THE TOWN THAT COULD NOT SLEEP

by

Michael J. Clark

mclark7@mindspring.com

THE TOWN THAT COULD NOT SLEEP

CHAPTER ONE

Once upon a time there was a town that could not sleep. It was not really that the town could not sleep: the town had become afraid to sleep.

It seems that the problem first began with one of the town’s leading citizens, Mr. Henry Richardson, who owned the bank in town. One night, as he slept, he dreamt of a huge dragon , with black scales, thick eyebrows, and long fingernails. The dragon lived in the woods in the hills overlooking the town.

In his dream, Mr. Richardson had taken a walk on the outskirts of town. The dragon met him and warned him in a ferocious voice: “you are not safe in your town because one of these days i will come in to your town and burn it to the ground.”

Mr. Richardson awoke, terrified. Of course, it was only a dream. He told others of his dream the following day. They laughed, relieved that it was not real.

The next night, a second man, Mr. Peterson, a book-seller, also dreamed of the dragon. Mr. Peterson dreamt of a fishing trip. He was sitting beside the river, with his small son, Joshua, when the dragon emerged from the trees.

Mr. Peterson had heard of Mr. Richardson’s dream the night before. So, when the dragon approached, breathing fire and roaring, Mr. Peterson cried to the dragon: “Have mercy, Mister Dragon! We are only a poor man and his son! We have committed no crime against you to merit your wrath...!”

The dragon replied: “You have denied my existence for centuries now. Your great minds have all proven that I no longer exist. Your children have all lived as though I do not exist, laughing, without fear -- pretending that dinosaurs were the real dragons. Well, I have returned to provide each of you with a morsel of fear, to remind you that all is not peace and profit in the kingdom...!”

Mr. Peterson awoke in sweat and chills. He shook his wife awake, and told her his dream.

The next day the town was alive with the story of the dreams of the angry dragon. The men of town met in high council. The women gathered in the town square. The priest offered a high mass that evening; and the bells of the church were rung from noon to dusk, in hopes of driving the dragon from the woods.

Of course, it was not clear that the dragon actually was in the woods. He had appeared in dreams only. But the townspeople were coming to believe that the dragon had taken up residence in the woods. The town council unanimously voted to build a wall around the city, to try to protect the town from the dragon.

One man, Tom Saxon, a wood-cutter, suggested that the best approach might be one of caution. He worked each day in the woods. He had seen no evidence of a dragon living in the woods.

But he was opposed by Mr. Richardson, who served as the mayor of the town. “You have not seen the dragon, Mr. Saxon—but does that mean it is not real? Ask those of us who have seen the dragon! If we wait until everyone has seen it, then it will be too late for our town!”

CHAPTER TWO

Tom Saxon went home from the town meeting very concerned that the town was panicking over nothing.

His wife and children welcomed him home; and they sat together in the back yard of their home. The sun was going down. It was a warm summer night.

“We make a mistake assuming that a dream is a real thing,” he told his wife Alice. “It may be that the dragon does not pose any real threat to our town. But if the people in town believe in the dragon enough, then their fear of the dragon may be enough to make the fear itself become as powerful as a dragon...”

Tom was a philosophical man.

Alice replied: “It will probably pass away, Tom, like a spring storm. Sometimes people want nothing so much as to escape the boredom of a commonplace life. Sometimes people would rather have fear in their lives than nothing at all...”

Alice was also somewhat philosophical.

That night Tom and Alice went to bed; and Aice dreamt that she and Tom and their children in a boat on a river. They were floating down a peaceful valley. It was sunny, calm. Birds were singing and flying from tree to tree.

Then the dragon appeared. Alice pointed to the dragon, but Tom said: “It’s only a dream, honey! It may seem real, but that does not mean that it is real!”

The dragon laughed. “I am only a dream, am I!”

He roared. He reached into the water, grasping the river like a piece of cloth. He gathered the river into his hands, rolling it like a ball of yarn. Then he cast it toward the sun. It sailed into the sky, a thick ball that seemed made of blue gauze. As it neared the sun, the ball of water began to dissolve and unravel.

The river came falling back to the earth. Rain began to fall, a hard rain, which made the animals flee, the birds seek shelter in the groves. The sky filled with thunder and lightning. The sun was blotted out.

The Saxon family boat had sunk into the mud of the riverbottom.

As the rain began to fall, Tom and Alice grabbed their son and daughter and ran into the woods, seeking to escape the angry dragon. But the dragon was everywhere. He rose up in the trees before them, and roared: “I will enter your town and steal all your children, for you have denied me! Any man who denies me shall be punished! His wife shall turn against him!”

Alice awoke from her dream in tears. She related to her husband each frightening detail of the dream.

Tom tried to calm her, reminding her that it was only a dream.

She looked at her husband with shock. “I have seen this thing, Tom! I have seen his power! I wish to hear never again from you that the dragon is but a dream. To deny the dragon is to invite his wrath!”

CHAPTER THREE

Tom Saxon still did not believe that the dragon actually existed. Dreams could be powerful. No doubt, his wife’s dream had been something furious. Still, as real as the dragon was in the realm of dreams, there had been nothing to happen in the real world, the world of waking life, to indicate that the dragon was anything more than a power of the hidden night world.

Tom Saxon went to work the next morning, driving his wagon through the gates of the town. A group of townsmen continued to build the wall around the city.

Friends cautioned Tom Saxon as he departed the safety of the town: “Tom, it’s not wise to venture where a man is not wanted!”

And: “Leave your friends, Tom, to venture into the land of death -- it will surely lead you to harm!”

Tom replied: “A man must work!”

“Then help us to build the wall!” Isaac Thomas called. Isaac Thomas was a minister. “It is God’s work to build the wall to keep the devil out!”

But Tom Saxon did not listen. He drove his wagon deep into the woods. There was a profound silence in the forest. He liked this silence. He met no one on the road. He longed to see the dragon, to meet the demon face-to-face. But there was only silence; and then the occasional song of a meadowlark.

