Waking up: Chapter 6: What the Rose Said and What the Fish Said

Chapter 6:  What the Rose Said and What the Fish Said

    "Hey!  We're inside the book!  I was thinking we'd go someplace. Look, we're black and white, like a drawing," Tammy said, staring at Matt.
    "And flat," Matt added, rubbing his flat hands down his totally flat body and laughing.
    "Let's look around.  This asteroid isn't very big.   If the Rose is still here, it shouldn't take long to find it."
    "There it is!"
    They ran over and knelt down beside the Rose.  She was not inside her glass jar, which was laying on its side next to her.  There were no caterpillars on her.  She seemed to be smiling.  "Hello, Rose," Tammy said,  "You're still here."
    "Of course I am still here.  And very well, I thank you."
    "I'm so glad.  Did the Little Prince come back?"
    "He came back many times.  He was here this morning in fact.  Picked off the caterpillars for me.  Gave me a little drink.  Told me his latest adventures.  And was off again."
    "When will he be back?"
    "I never know.  I just wait.  Love is the most important thing.  More important than anything.  Love and patience.  I have a nice view here.  I can see the asteroid with the man counting his money and the asteroid where the King sits {Get the details here}.  Sometimes, far off, I see the earth where the Little Prince once went.  And all the stars.  And the pretty planets.  It's a very nice view.  But the view I like best is the Little Prince coming back to me.  Love is everything.  It is all there is.  Friendship is love you know," she added, looking at the two of them coyly.  "Friendship a special kind of love.  Love is not just hugs and kisses.  Love is being kind to someone, looking out for them, picking off their caterpillars, putting them under a jar to protect them.  Helping them when they need help.  But you already know what, right?"
    "Um, . . .  ah . . ., yeah, sort of, of course," Tammy said, looking out of the corner of her eye at Matt.  He was turning the sole of his sneaker sideways and dragging it on the ground to make a little mark.  "Of course friendship is a kind of love."  Tammy added, more confidently.
    "And love," repeated the Rose, "is the most important thing."
    "Love," said Tammy, repeating it so that she would be sure to remember, "is the most important thing."
    "Bonjour," said a little voice.  The Little Prince had arrived.  He was a small child, smaller than Tammy expected he would be.  She had been wondering if he would have grown up.  He was sort of like Peter Pan, she guessed.  He looked just like he did in the book.  But, that wasn't surprising, since they were in the book.
    "Bonjour, Petite Prince," Tammy said.  "Do you understand English?"
    "Oh yes.  I'm in translation.  Anyway, I could always speak English. It's a natural talent."
    "We came to see if you were still alive."
    "Here I am.  I live inside this book.  I am always alive inside the book."
    "Yes, but did you make it back to the Rose in the end?"
    "The end has not arrived.  But I know, outside this book, my father Antoine died when his plane went down.  That was on Earth.  Here, he still visits sometimes, and says hello."
    "Are you alive?  Are you alive now?"
    "Are you a real boy?" another voice asked.  Everyone looked up.  It was Pinocchio.  He was not flat, and not black and white, but full color.  Something swept over them, like a hand passing over, and everyone went from black and white to color.  The little Prince and the Rose were still rather flat and looked like the color illustration of the book instead of like the inside pages.  But gradually, they became rounder and fuller.  "Are you a real boy?" Pinocchio repeated.
    "Oh, no," Tammy said, "this is my fault.  I keep worrying about what is real and what isn't.  I think that the 'waking word' is real and the 'dream world' is not.  People are real and books are not.  But books are so real that I was worried about what happened to you after you got bitten by the snake," she said to The Little Prince.  "Is all this in my head?  Just in my head?"
    "It's in my head too," Matt said.
    "And mine," said the Rose.  "What is real is not the important thing.  Love is the important thing."
    "If you want to know what's important," said the Little Prince, gravely, read the rest of my book.  Read about the roses on earth, and the fox and the children looking out the train window.  Read everything."
    "What's important," said Pinocchio, "is the truth.  Take it from me, you have to tell the truth."
    "That's exactly what I was worried about," said Tammy, "isn't what's real the same what's true?  Aieee--I'm confused."
    "What is Truth?"  Matt asked.  he reached into the air and plucked out a dictionary.  "Let me see here, t, t-r, here it is, 'truth, the actual state of matter, conforming with fact or reality, verified, an idea or fundamental reality apart from perceived experience."
    "See truth's tied to matter and reality."
    "What about that second part, 'an idea apart from perceived experience?"  Matt asked.
    "This is perceived experience.  Dreams and books are perceived experiences."
    "Everything we experience is perceived.  But, that doesn't make it not real.  Or not truthful.  One of the definitions hadn't gotten to is honesty, integrity.  I think that realness and truth have to do with honesty and integrity."
    "This is boring," said the Rose.  I already explained it all.  Love is the important thing.  If you have love, you have honesty and integrity and you are truthful and real.  Period.  Get on with it."
    "I think she's right," said the Little Prince.
    "Me, too, said Pinocchio.
    "Me three," said Matt.
    "I guess so," said Tammy.
    "We gotta go," said Matt, "Thank you all for your help.  Goodbye."
    "Bye, bye, bye, bye."
    The Farnsworth Chapel loomed over them.  "I've got to dash, Tammy, each of us has work to do together, and work to do apart, if we're to solve this puzzle, and it is time for some solo work.  Your dreams will lead you where you need to go."  Before Tammy could protest, he was gone.

