Dreams Disturbed

            There were two factors that the elders couldn’t account for with certainty once things were set into motion.  The first was free will.  All humans are able to make choices freely of their own accord.  No matter how many times elders run scenarios through whatever high-tech devices or magical items they put them through to see what the likely outcomes are, they differ at least a little every time.  People make different choices.  They couldn’t account for this in the slightest.  My survival from a car accident might depend as much upon how much sleep the surgeon has the night before as it does how much traffic the ambulance runs into. 

            If, like the elders claimed, it depended on how the group was interacting with each other as a whole, it could depend on how y Heechul had been of late or how grouchy Kangin was.  I mean, from a few dozen past lives spent together, some things never change.  Of course, if I was being honest with myself, it might also depend on how selfish I was being as well.  I had a tendency to act on my own interests, not on the interests of a group.

            The second factor that could not be accounted for was a random act of God.  Yes, he’s here on the Other Side as well, but he usually leaves the nitty gritty work to elders who have already passed over to the other side permanently.  He does more important work, like make planets spin and rotate around stars and travel around supermassive black holes in the centers of their galaxies.  He’s busy creating and dismantling the cosmos.  Still, he seems to have perfect knowledge of everything that’s going on.  Incredible multitasking skills.  So, when he sees something of interest or something he doesn’t like…hell, I don’t really know what motivates him most of the time…anyway, he just changes stuff whenever he wants. 

            Some people call it coincidence, some call it luck…here on the other side we refer to it as a miracle.  We know that what happened would have never happened without intercession.  Might as well call it what it is. 

            I figure if I’m going to live through this accident on Earth, I’m going to have to bank on getting some help from this arena.  The trouble is, despite how often I’ve returned to the Other Side over the centuries, I’ve never actually seen the Almighty.  As I said, he’s kind of busy.  Your main means of talking to him here is the same as it is on Earth, for the most part: prayer.  I’d been doing a lot of that since the meeting.

            I was walking through the gardens at home doing just that—since we don’t have churches on the Other Side—when suddenly one of the guardians appeared in front of me. 

            “Kyuhyun,” she said, nodding her head in recognition.  I recognized her immediately as Leeteuk’s guardian angel, although I did not know her well personally.  “I have asked the elders for permission and been granted it.  Leeteuk is inconsolable, crying in half-sleep, and keeps calling out your name.  I fear his parents will hear him and wonder about it.  Will you go to him?”

            “Of course,” I said.  “How old is he now?”

            “Four,” she said.

            At four, even five sometimes, it was still often okay to visit the children on Earth.  Older children and adults never took them seriously when they said they’d met someone.  They referred to them as imaginary friends.  If only they knew, it was the children of the world that still retained the most memories of the Other Side and their past lives.  After a few years of living, they tended to forget their old lives and embrace the new ones.  But this time of transition was always a little rough and blurry.

            I did not waste another moment.  We never make children suffer unnecessarily and I certainly wasn’t going to make one of my dearest friends suffer, even if he did not fully remember me.  I was standing in the garden with his guardian one moment and then kneeling beside his bedside in the darkness in the next. 

            “Leeteuk,” I whispered. 

            Little Leeteuk peeked out from under the top of his covers, tears filling his eyes, and then smiled wide at seeing me.  “Kyuhyun.”

            I reached over and rubbed his stomach.  “What’s the matter?”

            “Daddy yelled at me,” he said, sniffling.

            That bastard often did more than yell at the kid and I knew it.  Were I human and his size at the moment, it would not go well for him.  “I’m sorry, Leeteuk.  Just remember that you become stronger every day and someday all the bad things people say and do to you are going to make you into a strong man who can stop others from hurting weaker people.  You’ll remember how it hurts and you’ll tell them to stop because you’ll remember it’s not nice to do.”

            “I wasn’t trying to be loud,” Leeteuk told me.

            “Of course not,” I assured him.  “You’re just a child.  Children make noise.”

            Leeteuk was still crying, but it was starting to ease up. 

            “It’s dark in here.  Where’s your night light?” I asked, looking around.  “Did it burn out?”

            “Daddy says that I’m a big boy now and I don’t need it anymore,” Leeteuk said.

            That’s all well and dandy of you didn’t die in a coal mine collapse in your last life, but Leeteuk was justifiably afraid of the dark.  “Here,” I said, lifting my hands which sent sparks of light into the air.  The lights hovered in the air near the ceiling and began to dance around the room.  “Those will stay on until you fall asleep tonight.  They kind of look like disco ball lights, don’t they?”

            The little boy nodded and watched the lights dance around the room.  For a long time we just sat in silence.  I thought perhaps he only wanted me there because he remembered me from the past, because I was a familiar face, but I was mistaken.  There was more.

            “I wanted them to take me instead, but I don’t think they’ll do it.”

            Startled, I looked over at the boy.  “What?”

            “The elders.  I think they’re going to let you die and keep me here.  I asked them to trade and they wouldn’t,” he told me.

