Beautiful Dreamer

Terry was full of smiles. He was so full of smiles, there seemed very little else that he could contain. The constancy and energy of his smiles was disconcerting. Even the happiest of people faltered in the lighthouse of his self-assured grin.

This could have been a problem. By rights, it should have been a stumbling block. But in equal measure, Terry cared and he also did not care. His was a certainty that either borrowed from the elements and from nature itself, or was of those things. He was genuinely happy and the well of his happiness went deep. It went so deep that there was a powerful glow that stared up through Terry and set alight the world.

Now, we are all of us prone to taking things for granted. Terry was no exception to this. He remained oblivious to how special he really was. This blasé attitude of his made of him an enigma. This here was a demi-god. A fallen deity. A soul made pure in his naivety.

Terry loved life, which was to say he loved everything placed before him in this life of his. And so, he loved the world. All of it. His sense of wonder was unassailable and made alien as a result. He was a visitor. He did not belong. For surely, if he belonged, he would calm himself and own his surrounds with an air of contempt and disdain. His brand of lack was overbearing. It’s energy overwhelming. He took nothing for granted and this elevated him to a level that made him a walking, living and breathing impossibility.

You see, Terry was a dreamer and in his dreams was a realism that bound him to the world in a way that would have terrified anyone else. He dared to go to the places others feared. And those places and spaces were right there in front of him. It didn’t take much imagination. In fact, he cheated and used the materials directly available to him. He watched, he listened and he learned and deep down he knew that one day he would understand enough to write stories that would delight and spellbind a tribe of readers that spanned the world in every way, shape and form.

That’s all it took. He opened his eyes and used them for the purpose they were made for. He silenced his mouth and let his ears do the work. He remained the sponge he’d been as a child. The sponge that all children are. He sat down, relaxed and he took it all in and enjoyed doing so.

You could have said that Terry was a people watcher, but that was only a part of it. His eyes flickered here and there and he read the movements of people. But more than that. He transported himself from his scuffed and well-worn size nines and he squeezed himself into pristine heels and wobbled his way across the street, or he donned several pair of socks before tying the laces of an impossibly large pair of hobnail boots before strutting into a rough and ready pub that felt naked without saw dust on the floor.

Terry was possessed of a confidence that allowed himself to be other people, safe in the knowledge that he would always return to his humble and familiar abode. He never compared himself with the people he travelled in, even as he imagined himself to be them. Terry was Terry and he was fine with that. More than fine with that. Why wouldn’t he be? Because he understood that he was using a gift everyone else had, but chose not to. He tripped the light fantastic in a thousand different guises. He lived any number of lives. Then he returned to himself and for having dared to dream, he was more real than ever. More himself. Terry shone, because the truth of him was diamond in a world full of coal.

People can be cruel. There were those that said that Terry should grow up. That his tendency to dream was something he should have relinquished after his sixth birthday. They said this as though it were a good thing, but in their heart-of-hearts they knew they were so very wrong. They sensed that Terry was special and that he was where they should always have been. That they had lost their way. Worse still, there he was, a beacon calling them back to a place where they could once more make sense, but they could never admit that they were wrong. They could not face the truth of themselves reflected in his never ending dreamer’s smile.

Terry sensed this and he felt an infinite sadness for their loss. He knew this loss was prevalent across the world and he wanted to do what he could to heal the lost and the broken. And so he gathered them together within the space of his imagination and he dreamed better lives for them. He dreamed and he dreamed and into his dreams he poured all the love he could muster.

And then he began to write.

He waited for an age before he put pen to paper. Using his smile to draw more and more of the world into him. His was a factory of dreams and he almost exhausted himself into the bargain. Churning through the pain of humanity and transforming it into something golden. Stockpiling the gold. Revisiting it. Turning it over in his mind and working on it again and again until it became something magical. And even then, he knew he was not ready. Even when he knew he could fill page after page with wonder and joy, he held back knowing that this was not yet the time. He needed to distil and ferment. To live more, and in the rough and tumble of living, know how it was to graft and to struggle and how much value there was in an insight and perspective that would bring forth an inner smile from each and every reader.

Terry filled every waking moment with intense observation. A tractor beam of experience that squeezed every drip of meaning into the distillery of his mind. Then he made it all the more interesting.

His were not the dreams of a sleeper. He was wide awake. Placing his shoulder to the grindstone of his imagination, he pushed and he pushed until the disk was on the backs of four elephants and the turtle became accustomed to the weight it would carry across the universe for eternity.

Terry built an entire world upon that disc. An impossible dream world that was more real than the world in which his books were published. He opened readers up to the wonder and possibilities of their own lives via this portal of vision and dreams. They delighted in characters he had created when really, all he ever did was dress the familiar up in the cloak of a wizard or the battered and threadbare garb of the night watch. He found a way to create a mirror that millions would willingly stare into and in that fascinated gaze, would meet DEATH himself and love and embrace him in a way they never knew was possible.

Terry didn’t separate dreams from reality. He bound them together and then he played his pipe and led people to a place that made more sense in its delightful absurdity than the world they sought to escape. And so, upon their reluctant return to their reality, they brought a little of the magic of his dreams with them. He made the world a better place by not only daring to dream, but for sharing those dreams as best he could.