He stopped his wagon as he came to a clearing. Many trees had been felled. He rolled up his shirt-sleeves and began sawing the downed trees. He had work to do. He would not let the power of some bad dream keep him from completing his appointed tasks. How else would the family put food of their table?

Alice Saxon, on the other hand, spent the morning reporting her dream to her friends. They reported it to their friends. Before long the dream had been related to nearly all the citizens of the town.

When Mr. Richardson, the mayor, heard of the dream, he insisted that Alice Saxon meet with the town council and relate the dream in public.

A great crowd gathered in the town hall chambers to listen to Alice Saxon report her dream. With great excitement, Alice recalled each frightening detail of the dream. The crowd gasped at each new revelation.

As Alice recalled the dragon casting the river toward the sun, there was a tremendous clap of thunder in the sky, above the town hall.

The crowd fell into silence. There was lightening, and more thunder. The sky had been cloudless earlier that morning. No one had noticed a storm building. Now the sky was black with clouds, and rain began to fall with a chilling intensity.

At first, the crowd at the town hall remained inside the building, expecting the storm to pass quickly. Summer storms usually came without much warning, performed violently, and then were gone as quickly as they had come.

It rained for several hours. The power of the rain did not slacken. Otis Buckley, a machinist, thought aloud for everyone: “I hope this doesn’t last much longer, or the Regal will rise and bring hell on the lowlands!”

The ‘Regal’ was the Regal River, a usually peaceful river along which the town had been built. There were houses and farms in the lowlands, along the south bank of the river. As the rain continued to fall, panic began to set in. Some people in the town hall had family and homes in the lowlands.

The rain did not stop. The sky was the color of a blue plum—and lightning danced into the town, striking trees with tremendous explosions. Small fires broke out. Smoking trees could be seen from the town hall windows.

People panicked, running from the town hall in every direction. Many ran toward the lowlands, to try to reach their homes and families. But it was too late. The river had risen. It had raged into the homes and the farmlands below. Homes and cattle had been swept away. People were missing. It was still raining and there was no way to invesigate the amount of human damage in the valley.

The great wall, being built by the lowlanders, in accord with the decree of mayor Richardson, to protect the town from the dragon, had been crushed by the wall of water. There was nothing left of it. Huge cinderblocks had been torn apart and scattered across the valley floor.

When Tom Saxon descended from the mountain, he looked down on a town in chaos. He had heard nothing. The woods had been silent. The sky had been blue and cloudless all day, as he labored under the sun.

Now, from the road on the hilltop, which led down into the valley, he could see the flooded lowlands and he could sense the panic in his town.

He drove his horse and wagon quickly down the steep path and into town. The city gate had been abandoned—the men who had challenged his departure were gone.

Tom Saxon worried about his wife and children—although there was in him a sense that they were alright. Still, in his mind, even with the flood, the obvious natural disaster, there was no necessary connection between this catastrophe and the dragon in the dreams of the town.

CHAPTER FOUR

The flood was just the beginning of troubles for the town.

Beatrice Weaver dreamed of the dragon swallowing the daughter of Henry Addersley, a teacher at the grade school. Two days later Henry Addersley’s daughter, Melanie, aged six, fell into a mud hole and was swallowed by the earth.

Bill Partridge, the organist at the church, music teacher, and occasional carpenter, dreamed that the dragon actually entered the town, struck the church spire with his fist, as Mr. Partridge was playing ‘Rock of Ages’ to a Sunday afternoon church meeting.

Three days later, Mrs. Orvery Newton was struck and killed by falling bricks as part of the church tower collapsed. She was walking to church for sunday evening service. Bill Patridge was playing the organ in the loft.

A town meeting was called. Nearly everyone in town attended.

Mayor Richardson presided over the meeting. He spoke to the townspeople:

“Any sane man or woman can understand what is occurring!” he announced. “This dragon, be he an emblem of god or of the devil, is predicting tragedy in our dreams and then carrying it out in our daily lives! He has brought flood; he has warned that he will bring fire...!”

“Why is he afflicting us!” Ernest Waters asked. Ernest Waters was a father of thirteen children. He worked as a tax assessor in the town hall.

“He has told us that he is angry that we have denied his existence!” Mayor Richardson replied.

“We no longer deny his existence!” Rebecca Cuff cried. Herbert Cuff, her husband, tried to comfort her.

“Some of us have not come to believe,” Mayor Richardson reminded the crowd.

Eyes turned to find Tom Saxon. He was sitting beside his wife and children.

“Speak, Tom Saxon!” Reverend Thomas called. “Do you believe, or do you not believe?”

“Do I believe in the troubles of this town?” Tom Saxon replied. “I do believe. Do I believe in the dragon as the cause of the town’s troubles? I do not. What is the dragon, but a symbol of our fears! What is the dragon in us which makes us so try to deny our own reason!”

The crowd hissed at Tom Saxon, shouted angry replies at him: “If you do not believe, then you should leave this town!”

And: “Tom Saxon, your father would be ashamed of you, if he were alive!”

And: “You are the reason we are afflicted, Tom Saxon!”

Mayor Richardson tried to quiet the crowd. “We cannot force a man to believe! If he insists on being blind, then he will be blind. A man must have a right to choose, afterall!”

Still, there were mutterings against Tom Saxon that continued to run through the hall.

“We must find a way to appease the dragon!” Mr. Peterson shouted.

Mayor Richardson reasoned: “Perhaps if we no longer dream—perhaps, then, the dragon will leave us! Afterall, it is only through dreams that he makes his appearance.”

The town agreed that this was true. But how to keep from dreaming?

“We will no longer sleep!” Mayor Richardson replied. “To sleep is to invite the devil in to our lives. To sleep will be against the law. To dream will be outlawed by government edict! In fact, we will be a much more productive race if we use all the hours of the clock for work. We shall defeat the powers of darkness merely by denying the dragon his power!”

Yes, the townspeople agreed: it was a good plan. To sleep would be against the law. Afterall, there was much work to be done. Life would be much more efficient if sleep were not required.

The new law passed by a nearly unanimous vote. Tom Saxon abstained from voting.

CHAPTER FIVE

Tom Saxon wondered aloud about the wisdom of the new law.