    Tammy didn't want to stand at the edge of the graveyard too long.  Without Matt, it seemed really spooky and scary.  It seemed as if there was something she should be doing, but first, she wanted to locate her copy of The Little Prince.  She was pretty sure it was at her Grandmother's house, on a shelf in the old playroom where she still stayed when she went to visit.  If it was there, she'd get it over the weekend if she could.  She wanted to reread it.
    Her grandmother's house was dark, which wasn't surprising since it was now the wee hours of night.  She walked right through the wall into the playroom as if it were a bead curtain.  That was easy, she thought. 
    Right beside the wall where the came through was the dresser with the dark aquariums on top and her emergency clothes inside.  The book case with all the books Grandma kept there for her was beside the window.  Moonlight and street lamplight streamed through the window making two overlapping squares, one a weird pinkish color and one more whitish, and the place where they overlapped seemed painfully bright.  Tammy knelt on the floor in front of the bookcase and began looking for The Little Prince on the shelf of taller thinner books.  Kid books.  It was right where she thought it would be, next to Piggy Wiglet  on one side and Goodnight Moon on the other.  But The Little Prince was a different kind of book.  It wasn't really a little kid book. 
    She put her finger on the book and drew it down the spine.  She could feel the little creases in the paper cover from all the times she'd read the book.  "This is a dream," she said, out loud.  I'm awake, inside a dream.  And I can feel things, not just see them.
    Something seemed strange.  The hairs on the back of her neck prickled.  She turned around and saw fish, swimming in the air above the aquarium.  Suddenly she remembered she had had this dream before, many times.  The fish came out at night, swam above the aquarium and off into the world.  They had to be back, she knew, before dawn.  If not, they would fall from the air that was no longer thick like water, and die on the floor.  Sometimes, Tammy had found their shrivelled bodies, all dried out, and stuck to the floor.  The  ones who hadn't made it back by down.  Grandma said that they jumped out of the aquarium, but Tammy had found them in other rooms.  And Grandma always smiled funny when she said that.  A couple times, Tammy found fish on the floor early in the morning and they were still alive.  She carefully picked them up with a wet cloth and returned them to the tank.  Usually, they recovered.  Sometimes, not.
    Tammy wondered where they went at night, and what they did.  She went over to the tank and watched the incoming fish.  Then she remembered she had to get back too.  It was starting to get light out, and she had to get ready for school.  She'd try to talk to the fish another day.  Suddenly, it seemed there was a lot to do.  She had to find out what the Baba Yaga had warned them about, and what she was supposed to do.  So far, nothing seemed to be that helpful.  Talking to a rose and the Little Prince and Pinocchio just didn't seem like the way to solve a world crisis.  But then again, who was she to imagine she could do anything to save the world anyway.
    She stared at the fish as they came in from all directions.  Some came through the wall, some down the hall.  The hovered above the water briefly and then dove in.  One of them, a large female guppy swerved from her path and hovered in front of Tammy.  "You are needed," She spoke, not aloud, but into Tammy's mind.  "You are necessary and important.  We all are."
    The sun peeked up over the edge of the earth in a crack between two houses and shone through the window.  The guppy wavered and started loosing altitude.  Tammy quickly put a hand under the fish and eased it toward the tank.  "Thanks," the fish said as it slid gratefully into the water.
    "Oboy," Tammy said, as she intended herself home.  "Now I am talking to fish.  Next I'll be stuck in a looney bin."
    "What did you say, honey?" her mother asked, as she walked by her open bedroom door.
    "Nothing, Mom, I was just dreaming."
    "I thought your said something about talking fish and going to a looney bin."
    "You've got a pretty vivid imagination, sweetheart," Dad said, walking down the hall the other way.  He leaned down and kissed his wife on the mouth.  "Have a good day," he called, as he quietly let himself out the garage door.
    "Want an omelet, Tam?"
    "Sure, Mom."  Tammy sat up in bed rubbing her eyes.  She felt as if she'd been awake all night, but was amazingly rested anyway.  Weird.
    "Want a ride to school?  I'm going over to take Grandma to the doctor.  I took the morning off from work."
    "That'd be great, Mom.  Say, Mom, could you please pick of the Little Prince book for me.  It's the third book over and the third shelf int he bookcase in Grandma's playroom.  Is Grandma okay?"
    "Little prince, third book on the third shelf--boy you sure have a good memory.  She's fine.  Just a test that requires her to have a driver.  Eyedrops is all.
    "Phew!  I was worried for a sec."
    "Nothing to worry about," Mom reassured her.
    Except some world crisis, Tammy thought, and a soul-eating witchy woman in a house with a chicken leg.
    "Did you say something?" Mom said, poking her head back in the door.
    "Not a word."
    "Hmmm.  Thought I heard something about world crisis and witchy women."
    Weird.  Tammy would have sworn she had been utterly silent.
    "What's that rock on your dresser.  It looks strange.  Kind of metallic, like an asteroid."
    Tammy picked it up.  It was small, angular, and amazingly heavy.  "Something I need to take to Mr. Sorenson,"  Tammy said.