Inside the Cave of Dreams

By Aaron McEmrys

The sheep of Grafton’s Farm used to live almost their whole lives like this: graze, sleep, graze; graze, sleep, graze, a pattern broken only by lamb-birthing in the Fall, shearing-time in the Spring and, eventually, death by old age, which was the only thing in their lives that wasn’t scheduled in advance.

The sheep of Grafton’s Farm led “comfortable” lives, yes; “comfortable” is the word. They had plenty of green grass to grind between blocky teeth, sheepdogs to protect them and Old Farmer Grafton himself to make any important decisions that might concern them. Their only responsibility in life was to graze, sleep and graze some more.

And if their friends sometimes died of age or sickness, or if old Farmer Grafton packed a few into a truck never to be seen again – well, the sheep might be sad for a while, long enough to shed a tear or two – but soon they’d forget all about it – and it would be back to graze, sleep, graze again just like any other day.

It’s not that the sheep were stupid. Contrary to popular opinion, sheep are actually quite bright. And it’s not that they were heartless, as anyone who has ever been nuzzled by a lamb can tell you.

No, it was The Cave of Dreams that made forgetting their troubles so easy.

That’s what sheep the world over do with memories and dreams that are too hard to carry; they stuff them away in secret caves and seal them tight with sheep-magic. Nothing hurts more than losing someone you love, so whenever a mother, brother or friend died, the sheep would simply take all those memories, good and bad and lock them away forever, and it was as if that lost sheep had never lived at all.

And who can blame them? Life, even for sheep, is hard, often sharp and sometimes sad, and who wouldn’t be tempted to shrug off the weight of grief and loss?

But things weren’t so simple for Jessamy, a big-hearted lamb who loved to love the way other sheep love alfalfa.

Her best friend was a field mouse named Oliver. They were born on the very same night at almost the very same moment, and wherever Jessamy went, Oliver went too, perched on her back like a robin on a branch.

So inseparable were they that even when they played their favorite game: bucking bronco, she couldn’t shake the little mouse off, no matter how hard she bucked, for they were held together by something far stronger than gravity.

But sheep live much longer than field mice do, and far too soon for both of them, Oliver grew older and older until one night he said, “It is time for us to say goodbye, my dear friend.”

“No, you can’t go!” cried Jessamy. “What will I do without you?”

“It will hurt, my dear,” said Oliver. “But as long as you remember me, part of me will live on.”

“Live on where?”

“Inside you, Jessamy. Inside your heart.”

Mouse and lamb burst into tears and hugged each other close. “I won’t forget you, Oliver, not ever,” Jessamy promised as the little mouse went to sleep against her warm body one last time.

The next day a Delegation of Forgetting came to her.

“Time to forget, little lamb. Time to put him in the Cave of Dreams. Your tears will stop and your heart will be light again.”

Jessamy’s heart did feel heavy as stone and her eyes stung from salty tears she couldn’t seem to stop.

“I’ll feel better?”

“Yes. The only way to put aside sorrow is to put aside the cause of sorrow, all those memories that make you sad. This is our way.”

Jessamy’s heart hurt so much that she did as they said. She went with them to the Cave of Dreams, said the words of forgetting and sealed every memory of her best friend Oliver away as if he had never lived at all.

After that she did feel different: no longer did she feel as if her heart was full of gravel; instead Jessamy felt…well, she didn’t feel much at all. “Is this what it feels like to be comfortable,” she wondered?

It was as if her life was a jigsaw puzzle with a missing piece right in the middle. The hole was “Oliver-shaped”, but she didn’t know this because she had forgotten him.

Jessamy took to grazing near the mouth of the Cave, day after day, with a distant look on her face, her ears perked up as if listening.

“Jessamy….Jessamy…” a voice seemed to call, soft as thunder and distant as a dream. “Remember me.”

And so one day, without knowing exactly why, the little lamb went entered the forbidden Cave of Dreams. And in that dark place of forgetting, she found the memory of her friend Oliver, which slipped smooth as silk back into the puzzle of her heart. A wave of grief and sadness and loss rose up in her, yes, but also deep, deep love up like honey and Jessamy finally felt whole again.

The Cave was crowded floor to ceiling with memories of every description, of mothers and grandmothers and friends; scary memories of lighting storm, wildfire and wolves, but also of perfect summer days some sheep feared would never come again.

Jessamy looked at all those memories and knew what she had to do. She chanted the words of remembering, words that no sheep had chanted in a hundred generations and so the Cave of Dreams opened and all those cast-aside puzzle-piece-memories flew off to find their rightful places.

Of course those stuffed-away memories couldn’t force their way back into the sheep to whom they belonged. But once out of the Cave, the hovered around their sheep like a thick cloud of invisible hummingbirds, knocking at the doors of their hearts and whispering, “Remember, remember, remember.”

And one by one by one, each and every sheep let their abandoned memories back in until every hole in every heart was filled.

The sheep of Grafton’s Farm still graze and sleep as sheep are want to do, but that’s no longer all they do. Now it’s graze, sleep, love; graze, sleep, lose; graze, sleep, remember; and graze, sleep, love again. And while they are not as comfortable as they once were, they are whole, and that’s enough for them.