“How can a people not sleep?” he asked his wife. “Is it a choice people make—to sleep or not to sleep...?”

But Alice grew angry.

“You must do as is required, Tom!” she warned her husband. “If you continue to resist the will of our friends, then I will take the children and I will move in with my parents! I can’t take your rebellion against the truth any longer!”

Tom Saxon was shocked. What did this all mean? Had his wife turned against him? Must he stand alone, insisting on reason, insisting on clear thought?

That night, Tom Saxon slept.

A group of townspeople gathered at the church, to pray and to help observe the new law.

Several men were found sleeping in the back of the grocery store; and they were arrested.

Monica Durst was turned in by her husband. He had stayed up all night, waking the children whenever they dozed off. But his wife had scolded him, and had gone upstairs to bed. Willard notified the sheriff, who came to the house and arrested Monica.

For several days, nothing tragic occurred. People grew increasingly irritable with one another, from lack of sleep. People walked around as if in trances. If someone nodded off when in a group, another member would gently waken the guilty party. No arrests would be made in such a case.

Many arrests were being made, however. In three days over twenty people were arrested. They were being held in the town jail, where the jailer kept them awake, by banging on a tin plate irregularly throughout the day and night.

Everywhere, throughout the town, fatigue and lethargy were evident. Productivity was almost non-existent. Civility was no longer evident. In the town square, people lounged beneath trees, or slumped against building in the shade, speaking very little or not at all, mumbling to themselves about the need to stay awake.

The new law seemed to be working however. If people didn’t sleep, didn’t dream, then apparently the dragon could not manifest itself in some form of destruction.

That notion ended abruptly on the fourth day following the legislation of the law against sleep.

A fire broke out in Teddy Hammond’s mill, one of the largest employers in the town. Three men were caught in the fire. Several more were injured by smoke. The town fought the fire all afternoon, but could not stop it. The mill was a total loss.

That evening, Morris Clemens was brought before a meeting of the town council. He had been bound in ropes by his neighbors. One of them, Lars Newman, had heard Clemens explaining to his wife a dream he had had the night before, in which the mill was set fire by a dragon dressed in the clothes of a woodcutter.

Morris Clemens told his dream to the town council. For breaking the law against sleep, Clemens was sentenced to two weeks of public humiliation in a stock in the town square.

A serious discussion then followed about the meaning of the dream. Who was this woodcutter in Clemens’ dream? Of course, who else but Tom Saxon.

Mayor Richardson urged caution. Afterall, Tom Saxon had been the most outspoken critic of the mayor’s attempts to neutralize the dragon. But that did not mean to say that Saxon was in alliance with the dragon.

But the mayor’s reasoning was lost on its audience. Soon word had spread about the dream. A crowd gathered in front of Tom Saxon’s house. The crowd began to chant for Tom Saxon to come out and explain himself.

Tom Saxon went out to meet the crowd.

Isaac Thomas, the minister, acted as the spokesman.

“Tom Saxon, we need to know where you stand on this issue!” Reverend Thomas cried. “Either you’re with us or you’re against us! And if you’re against us, then there’s no room for you in our town any longer...!”

“I am with this town and have always been so!” Tom Saxon replied. “Because I counsel reason does not indicate that I am in unholy alliance with this dragon of your dreams! I have never met this dragon. I don’t know what the dragon has to do with our tragedies!”

But that was not enough. The crowd began to shout: “Out! Out! Out of our town!”

Several men broke through the crowd and hurled stones through the windows of Tom Saxon’s house.

Spider Petrozak cried at Tom: “If you’re not out of here in twenty minutes, we’ll set your house on fire!”

When Tom Saxon went into his house to check on his wife and children, Alice had already packed a bag and was dressing the children to leave.

“I can’t live like this, Tom!” She said. “I can’t take it any more! I’m taking the children to my parents’ house!”

“And what am I supposed to do?” Tom asked.

“I don’t know, Tom,” Alice replied. “Nothing is clear any more! Nothing is the way it used to be!”

Alice was gone, taking one child in each hand and leaving by the back door.

Tom sat on the floor and wept. His entire life, which he treasured so much, his wife and his son and daughter, had been swept away in a moment of hysteria. Much as the dragon had prophesied earlier in his wife’s dream:

“I will enter your town and steal all your children, for you have denied me! Any man who denies me will be punished! His wife shall turn against him!”

CHAPTER SIX

Tom Saxon drove his wagon out of town before a cheering crowd. It was evening. He drove into the woods, made camp that night at a nearby campsite, and then drove deeper into the woods the next day.

He dreamt that night about his fellow townspeople: how wild and fearful they seemed, screaming at him as he left town: “Go to the dragon, where you belong!”

“Good riddance to bad baggage!”

“The town shall be free, now! The town shall be free...!”

These were men and women he had known for years. He had grown up with these people. Children, friends of his own children, even followed his wagon out of town, hurling rocks at him as he climbed into the mountains.

His sleep was very troubled. He awoke often, hearing sounds. Once he awoke to find a wolf sniffing at his wagon, some fifteen feet away.

His last dream, before waking in the morning: his house had been burned to the ground by the townsmen. He returned to find nothing but ashes. The entire town had been burned. No one was there any longer. He sat down on the grass and wept uncontrollably. Then a small girl appeared, an Asian girl, about five years old. She had short black hair, and seemed very tiny—but here eyes were bright, almost laughing.

“Why are you crying?” she asked.

“I have lost everything!” Tom Saxon replied. “I have lost my wife, my children, my home, my friends!”

“Why have you lost them?” She asked.

“Because of pride,” Tom Saxon replied. “I was too proud to be one of my own society. For some reason I felt that I had to be different.”

“Is that really the reason?” the small girl asked.

“I felt that I was right!’ Tom Saxon cried. “I felt that I needed to be right!”

“What else?” The girl asked.

“I did not believe that the dragon was real!” Tom Saxon added. “I did not want to believe in the dragon!”

Tom Saxon spent his first few days in the woods building a house. He began with a very simple lean-to structure, with a slanted roof, which could keep him out of the rain. Then he began to cut longer logs which would eventually become a real house.

