Dream, Wish, Kaleidoscope

by Victor Forna

 DREAM

The obsessions of the father seep into the son. Juldeh was six years old when I first told him about monarch butterflies. By thirteen, he’d read all the literature available on them in our dome at the end of the world. By fifteen, he’d shared the same dreams as me; to bring the insects back, or, at least, we prayed, to get a glimpse of them before we died. At sixteen, he was diagnosed with cancer of the blood.

WISH

—It gets dangerous. With the ice. And you want to risk your life over a scavenger’s pipe dream?

—I’m already dying, Dad. And I believe her. It makes sense the monarchs are coming back the same year we’re seeing these big melts. It makes sense.

—Big melts happen. Always. And nothing changes. There are no roads northwest, anyway.

—Roads for vehicles. I checked the maps. I can trek. I just need my shots.

—It’s illegal to leave the dome…

—Let me see the damn angels before I die. Old man. Honour my last wish. I know what you’re doing.

—Oh, shut up. Damn angels. You’re no poet.

We both laugh. I draw him close. He fell asleep in my arms that night—I let myself cry. He’s too young to die, too beautiful, my boy. To die, and to not have lived.

KALEIDOSCOPE

A kaleidoscope is an optical instrument that creates a psychedelic display of colours using mirrors. The collective noun for butterflies is kaleidoscope—for the beautiful array of shades and patterns a cluster of their fluttering wings creates against a vivid sky.

Ice sheets break beneath us, father and son and stranger, all in woollen cloaks.

A forgotten lake pulls us down into its memories.

—Dad!

—Jul!

What’s the collective noun for an explosion of maybes?

Maybe I should’ve never told Juldeh about all the insects our ice age killed.

Maybe I should’ve never given him that book on monarch migration, or played him the last surviving videos of their lives.

Maybe I should’ve never let my obsession seep into him, like sunlight, like poison.

Maybe I should’ve said no to his dying wish, and never snuck out with him through the blue veil of night in search of butterflies.

Maybe I should’ve told him monarchs are unlikely to fly in these temperatures, and be more of a scientist and less of a father grieving.

Maybe I should’ve told him some dreams are better left unsought.

Maybe, then, the last months of his life would’ve been peaceful. Maybe, then, we would’ve spent so long on the couch watching his favourite cartoons. Maybe, old friends would’ve stopped by. Maybe his mother would’ve called from the other end of the world.

Maybe.

Orange wings against white sky. Kaleidoscope. Butterflies.

They hate the cold.

We shiver.

Maybe we saw the monarchs before we died. Maybe it was worth it. Maybe it was worth it.

—It’s freezing, Dad.

—Hold on to me. I can…can…swim…

—Dad, look, look. They are so beautiful. Old man. Do you see them?

Victor Forna is a Sierra Leonean writer based in his country’s capital Freetown. His short fiction and poetry have been published or are forthcoming in homes such as Fantasy Magazine, PodCastle, Lightspeed, Strange Horizons, and elsewhere. He is an alumnus of the 2022 AKO Caine Prize Writing Workshop. You can find him on twitter @vforna12.