Julia Dream

I first heard the song Julia Dream in high school as I was expanding my love of Pink Floyd. Though the band did not write my favorite song (that belongs to Led Zeppelin’s Kashmir), Pink Floyd is by far my favorite band. And while I do deeply enjoy Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall, their early music, from the late 1960s, with its sheer breadth and imagery, had me hooked from the beginning. Songs like ‘Atom Heart Mother’, ‘Interstellar Overdrive’, ‘One of These Days’, and ‘Echoes’ were tours de force for my creative mind.

There was one song, though, that stuck with me for a reason that is not fully understood. ‘Julia Dream’, which I first heard when listening to Pink Floyd’s Relics album, always captivated me. There was a story in that song, a story that deserved a greater tale. The same questions pop into my mind every time I listen to this song: Who is Julia Dream? What is her purpose? And who is the man that is obsessed with her?

Now, I will never claim to know the mind of the songwriters, that would be arrogant and unnecessary. But I’ve read a few articles discussing the possible meaning of this song. And it wasn’t until last night (the 22nd of April) that I read an article on the subject that began to finalize my ideas for an appropriate tale to accompany this song.

And what a tale it has become! It is now the 23rd of July, three full months since I started this tale of love, tragedy, and regret. Jake Chambers (a nod to Stephen King) became a more dynamic character than I ever hoped. There is an epic sadness inside this story, and it becomes so intertwined with the notion that “all that glitters is not gold” that, to me anyway, it becomes frightening how easy it can be to betray, or to be violent, or to be heroic. ‘Julia Dream’ has become so much more than I’d ever thought possible. It is written in three verses, accompanied by the song verses themselves. Each one turned out to be longer than its predecessor, but it makes sense as the narrative accelerates.

I pray that you, the reader, have as much fun reading this wonderful and heartbreaking story as I had writing it.

Verse 1: Sunlight Bright Upon My Pillow

Sunlight bright upon my pillow,

Lighter than an eiderdown.

Will she let the weeping willow

Wind his branches round?

1

Jake knows he is dreaming. It is very rare that he can recognize a lucid dream, and that lucidity only lasts for brief moments if he concentrates too much on the fact that he knows everything around him is just a dream. Like standing on the edge of a knife, Jake has to maintain the balance or risk being lost in a dream he can’t remember (the usual way of dreams), or, worse, waking up. Waking up means going through the process of falling back to sleep. Or (there is always an or, and he often wonders how many of the billions of people on the planet suffer the same or) it will be too close to his alarm going off and he’d have to force himself awake in order to stave off the afternoon “sleepys” if he dares go under for five or ten more minutes.

You’re dreaming, Jake. Just live in the dream. He thinks this as the wind rushes past his face, pulling the tears from his eyes. Jake loves this dream! The landscape around him is endless rolling hills of grass so green it would make Ireland jealous. The sky is a cloudless blue, the hue so deep at the horizon it appears almost purple. The air is flush with the aromas of lilacs and roses. Jake looks down to the ground, several hundred feet below.

He knows that he can simply make himself a bird if he thinks about it enough, but that would take away the exquisite nature of what he is doing. Jake glances down at his Hulk-like figure. There is no green skin and ripped purple jeans. But there is muscle tone, alright. The kind of muscle tone he wishes that he had in the real world. Those muscles, most especially the bulging calf muscles, are what allows him to propel himself hundreds of feet into the air, the air resistance created by his hands, the mechanism by which he controls his flight. Or, in the immortal words of Buzz Lightyear, his “falling with style”.

The exhilaration of jumping and flying through the infinite rolling landscape is an act Jake will never tire of. These dreams haven’t ever come very often, and now, in his adulthood, they come hardly at all. As he watches the ground approach at ever-increasing speeds, Jake bends his knees slightly in preparation for the next jump. There is never any pain in touching down, despite free-falling for hundreds of feet. And the transition between landing and taking off is always seamless.

Jake holds on to the balance and holds on to the dream. He lets the tears flow freely down his cheeks and lets the wind sweep them away. Inside, he is screaming with joy. On the outside, all he can do is give a squinty smile. Jake thinks of nothing while he flies, except the balance of the dream. Each moment seems infinite, yet Jake knows that the end of the dream is coming. How do you make a series of infinitely long moments last longer? He can feel his balance wavering, but he savors the moments of flight.

The time has come, he knows this as well as he knows that death will take him one day. Jake looks to the ground, coming up fast, and to the end of the dream. But when he lands, the dream doesn’t end. He stares at his hands, clenching and opening, waiting for the morning light and the waking world.

“Jake!” comes the voice. It is like a birdsong in its beauty, but it is also like the bang of a prison door in its doom.

