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A DREAM AT NOONDAY
by Gardner Dozois
I remember the sky, and the sun burning in the sky like a golden penny flicked into a deep
blue pool, and the scuttling white clouds that changed into magic ships and whales and
turreted castles as they drifted up across that bottomless ocean and swam the equally
bottomless sea of my mind’s eye. I remember the winds that skimmed the clouds, smoothing
and rippling them into serene grandeur or boiling them into froth. I remember the same wind
dipping low to caress the grass, making it sway and tremble, or whipping through the
branches of the trees and making them sing with a wild, keening organ note. I remember the
silence that was like a bronzen shout echoing among the hills.
—It is raining. The sky is slate-gray and grittily churning. It looks like a soggy dishrag being
squeezed dry, and the moisture is dirty rain that falls in pounding sheets, pressing down the
tall grass. The rain pocks the ground, and the loosely packed soil is slowly turning into mud
and the rain spatters the mud, making it shimmer—
And I remember the trains. I remember lying in bed as a child, swathed in warm blankets,
sniffing suspiciously and eagerly at the embryonic darkness of my room, and listening to the
big trains wail and murmur in the freight yard beyond. I remember lying awake night after
night, frightened and darkly fascinated, keeping very still so that the darkness wouldn’t see
me, and listening to the hollow booms and metallic moans as the trains coupled and linked
below my window. I remember that I thought the trains were alive, big dark beasts who
came to dance and to hunt each other through the dappled moonlight of the world outside
my room, and when I would listen to the whispering clatter of their passing and feel the room
quiver ever so slightly in shy response, I would get a crawly feeling in my chest and a
prickling along the back of my neck, and I would wish that I could watch them dance,
although I knew that I never would. And I remember that it was different when I watched the
trains during the daytime, for then even though I clung tight to my mother’s hand and stared
wide-eyed at their steam-belching and spark-spitting they were just big iron beasts putting on
a show for me; they weren’t magic then, they were hiding the magic inside them and
pretending to be iron beasts and waiting for the darkness. I remember that I knew even then
that trains are only magic in the night and only dance when no one can see them. And I
remember that I couldn’t go to sleep at night until I was soothed by the muttering lullaby of
steel and the soft, rhythmical hiss-clatter of a train booming over a switch. And I remember
that some nights the bellowing of a fast freight or the cruel, whistling shriek of a train’s
whistle would make me tremble and feel cold suddenly, even under my safe
blanket-mountain, and I would find myself thinking about rain-soaked ground and blood
and black cloth and half-understood references to my grandfather going away, and the
darkness would suddenly seem to curl in upon itself and become diamond-hard and press
 down upon my straining eyes, and I would whimper and the fading whistle would snatch the
sound from my mouth and trail it away into the night. And I remember that at times like that
I would pretend that I had tiptoed to the window to watch the trains dance, which I never
really dared to do because I knew I would die if I did, and then I would close my eyes and
pretend that I was a train, and in my mind’s eye I would be hanging disembodied in the
darkness a few inches above the shining tracks, and then the track would begin to slip along
under me, slowly at first then fast and smooth like flowing syrup, and then the darkness
would be flashing by and then I would be moving out and away, surrounded by the wailing
roar and evil steel chuckling of a fast freight slashing through the night, hearing my whistle
scream with the majestic cruelty of a stooping eagle and feeling the switches boom and clatter
hollowly under me, and I would fall asleep still moving out and away, away and out.
—The rain is stopping slowly, trailing away across the field, brushing the ground like long,
dangling gray fingers. The tall grass creeps erect again, bobbing drunkenly, shedding its
burden of water as a dog shakes himself dry after a swim. There are vicious little crosswinds
in the wake of the storm, and they make the grass whip even more violently than the
departing caress of the rain. The sky is splitting open above, black rain clouds pivoting
sharply on a central point, allowing a sudden wide wedge of blue to appear. The overcast
churns and tumbles and clots like wet heavy earth turned by a spade. The sky is now a crazy
mosaic of mingled blue and gray. The wind picks up, chews at the edge of the tumbling
wrack, spinning it to the fineness of cotton candy and then lashing it away. A broad shaft of
sunlight falls from the dark undersides of the clouds, thrusting at the ground and drenching it
in a golden cathedral glow, filled with shimmering green highlights. The effect is like that of
light through a stained-glass window, and objects bathed in the light seem to glow very
faintly from within, seem to be suddenly translated into dappled molten bronze. There is a
gnarled, shaggy tree in the center of the pool of sunlight, and it is filled with wet, disgruntled
birds, and the birds are hesitantly, cautiously, beginning to sing again—
And I remember wandering around in the woods as a boy and looking for nothing and
finding everything and that clump of woods was magic and those rocks were a rustlers’ fort
and there were dinosaurs crashing through the brush just out of sight and everybody knew
that there were dragons swimming in the sea just below the waves and an old glittery piece of
Coke bottle was a magic jewel that could let you fly or make you invisible and everybody
knew that you whistled twice and crossed your fingers when you walked by that deserted old
house or something shuddery and scaly would get you and you argued about bang you’re
dead no I’m not and you had a keen gun that could endlessly dispatch all the icky monsters
who hung out near the swing set in your backyard without ever running out of ammunition.