Each evening he would ride his horse to the crest of the mountain, look down upon his town, try to imagine the life of the town.

He was not sure what to think of it all. He would spend some time in the mountains, allow for the spell of bad luck to pass away from the town, then return to find his wife and children. It seemed like a good plan. They would be alright.

He would build his house, day by day. He would hunt and fish for his food. He would sleep and dream. One day he would awaken from this strange dream, and everything would be as it was before.

The town celebrated its exorcisim of Tom Saxon for several days after his departure. There were no more tragedies. It was as if the sun had returned.

There was even some discussion that the law prohibiting sleep could be lifted very soon, as it seemed to all that the fever had passed, that the diseased limb had been severed from the body, and now the health of the town was returning.

The jails were emptied. Sleepers were forgiven. Many townspeople visited Alice Saxon at her parents’ house, offering condolences and sharing her sorrow. It was not her fault, they knew. Somewhere, something had gone wrong with Thomas. Maybe it was because he had spent too much time in the forest.

Everything seemed better now.

About a week after Tom Saxon’s exile a fire broke out in the town hall. No one was injured, but the building was burned to the ground.

Mary Walker, the town librarian, confessed to the mayor that she had slept, even though it was still illegal to sleep—and that the dragon had come to her in the form of a comet. And the comet, with its long, fiery tail whipping in the wind, cried down to Mary Walker: “it is not enough that you cast out one disbeliever! You are a town of disbelievers! It is not one man I wish to destroy! I shall strike out an entire town of deniers...!”

Then he had rolled himself into a ball of flame, flung himself into the town, striking the town hall building and setting it in flames.

Tom Saxon could see the reflection of fire in the sky. He rode his horse to the ridge overlooking the town, and saw the town hall burning and heard the church bell ringing.

He considered riding down into town to help fight the fire, but he knew that any appearance by himself would be misunderstood as some form of complicity in the tragedy. So he sat on a rock, watching and listening to the tumult down below.

He wept. His entire life had been overturned. His uprooting had been so swift, so dramatic, that this, itself, felt like a dream. He wanted only to pinch himself, so he could awaken from this nightmare. Yet, he knew too well that it was not a dream, that his life was not some phantom which would vanish with the steady approach of dawn.

Tom Saxon watched the fire until almost dawn. Then he rode his horse back to his camp. He was weary. He was emotionally spent. He crawled into his cot and fell into a deep sleep.

He dreamed.

Again, there was the sweet Asian girl in his dream. She was sitting on a rock, near a fence, in a town. She was holding a plate of food, eating lunch. There was a black cat behind her, hoping to share her food.

“What is your name?” Tom Saxon asked her.

“My name is Nu-Way,” the girl replied. “It means ‘precious jade’.”

“What am i to do, Nu-Way?” Tom Saxon asked. “My house has been burned down! My family has been lost!”

“There is a dragon, Mr. Tom,” Nu-Way replied. “You want to believe that there is no dragon, simply because you have not seen it. But I have seen the dragon. It lives in the hills above the valley. And it is angry. It must either be defeated through force or through love.”

“And how does one defeat the dragon through force?” Tom Saxon asked the girl.

“You would need to make yourself even more horrible than the dragon,” Nu-Way responded. “The danger in this is that you might lose yourself in doing this. You might make yourself the new dragon, for power often breeds a horror that is impossible to control.”

“And how does one defeat the dragon through love?” Tom Saxon asked.

“That i do not know,” Nu-Way answered. “I do not know how to love the dragon. Surely, however, denying his existence is not the way to defeat him. For this only makes him angry.”

Nu-Way offered to share her lunch with Tom Saxon . He ate a piece of spring-roll and found it especially delicious. Nu-Way also shared some rice with her cat.

Then she looked up at Tom Saxon and said: “I must go, Mr. Tom. But I will see you again.”

“Wait,” Tom Saxon replied. “Before you leave, you must show me where I should go to find the dragon. I live on this mountain. I have looked for the dragon, but I have not seen him anywhere.”

“You find him in your dreams,” Nu-Way responded. “You must confront him in your dreams.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

More tragedies came to the town.

Ralph Malcom was crushed by a wagon that slipped its brake and rolled back over him. Tanya Williams was bit by a town dog that went mad in the summer heat. Rollie Bender’s three-year-old son, Randolph, drowned in the river after wandering away from the Benders’ yard.

Alice Saxon had taken Brett and Leslie to live with her parents. Now, she missed her husband. She regretted that she had turned on him. Yet his stubborness had exasperated her. It was clear to everyone in town that the dragon had cursed her town; her own dreams had shown it to her clearly. Still, her husband refused to recognize the danger, and criticized those who understood the nature of the enemy....

Still, she missed Tom. Every night she would cry herself to sleep. Her children would come up to her and ask: “Mom, when is dad coming back?”

That would break her heart.

She would say: “He’ll be back soon. He’ll be back any day now.”

Still, she did not know if she would ever see him again. It was as if she were living in a dream now. It was as if she had entered a nightmare, and did not understand how to escape it.

One afternoon her father, Mortimer Collins, was walking in the park. An old friend, Cecil Clay, hurried up to the old, white-haired Collins, saying: “Midge Henry had a dream last night. In her dream she saw your son-in-law, Tom Saxon, dressed in armor, fighting the dragon with a sword.”

The word spread about town.

Of course, people were careful not to tell anyone in authority that the dreamer was Midge Henry. The jails were now full of dreamers. Over seventy people had been arrested. A new jail was being built, to house the guilty sleepers. The town administration had become increasingly severe in passing judgment upon dreamers. Mayor Richardson now made public speeches about “the real enemy within” as being the “traitors” who succumbed to "dark seduction of dreams".

The town was now a collection of sleep-walkers. Farmers were too weary to work their fields. Laborers were too weak to do heavy labor. Even the gravediggers in town were behind schedule: bodies were stacking up in the mortician’s barn. A very sickly smell had spread over the town. It was a smell of tragedy. A smell of madness.

