more, not less
If a little dreaming is dangerous, the cure for it is not to dream less but to dream more, to dream all the time.
-Marcel Proust
When she wakes up (I'm not waking up I'm falling asleep) she's alone.
(Except she's never alone. But that aside.)
But she's alone, no Susan, no beach (but she can hear the water and the waves, always pounding) on her bed that's too big for her, and always has been.
There are things she remembers here that she can't when she's asleep (awake), because--
She doesn't know why.
Because it would hurt too much, mayhap. Because there, in the shadow world, it's easier to forget things than remember and not be able to touch them any more.
She doesn't know why. It doesn't matter. Not here.
She likes that. And she likes these times, without Susan, as much as she likes the ones with her, likes the quiet and the scents of home and to remember things from long-ago without pain (and with Susan, the closer they get to the mountains, she thinks, the more like the shadows it is, the more it hurts, whatever that means) and the feeling--
--not that nothing matters. Because here, you know everything matters.
But the feeling that in the never-ending epilogue (because there's no end, not really, endings are more fairy tale than talking animals) it will all work out.
When she falls asleep (wakes up) again, Lucy thinks, as she leans over the window sill again and watches the girls move closer, and watches the water, and the mermaid in it (and knows she'll speak with the sea-girl soon), when she falls asleep, that feeling won't be there. It can't be. That's the shadow again. That's the other land, where you can't see the story always continuing.
But for now, Lucy the Valiant waits and watches and smiles.
And for a few minutes, when she wakes up and watches the dragons try to eat Caspian's hair, she just smiles to herself, drowsily, and hangs on to that feeling for just a bit longer.
-Marcel Proust
When she wakes up (I'm not waking up I'm falling asleep) she's alone.
(Except she's never alone. But that aside.)
But she's alone, no Susan, no beach (but she can hear the water and the waves, always pounding) on her bed that's too big for her, and always has been.
There are things she remembers here that she can't when she's asleep (awake), because--
She doesn't know why.
Because it would hurt too much, mayhap. Because there, in the shadow world, it's easier to forget things than remember and not be able to touch them any more.
She doesn't know why. It doesn't matter. Not here.
She likes that. And she likes these times, without Susan, as much as she likes the ones with her, likes the quiet and the scents of home and to remember things from long-ago without pain (and with Susan, the closer they get to the mountains, she thinks, the more like the shadows it is, the more it hurts, whatever that means) and the feeling--
--not that nothing matters. Because here, you know everything matters.
But the feeling that in the never-ending epilogue (because there's no end, not really, endings are more fairy tale than talking animals) it will all work out.
When she falls asleep (wakes up) again, Lucy thinks, as she leans over the window sill again and watches the girls move closer, and watches the water, and the mermaid in it (and knows she'll speak with the sea-girl soon), when she falls asleep, that feeling won't be there. It can't be. That's the shadow again. That's the other land, where you can't see the story always continuing.
But for now, Lucy the Valiant waits and watches and smiles.
And for a few minutes, when she wakes up and watches the dragons try to eat Caspian's hair, she just smiles to herself, drowsily, and hangs on to that feeling for just a bit longer.