Lara’s Dream

This was Lara’s Dream:

Lara was walking through a narrow canyon of chocolate red and refried bean brown. She knew she had already been walking for years, decades even, but she was still very young. A small, gap-toothed girl with a rainbow fringe on her forehead, she variously skipped along, or ran, or walked, or sprinted. She never tired. No ache ever even introduced itself to her skinny legs and even though she was barefoot, every step felt as fresh as interesting as the one before it. As she walked, she passed all number of oddities. At times, the walls of the valley would climb so high they blotted out the light, and she would trudge forward in the darkness confidently knowing she would never run into anything, and she didn’t. Each foot found its perfect footing and nor did her breath ever quicken or her eyes squint. Looking straight ahead into nothing she continued walking.

Sometimes the sun would turn the valley into an earthen oven, and she would watch as tall dry grasses combusted before her eyes, curling into blackened clefs and spreading the fire through the valley as far as she could see, reducing everything to barrenness with no sign of any life for miles and miles. And still she walked, untiring, unburned even as her clothes burned off and replaced themselves with a whisper, growing on her like polyester ivy.

For a long while, her beloved cats walked alongside her. They walked past antique bay windows in the rock that looked out onto seascapes or great meadows or browsing herds of elephants or cities overrun by frogs and though they turned and stared through those portals never once did they stop walking forward. They talked of everything but decided nothing. They told each other their feelings on full moons and sorbets and dogs and what it means to be free. They walked years and years together through the valley, passing zebras and slow rumbling tow trucks and cabins with wood log legs that teetered by as if on stilts. The sky was blue some days and green others, purple and striped and polka-dotted and a lava lamp other days.

Eventually the cats bid her goodbye and went their own way, and it was sad, but still she walked forward. Floods happened that came down the valley, sometimes inches of cold clear mountain water that felt refreshing on her shins but, of course, never slowed her down. Floods would come that went over her head, but none of it slowed her down. The waters parted around her and she continued onward. And when it wasn’t water it was chocolate pudding, or jello, or silly putty, and though she felt its sensation it never pushed her backwards and she simply walked. Just walked.

Various people joined her on her walk, sometimes overlapping, sometimes appearing as a crowd and slow thinning over days or weeks or months. Some brought walking picnics, some brought her pen and paper to write on, some brought decks of cards and they played Indian poker but never, ever stopped walking. She passed people, as well. People she knew, just standing there waiting to say hello. Sometimes they jogged alongside her, sometimes they nodded and smiled and let her pass. She passed famous people, dead people. Crowds of tens of thousands people would appear walking towards her. She would slip between the never-ending crowd for days sometimes without acknowledging them or being acknowledged, and then suddenly they would be gone or replaced by giraffes and she’d dodge between their legs.

For years and years and years she walked. A man joined her for a long time. They talked about nothing but mostly laughed at each other, and they kissed while still walking, and he carried her on his back and she on his, but they did not need to rest their feet and it was just for fun. They held hands or went arm-in-arm. After a while, he left too.

The ground beneath her turned to gold. It would turn to swamp or mud or a fine, sparkling sand. Grasses would grow and swirl where she planted her feet and sprout into trees behind her and sometimes where she walked everything would die and shrivel and a hole would form in the ground. The ground beneath her became AstroTurf, sometimes it was rocky and sometimes it was smooth like shaven legs, and sometimes it bounced like a backyard trampoline and gravity seemed to shut itself off, and her measured strides forward became huge leaps and bounds. But she never stopped walking forward, even as she looked behind her.

It rained chocolate. It rained champagne. It rained green glass bottles that burst around her harmlessly. It rained stars that turned to diamonds as they crashed onto the rock. There were tornadoes and blizzards and haboobs, but never was she bothered or cold or hurt. All the weather happened and she appreciated it but it did not affect her.

She aged as she walked, but not in a straight line through time. She went from a little girl to teenager to young woman to aged and back again, sometimes she skipped between ages and eras of life, sometimes she walked for a decade as a thirteen year and then turned the next corner as a centenarian. She grew old and young countless times but never felt more or less tired or energetic and just. Kept. Walking.

For many years she walked completely alone and saw no other living thing, not even a fly or a mosquito. She talked to herself to fill the time. What started as rambling and whistling grew into full conversations. She created whole languages for herself and the other characters she played. A rich soap opera played entirely by her echoed down up and the canyon for a decade.

The valley began to climb upward, which it had done many times before, but something felt different this time. She felt her feet, for the first time in the infinity she had been walking, begin to slow down. She felt something she had thought she would never feel again: the feeling of being tired. Her legs began, finally, after eons, to feel heavy. She trudged now up the hill and knew she was coming to some sort of end. The rise continue and the ground became moist and fern-covered.

Another slope appeared beyond the one she traveled up. She saw a gentle peak framed by the now infinite walls of the valley. And suddenly, without any indication, the valley ended and she stepped out onto a never-ending plain of gentle gray-brown undulations of hills extending out from her. In the middle distance was a mushroom as big as a house, wider around than the thickest redwood, with a bulging cap of neon blue and green.

In only a few small steps she closed to distance and stood in front of the giant glowing mushroom with her head tilted back and her filled her vision completely. They stayed like that for a long time, staring at each other.

Eventually the mushroom spoke without a voice. It was just a low, clear pitch of rumble that shook every atom that surrounded both of them, and those vibrations put the ideas directly into Lara’s head.

“Hello. You have walked a long way to be here. I thank you for your patience.”

She shrugged, unsure of what to say, unsure she needed to say anything.

“Do you know where you are?” asked the mushroom, in her head.

“This is Big Daddy Canyon. Isn’t it?”

“Do you think this is still Big Daddy Canyon?”

“I haven’t left the canyon. I started walking down it, and I never stopped. I never left the canyon. So yes, I think this is still Big Daddy Canyon.”

The mushroom was silent for a long time, and so was she.

“Why did you keep walking?”

“Why not?”

Another silence.

“You know,” said the mushroom, in her head, “no one has ever made it this far. Most people stop walking.”

Lara shrugged and looked at the spongy ground. “I didn’t need to stop. I wasn’t tired.”

“Will you stay with me?”

“Stay with you? Here? For how long?”

The mushroom said nothing.

“How about this: you can stay with me. You can walk with me. There is still more to Big Daddy Canyon.”

The mushroom bubbled. “I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I have to stay here.”

“Why?”

The mushroom began to shrink.

“I…”

It shrank and shrank in on itself, becoming denser and darker. It was only slightly taller than Lara now, shaped like something more human. The mushroom undulated. It had two legs now, and it stepped towards her.

She stepped towards it. And then past it. And she began to walk. She called out over her shoulder, “This way!”

And slowly, learning these brand new appendages, the mushroom began to walk behind her. It fell far behind first, as she kept a steady pace, but soon it walked beside her in silence. For a long time again, they walked together down the never-ending canyon.

Finally the mushroom spoke, from a mouth like a human, and said thank you.

Lara awoke, and her feet ached and ached, and she tasted chocolate. Matt, who had been asleep next to her, was gone, and went she went outside the tent she saw the entire field behind the campsite was full of softly glowing mushrooms.