Tom Saxon spent his last evening overlooking the town from his ridge on the mountain. All he loved existed below, in the valley. Yet, he was not welcome there any longer. He was not even sure why. He did understand that he would have to win back a place in the community however. He understood that it was now his task to free the town from the blight brought upon it by the dragon.

He rode his horse that evening deeper into the woods. He climbed toward the highest peak, Clark Mountain. It had been named after the first man to climb the peak, Oliver Clark, who returned to town exclaiming: “You can see the entire world from the top of this mountain!”

There was a cave near the top of the mountain. Tom Saxon had seen the cave on an earlier ride, as he was seeking new timber grounds.

He rode to the cave. He would stay there, sleep until he found the dragon in his dreams, fight him, either defeat him or be defeated. He would not surrender to the dragon however. He would either free the town from its misery or be destroyed trying to do so.

Tom Saxon collected fire wood and food in the cave. He had plans to stay as long as was necessary. The cave was damp, and deep enough to exclude all light. Tom Saxon built a fire, spread out his bedding, and slept.

What is it in a dream that makes it so real while making it, at the same time, so unreal? There are elements of real life, pieces, picked out by the dream-assembler, placed in whatever order, like a mosaic, resembling some chaotic order but, in fact, intelligently structured, and symbolically full of meaning.

Tom Saxon slept. He dreamt. There was a man with a cane, who had a very long white beard. The man reminded Tom Saxon of his father, but the man was not really his father. The man was standing on a seashore. He was dressed in white, and the wind was blowing; it was sunny and warm.

“You have no binoculars!” the old man said. “You have no binoculars; so you’ll never be able to find your way through here!”

The wind was blowing.

“Why must i have binoculars?" Tom Saxon asked.

“Because, here,” the old man replied, “everything is either this or that, one of two things, good or bad, living or dead, white or black, day or night: one of two visions. And each man you meet is one of two natures: either light or dark. Learn to trust the one; learn to avoid the next — then you will be successful here. You must develop the skill to see things from a distance, friend.”

The old man’s gold crown was lying in the sand. Tom Saxon bent down to pick it up. When he rose to hand the old man the crown, the man was gone. He was left holding the crown.

A beggar with a beard, dressed in rags, told Tom Saxon he, the beggar, would find the king to give him back his crown. Tom Saxon did not give the beggar the crown. The beggar turned back, gave a signal, and three dogs came racing forward, snarling, showing their teeth.

Tom Saxon tried to run. The dogs attacked.

“Just drop the crown!” The beggar cried. “and i’ll call off the dogs!”

Tom Saxon felt teeth sink into his leg, in several places. He raised the crown, the crown became a sword, with a golden handle embedded with rubies. The dogs immediately became quiet, laid down beside his feet. He touched his wounds with the tip of his sword: the wounds were healed.

Nu-Way was standing beside a mountain stream. She was holding a cup of water. She gave it to Tom Saxon, and said: “You have had such an easy entry here, Mister Tom. Your birth into our world has been extremely easy. A friend has even given you a magic token to aid you in your journey.”

Tom Saxon drank the water, felt refreshed.

“Where can i find the dragon?” he asked Nu-Way.

“You are not yet ready to meet the dragon,” Nu-Way replied. “If you were to meet the dragon now, you would be destroyed.”

“What do you mean?” Tom Saxon cried. “My town is being destroyed! I must find the dragon, now!”

“Your town is sleeping quietly!” Nu-Way replied. “You have one whole eternity to find the dragon, before your town awakens.”

“In what direction must I journey?” Tom Saxon asked.

Nu-Way pointed to the east and said: "Further inside yourself."

There was a deserted village. On the edge of the village was a graveyard. Tom Saxon walked through the graveyard, reading names on the tombstones. They were all names he knew: they were the people of his town. A gravedigger sat on a mound of dirt, at the far end of the cemetery. He pointed toward a group of graves, saying nothing. Tom Saxon moved where the gravedigger had pointed. There was a group of graves: the Saxon family. There were over 200 Saxons buried in the plot, including Tom Saxon, his father and mother, his wife, Alice, and his two children.

“How did this happen?” Tom Saxon cried.

“Plague!” The grave-digger replied. “Plague, nothing more!”

Tom Saxon stumbled off toward the river down in the valley. There were strawberries growing everywhere. The fields were rich with produce.

A woman was seated on a mound of dirt, digging potatos. She was middle-aged, heavy, and wore an earth-colored apron.

“Who are you looking for?” the woman asked. “I am the only survivor here. The plague came and took everyone away.”

“Why?” Tom Saxon asked.

“The town lost its memory,” the old woman said. “When a town loses its memory, then it is visited by plague. That’s the way it works. Then, if it survives, it finds its memory again.”

“I don’t understand you,” Tom Saxon said.

“There is time and there is memory,” the old woman responded. “When time dominates, memory is lost. When memory dominates, time is lost. You are now alive in the world of memory, which is ruled by symbols instead of by time.”

“What symbol rules here?” Tom Saxon asked.

“You are holding one of the symbols that rules,” the old woman replied. “You shouldn’t have to ask me which symbol rules.”

Tom Saxon raised the sword in his hand, looking at it. It became a trumpet. He blew into it. It sounded throughout the valley, such a beautiful series of notes that the old woman digging potatos began to weep, smiling weakly.

She said: “Your town needs you! Nothing is fixed and done here! Everything is an illusion here! Even your own grave is not real!”

Tom Saxon looked back up the hill, toward the Saxon grave plot. There was an apple tree heavy with fruit. There was not a grave to be seen.

“Which way is the dragon?” Tom Saxon asked the woman.

“Each person must find his own dragon,” the woman replied. “What is your dragon? Find your own dragon and you will find the dragon which threatens your town.”

Tom Saxon awakened from his dream. It was nearly dark in the cave. His fire was almost out. He threw more logs on to the fire. The sparks and light leapt on the cave walls, like dogs running on a field. Tom Saxon understood that there was some connection between his fire and the world of dreams. He did not know what it was exactly. But he knew he did not want to let his fire go out.

He poked the fire with a long stick he kept by his side. The cave was very dark. He closed his eyes, and tried to return to sleep.

