.
The faceless group that had been merrily partying through the storm the night before thinned out a bit, but they were no more concerned than they had been while the structure around them was smashed into piles of wood and rock. They had scattered into smaller groups, chatting quietly as large, dark busses began to form along the solidifying street, their doors open and waiting for passengers to board.
A young man still stood in the rubble, his face a picture of discomfort as he poked through small piles of debris. He looked naked without his long, heavy coat, which was now only a few shreds of gray wool on the ground. Still he dug around the wreckage, searching for something, occasionally glancing through the demolished wall between him and the street, eying the busses with fear.
Gravel and splinters crunched under Keigh’s feet as they walked through the wall. They had seen enough dreams to know that the vehicles would not leave without the dreamer. The vehicles would not exist without the dreamer, but considering his panicked expression it was clear to Keigh that he didn’t know that.
The young man didn’t see or hear Keigh as they stepped through the flattened building toward him. He was focused too much on looking through the smashed remains of the building, and on the busses he was afraid would leave without him.
Keigh watched the dreamer for a few moments, then looked down at the ground. A glimpse of orange-red peeked out under a few rocks by their right foot. They bent down and pushed aside the debris to reveal a gleaming black rectangle with brightly colored handles on its sides. Keigh picked it up and examined the device, brushing off the dust on the reflective glass.
They didn’t quite understand what it was, but it seemed intact. It felt surprisingly sturdy for its small size, with hardly a crack, scratch, or even smudge on its body.
Keigh stepped toward the dreamer, who crouched down and picked through another pile of rocks. They gently put their hand on his shoulder, and he jumped.
“Excuse me, sir? I believe you dropped this.” Keigh smiled, presenting to him the strange device.
The young man’s eyes welled with tears as he recognized the offered object. He gingerly took the shining rectangle from Keigh, looking up at their face for a fraction of a second before looking away again. “Thank you. I was looking for that. I- thank you, so much.”
Keigh kept their hand extended, and the young man stared at it for a moment, his own hand twitching before he looked away again. He rose to his feet, nodding gently and giving Keigh another half-moment’s eye contact. Keigh withdrew their hand, nodding solemnly in response. “It’s a shame about your coat.”
The dreamer clutched his precious device and shook his head, looking to Keigh a third time. This time he lasted several seconds, smiling thinly through watery eyes. “It’s not a big deal. I’ll find a new one. It’s not what’s important.”
Keigh nodded to the busses, giving the man another gentle smile. “It sounds like they’re boarding.”
He swallowed and nodded, looking down at the gleaming object. “Yeah. I better get on. Have to go home.”
“Good luck.” Keigh put their hand on his shoulder again. “Have a safe trip.”
The young man sighed softly and began walking toward the bus. “It’s not the trip that worries me. It’s having what I need to make it.” He looked back at Keigh, smiled sadly again, and disappeared inside the bus. The doors closed, and the world around Keigh faded away as they left the Boundary.
Keigh formed a fuzzy rectangle in front of themselves, shaping colorful handles on the sides. “I still don’t really understand them myself, Vigh. But every time I cross the Boundary, every dream I mind, I learn a bit more. All I can say with any certainty is that it is complicated, and they are complicated.”
Vigh continued to examine the human-shaped effigy before them. “And you don’t think they pose a danger to us?”
“Intentionally, none of them. They don’t even grasp the Boundary itself.” Keigh brushed over the rectangle, glowing gently. “Those who could turn their dreams toward our side of the Boundary are so few as to be nearly insignificant. We should still mind them, for the distant possibility of an exception appearing, but we don’t need to fear them.”
“Should we pity them instead?”
Keigh chuckled, dissolving the rectangle into gentle blue light. “No. We should just try to understand them. There must be a reason we share the Boundary.”
“Mmm. Well, perhaps next shift I’ll join you. I have been too distant from our work.”
“Next shift, then. For now, though, I’m going to find some nice darkness to relax in, and watch the memories as they flow in from the south. If you catch them at just the right angle, you can see them break up into poetry.”
Vigh turned away from their subordinate. “And I think I shall speak to some scholars until the next shift reports. I clearly need some new perspectives.”
“Well then, old friend. The next time I see you, may we have sweet dreams.”