| Category: Classic, Fantasy
Ebook Title: A Dream of Armageddon
Author: Herbert George Wells
Ebook Description:
The man with the white face entered the carriage at Rugby. He moved slowly
despite his porter's urgency, and even while he was still on the platform I
noted how ill he seemed. He dropped into the corner across from me with a sigh,
made an incomplete attempt to arrange his traveling shawl, and became
motionless, his eyes staring vacantly. I returned to my reading.
"That book," he said, pointing a lean finger, "is about dreams."
"Obviously," I answered, for it was Fortnum Roscoe's Dream States, and the title
was on the cover.
He hung silent for a space as if seeking words. "Yes," he said at last, "but
they know nothing."
I looked attentively at him.
"There are dreams," he said, "and dreams... Tell me, do you ever dream vividly?"
"Rarely," I answered. "I doubt I have three vivid dreams in a year."
"Ah!" he said, "Then your dreams don't mix with your memories? You don't find
yourself in doubt; did this happen or did it not?"
"Hardly ever. Except for a momentary hesitation now and then. I suppose few
people do. Roscoe says it happens at times and gives the usual explanation about
intensity of impression and the like to account for its not happening as a rule.
I suppose you know of these theories--"
"They are wrong."
His emaciated hand played with the strap of the window for a time. I prepared to
resume reading, and that seemed to precipitate his next remark. He leaned
forward almost as though to touch me.
"Isn't there something called consecutive dreaming--that goes on night after
night?"
"I believe there is. There are cases given in most books on mental trouble."
"Right place for them. But what I mean--" He looked at his bony knuckles. "Is
that sort of thing really dreaming? Or something else?"
I should have snubbed his persistent conversation but for the drawn anxiety of
his face. I remember now the look of his faded eyes and the lids red stained.
"I'm not just arguing about a matter of opinion," he said. "It's killing me."
"Dreams?"
"If you call them dreams. Night after night. Vivid!--so vivid...this--" he
indicated the landscape that went streaming by the window "seems unreal in
comparison! I can scarcely remember who I am, what business I am on..."
"You mean the dream is always the same?" I asked.
"No. It's over. I died."
"Died?"
"Smashed and killed, and now, so much of me as that dream was, is dead. Forever.
I dreamt I was another man, living in a different part of the world at a
different time. Night after night I woke into that other life. Fresh scenes and
fresh happenings--until I came upon the last--when I died."
It was clear I was in for this dream. And after all, I had an hour before me,
the light was fading fast, and Fortnum Roscoe is rather dreary. "Living in a
different time," I said: "do you mean in some different age?"
"Yes, to come."
"The year 3,000, for example?" More... | |
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