CHAPTER SEVEN

In the town, many men and women began to dream about Tom Saxon. In these dreams, Tom Saxon appeared armed, in the woods, stalking the dragon, seeking to save the town.

Word spread throughout the town. “Tom Saxon is trying to save us!”

And: “There is reason to hope!”

And: “Tom Saxon has a sword with which he is preparing to slay the dragon”

“How do you know this?”

“We have seen it in our dreams!”

There was an underground culture of dreamers now, resisting the edicts of the mayor.

There was hope, again, in the town.

Tom Saxon fell back into sleep. He was standing on a cliff, overlooking a canyon. There was a river running below, wildly. He looked further down the valley. There was a town at the end of the valley. The water below him was raging toward the town. He understood that the town would be destroyed in the flood. He tried to cry out to the town, but no sound came from his voice. He tried to cry; he watched the wall of water strike the stone wall surrounding the town. It crumpled. The town was swallowed up by the raging river.

The water receded. And the town was just as it was before the flood. Nothing had changed. The stone wall was intact. It was noon. The church bell was ringing.

“You must be able to see things from a distance,” the old man had said.

There was a pair of binoculars near his feet, buried in the dirt. Only the strap of the binoculars was exposed—but Tom Saxon knew they were binoculars. He fell to his knees, digging with his hands. He extracted the binoculars. He felt a sense of triumph as he picked the dirt away from the lenses, raising the binoculars above his head in triumph.

Tom Saxon heard a small voice behind him. It was Nu-Way.

She said: “Look down into the forest with your binoculars and you will see great things.”

Tom Saxon did as he was told. He saw his wife and his two children, living at her parents’ house. Everyone was alright. They were eating dinner, talking. He looked through the glasses more closely at Alice; and she said, to her father: “The whole town is talking about Tom, father. They think he has gone to the woods in order to save the town. They say he will fight the dragon. And, by fighting the dragon, they say he will free the town from the dragon’s curse!”

“Yes, i have heard it too!” the old man replied. “Drivel! Drivel! Tom has not disappeared in order to fight for the town! He escaped with his life! The town intended to punish him for his treason!”

“Yes,” Alice replied. “But the dreamers believe that he is, at this very instant, laboring to save the town and its inhabitants.”

And then Alice said: “I love him so much, father! I want him to come back to me!”

Tom Saxon turned to Nu-Way.

“When will I be able to return to my home?” he asked.

“When you have come to understand the dragon’s true nature," she replied. "And when you have learned to defeat him, either through deft or through power, or perhaps even through love.”

“When will I meet him?” Tom Saxon asked.

“When you are ready. You could meet him now, and you would not even recognize him.”

“There is something philosophical in this,” Tom Saxon surmised. “Isn’t there?”

“I thought you never would guess!” Nu-Way said. “Do you think that you have not been chosen for this task? You were selected from an entire town for this endeavor.”

“But what is the endeavor?” Tom Saxon cried.

“You are assigned to come to know yourself! Nothing more.”

“And there is no dragon?”

“No, not really,” Nu-Way admitted. “Only your own mortality. That is the only dragon.”

“Then there is no reason for me to be here,” Tom Saxon reasoned. “I can go home now!”

“Only if you can find your way home,” Nu-Way responded.

“What! Of course i can find my way home!” Tom Saxon cried. “Look, down below!” He pointed down toward his family. He had seen them through the binoculars. But there was only a forest now—no sign of life. He looked through the binoculars again. But he saw nothing.

“I must go home, Nu-Way!” Tom Saxon implored. “I must return to my family!”

“Go, then!” the girl said. “The whole secret of life is being able to leave but also being able to return!”

CHAPTER EIGHT

All the lights went out and there was only darkness, a fire flickering on a wall. Tom Saxon could not tell whether he was sleeping or awake. He tried to pinch himself; but his hands felt numb. There was a golden crown at his feet; and a pair of binoculars hung around his neck. He placed the crown on his own head—and felt a strength rising inside him.

He left the cave. It was very dark. The forest was alive with sounds: owls hooting; the flash of wings: flying things. Nothing looked the same as it had when he had arrived at the cave. Everything felt different. He was not sure if he was awake or asleep.

His horse was still tethered to the tree where he had left him. He saddled his horse, Midnight. The only light was from the moon. Tom Saxon and Midnight traveled through the woods, step by step, very slowly, along the path: going home.

He wished to rush home, to be with his family again. But as he passed into the thick woods the light became dimmer and dimmer. His horse did not want to proceed. But Tom Saxon edged him forward in the darkness toward their home.

Tom Saxon began the feel emotion welling in his chest. He felt like crying. He loved his family so much; he loved his town; he loved all the people in his town, even those who had slighted him and accused him.

There was no reason to hold a grudge, he told himself. Forgive them. They did not realize what they were doing. They were motivated by fear. And how does one avoid being motivated by fear? Clearly, it was not easy.

He heard a sound, a roar, coming out of the darkness. The sound was huge, terrifying, coming from directly before him in the night. The sound carried with it wind, a cold wind, rustling the leaves and the pine boughs as it rushed by.

Philosophy had not seemed so important to Tom Saxon. But now, with something dangerous lurking on the path before him, Tom Saxon began to understand how important philosophy really was. For when danger was near, philosophy—the powerful idea—the presence of one's God -- was the very thing which kept one from being motivated by fear.

Yes, that was it! Philosophy, one’s closeness to his God, one’s understanding of mortality and one’s understanding of immortality, gave one strength in the face of danger.

He could hear again a rustling in the woods up ahead, as though a giant were crashing through the timber. Again he heard the roar: louder than thunder, sending chills over his skin, into his soul.

The cold wind followed, blasting and shaking space.

He stopped his horse and looked through his binoculars up the darkened path toward the threatening sounds. The field-glasses illuminated the night. The dragon was up the road, waiting for him. The dragon had uprooted trees, and held them in both hands. He raised them into the sky. And hurled them up the trail toward Tom Saxon.

The timber fell from the sky, crashing all around Tom Saxon and his horse. But both were unhurt. Tom Saxon felt that the crown was protecting him , giving him some mysterious strength.

