Chasing Imagination

Casper

Walking towards Markus’s room was like walking to the gallows. Every cell in my body screamed at me to turn around and run, but my feet propelled me on and on towards my own demise, and there was nothing I could do about it.

The sooner I got this over with, the sooner I could put this unfortunate incident behind me and move on in my life. That was, if Markus let me out of his room with my life intact.
The corridor was silent; the music either on a break or not reaching far enough in this direction. The lone light flickered pathetically above. The depressing yellowing tiles that paved the floor and walls were streaked with dirt and grime and discolouration having not been cleaned for decades.

I knocked on the makeshift door that Markus had roughly put up to separate himself from the rest of the gang, as though he was so much more important than the rest of us. It wasn’t like there wasn’t enough room for everyone down here; he just felt the need more than most to show off the boundaries of his private space.

‘Come in,’ he grunted from inside.

I pushed open the door into the small, concrete room, the lights in here even dimmer than they were outside. If I ever became leader of this place, redecorating would be the first task. Most of us weren’t even doing anything all day.

Not that I was ever likely to become leader. Perhaps, before tonight, I showed potential, but now I’d messed that up for sure.

Markus was in his forties and looked like one of those ageing rock stars from the days long before any of us were born; even the oldest Dreamers. His hair was long and shaggy, greying around the sides no matter how much he tried to dye it, and tattoos stretched the whole way down his arm. He had a small beard and wrinkles and looked permanently tired, but he was also hugely charismatic and funny when he wanted to be, even if his humour was a little dark. The main reason he was elected leader was the simple fact that he’s one of the few Dreamers to have been alive before the Revolution. Many of us had never experienced free dreaming, but he had, even if he was only a kid at the time. He knew more than the rest of us.

He sat now, a cigarette in one hand like the ‘good old days’ and some heavy metal music from long before the Revolution playing on a vintage ‘ipod’—whatever they were, in the corner.

‘Ah, Casper,’ he mumbled, looking up at me through grey eyes.

‘Markus?’ I said a little uncomfortably. ‘I thought I’d come to tell you that we left her in the Interrogation room. She’s kinda emotional, but I don’t reckon she’ll be any trouble.’

He grunted. ‘’Course she’s bloody emotional. You dragged her away from an entire life of being a happy little goody two shoes kid. Now she’s stuck here ‘till she dies.’

I grew more uncomfortable. ‘Yeah, but it was her fault coming down here.’

Markus rolled his eyes. Thankfully, for the sake of my life, he wasn’t in a bad mood. ‘And if you hadn’t made yourself so bloody obvious to the entire prissy goody two shoes world we wouldn’t have this problem, and she wouldn’t be in this shit.’

Markus’ hobby of swearing was something everyone noticed quickly, and his language became even more profane when he was in a difficult situation like this.

He heaved himself up from his seat, dousing the cigarette on the table. It was probably only for show anyway; cigarettes had been banned way before he was born.

‘I’m gonna go see her,’ he said. ‘You keep your nose out of things in future, Casper. And don’t expect much from me for a while.’

He gave me a dark look before walking out of the room, waiting for me to scurry out behind, and slamming the door hard enough for the walls to shake. I hesitated, wondering whether I was expected to follow.

Markus shot me a sharp glare. ‘Get a move on, boy! I ain’t got all day.’

Yes, this was Markus in a good mood.

I quickened my pace until I was walking just a little behind him, knowing that was where he’d want me to stand. There was a time when Markus used to like me; perhaps because I had been so eager to join up; or perhaps because he’d been the one to recruit me; or perhaps because he could see a little bit of himself in me. But his keenness had waned over the months, until I was just another of his ‘employees.’ Now I was probably less than that.

I needed to get to London. Kingston was...it was not what I expected. I had to admit; it was a little disappointing. But we had tunnels to London, and I could get there easily enough. Essentially, everyone linked up to the London network, which was the only one in England apart from a smaller one much further north, near Scotland, was under the same network, and therefore under the same rules and rulers. We all followed the leader of the Dreamers, who was democratically elected every four years. But that didn’t stop London from being where it was all going on. I wanted out.

No. That wasn’t what I really wanted. I wanted the Dreamers to win. I wanted dreaming and imagination and individuality to be made legal again. I wanted it more than anything. The day I first learnt to dream was quite possibly the best day of my life, and I wouldn’t change it for the world.

Amy

The man who walked into the room, with Casper close behind him, looked something like an older, scarier, more deadly version of Phil, only he was not overweight and his hair was shorter and greyer. He, too, had the strange, swirling skin art all down his left arm, and in a little band around his right, and even more still printed around the base of his neck; this time forming words that were too small for me to read at this distance.

Overall, the impression the man made was a striking one, and I was also largely intimidated. I didn’t know what to make of him until he began to speak. His voice was much kinder and gentler than I expected; I’d imagined it to be far more gruff and unpleasant to listen to.

‘Amy Potter?’ he asked.

‘Yes?’ I said, sensibly frightened.

‘My name is Markus,’ he said. ‘I’m supposedly in charge of the Dreamers around Kingston, not that we really have an official leader or anything.’

‘OK,’ I said, not sure how I was expected to reply.

‘Now, am I correct in saying that you’ve never lied before tonight?’

‘No, never, Sir,’ I replied truthfully.

‘So you’re inexperienced, and therefore you’re gonna answer my questions truthfully, kay?’

‘Yes,’ I agreed. Even if I was an experienced liar, I wouldn’t have dared defy a man like this.
He pulled out the chair on the right of the table, sitting down in a slouched position with his legs casually crossed in front of him. Casper still stood beside him, not looking so confident now that his superior was in the room, until he was invited to sit down.

