The Dream Thief of Cusco

“Dreams are dangerous things to steal,” my grandmother cautioned, smelling of roasted corn and burning copal in her shop on the The Plaza de Armas. “The ancients knew dreams needed to arrive willingly, like a warm caress in the night when you’re sleeping comfortably. When you force them…” She trailed off, her eyes distant.

“Not so dangerous we couldn’t steal more, and keep the best for ourselves,” I said, thinking my grandmother could do better.

She grabbed my wrist, her weathered hands surprisingly strong. “Don’t be an idiot, Morfeo. Is your university only a year away? You need to grow up. These—" she tapped a jar with her nail, the sound sharp and hollow, “—are dreams etched on jars to sell to tourists who wander like headless chickens snapping photos. The jars are only souvenirs for Machu Picchu. You don’t think there are any actual dreams in these jars, do you?” Her laugh was brittle and unconvincing.

That night, her words gnawed at me. I decided my grandmother had given up on her dream stealing, but why should I? She was a hypocrite to sell empty dream jars. I had Inca blood running through my veins, ancient, and still potent. I knew I could steal actual dreams. Besides, I had no dreams of my own. But who had a dream I could steal?

There was a boy in my class, Edwardo. I remembered he prattled on every day about flying. All I heard about was how he would join the Peruvian Airforce. He was the perfect target. I waited until we were drinking Inca Cola behind the school. After he turned away, I captured his dream in one swift motion. I placed it in my jar and screwed down the top. The jar rattled like the dream was beating to get out. Lights, like angry fireflies on a summer evening, sparked in the glass. I quickly tucked the jar in my satchel before anyone saw.

At home in my bedroom, I opened the jar and poured Edwardo’s dream on my chest. Ribbons of light in soft blues and purples washed over my body. My mind rushed with a tickling vibration I’d never known—the rush of wind, the stomach-dropping thrill of flight. I felt bathed in Edwardo’s hunger.

The next day at school, I had a hard time looking at Edwardo. He no longer talked of his flying. I realized his dream of flying was not just Edwardo’s dream, but his goal, and I had taken it. It wasn’t just dreams I could steal while people slept, it was also the ones that burn in people’s hearts—their deepest aspirations.

But why should I feel guilty about taking his dream of flying? The likelihood of Edwardo becoming a pilot was nearly impossible. Peru is a small country, and he was better off without a stupid dream. I had done him a favor. At least by my enjoying his anticipation and hope someone could take advantage of his dream, knowing the goal was impossible to achieve. There would be no devastating disappointment when the dream failed, no hearts broken.

Each night I poured his dream on my chest. Each night, the fingers of his dream massaged me with pleasure. But the dream in the jar had only so many particles. The firefly lights diminished, the massaging fingers grew weaker, and even the coca leaves placed under my tongue could not bring back the ecstasy. The empty jars in my bedroom called out, begged me to be fill them with people’s desires. I needed fresh dreams.

The artist was next. I followed her home on a rainy Tuesday. The rain turned to fog, and I waited patiently outside her open window. The best time to capture dreams is just before the dreamer awakes, when the images are the most vibrant. This is the time just before dawn. Once next to her, I held my breath as she slept. She smiled warmly and nuzzled her pillow, her skin smooth and innocent—while her dream slipped into my jar. Once back in my bedroom, I poured out her dream in my hand. The flakes of her dream shimmered and smelled like paints and coffee. My bedroom swirled in an aura of colored mist. Later, I mixed a coca paste in browns and tans, like an artist would, and then sucked the bitter mixture. The coca felt warm and safe, and so I spooned more.

The artist dream paled in three short weeks, much earlier than the dream of flying. This dream stealing was getting to be hard work.

But then my luck turned. My grandmother passed, and not only did I inherit her house, her Vivienda de gran tamaño, but her death was wonderful for my dream collection. The house was a hacienda in disrepair: roof tiles crumbled, a stone porch slumped, but the bones were from the darkest obsidian, surrounded by dense Queuña trees. It provided all the privacy I’d ever need. Best yet, I was the only one left in a line of ancestors going back to the beginning of family history, the time before memory.

I spent my days at the shop, not for money I no longer needed, but for dream collecting. I filled my jars with tourist’s dreams as they flitted by in their insignificant lives, their dull faces darting from one shop to the next. Soon, stolen desires filled my jars and lined my basement shelves, each jar carefully labeled with dates of their capture: a boy’s dream of being a writer, a man’s wish to say he was sorry to his dead wife for not listening, a young woman who dreamed of a love she’d destroyed, and hundreds of others. I liked to sit on a concrete bench in my basement. I’d gaze at the rattling jars in the dark, the dreams fluttering in light behind the glass of each one, like the wings of desperate and sparkling hummingbirds.

Fate has a way of molding our lives. One day, Señor Vicente stopped by my shop.

“You sell dreams?” he asked. The other shopkeepers stared. People knew him as the richest man in Cusco, though no one quite knew why.

“Yes, 100 sol,” I said.

He chuckled as if hearing an inside joke, then examined a jar, set it down, and lifted another. “I’ve heard about your grandmother,” he said finally, and carefully set the jar down as he looked at me.

