When Julie dreams.
“Good morning, Miss Shayde!’
Shayde turned. The only person who could get away with ‘miss'ing her was skipping along with a peculiar little box in her hands and, as always, Nanny in tow.
"Good morning, Julie,” she said, tagging along because it was way more interesting than grocery shopping. “What’s in the wee box?”
Julie blushed and giggled. “It isn’t wee, it’s dreams.”
Dreams? Now that was interesting. “How’d they catch dreams in there, then?”
“I wear a special hat when I go to bed,” said Julie. “It records them all. And then when it’s full, I take it to neurosciences.”
“Julie has good dreams,” supplied Nanny. “Four months’ food budget.”
This was one of the moments when Nanny personally creeped Shayde out. Dogs should live in the Now, but Nanny had been made to fill the gap Julie couldn’t. So, this was a dog who could plan.
But the concept of buying dreams sent up a more urgent mental red flag. “They buy 'er dreams?”
“Copy and analyze,” said Nanny. “They are Julie’s dreams. Always Julie’s dreams.”
She’d measure 'em up for certain then. Make sure some tosser wasn’t taking advantage of a girl and her dog. Or a dog and her girl.
*
“Good morning, Julie,” said the pleasant man in Sciences Khaki. “You have a friend with you. Would you like to sign up for dream-recording services, Cogniscent–?”
“Shayde. And ye would'nae want my dreams.” She folded her arms and glared down at him. “Na what’s all this nonsense about buying dreams off this little girl?”
“It’s not an outright purchase…” he spotted her gold vest. “Ambassador. It’s… purchasing a license to view and examine. Julie maintains the right to view, share, copy, and create derivative works from the recordings.”
He was telling the truth, but she hung around for the transfer viewing because trust was not in her basic nature.
They were beautiful. Swimming through space filled with dancing flowers and fairies. Attending a tea party with all her friends and everyone was wearing -amongst other things- a frilly pinafore. A psychadelic cosmos of balletic lights.
She wept.
Not just because of its beauty, but for her own innocence, lost too many years ago.
This was why Julie was an artist.
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