‘Now, Amy?’ Markus continued, folding his arms across his chest and tilting his head with an intrigued sort of expression on his face. ‘What do you think of dreaming?’

I opened my mouth, then thought about it and closed it again. I had been taught since the day I’d first learnt about the Revolution and dreaming to give a particular, structured answer to this question. Every time I had been asked it since, whether it was by the school—it was a question that came up in history lessons often, although I wasn’t sure why, as we were all compelled to give the same answer—or by any friends or family members, I gave the same answer, reciting it as though it was lines I had learnt from a script.

But now I was here. I was underground with the Dreamers; the rebels; the terrorists. Or maybe they were not terrorists at all, but freedom fighters. It all depended on what angle you looked at it from.

The key thing was that now I could say what I wanted. For the first time ever, I could imagine, I could think, and I could be free to say whatever I really felt. I had never had so much freedom in all my life. They weren’t going to punish me or lock me up for whatever I said.

But then, what did I say? Because I’d learnt about life before the Revolution, and, whatever the other sides to the story were, the side I had been taught was that dreams were dangerous. Imagination was a dark and scary world to be avoided at all costs. I had never learnt anything different.

‘Dreaming...’ I began, ‘dreaming scares me.’ I saw a brief smile flicker across Casper’s face, but Markus’s expression remained sincere.

‘Why does it scare you, Amy?’ his voice grew a little softer, almost comforting.

‘Because I’ve been taught about life before the Revolution,’ I said. ‘And there was war, and conflict, and sadness. People imagined things that did not exist. People dreamed things they could never achieve. People thought they had so much more freedom than they really did have, and it led to wars and anger and discrimination. But now it’s so much simpler. We’re all the same. We’re all given the same opportunities, and we all know our place. Before, people would spend so much time locked up in their imagination that they forgot what was actually real. They wanted things that were impossible. And it made them sad and annoyed and insane.’

‘Insane?’ Markus asked, his voice still softer than his exterior suggested he would be. ‘Or did it enrich their lives?’

Once again, I opened my mouth, only to close it again. ‘I...don’t know,’ I admitted. ‘I can’t really judge until I’ve experienced life like it was before the Revolution.’

Markus nodded. ‘That’s a good answer. It’s better than I get from most people. Amy, have you ever read a book—not a textbook, but a fiction book; a story? Or what about seen a movie? Or listened to music?’

‘Of course not!’ I cried, insulted that he would think I could be such a criminal.

No. That was not what he was thinking at all. The Dreamers weren’t judgemental. They weren’t about to give me away to the government. In fact, Markus did not consider books or movies or music criminal offences, but something to be celebrated.

And then I remembered the music that was being played in the foyer on my way in. That was not computer generated, artificial music—a string of notes placed in whatever order made them sound complementary—but real music. It contained emotion.

‘I heard them playing music as I came in here,’ I added.

Markus nodded, his expression one of interest. ‘And what did you think?’

I didn’t really have an answer to that. ‘It was...different. It was like no sound I’ve ever heard before. It was scary, but exciting.’

Once again, Markus nodded. It gave the impression that he was intently surveying me, probing me for answers. His blue-grey eyes flickered up to Casper.

‘What d’you think, kid?’ he asked. Casper looked surprised to have been asked such a question.

‘Well?’ demanded Markus, suddenly sounding abrupt and impatient. ‘What do we do with her?’

My heart jolted in my chest. It was only now that I could comprehend the note of finality in what he was saying. If they decided to kill me—after all, I had no idea what they could be like, but I’d seen them kill before on the news—then I was dead. If they locked me up, I might spend the rest of my life living beneath the city.

‘I—I don’t know,’ Casper stammered, clearly not expecting such responsibility. ‘I don’t think she’s a danger.’ He lifted the end of his sentence to make it sound like a question, as though he was asking for Markus’s approval.

Markus grunted, unimpressed by Casper’s limited response. ‘Take her down the hall and find a spare room. Make sure she doesn’t escape. I’ll give her ‘till the morning to decide on her final path.’

‘Final path?’ I whispered. Both Markus and Casper looked straight round to me.

‘Yeah,’ said Markus casually. ‘You have a choice, girl. You can become our prisoner, or you can become a Dreamer. Think about it. I’ll want an answer from you tomorrow. It's your decision.’

He glanced up at Casper, huffing when the boy didn’t get whatever silent message he was trying to send him.

‘Go on then,’ he grumbled. Casper gestured for me to follow him. I stood up shakily, yet hastily, eager to get out of here. Slowly, as though there was nothing of any importance going on whatsoever, Markus got to his feet, not bothering to tuck the chair back in. He watched Casper with eagle eyes, watching him much more than he watched me, as Casper gestured for me to follow him out of the room.

Out in the corridor, I could faintly hear the music coming from the entrance area again. It still sounded angry and full of emotion. I guessed that what was going on out there was similar to these things called concerts they had in the old days, and that the men playing music were a ‘band.’ They were one of the many things I had learnt about from books and history classes. Once upon a time, there had been many bands around the world making all different kinds of music. Some were heavy; some were soft. Some were happy; some were sad. They all used different instruments, though there were a few conventional ones that could be found in most bands, and some had no instruments at all, though I’d learnt that the technical term for these bands was a ‘group.’

I’d also learnt that concerts, especially the ‘rock’ concerts (rock was a name given to the heavier type of music, though I’d also discovered that there were many different sub-genres of rock and it was all very confusing) were dangerous, yet I could see no danger when I’d walked in. Apparently, there used to be loads of alcohol at these concerts, and all the people would stand in one great crowd, practically piling on top of each other. Then, when the heavier music started, they’d all start literally jumping up and down and crashing into each other like some sort of controlled fight. It all sounded crazy.

Perhaps I’d missed something on the way in. After all, I’d been rather preoccupied with my own freedom.