            He remembered far more than I thought he would—than he should even—and I stood up and sat down on the bed beside him.  “Don’t you understand why?  The whole group looks up to you as their leader.  If they didn’t have you, they’d be lost.”

            Leeteuk’s tears started falling afresh.  “But if you die, I’ll feel as if I failed you. What kind of leader would that make me?”

            Leeteuk rolled over onto his stomach and began to cry into his pillow.  I reached down and began rubbing his back, deep in thought.  I hadn’t thought of it from Leeteuk’s perspective, but I also couldn’t disagree with the elder’s decision that taking me would be better than taking the leader of the singing group.  I just hadn’t considered that it would hurt anyone as much as Ryeowook.  Now I knew otherwise. 

            “I’m just going to have to live then,” I said.

            “How?” he asked, almost whining. 

            “I don’t know, but I’ll figure it out, so quit crying.  I’ll tell Ryeowook and he’ll help me think of something.  He’s smarter than me,” I claimed, hoping that would settle him down enough to sleep.

            Leeteuk turned my direction again and nodded, wiping his eyes.

            “I thought you would tell me that I’m smart as well,” I said, poking the boy in the side.  “Aren’t I just as smart as Ryeowook?”

            “You are both smart, but in different ways.”

            “How diplomatic of you.  You’ll make a fine leader once you’re a little older,” I told him.  “Quit worrying about something that’s not going to happen for a long time yet.  You’ll have plenty of other things to worry about before then.”

            “I love you, Kyuhyun.”

            “I love you, too,” I said, bending down and kissing his forehead.  “But you cannot keep asking for me because I’m going to leave soon.  Okay?  Then you’ll be the one who needs to baby me again.”

            “Okay,” he said, his tears almost done now.  “But I don’t want you to die.  I’d rather they take me instead.”

            “I know, I know,” I said.  I wasn’t going to keep arguing with a four year old.  As a general rule, I found I never won.  “Just this once, don’t worry about it and let me take care of it while I’m still able to.  You just be a kid like you’re supposed to and I’ll be the adult.  Sing, dance, and play.”

            Leeteuk yawned and closed his eyes.  It wasn’t a coincidence or the sandman coming to visit, but a little trick that we spirits sometimes did to calm children down, similar to what you might call magic.  We have to do it so that they’ll forget or think it’s a dream by morning.  He may recall this conversation, but he won’t think it’s real.  Within moments, Leeteuk was fast asleep and I stood up and watched him for a while, thinking.  For his sake, I had to find a way of keeping my promise.  More than likely, I would have to tell Ryeowook about what was likely to happen.  Then we had to find a way to circumvent it.  Now I realized that it wasn’t just for Ryeowook that I needed to succeed.  It was for everyone in the group.

            I made one other stop before heading back to the Other Side.  Just northwest of Seoul, in a city called Ilsan, there was a baby, fast asleep in his crib.  My presence did not wake him.  He was a heavy sleeper if he had a full tummy and a clean diaper and his dreams never appeared to disturb him.  So why come?  Perhaps I just missed him. 

            “Ah, what I wouldn’t give for you to be back at home so I could pick your brain,” I said, crouching down near the crib and watching the rise and fall of his chest under his blanket. 

            “What are you doing here?  Trying to give Hyukjae nightmares?” Ryeowook asked from behind me.

            I jumped and whipped around in surprise.  “Were you already here or did you follow me?”

            Ryeowook smiled and walked over to me, wrapping his arm around me.  “I followed you.  I was told you went to visit Leeteuk, but then I find you here.  Why?”

            “I miss him,” I told him honestly.

            “You want his advice on something,” Ryeowook said.

            I nodded.  “There’s something I haven’t told you about our last life on Earth.  I didn’t want to worry you.”

            “I already know,” Ryeowook said. 

            “What do you know?” I asked, doubting we were speaking of the same thing.

            “The others were so faithful about saying nothing, but Heechul will never be told what to do and what not to do by the elders.  So he wrote a letter and left it up to me, whether or not to read,” Ryeowook said, pulling a letter with golden ink out of his pocket and handing it to me.  I read it over quickly and it detailed out the event in full. 

            “What made you decide to read it?” I asked.

            “I could tell something was wrong after we left the meeting with the elders,” Ryeowook explained, “and that you weren’t telling me just to spare my feelings, but I knew it must not be good.”

            “I don’t care about dying young, aside from the fact that it would bother you, but now I’ve just had to promise Leeteuk that I will do everything in my power to stay alive as well because he swears that he will not be able to lead a whole group if he feels he’s failed one of us,” I informed him.

            “Then we won’t fail,” Ryeowook assured me.

            “I die in most scenarios,” I pointed out to him.

            “But not all,” he reminded me, leaning over the crib railing to kiss Hyukjae.  “Come on.  Let’s get home and get to work.  We have to somehow figure out how we’re going to build up support for this group without having anyone around to plan with.”

            We left as quickly as we came, without a sound, and Hyukjae never even knew we were there.  At least one person was at peace at the moment.

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