Jake lifts his eyes first, the top of his vision obscured by his blurry eyebrows. Then he begins to slowly lift his head, his eyes widening as he takes in what is before him. She stands there, unmoving, a slight smile upon her pink lips. Six feet tall she stands, dressed in a flowing, layered, white gown. Her eyes are burnished sapphire below razor-thin eyebrows. Angelic cheekbones juxtapose a stern jawline, but her milky white skin gives it all a sense of perfection. White hair falls like a waterfall over her head, the ends resting upon her small, yet ample, bosom. A crown she wears, too, reminding Jake of the aureole that crowns the Statue of Liberty. She is a wingless angel.

After another moment that feels like an eternity, Jake finally speaks. “I love you!” That is all he can say. And it’s true. He knows that his wife, Gwen, waits for him in the waking world. Jake loves her. He truly loves her. But what he feels in this moment puts that into question. The instant love for the wingless angel before him is a stronger love than he has ever felt before. Jake is captivated. Jake is entranced. But what Jake doesn’t know is that he is also in danger.

“I love you!” he repeats himself, never meaning it more in all of his life.

Finally, the woman’s smile breaks, and she speaks to him. “I know you love me, Jake. Do you know why you love me?”

Her voice is music to his ears. Jake wishes that for every moment of his life to come that her voice will be the only thing he can hear. He barely thinks about the question she asked, and answers quickly, but truthfully, with another question.

“Does it matter why I love you?”

She laughs and sends Jake’s heart aflutter. It is worse than the thought of more heroine calling out to a junkie.

“I need you, Jake,” she says to him, her voice like a flute. “You’re my only hope in facing the coming darkness. Will you be my light?”

“My life for you, my love!” Jake answers almost before his ‘angel’ can finish. “Tell me what you need me to do! Anything!”

He realizes that he is finally able to move, and, glancing down at his hands, Jake drops them to his side. Even a momentary break in eye contact, though, is too much. He scrambles to return his eyes to hers. Once again, the woman laughs like a flower would laugh at an excited bumblebee on a sunny, May morning.

“I need you to come to me, Jake,” she whispers. “Will you do that for me, Jake? Will you do whatever it takes to come to me?”

Her insistence drives Jake mad as he stands before her. Jake watches as she brings her hands up to the neckline of her dress. Slowly, the woman moves her fingers down the length of the neckline, running over the curve of her breasts. Jake’s eyes nearly pop out of his skull, and he can feel a stirring in his pants. She pulls slightly at the neckline, straining the fabric and exposing more of her breasts. Breaking eye contact, the woman looks to the grass in a sign of obedience. Jake’s hulking form draws up tall as she does this, and the tears once again flow freely from his eyes. He’s never known that love can feel like this. All he wants is to stay in this moment with this woman he has never seen before but knows with a certainty he’ll never feel about any other woman as he feels about her. Not even Gwen.

“Tell me what I must do,” the urgency and seriousness in his own words startles him. “For I am already here, and I am already yours.” The formal manner in which he now speaks doesn’t even faze him. It feels natural in the moment.

“You are not yet with me, Jake.” The words cut him deeper than any knife could have. “I am just a figment to you right now. I am real, but not here. You must come to me, Jake. You must find me!”

“But how do I find you?” He is heartbroken. It feels like his whole world has fallen apart knowing that she isn’t really there. Never mind the fact that he knows that he isn’t actually there, either. He is dreaming. Lucid, or otherwise, this is all just a dream. “Who are you?”

As she laughs again (Jake’s heart goes all aflutter), it surprises him to see that she is now holding a red rose. Only, it isn’t truly red. Like the surface of water with a sheen of oil on it, the petals of the flower seem to be prismatic, showing him all the colors of the rainbow. The whole world behind her is covered in these very same roses. And, in the midst of the flowers, there rises a grand tower, blue like her sapphire eyes and so tall that he can barely make out the top. If not for the speck of wall Jake can make out in the distance, he would have said that the tower is all alone. But he can sense much more than just the tower behind those walls. The Sapphire City, Jake thinks.

“I am Julia. The-”

“The Dreamboat Queen!” Jake finishes for her. His excitement has returned to its prior peak.

Another laugh from Julia. “Indeed, dear Jake! The Dreamboat Queen! Find me!”

Julia holds out the rose to him. It is an invitation he is not expecting. But he keeps his cool, despite his childlike giddiness. He takes a step forward and extends his hand towards the rose. The thorn is just a pinprick, but it upsets his balance on the knife’s edge.

2

The sunlight was bright upon Jake’s pillow. Eiderdown, as expensive as it was, was the only type of pillow Jake could use. Any other pillow would cause him to wake up with daily headaches. It was a long and abysmal process during his childhood to find the right pillow. But it was instant life improvement for his entire family once the eiderdown was found. But it didn’t help him this morning. Not only had Jake awakened with a headache, but tears fell down his cheeks unabated. His love was gone. It was an ache so deep that Jake was unsure how he’d be able to function.

