Dr Dish and the Sleeping Beauty

"Ooh look, it's Dr Dish hanging around that weird patient again,"
said one of the nurse's to her colleague.
"He's a bit smooth for my taste. And have you seen his white
charger?"
"His what?"
"His shiny, new porsche."
"Lo-o-ovely."
"Hmm."
"Oh Marianne, you're such a wet blanket. You're only young once."
"Well, I wouldn't get too worked up about Dr Dish. Look at him
now."
"Aw, sweet. I bet she'd wake up if she knew."
"D'you think he'd really kiss her?"
"Well, he's holding her hand. I bet he would if he thought no one was
looking."
"I wonder what's wrong with her. It's so strange. D'you remember the
day she was brought in, Ellie? Everyone came and had a look."
"Dr Lech certainly did. Old creep."
"That's when I knew she wasn't going to wake up. If she'd been aware of
it, she would've woken up and given him a head butt."
"She is beautiful."
"If you like pale and interesting, I suppose. And sleeping people often
are, aren't they. I mean I sometimes think that when I look in the
wards at night. Even the most annoying patient looks all right when
they're in dreamy dream land."
"Even Bert the Bastard?" Ellie snorted.
In the ward, Dr Dish was still absently rubbing his patient's hand and
looking at her smooth face. She looked so calm and peaceful, as if she
were having a cat-nap perhaps, yet she'd been asleep now for three
months. Fast asleep, locked away from the real world. No one knew what
had caused it. She had been found by her brother and at first her
family had taken it in turns to sit by the bed, but now her mother only
made the trip up to London once a week. No one else bothered to come
anymore. Someone sent flowers: freesias. The scent made Dr Dish think
of spring evenings even in this grey winter. He drew up a chair and
pushed to the back of his mind the dozen other things he had to do that
morning. If he could solve this case, he would go down in medical
history. He might even get a disease named after him: Dish's Disorder,
perhaps.
She was very pale now, almost transparent, her skin seemed luminous. It
looked ethereal, like fairy skin, as if instead of hiding blood and
bone, he thought, it hid air and music. Her eyelids flickered, but he
had grown used to that. It happened often, so they believed she was
dreaming. Her eyes were bluey-green, he knew. Sometimes he pulled up
the lid just to check they were there. The pupils contracted in the
light.
If only, thought Dr Dish, if only I could solve this. The mystery of
his patient's illness had begun to haunt him. Thoughts of her intruded
on him more and more often. He no longer discussed the case with his
friends; it bored them now. Instead he stopped going out. He read
everything he could about narcolepsy, but nowhere could he find a case
of anyone sleeping naturally for more than 24 hours. Eventually, he
read, all patients will respond to tickling, loud bangs, noxious smells
or simply being shaken. Dr Dish had tried all these, much to the
discomfort of all the other patients. He had tried to have her moved to
a private room but his senior thought the stimulation of a public ward
might be beneficial. Her mother had brought in familiar objects for her
daughter to handle: an old teddy bear, a swiss army knife. Dr Dish had
brought in a smooth pebble, a leaf, seaweed, chrysanthemums. The
patient had continued to sleep. Dr Dish had persuaded her mother to
bring in her CDs: no response. He had tried to discover if his patient
had had a shock, some bad news perhaps. But she seemed to have led a
very dull life - an accountant. He consulted a psychiatrist friend, who
said the patient was obviously reacting to a deep-seated trauma, which
had been triggered off by something. Dr Dish went over the itinerary of
her day and found nothing out of the ordinary. Again, it was remarkable
only in its dullness. Her colleagues said she was quiet and efficient -
and a loner. None of her neighbours knew her. He wondered if it were
some bizarre allergic reaction. He ran tests. Eventually, he had run
out of things to run tests on. She was healthy, just fast asleep.
It was about then that the dreams started. Dr Dish had stopped dreaming
when he became a junior doctor; no time to sleep, much less to dream.
And when he had moved up the ladder, he'd never got back into the
habit. So it came as a shock when he had his first dream in five years.
It was only a short one and tedious, about not getting to work. But
every morning his dreams seemed to get longer and more complicated. He
dreamt about work a lot, about the patient. Rather he dreamt about his
search for the cure to her disorder, but she never made a personal
appearance, not even as she was in real life, sleeping. After a while,
he stopped dreaming about work.
"What do you think doctor.' Marianne had come up behind him, he
jumped.
'Has this patient been sleeping peacefully?' he asked a little
sharply.
'Quite. Sleeps like the dead.' Marianne folded her arms and looked down
at Elizabeth.
'Have you noticed her eyelids moving like they are now?'
'Oh all the time. You can tell she's dreaming. It's called rapid eye
movement sleep you know, doctor. She's always dreaming. What she needs
is a good shake if you ask me.'
