The Dream Weaver
The unblinking world roamed forever onwards. Cars congested the city streets. People plodded across pavements. A frigid chill rode upon the late afternoon gale. Posed patrons were sheltered behind store and café windows, confined to their cosiness. All attempted to flee the January blues by being elsewhere indoors.
Inside the secluded glass world of Rector’s Café, everyone seemed to be in harmony. But a peek inside every single one of those minds uncovered a thousand treacheries. Thoughts that admitted musings, anxieties, dreads, suspicions, excuses, confessions, rumours, comments, and tales.
Hugo could experience them all.
He sat there alone in the corner at the back: a mousy-looking shop assistant on his lunch break. The pulsating veins rippling across Hugo’s forehead were covered by his matted tawny hair. Behind his full-rimmed browline glasses were eyes shrouded in endless grey mist, impenetrable from the pupil right down to the sclera of the eye. If one stared into his eyes, the window of his soul mirrored back but a faint glimmer in his iris. A reflection partly covered in the drifting mists revealed hidden worlds that only he could ever steal a glance from.
The little field mouse was nestled in his hidden alcove, where he had a private viewing of the crowded café. At the far end remained the glazed expression on the baristas, as they tinkered with the coffee machines. Trailing behind the counter was an impatient queue of customers, craving a hot brew that provided their only solace of warmth. Mingled throughout the space were biomes of social affairs. Awkward coffee dates lingering in bubbles of small talk. Students gathered at their espresso-fuelled workstations with laptops and crammed notes. Banterous catch-ups between old friends, locals gathering for a quick bite, and families taking rest from their shopping excursions.
Hugo saw and heard the buried truth amid the din of hissing froth wands, boiling water and grinding coffee beans, clanging cutlery on plates, mugs delicately placed down on tables, screeching of adjusted chairs, and the symphony of merged voices.
A coy smile etched across his thin lips.
Mindless fodder ripe for the feast, he thought.
Despite the contagious serenity spreading through the air, he called the bluffs expressed from their tongues and heard between their ears. Words laced with deceit. In the light of day, he glimpsed into the truth behind the veil. Inside each head was a deluded reality fermented in feverous daydreams.
He breathed it all in: any and every passing woe or calamity, flight of fantasy, tortured dream, pursuit of happiness, and ambitious endeavour afflicted in their heads. Not a single soul in that café remained present that afternoon. All minds drifted elsewhere. Hugo savoured the fading disinterest across each visage and he drank in their wandering thoughts.
The daydreams floated like kaleidoscopic clouds above the patrons’ heads, dispossessed from their owners’ brains and now migrating into his dreamsphere.
All their inner thoughts were exposed to him.
The easiest prey were the attention-prisoners chained to their phones. They scrolled through app feeds, entertained and distracted in plain sight. Hugo inhaled from them first and drank from their essence - the cloud vapour of their daydreams sailed towards him.
The swirling vapour of envy and avarice encircled the dream weaver. For the aperitif, he sipped on the sour thoughts of jilted ex-lovers, missed career opportunities, untravelled adventure, and unattained goals. The failed New Year’s resolutions were freshly brewed by now. He then savoured the salty starter: those alluring desires for more money and luxuries, flatter stomachs and cover-model looks. All of the “What could have been” experiences were devoured down his throat in a single gulp.
Meanwhile, in his human husk, Hugo, the sales assistant, stirred his cold flat white nonchalantly with a teaspoon. The microfoam on the coffee decomposed atop its surface. The mug remained unblemished and untouched by his mouth.
Next for the main course and dessert, Hugo sipped on the sweet and spicy delights of love and ambition. The romanticised fantasies of meet-cutes, crushes, lusts and infatuations, caramelised with the unconditional affection and undying devotion of lifelong love. This passionate concoction enticed the dream weaver into indulging himself. He soon sipped from dreams dedicated to learning new skills, attaining financial prosperity, visions of fame and glory, travelling the world, having a settled home, building a legacy together with someone, and experiencing all manner of weird and wonderful moments in life.
Even as his frame gradually swelled, he continued to indulge. After all, it was a bottomless buffet for him to feast upon.
Suddenly, in the brief pause he took for digestion, Hugo’s attention drew to a hidden spark of madness steeping on the horizon of his dreamsphere.
The daydreams barely settled in his belly before he began to drink more.
Without a second thought, he sipped on the salty, savoury notes of sorrow and misfortune: ruminated regrets on youth and social faux pas dominated this landscape of daydreams. But as he drank it all in, suddenly other potent maladies merged into the cloud vapours. Thoughts of untimely tragedies and unbearable news were relived in some of the patron’s heads. The bitter grief of lost loved ones (relatives and animals alike), resentment of cursed parenthood, unanticipated terminal illness, unrequited love, ripened despair of failures, and a whole host of tormented daydreams whirled around him.
Before he could expel those daydreams away from his lips, the tempest of maladies rushed forth and struck a terrible blow against his nostrils and tongue. The acrid taste lingered on his palate, and almost debilitated him into retching the stuffed daydreams from his bloated belly. Almost. The dream weaver heaved back the acid reflux of cloud vapour at the back of his throat. His teeth gritted and his face winced in anguish. The contents of the flat white spilt onto the table. His hands nearly disembodied the entire alcove that he occupied.
That last heaped serving proved too fateful to swallow.
As he tried to recover, an idle patron - a little girl snug in a lounge chair, who took notice of the incident - went over and handed Hugo a packet of tissues. She beamed wildly at him. He smiled meekly back. After he wiped down the messy affair across his table, he considered a curious thing…
Whether it was destiny casting its dice or his morbid overindulgence, the creature did something unexpected.
Pity struck a nerve in Hugo’s misty grey eyes. In sound judgement, he exhaled the vapours of discordant daydreams that unsettled his stomach. Some daydreams floated like kaleidoscopic clouds and returned to the patrons’ heads, possessed back in their owners’ brains. Other leftovers migrated around his dreamsphere with no place of belonging.
I’ve swallowed too much. Idiot. Look at the mess you’ve made. Perhaps… I could make amends? The cautious thought astounded even himself.
Then with a twirl of his fingers, the dream weaver plucked out vapours from his own head. Fabricated daydreams drifted from him like migratory clouds, only they did not roam. A gentle nudge from his hands ushered them throughout the café. Soon the daydreams floated gently down and were purposefully placed into each person’s head. Thoughts that sprouted seedlings of hope, encouragements and affirmations.
A cautious grin brought relief to the weary barista’s faces. Queueing customers greeted one another with courteous remarks. The coffee dates’ chatter ushered in some welcoming mirth. A cleansed headspace unburdened the students working notoriously hard at their workstations. Friends bantered, locals laughed, and families nurtured in their biomes.
The room gradually elevated with renewed confidence.
He continued weaving his threads of daydreams to keep them all blissfully distracted. Once the levels of self-esteem had risen, then he resigned from his kindness.
A heavy sigh left him. The afternoon slump vanished for all in the room except for him.
Defeated by an act of serendipity. How trite. He thought to himself. A smirk shone across his mousy face. The opening was enough to allow for a sudden belch to relieve his bloated state.
Hugo sat in his alcove for a while, once again resuming to be unknown and unnoticed. The dream weaver gratified all their daydreams.