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We Need New Dreams Tonight
So some of you wanted OAG, a happy memory of Billy's childhood. There aren't many, and while this may not seem all that happy, it actually is in a lot of ways. Trust me. 900 words.

Billy wonders sometimes if his dreams are as old as he is. If he was born with the sound of waves rushing in his ears, the smell of salt filling his nose and the sight of gritty grey–blue waves making his eyes widen. Margaret tells him he’s being stupid, but she does so with love and only a little rolling of eyes.

“Babies don’t dream,” she says, pushing another piece of toast in Billy’s direction. Billy narrows small green eyes across the table at her, and pushes it back.

“I’m not a baby.”

“I didn’t say you were. You are late, though.”

“Billy.” Their mother’s voice comes from outside, where she’s hanging the last of the morning’s laundry. “Leave Margaret alone and get to school, little one.”

Billy turned ten six weeks ago, but his dreams seem so much older. He wonders now if they belong to someone else.

::


“Y’can’t live here and not dream of the sea,” Da smiles as he casts the line. Billy watches the pretty arc the lure makes through the air before it falls into the water. “Nothing to worry about, lad.”

“But it’s the same dream,” Billy says, chafing his hands against the cold morning. “All the time.”

“Were y’drowning?”

“No.” Billy flushes scarlet, embarrassed. “No. I know how to swim, Da.”

“This water’s not the same as the lake, Billy. And in dreams it’s hard to tell the difference between laughing and screaming.”

“I wasn’t drowning. I was—“

“Falling?”

A wave rises near their boat, and Billy blinks away the sting of water on his face. “I think so.”

Da’s silent for a moment before he smiles again, nudging Billy’s shoulder with his own. “Ashes, ashes, we all fall down.”

“Not into water,” Billy says petulantly. “And that’s a baby’s game.”

::

Billy’s never really liked fishing, and cleaning the fish disgusts him, but a day alone with his father makes up for a lot. Da’s knife is old, though, and Billy wants to … be useful. He produces the knife from his rucksack nervously, but also with pride.

“Where did you get this?” Da asks, and Billy flinches.

“I didn’t—take it. I found it.”

“You found this? In Cranhill?”

Billy nods, and Da peers carefully at Billy, his expression intense.

“What did you think of it, Billy?”

Billy reaches to touch the knife’s handle carefully before shoving his hand back in his pocket. “It’s alright.”

Da makes a noise deep in his throat, and turns back to cleaning the fish with his own knife. “It’s a prize, lad. You keep it safe.”

Billy’s stomach drops a little. “You don’t want it?”

Da laughs again. “Not nearly as much as you.”

::

The fire around which they’re meant to be sleeping is burning down, and Billy watches it instead of resting, determined not to close his eyes, not to dream of the sea when he’s already there. His father breathes heavily on the other side of the flames, but Billy fights his exhaustion, finally sitting up and digging through his rucksack again.

Billy settles down near their tied–down boat, leaning against its edge for a long time, opening and closing the knife and listening to the sharp little sound it makes as he does so. It is a prize, Billy decides, and it fits his hand just right.

It takes something Billy can’t put a name to for him to close the knife one last time. Billy curls his hand closed around it and faces the water, letting it send him to sleep. He’s already laughing in his dreams, already falling.

::

Billy doesn’t wake when his father gathers him up from the sand and carries him into the boat. He hardly stirs when they pull off back into the water. But when his fingers splay and clench again, feeling for the knife, Billy opens his eyes with something of a start.

“I hated t’wake you,” Da says, again so gently. “What were y’thinking, moving away from the fire like that?”

“I left it,” Billy says breathlessly. “I left my knife, Da.”

His father’s mouth tightens sympathetically. “We’re fifteen minutes gone, lad, and running late already. I can’t go on back now.”

Billy swallows down the sudden rush of frustration, of tears. Don’t be such a baby, he can hear Margaret say, but it’s not like that. It’s not.

“You might find another just like it,” Da says, and Billy nods out of instinct more than agreement. “You’re clever like that, Billy.”

::

Billy’s father does his best on the way home to distract him, and eventually Billy’s too tired to think about it anymore. One last nod from his father gives Billy permission he doesn’t need to sleep again, and this time when he wakes it’s because he’s being lifted from their little car.

Billy fights to stand and walk, unable to bear the idea of Margaret seeing their father carrying him like a baby. He stumbles to his room, ignoring Margaret’s questions, and falls onto his stomach on his bed.

“I meant to ask you, lad,” his father says from the doorway. “Did y’dream of the sea again?”

Billy closes his eyes and sees metal now. He feels the weight of the knife, hears the sound of the blade’s release, and smells the age of the curved wood handle.

“Billy?” his father asks again, and Billy shakes his head and sleeps.


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