'Marianne. It is Marianne isn't it,' said Dr Dish in his best bedside
manner.
'That's what it says on my tag doctor.'
'You've been watching this patient for months now. Just like me.'
'Well, not quite like you, doctor.'
'Of course not. I shouldn't presume. But, ah, you're aware that
treatment has reached a standstill?'
'Yes, doctor.'
'So, ah, I was wondering if, well, if you had any ideas, nurse?'
There was long pause as Marianne allowed the doctor to see her
disbelief.
After a while she said, 'I beg your pardon doctor. I'm not sure I
understood you correctly. You want my opinion?'
'Yes.' You never knew, he thought, maybe the stroppy cow could help him
get that article yet.
'To be honest with you Dr. Dish,' said Marianne briskly, 'I think you'd
have more luck with a wise woman or a medicine man. I've never seen
anything like it. Initially I thought we were just seeing a case of
severe trauma - like those diagnosed in San Francisco in 1948. Then as
the patient continued to sleep I considered the famous sleeping
sickness documented by Oliver Sacks in New York. As we know, his
treatment was only partially successful. Then I noticed the REM sleep
and had to reformulate my hypothesis, taking into account Dr Josef von
Bachenberg's studies of hypnosis and sleep patterns carried out in
Vienna between 1922 and 1935. You'll know of his conclusions,
naturally.'
'Well, I don't quite recall. . .' said Dr Dish slowly. The woman was a
goldmine. How could he have missed con Bachenberg?
'He defined something he called willed sleep, similar to the lucid
dreaming recorded in the Buenos Aires Laboratories of Professor
Fernando Vasconcelos. Lucid dreaming is, of course, when the dreamer is
aware that she is dreaming and in control of her dream.'
'You seem to be very up on case history, nurse.'
'I am. Von Bachenberg observed willed sleep in a number of his patients
allowed access to intravenous drips. They simply dreamt because it was
more interesting than becoming part of the doctor's experiments. A form
of escapism. His cure was radical and effective.'
'Yes.'
'He took them off their drips and they woke up when they got
hungry.'
'Oh.'
'Of course, one died. Cristabel Trotthafen starved to death. But
according to Dr von Bachenberg's observations, she appeared to be
dreaming continuously. The other patients were very angry at being
woken and most went straight back to sleep after a meal of boar and
potato dumplings. One, called Karl to preserve his anonymity, refused
to believe that he was no longer asleep and behaved in a very
unorthodox manner, continually trying to mount the Doctor's pet donkey
and make it swim through the lake. He insisted it would turn into a
dolphin. The donkey drowned.'
'So you think Miss King has simply decided that dreams are more fun
than reality.'
'Yes. Can you blame her?'
'Well, it seems a little far fetched.' He smiled. 'Thank you,
Marianne.'
Marianne turned on her heel in response.
As he held the patient's small, bony hand, Dr Dish found himself
wondering again what she was dreaming. There was something in what that
woman said. First making sure no one was around, Dr Dish shut his eyes
and tried to imagine what she was dreaming. For a week Dr Dish tried
this strategy every day. No one spotted him but Ellie and Marianne, and
they thought he was in love. Nothing happened. He shut his eyes and saw
only darkness and heard only the sounds of the ward around him and his
own heart beating. But on Friday afternoon, he shut his eyes and saw
something.
He was on the crest of a sand dune and in the distance there was a
city. It was early evening and in the pearly sky the first few stars
shone. A dry breeze carried a scent: was it jasmine, orange blossom? At
his feet he saw footprints in the sand leading towards the city.
Carefully he stepped into them. They were small. He opened his
eyes.
'I'll catch you," he said quietly to her as she lay in the white
hospital bed.
It took him another week to get back to that spot in the sand. This
time he kept on dreaming. He put his bare foot in the tiny footprint,
cool sand slid under his skin. The trail led him to a desert city. As
he passed through the great ochre portal, he saw that it was filled
with brightly-coloured birds with wings that shimmered like oil on
water. He saw no one as he walked down the sun-baked lane between
yellow houses with blue doors. It was very still and hot. At the centre
of the city, he came to a ziggurat and climbed its winding staircase.
He could see to the horizon in all directions as he climbed. Each way
there was nothing but rolling sand dunes. At the top of the tower there
was a domed room, open to the elements all all four sides. A light,
cool breeze dried the sweat on his brow.
In the centre of the room a woman wrapped in a sky-blue garment
hunkered. She was making a glistening mosaic that covered most of the
floor. A turquoise beetle circled round her head. He could not make out
the design; it shimmered and shifted before his eyes.
She looked up at him. Her face was a web of wrinkles like sunbaked mud.