He had never felt this way in his life, and he had no idea how to cope with it. He imagined a shucked husk of corn, or a discarded snakeskin felt less empty than he did. Jake laid in his bed, hand on his forehead, tears wetting the blue pillowcase, hoping that the dream would fade enough to allow him to start his day.

“Babe, what’s wrong?” Gwen’s hand came to rest on his neck in a show of affection and concern. “Why are you crying?”

Jake peeked at her through mostly closed eyelids. Before the dream, before Julia, he thought Gwen the most beautiful woman in the world. Her red locks fell about her pale face and soft, green eyes. There was Irish in her, nobody would doubt that. And she seemed to embody the entirety of Irish physiology. But now, after Julia the Dreamboat Queen, she rose only to the level of homely. Jake couldn’t believe his thoughts, but he couldn’t help them either. What did she do to me?

Trying not to sound mechanical, as one would when trying to sound genuine to someone you find ugly, Jake answered, “Just a bad dream, Gwen. I can’t even remember it anymore.”

“You’ve never cried from a bad dream before, Jake. Why this one?” She ran her hand up to his cheek as she spoke, much to Jake’s dismay.

He took her hand in his and placed it on the blanket between them. Gwen’s touch made him feel dirty. Dirty?! She’s my wife for God’s sake! But images of Julia kept flashing in his brain. Julia, the endless field of prismatic red roses, and the Sapphire City. Jake knew, though, that he would not sleep again anytime soon. He would have to trudge through the ugly, naked world of waking. The world felt exposed to him now. Exposed for the fraud that it was. In the world of dreams, there was joy, the purest kind. There was peace because, no matter the dream, sickness and death were never permanent. You weren’t forced to do things you didn’t want to do. Dreams were freedom, the waking world was a prison. The mind is endless, like the rolling hills and the field of roses. This world is terrifying, ugly, and limited. The thought turned Jake’s stomach.

He rose quickly out of the bed, headache forgotten in the moment, and rushed to the bathroom to puke. Gwen followed him cautiously and waited for him to finish. When he flushed the toilet and turned towards the sink, she handed him the toothpaste and asked, “Jake, what is going on? You’re scaring me.”

Trying his damnedest to not lose patience with her, he said simply, “It was a nightmare that apparently upset my stomach, Gwen. I’m alright now. Can I please brush my teeth in peace?”

Her changing expression told him that he had lost his patience. The words he spoke were a vocal sneer, and she felt derided. Gwen straightened and nodded her head ever so slightly. Jake could see she was on the verge of her own tears.

“Fine, Jake.”

As she stalked away, Jake couldn’t entirely fathom what was happening to him. If he could fuck up a typical morning with his wife, then how was he supposed to handle his kids, his job, or his boss? The dreadful waking prison seemed to get much worse at the idea. Jake brushed his teeth in a haze, the only thing his mind could focus on was Julia the Dreamboat Queen. His heart actually hurt for her.

The haze didn’t improve as he dressed for work robotically. In fact, Jake was surprised when he found himself at the breakfast table, not knowing how he got there. Everything was mechanical, as though he had entered autopilot mode.

“Jake! Hello?!”

Gwen was standing right next to him, holding the frying pan full of scrambled eggs in her hands.

“Jesus, Jake… Where the hell are you?” Her anger was palpable, her eyes flaring as wide as her nostrils. “Hunter is asking you a question and you’re not even hearing him!”

“Right… Sorry, bud. Go ahead, say it again.” But the words came out flat and uncaring. Gwen sighed heavily and walked back to the stove.

Jake had the conversation, but, after it ended, he wouldn’t have been able to tell you a single thing that was said. Jake the Robot left for work, once again not aware of what he was doing. The next thing he remembered was pulling into work at St. John’s Medical Center in Springfield, Illinois. He worked in the IT department as a supervisor, though, most days, there wasn’t much to supervise. The usual was invoice approvals for telephones, overriding security lockouts for password changes, and a bunch of other mundane tasks that made his days drag by like molasses in winter. If it wasn’t for the pay, then he probably would’ve moved on years ago. But he had streamlined his day in much the same way as Peter Gibbons working at Initech, in a typical day, he’d do about two hours of actual work. Office Space had become sort of an anthem for Jake in the last few years.

He was well beyond Peter Gibbons, however, following his dream. The autopilot continued as Jake made his way to his office. The only times that he got work done was on the occasions that somebody stopped by his office. He would see without actually seeing, hear without actually hearing, and work without actually working. Even when the IT Manager, Chloe Bartram, showed up in her stick-up-the-ass librarian garb, Jake still hadn’t a clue about the conversation. Apparently, it went well, though, for he remembered her smile and her about-face as she went back to her own office. All he was truly able to accomplish, however, was constantly replaying the dream in his mind.

