From an unaddressed letter found in the desk drawer of a Mr. J. H. King:
Late last night, I had a dream. In the dream, there was a bed. The bed was empty and the sheets were clean.
As I was looking at the bed (I’m not sure why it caught my interest so), I heard the sound of wind blowing past the window of the room.
I moved toward the window, to be sure it was latched, but suddenly I was feeling very warm. “That’s odd,” I thought, knowing full well that the window was letting in a draft.
Then, at once, I was feeling sleepy, too. A moment prior, I had been wide-awake (well, wide-awake inside my dream, I mean). But now I was so tired that I stumbled over to the neat little bed and climbed beneath the sheets. The room was getting dark.
As my head hit the pillow, a lullaby began to play. I don’t know where it came from. It sounded like it was coming from the bed itself. The lullaby (for that’s surely what it was) was being played on a strange kind of instrument – something like a cross between a harp and a violin, with an overtone of waves-rocking-on-the-sea. There were no words to the lullaby, but somehow it felt like a voice, thin and pure as air, was singing along with – no, within – the music.
Before I knew it, I was falling asleep. It was (as you might guess) the most peaceful sleep I’d ever slept, this sleep-inside-a-dream. It seemed like I’d slept a hundred years, and it seemed like I’d slept a minute. My sense of time had become oddly light and changeable by then.
When I woke, a light came on and illuminated the room much more brilliantly than before. I can’t describe the things I saw just then, for there weren’t really any things at all, so to speak. In fact, what I saw seemed altogether thing-less (if you’ll forgive the word) … and yet more real than any object my hands could touch.
What am I saying? You won’t understand, I know, because I’m doing a very poor job of painting a picture for you.
But that’s just it! Even the most accomplished painter in all the world would leave with an empty canvas after trying for hours to make the first brushstroke and capture what he saw (if he saw what I had seen).
I know this all sounds very abstract, but for me, the dream was anything but. In the moments after the light came on, I felt more alive, and more human, than ever. Not that I felt invincible. No. Better to say that I felt protected. And struck up with a desire to live.
I don’t know how to put it, really. But I pray you can find out for yourself. Then we can fumble our words together, remembering it all. It’s not half as crazy as it sounds, I promise. It’s wonderful, really. Just give it a bit of time. And maybe a bit of faith. If you want to see, you’ll see.