Her eyes were the same blue as her robes. The turquoise beetle landed
in her grey hair and clung there like a jewel. She nodded in greeting.
He was not sure if she spoke or if he simply knew her thoughts.
'You've taken a long time,' she said.
'It was hard to find the way,' he replied.
'I've been waiting many ages since she came.'
'Elizabeth.'
'It was she who set the glittering birds free.'
'Where are all the people?'
'Long gone.' She paused and plucked the turquoise beetle from her hair.
Between her fingers it turned into a stone and she fitted it into the
mosaic. The old woman spoke slowly leaving space between each word as
if she were giving a lesson. 'They could not bear the wait any longer.
You must catch her, stop her. She has become a dream master. Perhaps
the greatest dream master of all. She is destroying us.'
'How?' he asked.
'She controls her dreams utterly. Her dreams are her subjects. She has
gone too far - past the inner boundary.'
As she spoke, the mosaic resolved itself into what seemed to him a map.
He knew at once it was a map of the cosmos, shaped like a mandala. The
old lady squatted at its centre like a spider in its web. She was
familiar. He knew who she was. Her name was on the tip of his
tongue.
'Here,' she said and beneath her index finger a band of lapis unfurled
through the mandala. 'She has crossed this line and now she plays her
games in the dreamworld of all humankind. We are falling completely
under her spell. The secret unconscious of the whole world will become
one and the same as Elizabeth's.'
'I think I understand.'
'You can stop her and I will help you find her.'
'Who are you?'
'Grand Vizier of Dreams, Wizard of the World's Unconscious, Fantasy's
Empress and Imagination's Magician.' Dr Dish realized her eyes were
Marianne's.

After three more months, Dr Dish had seen her twice: once on a troika
being chased by wolves, and once in a bedroom mirror. She had looked at
him over the man's shoulder, smiled and vanished. He had heard of her
everywhere, under different names, sometimes as a man, sometimes as a
child, sometimes as a crone. At one time or another she had been most
things. He began to know her well. She liked adventure, the sea, rough
sex with strangers, dancing in all night bars, flying, floating,
swimming. She liked danger, big landscapes, big animals. She liked to
hunt and she liked to outwit her own hunter. She liked magic, the
bizarre. Above all she liked variety.
Each time it was the same; he was far behind; until he began to know
her dreams well. He would suddenly feel excitement rush through him
like a blush. He would know he was close by the very strangeness of
what he saw and felt. For instance, it could only be her the time he
dreamt he was an octopus pulsing on the ocean floor or he was the queen
of a tribe of Amazons beside a yellow sea. But he never had time to
find out what would happen next, how each story ended: another dream
was always waiting.
Gradually he drew closer, until the dream came when he knew he had just
missed her - he could smell her, sense her. The spot where he stood was
warm like a seat that has just been vacated. The house on the cliff was
empty but glass windchimes still shimmered and tinkled in the wake of
her departure. As he walked through the many rooms along the terrace
overlooking the winking-blue sea, the windchimes sang to him, glistened
at him in the sunshine, sent rainbows arcing between the white arches.
Outside, the whisper of surf and the shrieks of gulls. He imagined what
she had done here in this house overlooking the sea -- she had played
the cello and sung to the hoopoes in the garden - and tried to imagine
what he would do if this were his dream. In the last room, a red-headed
woman all in white stood at the window looking out at the bay. A spray
of bougainvillea outside the window waved in the wind. For a moment he
thought it might be her. But the woman turned and he saw in an instant
that she loved him. "Come look at the horses on the beach," she said.
"They're running like the wind."
And he saw the white horses in the white spray: twenty of them or more,
muscular, pounding through the surf with their manes flying. This was
his dream. He touched the woman's arm and she turned to him. "David,"
she said. "Must you go." Dr Dish let her kiss him. "I love you," he
said. "But they need me." He had never felt so noble as he flew down
the beach.
It wasn't long then before he saw her for the first time, roaring at a
team of horses as she raced across the starlit steppes. Her beard
whipped in the wind and he could see her teeth glinting like the snow.
She cracked her whip across his muzzle and he howled at her. He knew he
was almost inside her head, now. He could recognize her anywhere; the
crone had showed him how. The other people he met were as fleshy, as
scented, as warm and as cold as her. He could feel their physicality
completely. But Elizabeth he recognized because he could look her in
the eyes and if only for a moment she would return his gaze. In those
misty blue-green depths he saw more worlds, inside her mind there was a
whole universe.
This time he knew he was close. He'd been told that she often came to
this island. She liked the warm ocean and the coral beds. She'd been
away for a while and it was a long time since she'd had a night dream.
He could feel it was one of hers: the scent of spices, and the croaking
of frogs among the palm trees surrounded him. He loved her dreams; the
air filled with a sense of danger and the promise of sex.
