A Book of Dreams by Peter Reich

run away.’
    Everyone ran away. At the trial they all sent me a telegram saying hello. In the telegram they called me a lieutenant. I wanted to go to the trial but I had to go to school. There was a trial because everyone is afraid of Orgone Energy and they said that Daddy couldn’t let people use accumulators any more but he did and so they are going to do something bad. I will be brave.
    ‘Whatever happens, I want you to be brave and to live your own life. That is why it is good for you to be with Mummynow and go to the boarding school. It is important for you to have friends and grow up where there isn’t so much tension. You must live your own life. And whatever happens to me, you must always be brave.’
    The binoculars pressed between us, I held him so tightly. I wanted to cry but there was not time. We had to be ready.
    ‘I understand,’ I said, ‘and I’ll be brave.’
    I gave him my eyes and we smiled. He went inside to do some work.
    I stood on the railing alone for a while and looked at Orgonon through the glasses. Toreano was leading a troop through the woods and waved. I was proud to be guarding Orgonon.
    After I cleaned the guns I went through the study, where Daddy was working, and went up the stairs to the roof.
    The little room on the roof of the observatory was a little lab. A pendulum hung from the ceiling and I made it swing slowly. By the door to the roof I touched the knob on the oscilloscope that makes the snake wiggle. Sometimes Daddy let me play with the knobs and make the snake into a dot, and the dot into a line.
    Through the window, drops of water sparkled on the damp boards under the outdoor shower. I held the binoculars up and focused them down so that the wet shower boards were all out of focus and sparkled fuzzily in different colours. No-focus was like a prism that broke up the sparkles so that each drop of water had red, blue and yellow sparklers against the dull brown boards.
    I lifted the binoculars and looked at the horizon, all a fuzzy blur of sky and mountains. Below the fuzzy line the fuzzy red roof of the lower cabin was bright in the middle of green blobsof trees and the road was blurry with a funny moving sparkle on it. I turned the focus knob and the moving sparkle settled on the road and became sharper and sharper until it was a shiny black car rolling quietly along the road with a government seal on the side.
    ‘Daddy! Daddy!’ I screamed, running down the stairs, ‘Daddy! They’re here! They’re coming! The agents are here!’
    Daddy got up from his desk and walked quickly out onto the porch and I ran after him. His face was very stern
    ‘Give me the glasses.’
    He focused quickly down to the road by the lab where the black car had stopped in the driveway. I held my breath until my heart pounded all the way up into my head.
    ‘Who is it, Daddy? Are they coming to get you?’
    I was so afraid. Daddy always said they would have to take him away in chains.
    ‘I don’t know. Wait.’
    He stood very still, holding the binoculars with both hands. The black car was standing still in the driveway. The Mannlicher had a telescopic sight too, so we could get them from here.
    ‘What are they doing?’
    ‘I don’t know. Just sitting there.’
    Daddy could probably see their faces through the glasses. All I could see was the car. I only shot once with a telescopic sight but it is easy with the crosshairs.
    The car started to move up the road a bit and then it stopped just about where the sign says BY APPOINTMENT ONLY . Then it rolled back towards the turn off, glinting all the time in the sun. It turned around and started down the road away from Orgonontowards town. The binoculars followed the car until it was out of sight.
    ‘Ahem. AHEM ahem. Well, perhaps they will call for once.’ He turned and walked back towards the study.
    ‘Do you think they will come back?’
    ‘Yes, but I think this time they will call. I think we made the message quite clear the last