“Then continue,” I said.“What else did I dream?”
Not much.Let me see…He left my side and paced around the table, sitting across from me.Here he crossed his legs at the ankles and took a knife and fork in one hand, cutting off a corner of toast and dipping it in the yolk of one of his eggs.
I edged forward.“Don’t leave me hanging.”
I’m not.After that, we ate.
Aster nodded for me to start on my breakfast.I buttered the toast and took a bite out of it, unsatisfied.Generally I made a point out of not asking useless questions, and clearly Aster had done nothing more than turn our breakfast into a mesmerization.But my toast had started to cool, and I knew he had more to say.“Did I dream anything more or was it just this?”
He swallowed a bite and blinked coquettishly.You tell me.It’s your dream.If you can’t recall it by now, I see no point in continuing.
I opened my mouth and prepared to tell him exactly how ridiculous I thought him.His game was over.I was done playing it, and if he couldn’t say anything that made sense, then there was no point to it at all.I wanted to do more writing today.I’d left off in a good spot earlier, and even if he didn’t directly coach me according to any conventional means, I felt more powerful having Aster nearby and knowing that I had him to call on if I needed any assistance.
Then it came back.The dream he was talking about.I began to remember it clearly, as if I had only just woken up.A sense of deja vu overcame me as suddenly I recalled the exact table setting that I had seen in my dream, the taste of the juice, the feel of Aster’s kiss against my cheek.The one question that hounded me was whether I had dreamed this last night or if Aster had magically planted the scene in my head and tricked me into remembering it.
Aster was still waiting for me.He had prepared his coffee identical to the way I preferred mine, and as he sipped from his mug, holding it delicately in both hands, he cocked his head to the side in anticipation of my response.I hardly had any to give him.
“I still don’t know what you can do,” I said.“Or how you do it.What are you, Aster?You said that your substance stayed the same, but what is that substance?”
Aster’s eyes flitted into the living room briefly.He didn’t speak, but I thought of what I knew about the origin of the muses.According to myth, the muses were the daughters of Zeus and Memory.They presided over various wells and springs, and various works of art always portrayed them next to some body of water.
Any of that could have been superstition, or tall tales handed down through the ages until they became memorialized in written tales.At any rate, the muses I had read about in old myths had never been as alive as the man before me now, as active or as cunning in their work.
“I remember the rest of the dream,” I said at last, wishing he had chosen to answer my last question.“You said that you loved me and that you wanted to make a plan to live together forever.”
Aster set the mug on the table with a clink.That’s it.I wanted to know if anything left of the dream remained for you before I fulfilled it, and it appears it does.I love you, Stella, and I want to live with you forever, and I thought if we put our heads together we could hatch a scheme.A scheme for mutual immortality, if it were.You and I together for endless years, living on an isolated corner of the world where the two of us would need nothing more than each other.
My thoughts turned instantly to our conversation on the catwalk the day before and the odd melancholy that had overtaken him.He was still afraid.He still feared that he was temporary.He wanted to find a way to escape a fate he felt I had bestowed on him, a happy ending where both of us could ride into the sunset.
What plans do you have after the summer?he asked.
“Plans?”
Do you have another residence like this?Another shore to sail to and work on yet another project?
I shook my head.How could I even explain reality to Aster?It was hard enough to deal with it myself.The only stable living one could guarantee as a writer was by working for a corporation or hiring out editing services to other people who wanted to write, or by teaching.My job could never consist of traveling aimlessly to write new projects in new places unless I got a good return in doing so.
Practicality scared me.Economics, the gritty reality of the future’s uncertainty.Plans falling apart, or a lack of plans meaning never bringing them to fruition.
I traced my fingertip around the subtle floral pattern embossed on my fork as it sat on the table.The stainless steel was spotless, and I wondered if Aster could have polished it while preparing the rest of the meal.“I don’t have any plans after this,” I said.“My plans depend on what I do while I’m here.If my writing is worth anything.Otherwise I’ll move back home and look for something new.”
I kept my voice low.Aster swallowed, his concern over my success evident for the first time.
“That’s why I’m so desperate,” I concluded.
His lips grew thin.I understand.I won’t hold you for breakfast if you don’t want it.I mean, if you feel as if you’d be better off working on your writing.You are skilled.
“But I do like the breakfast,” I insisted.“And I can’t thank you enough for thinking to make this.You’ve—you’ve…” I didn’t finish the thought because I couldn’t put a word to what Aster had done to me.As a writer.As a person.I shook my head at the thought and cut into one of my eggs.
I can’t be the one who causes you to stumble,he said.
I realized that I was the only one of us who was eating anything.
Aster sat back and folded his hands over the table.I made a mistake.
“A mistake?”
He nodded.I almost committed the unforgivable crime.I just never imagined it could be so important.Finish your breakfast, Stella, and don’t take long.You’ve got a book to write.
