Page 168 of In Somnis

The ceiling goes soft.

The ceiling goes… and something nearly takes my ear off.

I duck on instinct, and whatever it is whips past me with a paper-cut whistle and disappears into the golden light ahead. I straighten up and turn to look at it.

A tarot card. Folded into a paper plane.

What the hell?

Another one follows immediately, banking left, close enough to feel the air move.

Then three more in formation.

I watch them go, then look around at the airspace I’ve apparently wandered into, which is thick with the things, dozens of tarot cards folded into planes, circling, diving, and occasionally colliding with each other in small papery explosions before reforming and continuing on their way.

Last time muffins tried to kill me, now it’s tarot cards. Great.

I watch a particularly aggressive one come directly at my face and sidestep it.

Wait.

This is weird as fuck.

I look down at my hands.

Left one has nine fingers. Right one has four.

Right…

… I’m dreaming.

The air smells like incense, and the light is wrong, too warm and golden, filtering through things overhead that rustle even though nothing is moving. The ground is soft like it was designed to be, by someone who had feelings about it.

I do a slow turn, taking in the full picture.

Crystals are hanging everywhere from things that aren’t quite trees. Each one is strung by a thread, scattering it in small rainbows across surfaces that shift a little when you look at them directly. The colors are too saturated, a palette that exists only in dreams and very confident interior design choices.

Whoever built this has, to put it charitably, a lot going on.

In the middle of it all, cross-legged on the improbably soft ground, is a boy.

He’s maybe sixteen? Shaggy and wild dark hair over blond that curls, a face that will be striking when it finishes deciding what it’s doing. He’s shuffling a tarot deck, eyes half-closed, lips moving.

In front of him, receiving this reading is an enormous pickle.

My attention is focused on the pickle, trying to understand what is happening, but in turn, it doesn’t acknowledge me.

The boy draws a card, holds it up, and murmurs to the pickle.

All right, whatever. Who am I to judge weird shit?

But this is not the Shaw boy.

Although, I squint at him. There’s something, actually.

Huh.

A younger version of Lennon’s dream version, even if he’s not quite the same.