“Prospero,” said Greene, “we need to talk about your dream diary.”
“I figured we would,” said the boy. He sat on the floor between the potted ficus and the couch.
“When I asked you to start your dream diary it was with the understanding that you shared your own dreams.”
“That’s what I’m doing.”
“Prospero, if these are your own dream images, then what should we think about this?” Greene had his laptop open and he turned it so they could both see the screen. Then he held up one of the boy’s drawings, which showed a pair of giants kneeling in water. The giant on the left was colored in umber and other earth tones; the one on the right was in cooler blues and grays. On the screen there was a high-resolution jpeg of a painting with almost identical composition and color. “This is a very famous painting called Metamorphosis of Narcissus,” said Greene. “It was painted in 1937 by the artist Salvador Dalí.”
“Yes,” said Prospero.
“You admit to having copied this painting?”
“No.”
“But—”
“My drawing is different,” he said. “It’s not the same angle, and some of the other things are different. The decay on the stone figure is worse in mine. And in Dalí’s painting there is a hand holding up a bulb from which another figure is growing. I didn’t put that in because that figure’s not there anymore. The sky’s different, too. He painted it at twilight, but mine is clearly dawn.”
Greene said, “Making changes to someone else’s art is not the point. You took the theme and basic composition from Dalí and gave it to me as if it was something from your own dreams.”
Prospero shook his head. “No, that’s not what happened.”
“It is. And I checked, most of your ‘dream’ images are borrowed from paintings by famous artists. The big organic machine picture is The Elephant Celebes by Max Ernst. The drawing of the red building is Giorgio de Chirico’s The Red Tower. Do you want me to go on?”
“Wait,” said Prospero, surprised, “are you mad at me?”
“I’m disappointed. I thought we had established a relationship of honesty, Prospero. I don’t enjoy being lied to.”
The boy looked alarmed. “I’m not lying. You’re the only person I ever tell the truth to. The whole truth.”
“Then explain these drawings. Why did you copy them and try to pass them off as your own?”
“No,” said Prospero quickly. “Look at them. You think my bull-god is the same as de Chirico’s? It’s not. My bull is older and it has the marks of the whip and the claw. It’s ready to be given to the Elder Things as payment.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” said Greene. “Did you know about these paintings before you had your ‘dreams’?”
“I knew of them before I started the dream diary for you,” explained the boy, clearly upset, “but that’s because I went looking for them.”
“What does that mean?”
“I… well, I’ve always had dreams like this. I never dream about the stuff human kids dream about.”
“You are human, Prospero.”
“Don’t start that again, Doc. Not now, okay?”
Greene spread his hands. In several previous sessions Prospero had expressed his hope that there were others like him here on Earth, and that if he found them maybe together they would be able to solve the problem of how to get home. Wherever and whatever home was. “Continue,” he said, his patience thin.
“I had those dreams and then once I was surfing the Net, looking for people like me, you know? That’s when I found this Web site about the artwork of the surrealism movement. There was a painting by Max Ernst that showed the Loplop.”
Greene nodded, and located the image online, and then in Prospero’s sketchbook. It showed a strange creature that was part bird, part human, and entirely unreal. The artist had done a number of drawings of the creature, claiming that it was his alter ego, which he also referred to as his “private phantom.” The painting that matched — or nearly matched — one of Prospero’s drawings was one of the creature in the midst of running, or perhaps dancing. The painting, known as L’Ange du Foyer (Le Triomphe du Surréalisme), or The Fireside Angel, was subtitled “The Triumph of Surrealism.”
Prospero came over and bent to touch the picture on the laptop screen. His touch was gentle and on his face was an expression of self-aware pleasure that Greene thought looked beatific. There was text beneath the image, and Prospero read it in a soft voice. “‘Naked, they dress only in their majesty and their mystery.’” He turned to the doctor. “Don’t you get it? This isn’t me copying what they did. This is me finding other people like me. Other people who have seen the things I’ve seen. Not just Ernst. Others. André Breton, Louis Aragon, and Philippe Soupault.” He laughed and then rattled off a long list of names. “Paul Éluard, Benjamin Péret, René Crevel, Max Morise, Man Ray, Roger Vitrac, Gala Éluard, Salvador Dalí, Howard Phillips Lovecraft, Joan Miró, Marcel Duchamp, Jacques Prévert, Yves Tanguy…”
Greene held a hand up to stop him. “I’m not sure I understand what you’re trying to tell me.”
“They saw what I see. They knew it’s real. They wrote about it, painted it, told people about it. They knew, Doc. They knew that my world exists. Do you know how much I needed that? To know that I’m not crazy, that this is real?”
Greene said nothing. This was a dangerous moment for the boy and he had to decide if he had reached a new level with Prospero or if the boy had revealed just how far his psychosis ran.
Before he could organize a comment, Prospero snatched up the sketchbook and hugged it to his chest.
“I think I understand now,” he declared. “Those devices I’ve been building? The ones my dad keeps taking from me and selling to the military? They’re nothing. That was just me starting the wrong way. No… no, it was me getting up to speed. But this, this,” he said, thumping his palm against his sketchbook so hard that it seemed he wanted to push the book into his own heart, “this is what I needed to make me stop doubting myself. God, it’s like a light went on in my head the way it does in cartoons. Wow. I know, Doc. I really know what I have to do. The writers, they’ve been dropping clues for years. Lovecraft, Derleth, Howard? All of them, the ones everyone thinks were writing stupid horror stories? They weren’t. Oh no. Oh, hell no. They were dropping clues. They were sending up smoke signals, knowing that someone like me would be out there, watching, looking, waiting for contact.”
“Prospero,” said Greene evenly, “I’m going to need you to calm down. Why don’t you take a seat and let’s do some control breathing together—”
“Shhh, Doc,” said Prospero, “you need to listen now. This is so big. This is so huge my head feels like it opened up on hinges. I can feel the truth in there. I can feel the answers. They’re whispering to me. They want me to find them.” He cut Greene an almost conspiratorial look. “You’ve been a big help. You kicked me in the butt and now I know what I have to do.”
“What is it you think you have to do?” asked Greene carefully.
“I have to find the books. They all hinted about them. Those writers, they weren’t writing about fake monster stuff. They were making sure the clues got out there. Most people — the human herd — they think it’s all nonsense and junk. But it’s not. No. I need to find those books and then I need to get to work building it.”
“Building… what?”
“My God Machine,” said Prospero as if that answer should have been obvious to even the meanest intelligence. Laughter bubbled out of him. “I bet my dad would even help me. He’ll have to. He’ll want to.”