“We must go forward!” Tom told his horse.

Together, Tom Saxon and his horse, Midnight , galloped through the darkness toward the dragon. Tom Saxon took the crown from his head, pointed it up the trail. It became a sword. Then the sword burst into flame, illuminating the trail.

The horse rode hard into the darkness. Both Midnight and Tom Saxon seemed to understand that their home awaited them on the other side of this ride.

They raced into a clearing. The dragon was waiting, rising up ahead on the trail.

“Who goes there!” the dragon called.

“It is I, Tom Saxon!” Tom Saxon replied, reining in Midnight.

“Why are you here?” the dragon asked, extending himself on his back legs. He was over fifteen feet tall. Fire was coming from his mouth in small breaths.

“i am here to defeat you! To drive you from my village and to free my townspeople from your yoke!” Tom Saxon cried.

“You cannot defeat me!” the dragon replied. “I am legion! I have no form! I am eternal! I cannot be tamed!”

Tom Saxon rode directly at the dragon. His crown, which had become a sword, which had become a sword of fire, now became a lance.

As he rode at the dragon, the dragon reached down with his massive forepaw and swiped at the man and his horse. Just before the impact, Tom Saxon hurled the lance at the dragon’s heart. There was some kind of explosion. He felt himself flying through the air. He landed in a swamp, sliding through mud on his back. Midnight had been struck to the ground. There was a horrid scream, extreme heat, a flame in the sky—then there was nothing.

CHAPTER NINE

Tom Saxon awoke from his dream. The cave smelled musty. The fire had burned out.

Tom Saxon rose from his bed of dust. He collected his bedding. He emerged from the cave. He was alone. His wagon was still there, where he had parked—but his horse was gone.

It would be a long walk home—but that was his destiny, to return home, to be with his family. So he left his belongings in the woods, and began the long walk back to town.

Many townspeople had dreamt that night of Tom Saxon’s battle with the dragon. There was jubilation in the village. Word spread throughout the town, although with care, since it was still a crime to sleep and dream. It had even become a crime to mention Tom Saxon's name.

It was a sunny cloudless day.

Mildred Paige hurried to the Collins’ house to notify Tom Saxon’s wife and her family of the good news.

“The dragon has been slain!” she reported. “Tom was not injured. Ralph Benton actually saw him walking home through the woods in his dream.”

The townspeople assembled an honor guard of men to ride into the woods looking for Tom Saxon.

When the mayor heard of this, he sent his police to arrest the men. But when the police saw the celebration of their fellow townspeople they forgot their orders. Several even joined the honor guard as it rode up the mountain in search of Tom Saxon.

Tom Saxon no longer knew what was real. The forest seemed eternally peaceful. Had it all been a dream? He felt no wound on his body. He did not understand what he had done.

As he walked he still clung to the old crown he had found in the woods. He had been given it by someone—now, he forgot who had given it to him. An old pair of binoculars still hung around his neck. He was not sure of their purpose. Still, they felt good to him, as if they were somehow a charm, or, if not a charm, at least a memory of something charming, some power which had helped him rise above his fears.

He came to a clearing in the woods. He noticed that whole trees had been uprooted and lay strewn about the hillside.

A fear rose in his breast. He knew that something dreadful had occurred here, something powerful, something true. As he passed into the clearing he met a small asian girl walking on the path. She stopped, looked up at him:

“Hello, Thomas,” she said.

“Nu-Way, is it you?” Tom Saxon replied.

“Yes, it is I. I see you chose to fight your fears rather than to befriend them. That is all well and fine. Although now you must make amends for your actions.”

“What do you mean?” Tom Saxon said.

“See the man there,” Nu-Way said, pointing in the distance, beside the trail. There was a body lying beside the road.

“Now you must seek to make amends for your actions.”

Tom Saxon hurried to the injured man. He was an old man. He had a deep wound in his chest. It looked very much like Tom Saxon’s long-dead father.

Tom Saxon tried to wake him.

The old man was dead. It was Tom's father. Tom’s father was dead.

Tom looked back toward Nu-Way. He saw his fallen horse back in the woods, lying beneath a huge fir tree.

“What shall i do?” Tom cried to Nu-Way.

“What did you intend to achieve by slaying the dragon?”

“I intended to free my village from oppression,” Tom Saxon cried.

“And to free yourself from suspicion,” Nu-Way added.

“Yes. All of those things.”

“Why had the dragon so much power over your village?” Nu-Way asked.

“He said it was because we had forgotten him.”

“You did not pay homage to him.”

“We did not honor our parents. Is that what this is all about?” Tom Saxon cried. “That we did not honor the deeds of our parents?”

“You had forgotten what your parents had given you,” Nu-Way answered. “You had forgotten your personal histories, your roots in the earth. You took for granted what one should never take for granted--life itself; and life's bounty. And so the dragon rose up to smite his own children.”

“The dragon was a tyrant!” Tom Saxon cried.

“Yes,” Nu-Way replied. “Although not always. Once he was grand and forward-looking too. He became old. And when he was no longer respected, he became angry.”

Tom Saxon was silent.

“What do you want, Tom Saxon?” Nu-Way asked.

“I would like to heal my father,” Tom Saxon replied. “I would like to tell him that i respect him and love him.”

“You have the power to do that,” Nu-Way responded.

“Yet, what if i heal my father, and then he again becomes a dragon, again to persecute my town?”

“I have told you why he chose to persecute your town,” Nu-Way replied. “That knowledge is the primary power i have given you. All the rest is just the torch of the magician.”

Nu-Way turned and disappeared into the woods.

Tom Saxon looked down at his father’s corpse. He took the crown he had been clutching, and he pointed it at his father’s corpse. The crown became a sort of wand, metallic, filled with light. It extended down to the corpse, in a ray of red hot light. Tom Saxon ran the wand over his father’s chest, sealing up the gaping wound.

Tom Saxon held the wand against his father’s cheek. Color began to fill his cold white face. His features began to thicken. The man opened his eyes.

“Why have you chosen to heal me, you who have hilled me?” He asked.