And I remember that as a kid I was nuts about finding a magic cave and I used to think that
there was a cave under every rock, and I would get a long stick to use as a lever and I would
sweat and strain until I had managed to turn the rock over, and then when I didn’t find any
tunnel under the rock I would think that the tunnel was there but it was just filled in with dirt,
and I would get a shovel and I would dig three or four feet down looking for the tunnel and
the magic cave and then I would give up and go home for a dinner of beans and franks and
brown bread. And I remember that once I did find a little cave hidden under a big rock and I
 couldn’t believe it and I was scared and shocked and angry and I didn’t want it to be there
but it was and so I stuck my head inside it to look around because something wouldn’t let me
leave until I did and it was dark in there and hot and very still and the darkness seemed to be
blinking at me and I thought I heard something rustling and moving and I got scared and I
started to cry and I ran away and then I got a big stick and came back, still crying, and
pushed and heaved at that rock until it thudded back over the cave and hid it forever. And I
remember that the next day I went out again to hunt for a magic cave.
—The rain has stopped. A bird flaps wetly away from the tree and then settles back down
onto an outside branch. The branch dips and sways with the bird’s weight, its leaves heavy
with rain. The tree steams in the sun, and a million raindrops become tiny jewels, microscopic
prisms, gleaming and winking, loving and transfiguring the light even as it destroys them
and they dissolve into invisible vapor puffs to be swirled into the air and absorbed by the
waiting clouds above. The air is wet and clean and fresh; it seems to squeak as the tall grass
saws through it and the wind runs its fingernails lightly along its surface. The day is squally
and gusty after the storm, high shining overcast split by jagged ribbons of blue that look like
aerial fjords. The bird preens and fluffs its feathers disgustedly, chattering and scolding at the
rain, but keeping a tiny bright eye carefully cocked in case the storm should take offense at
the liquid stream of insults and come roaring back. Between the tufts of grass the ground has
turned to black mud, soggy as a sponge, puddled by tiny pools of steaming rainwater. There
is an arm and a hand lying in the mud, close enough to make out the texture of the tattered
fabric clothing the arm, so close that the upper arm fades up and past the viewpoint and into
a huge featureless blur in the extreme corner of the field of vision. The arm is bent back at an
unnatural angle and the stiff fingers are hooked into talons that seem to claw toward the gray
sky—
And I remember a day in the sixth grade when we were struggling in the cloakroom with our
coats and snow-encrusted overshoes and I couldn’t get mine off because one of the snaps had
frozen shut and Denny was talking about how his father was a jet pilot and he sure hoped the
war wasn’t over before he grew up because he wanted to kill some Gooks like his daddy was
doing and then later in the boy’s room everybody was arguing about who had the biggest
one and showing them and Denny could piss farther than anybody else. I remember that
noon at recess we were playing kick the can and the can rolled down the side of the hill and
we all went down after it and somebody said hey look and we found a place inside a bunch of
bushes where the grass was all flattened down and broken and there were pages of a
magazine scattered all over and Denny picked one up and spread it out and it was a picture
of a girl with only a pair of pants on and everybody got real quiet and I could hear the girls
chanting in the schoolyard as they jumped rope and kids yelling and everybody was scared
and her eyes seemed to be looking back right out of the picture and somebody finally licked
his lips and said what’re those things stickin’ out of her, ah, and he didn’t know the word and
one of the bigger kids said tits and he said yeah what’re those things stickin’ outta her tits and
I couldn’t say anything because I was so surprised to find out that girls had those little brown
things like we did except that hers were pointy and hard and made me tremble and Denny
said hell I knew about that I’ve had hundreds of girls but he was licking nervously at his lips
 as he said it and he was breathing funny too. And I remember that afternoon I was sitting at
my desk near the window and the sun was hot and I was being bathed in the rolling drone of
our math class and I wasn’t understanding any of it and listening to less. I remember that I
knew I had to go to the bathroom but I didn’t want to raise my hand because our math
teacher was a girl with brown hair and eyeglasses and I was staring at the place where I knew
her pointy brown things must be under her blouse and I was thinking about touching them
to see what they felt like and that made me feel funny somehow and I thought that if I raised
my hand she would be able to see into my head and she’d know and she’d tell everybody
what I was thinking and then she’d get mad and punish me for thinking bad things and so I
didn’t say anything but I had to go real bad and if I looked real close I thought that I could
see two extra little bulges in her blouse where her pointy things were pushing against the
cloth and I started thinking about what it would feel like if she pushed them up against me
and that made me feel even more funny and sort of hollow and sick inside and I couldn’t wait
any longer and I raised my hand and left the room but it was too late and I wet myself when I
was still on the way to the boy’s room and I didn’t know what to do so I went back to the
classroom with my pants all wet and smelly and the math teacher looked at me and said
what did you do and I was scared and Denny yelled he pissed in his pants he pissed in his
pants and I said I did not the water bubbler squirted me but Danny yelled he pissed in his
pants he pissed in his pants and the math teacher got very mad and everybody was laughing
and suddenly the kids in my class didn’t have any faces but only laughing mouths and I
wanted to curl up into a ball where nobody could get me and once I had seen my mother
digging with a garden spade and turning over the wet dark earth and there was half of a
worm mixed in with the dirt and it writhed and squirmed until the next shovelful covered it
up.