Dr Dish hid behind a coconut palm watching the sea lap against the
shore. The moon was up, shining a clear path of light across the water.
And then she was there. He recognized her silhouette at once: she had
come as herself. She appeared to be covered with tiny shells that gave
off a strange bluish light. She stood looking out to sea with her back
to him. Dr Dish crept across the beach. The cool sand slipped silently
between his toes, then it was hard under his feet. She took a step into
the water. He crept closer. He was right behind her now. As he reached
out an arm, she turned.
"Why Dr Dish, you've caught up with me," she said pleasantly. "I love
surprises." She smiled at him and stepped up the beach. He
followed.
"I've been trying to find you for such a long time now."
"I know. I've been impressed." She sat down on the sand and patted the
spot beside her. "You realise you're naked, of course."
Dr Dish looked down quickly. She was right.
"This always happens to me,' he said coolly. 'But it's usually when I'm
in a crowd."
"Does it embarrass you?"
"No, it just makes me feel different. But we're here to talk about
you." He knelt beside her in the sand and took her hand. "You must wake
up."
"You're a very well made man, you know." She smiled at him sweetly. Dr
Dish blushed in the moonlight.
"I think I'll put some clothes on."
"You can't: this is my dream, " she said sharply. "D'you see that ship
over there." As she pointed a clipper appeared over the horizon. It was
coming towards them fast. In fact it was floating above the water and
skimming along like a seagull. "D'you see what flag it's flying." Again
as she pointed the skull and crossbones materialized. "They're coming
to abduct us and we'll have to fight them off." As she spoke the ship
came to an abrupt stop and sailors started to jump over board. Their
shouts carried clearly over the water. "Isn't this a bit of a clich?,"
he asked.
"You can talk," she snapped. 'You'd better get ready to fight."
The pirates were coming through the surf fast. Two of them seemed to be
carrying a barrel and they were singing an unpleasant ditty. Dr Dish
looked at his patient: she was humming the tune to herself and smiling.
Now she wore a pair of tarred trousers and a linen shirt. In one hand
she held a long sword. He didn't wait to think in case she realised
what he was up to. He clamped one hand over her mouth and wrapped the
other around her chest. Dr Dish dragged his patient into the palm
grove.
He was surprised to find she weighed nothing at all. After a while she
stopped struggling. Even for her size, he noticed, she seemed to be
weak. He stopped and set her down gently in a moonlit clearing. He was
surprised to see she was crying - silently, but the silver tears
streamed down her cheeks. Her whole body shook. Dr Dish stroked her
head but she turned away holding her face in her hands. He watched her
narrow quivering back. As he watched, her shirt vanished.
"Give me back my clothes." She said it without turning around. Her
voice was smothered and sticky like a child's.
"What?"
"Give me back my clothes, dammit."
"I don't know what you mean." Dr Dish said helplessly. He wanted to
touch her, fold her in his arms and kiss away her tears. He knew her so
well now, he almost felt it was he who was crying.
"You've hijacked my dream. I don't know how, but you have." Dr Dish
took a step and put his hand on her bare shoulder.
"I can't bring your clothes back. You know I don't have that much
control."
"Try harder."
"Listen." His breath was stirring her hair now: he was so close. He
felt the warmth of her body touch his. She had stopped crying and gone
very still. She was waiting, tense. "I've been looking for you." He
knew he had to be careful. "Won't you wake up? I need . . . I'd like to
meet you someday."
"What d'you call this?" She spoke quietly. He had to bend to hear her
words. "Why should I wake up? Real life is boring, boring, boring. It's
fun here. . . until someone steals your dream."
"I know you so well now." Dr Dish put both hands on his patient's
shoulders and turned her around. Her clothes had reappeared but now she
was wearing a Pre-Raphaelite gauze gown. This was his dream. "That's
why it was so easy to steal your dream." The moon shone on her hair and
her cheek. This was really her, he thought as he looked into her eyes.
He ran his hands down her arms, held her elbows, stroked her
forearms.
"You accused me of dreaming clich?s." She clasped her hands around his
neck and pulled his lips to hers. Dr Dish knew no kissing would ever be
quite the same. She trembled; he was trembling.
"I think we must be having the same dream," she said.
The dark ward smelled of antiseptic. It was filled with the sounds of
sleeping people: grunts, rustlings, wheezes, snores. Elizabeth opened
her eyes. Dr Dish's warm lips were on hers.
"I love you," he said.
"You only love me for my mind," she replied.
At the far end of the room Ellie said, "We always thought it was true
love, didn't we Marianne?"
"I'm debating whether to report him."
"It worked, didn't it."
"It was unethical."
"It was romantic. D'you think he believed all that stuff you made up
about willed sleep?"
"God, no."