A balding man with a nasal voice interrupted. “I’ll take a dream,” he demanded.

“Sure,” I said. “Which one?”

“Youth. The one there,” he pointed at the glass etched with a fountain. “Make me young.”

When I looked back, Señor Vicente had moved on. As he walked away, I admired his alpaca jacket, the diamond on his little finger, his lizard boots. If I could steal his dreams, what would I find?

Señor Vicente’s house stood in the night like someone had carved a white scar into the mountain. I waited in the freezing air for the dawn to approach. No dreams. But just when I’d given up, the dream burst from an upstairs window and into my jar. I quickly screwed down the cap, the jar shaking so badly I thought it would shatter. I stuffed the jar in my satchel. Curious, I reached in and turned the cap just enough to crack the seal. Just enough to feel the dream.

The dream leaped with violent force and crammed itself down my throat—like scalding tar. A nauseous bile gagged in my throat. I was drowning in a little girl’s memories, not dreams, but memories of children locked away. Memories of a basement door, of heavy footsteps on creaking stairs, of a child’s vacant pleading eyes, and of other children who used to live in Señor Vicente’s basement—but now were gone.

This was a nightmare, and I squeezed the lid tight. Panic burned in my chest, not just from the fear of the nightmare, but when I thought about it, also my shame for stealing dreams. If I let them go, would the burn go away?

With my pack and burlap bags filled with jars, I set out to climb Huayna Picchu. After scrambling on wet granite hand over hand through the night, I reached the summit. With the cold around me, I loosening the caps. The hummingbird dreams clustered and buzzed, their wings beating too fast to see. Lights quivered inside their slick bellies. I raised both of my arms to release them into the sky. A flock of hundreds circled above me, their lights diving and swooping against the stars. And then, as if realizing freedom, the dream birds exploded off the mountain and streaked through the sky.

All but one. I held the Señor Vicente jar which now had turned nearly black. After returning to my basement, I placed the jar on the highest shelf in the darkest corner.

Some weeks later, Señor Vicente hadn’t forgotten me. We gathered in my grandmother’s living room, a grand fire burning. His nose pointed up, and I felt disgust in my stomach. My grandmother’s house needed a renovation, but was as fine as his.

I noticed his cane. A gold cast bird, a condor I presumed, formed the grip. Why would he want to see me? I listened as he spewed out his pleasantries.

“I saw you at my house,” he finally said. “Why were you there?”

“I may have been on a walk. I sometimes walk when I can’t sleep,” I said. He was a rich man, but he couldn’t bully me in my own house.

He smiled, a wry twist of his lips. “You’re a smart boy, selling your dreams on The Plaza. You know, your grandmother and I knew each other well. We were… close.”

We sat in silence for a long time, the fire hissing and spitting. A log fell on another and the embers flared. The nerve of making this claim, I thought. And after she died!

“She never mentioned you,” I said.

“Did she ever talk about the god, Supay? That’s who got her started in dreams, Morfeo. The Uku Pacha underworld.”

I stood up. “Myths,” I spat. “You need to leave, Señor Vicente!”

No, wait! Your grandmother believed she was an Inca mosoc, a dream spirit. She knew dreams should be left alone. You’ve broken an ancient law, the bridge between the world of the living, and those who are passed with your grandmother.

“More myths and superstitions.”

Señor Vicente laughed and stood up to leave. “I tell you what, you’re so smart. You can have my dream. I give it to you. You’re too impatient to wait for your own.”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.

“We all wait for our dreams to arrive, Morfeo, as if angels deliver them on silver feathers. And perhaps that’s true about angels.” He waved his bony finger at me. “But the dream I am giving you is not an angel’s dream. To live my dream though, you must enter it. You must choose to enter it.”

Many weeks later, I waited for the masons to leave who were mortaring my basement. It was up to me to seal out the water. With them finally gone, I went down the stairs and took Señor Vicente’s dream jar from the top shelf. I held it with both hands. As I turned it slowly, tiny blues and purples flickered behind the dark glass. The jar vibrated in my hand, like the dream itself was waking from a long night. I unscrewed the glass, and the lights blinked out; the glass steadied. Now is the time to decide, I thought.

You heard Doña Rosa’s child is missing?” asked Julio, the pottery shopkeeper. The sun was bright on The Plaza. It was a good day to sell dreams, to live in a dream.

“No, I’ve heard nothing,” I said, but I was lying. Of course I’d heard. And not just about Doña Rosa, but others as well. The Diaz girl on the banks of the Vilcamayo, and Maria Ferandez, who they said had left with her father, but no one heard from again. Others.

At my home now, there’ll be no rest until the renovation is complete: new concrete for seeping walls, oak timbers for the basement ceiling to stop the dripping, stronger locks for doors. A long list for the renovation. I worry the men might hear the children crying from inside the walls. But maybe what happens in the basement is a dream. Or maybe the shop is a dream. It’s all too much to think about. I draw my own blood, just enough to find the vein. Only the coca helps; only the coca keeps away the nightmares. Soon I feel warm and safe. I wish I had my own dreams, but I’d thrown them away.