He soaked up every detail of it. How Julia’s dress had three layers; the first layer a sheer, off-white with light blue diamonds sewn into it, the second layer was nearly transparent and as white as cumulus clouds on a sunny June afternoon, and the top layer seemed to Jake to be nothing more than a Fruit of the Loom t-shirt made into a gown, but softer. She wore nothing on her perfect feet, her toenails as blue as the skies above. Delicate hands, with fingernails the same color as her toenails, held the prismatic red rose. Jake could see every hair on her head individually, as each was blown in a slightly different direction in the breeze. He knew that, if he ran his fingers through it, it would feel like Cool Whip. Her high cheekbones gave her resting regal face and forced the looker’s eyes down past her bow of a mouth, slender neck, well-defined collarbone, and partially exposed breasts glistening in the sunshine. At his desk, Jake’s heart raced, and his crotch bulged.

Jake’s peripherals were filled with the red of the field of roses, small rainbows popping in and out of existence as the flowers reflected and refracted the sun’s rays. Behind her, stark and intimidating, stood the impossibly high tower of the Sapphire City. He knew that the top was where Julia spent her days as monarch of the World of Dreams. And it was the only part of what he remembered that frightened him. Only, it didn’t frighten him enough.

“Jake?!” It was Chloe again. She had an expression that reminded him of the glare Gwen had given him at breakfast.

What the hell do you want? The thought remained a thought, though Jake did think he spoke the words out loud. The moment passed and he answered, “Yeah… what’s up?”

“That’s the third time I called out your name. Are you alright?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “It’s quarter after five, what’re you still doing here?”

He raised his hand to look at his watch. “Shit.”

“Good night!” Chloe said, her mood instantly changed. She chuckled as she walked down the hall to begin her own trek home.

The haze and blur continued as Jake packed up his things and made his way out of the hospital. The drive was uneventful and unremembered, except for a moment of clarity when he chose to forego getting off Route 29 at Springfield Road and instead went to North Road. Jake stopped at the Ayerco convenience store and picked up a box of Sleepinal. No thorn was going to wake him up tonight.

Supper and the conversation that went with it, was just as forgettable to Jake as the bulk of his day was. He kept his eyes focused on the salt and pepper grinder in front of him as he ate the meatloaf and veggies Gwen had cooked up. There was no taste for Jake, just the mechanics of chewing and swallowing. His wife had even made him a dry martini, perhaps as an olive branch after their mini conflict from the morning. But he didn’t hear her huff of annoyance when he sucked the drink down in three silent gulps. The grinder was the blue tower, and his mind’s eye followed it from the bottom to the top, noting every balcony, every window, every stone-carved gargoyle of beasts he couldn’t identify. Were they beasts from other people’s dreams?

“For Christ’s sake, Jake! Will. You. Listen.” Gwen’s voice faded into his reality, the volume increasing with every syllable.

“Yeah? What?” His gaze shifted quickly from the grinder, but it never made it to her face.

Gwen had worn a rather revealing blouse for dinner, no doubt another peace offering. Jake’s eyes came to rest on her cleavage, which, while much more than Julia had, put his mind back to the glistening breasts he had seen in his dream.

“You are impossible today! Are you on drugs, or something?” She stood with agitation, the anger clear on her face. “First you snap at me this morning, then you’re nothing but a damn robot for two meals! Was this dream of yours so damn compelling that you’re forsaking us?”

Finally looking her in the eyes, Jake said, “I don’t have time for this. I’ve got a lot on my mind, Gwen.”

“You were fine yesterday! What the hell was this dream about?”

“Just forget it, Gwen,” he replied, his own anger beginning to flare.

“No! I’m not going to forget it,” she said, and her face softened just a little. “Tell me what it was about, Jake. If it put you in this funk, then tell me so I can help you.”

Neither realized that the children were still at the table and not eating. Hunter and Jenny sat at the table watching their parents argue, a rare sight for the both of them. It was especially rare when Mom cursed. They felt the energy and decided, each on their own, to not move a muscle.

“Can you just let me deal with this alone?”

“No, I can’t, Jake. Not when I know you came home with this.” She produced the box of Sleepinal he had bought at the convenience store. “What are you gonna do, try and sleep forever?”

Jake snapped. He slammed his fist down on the table. The children screamed at the violent outburst, food jumped off the plates, and the salt and pepper grinder tipped over. Jake kept his eyes on the grinder, and, in his mind, he saw Julia’s tower toppling. The rage boiled inside of him as he looked at his wife. After a moment of silence, he snatched the box of sleeping pills from her hand and stormed off to take a shower and go to bed. All Jake wanted was to return to Julia and wrap his arms around her like a weeping willow.

“Go,” Gwen whispered to the kids. And when they were gone, she sat back down in her chair and cried.

Click Here to Continue to Part 2