“Because it is with love that i might disarm you, even as it is with might that i sometimes must oppose you,” Tom Saxon replied.

“Have you learned something from this, Thomas?” Harald Saxon asked, standing before his son.

“I have learned much, father. I have learned that we must not lose our memory, even as we must also not lose our ability to dream,” Tom Saxon replied.

“That is a great deal, Thomas,” his father replied. “It is good that your were chosen for this trial. It is a sign from the gods that you have been chosen to be a leader of your people.”

“I am sorry, father, that i didn’t honor you as you deserved.”

Harald Saxon put his arm around his son. “Each son outgrows his father’s knowledge. He rebels against his father’s understanding. Then he returns to it. It is the way of things. Even as it is true that each father moves from being the father of wisdom to the father of tyranny. Then, if forgiven, and if he can forgive himself for his own imperfection, he again becomes the father of wisdom.”

“Then you have forgiven me, father?” Tom Saxon asked.

“I have forgiven you, Thomas,” Harald Saxon replied. “Have you forgiven me?”

“For what, father?” Thomas asked.

“For my tyranny.”

“Yes, i have,” Tom Saxon replied.

“Good,” Harald Saxon said. “Then you should heal your horse, as you have healed me, and return to your family before the evening falls. They are no doubt quite concerned about you.”

Tom Saxon approached the fallen horse, midnight. He raised his wand above his stilled companion. He touched the horse about the neck and head, slowly bringing him out of his distance. Soon, midnight began to breathe, and rose from the earth with a serious thrashing. He was fine.

Tom Saxon turned back to his father. Harald Saxon was gone. The trees were no longer broken and scattered over the hillside. It was as if the battle had not occurred at all.

Thomas mounted midnight and, together, they rode back toward the town. They were greeted by the honor guard which met them at the edge of the tree line. They rode as a group down the mountain and into the village.

Everyone in the village understood that the crisis had passed. Villagers surrounded the jails and demanded that the dream-prisoners be released. The prisoners were released.

The townspeople then marched to Tom Saxon’s house. It had been abandoned for an indeterminate time now. They set about cleaning the yard, fixing the roof, polishing the stone and the windows.

Alice Saxon arrived with her family. Neighbors brought food, set out a large table in the front yard. Beer kegs were opened. Kites were brought out. The crowd waited anxiously for the return of Tom Saxon.

When Tom Saxon arrived back in town, the villagers cheered and threw flowers in his path. He related the story of his adventure, including the message he had received from the dragon, the injunction never to forget the past, but to live in the present, with the past as one’s foundation, and the future as one’s aspiration.

There was a great celebration which carried on into the night. Never had the townspeople fully realized the extent of their good fortune. Nearly losing it had made them appreciate their destiny all the more.

Tom Saxon was the guest throughout the hours of celebration. Then, when the party finally began to die out, Thomas entered his home with his family. A sense of order had returned to his life. He kissed his wife and children. He took his children and tucked them into their beds. Then he and Alice went to their bed.

Tom Saxon slipped the crown and the binoculars under his bed. He may need them again some day. If nothing more, he would treasure them as memories of the greatest trial of his existence.

Tom Saxon embraced his wife. They sank together into a deep sleep. And it was done.

When Tom Saxon awoke in the morning, he could not believe that he had slept so long. He went out into the yard: his wife was working in her flower garden; their children were playing in the shade of the large cottonwood trees. It was late afternoon.

Something was odd.

“We wondered if you were ever going to awaken,” Alice Saxon said. “you slept about sixteen hours.”

“Really,” Tom Saxon replied. “i must have been terribly fatigued by my journey.”

“What journey?” Alice asked, laughing lightly.

“My journey into the mountains,” Thomas replied.

“When?” Alice asked.

“Yesterday. I returned from the mountains yesterday,” Thomas answered.

“You didn’t go in to the mountains yesterday,” Alice informed Thomas. “what are you talking about, dear?”

Tom Saxon looked about the town. Their house sat on a hill, and much of the town center lay beneath them. There had been no damage to the buildings; and the lowlands had not been flooded. There were no walls surrounding the town. And the crops in the lowlands were ripe and nearing harvest time.

There had been no dragon--was that what he was supposed to believe!

There had been no curse. There had been no asian child. There had been no magic crown or binoculars...!

Tom Saxon ran into his house, into the bedroom, searching beneath his bed for his memories: the old crown and the pair of binoculars. But they were gone.

“Did you have a bad dream?” alice called from the backyard—her voice came through the window like honey.

Yes, he had had a bad dream. And not a bad dream either. But a profound dream. A dream that changes one’s life for ever, a dream of which others can be only vaguely aware.

In november, before the election, a committee of townspeople approached Tom Saxon about running for mayor, in opposition to Henry Richardson.

Tom Saxon was quite surprised.

Earle Gray assured Thomas that he had substantial support among the populace, that his reputation was solid, and that he would win the office in a landslide.

Tom Saxon said yes, he would run.

In the election, Tom Saxon was elected the new mayor by a vote of 88 to 23.

There was a party to celebrate the victory. Much of the town was present. There was a great deal of hand-shaking and good will.

Many of Tom Saxon’s friends were present . Also present was a small Asian girl who seemed very familiar to Tom Saxon. She was standing with her mother. Finally, Tom Saxon excused himself from a group of his supporters, and approached the young girl and her mother.

“Hello,” he said, shaking the mother’s hand; then he turned to the small girl. “i can’t help but feel that i know you from somewhere,” he said.

“Yes, we have met before,” the young girl replied. “But it was a long time ago. The crown represents your past, the legacy of your heritage, for ever traceable even back into the heavens. The binoculars, on the other hand, represent the future, your personal vision, your destiny. I gave you these when i met you in a dream. Once i have given them to you they can never be taken away again.”

The mother smiled and bowed. The child smiled and then laughed. She was more than a child—but she was still a child. They left the town hall together—mother and child—stepping into the night.

Tom Saxon wanted to stop them, to talk with them longer. But he had some understanding that if he ever needed to see Nu-Way again, then she would know it, and she would appear to him again.

The end.