—Most of the rain has boiled away, leaving only a few of the larger puddles that have
gathered in the shallow depressions between grass clumps. The mud is slowly solidifying
under the hot sun, hardening into ruts, miniature ridges and mountains and valleys. An ant
appears at the edge of the field of vision, emerging warily from the roots of the tall grass,
pushing its way free of the tangled jungle. The tall blades of grass tower over it, forming a
tightly interwoven web and filtering the hot yellow sunlight into a dusky green half-light. The
ant pauses at the edge of the muddy open space, reluctant to exchange the cool tunnel of the
grass for the dangers of level ground. Slowly, the ant picks its way across the sticky mud,
skirting a pebble half again as big as it is. The pebble is streaked with veins of darker rock
and has a tiny flake of quartz embedded in it near the top. The elements have rounded it into
a smooth oval, except for a dent on the far side that exposed its porous core. The ant finishes
its cautious circumnavigation of the pebble and scurries slowly toward the arm, which lies
across its path. With infinite patience, the ant begins to climb up the arm, slipping on the
slick, mud-spattered fabric. The ant works its way down the arm to the wrist and stops,
sampling the air. The ant stands among the bristly black hairs on the wrist, antennae
vibrating. The big blue vein in the wrist can be seen under its tiny feet. The ant continues to
walk up the wrist, pushing its way through the bristly hair, climbing onto the hand and
walking purposefully through the hollow of the thumb. Slowly, it disappears around the
 knuckle of the first finger—
And I remember a day when I was in the first year of high school and my voice was changing
and I was starting to grow hair in unusual places and I was sitting in English class and I
wasn’t paying too much attention even though I’m usually pretty good in English because I
was in love with the girl who sat in front of me. I remember that she had long legs and soft
brown hair and a laugh like a bell and the sun was coming in the window behind her and the
sunlight made the downy hair on the back of her neck glow very faintly and I wanted to
touch it with my fingertips and I wanted to undo the knot that held her hair to the top of her
head and I wanted her hair to cascade down over my face soft against my skin and cover me
and with the sunlight I could see the strap of her bra underneath her thin dress and I wanted
to slide my fingers underneath it and unhook it and stroke her velvety skin. I remember that I
could feel my body stirring and my mouth was dry and painful and the zipper of her dress
was open a tiny bit at the top and I could see the tanned texture of her skin and see that she
had a brown mole on her shoulder and my hand trembled with the urge to touch it and
something about Shakespeare and when she turned her head to whisper to Denny across the
row her eyes were deep and beautiful and I wanted to kiss them softly brush them lightly as a
bird’s wing and Hamlet was something or other and I caught a glimpse of her tongue darting
wetly from between her lips and pressing against her white teeth and that was almost too
much to bear and I wanted to kiss her lips very softly and then I wanted to crush them flat
and then I wanted to bite them and sting them until she cried and I could comfort and soothe
her and that frightened me because I didn’t understand it and my thighs were tight and
prickly and the blood pounded at the base of my throat and Elsinore something and the bell
rang shrilly and I couldn’t get up because all I could see was the fabric of her dress stretched
taut over her hips as she stood up and I stared at her hips and her belly and her thighs as she
walked away and wondered what her thing would look like and I was scared. I remember
that I finally got up enough nerve to ask her for a date during recess and she looked at me
incredulously for a second and then laughed, just laughed contemptuously for a second and
walked away without saying a word. I remember her laughter. And I remember wandering
around town late that night heading aimlessly into nowhere trying to escape from the
pressure and the emptiness and passing a car parked on a dark street corner just as the moon
swung out from behind a cloud and there was light that danced and I could hear the freight
trains booming far away and she was in the back seat with Denny and they were locked
together and her skirt was hiked up and I could see the white flash of flesh all the way up her
leg and he had his hand under her blouse on her breast and I could see his knuckles moving
under the fabric and the freight train roared and clattered as it hit the switch and he was
kissing her and biting her and she was kissing him back with her lips pressed tight against
her teeth and her hair floating all around them like a cloud and the train was whispering
away from town and then he was on top of her pressing her down and I felt like I was going
to be sick and I started to vomit but stopped because I was afraid of the noise and she was
moaning and making small low whimpering noises I’d never heard anyone make before and
I had to run before the darkness crushed me and I didn’t want to do that when I got home
because I’d feel ashamed and disgusted afterward but I knew that I was going to have to
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