LET HIM ONCE MORE DREAM AND DIE

LET HIM ONCE MORE DREAM AND DIE

By Roger Vilar

Reignvald Vintersson learned the art of handling his dreams. If one night he dreamed of fire stars, he could, at his whim, dream the same the next night, or whatever he wanted. He too could have led up his dreams. So Vintersson was a Bengal tiger, a snake and an elusive fish. One night he dreamed that he was flying. He was on the wall of a high castle. A horde of warriors harassed him. He threw himself down into the void, opened his arms and flew to distant mountains. The pleasure was enormous, he had never got so enjoyable. He managed that dream for several nights. He flew over the most beautiful landscapes on the planet. It was ecstatic. He began to sleep more to prolong these apparent images. Instead of going to bed at ten o'clock at night, he did it at nine o'clock, then at seven o'clock, finally, he decided to sleep from eleven o'clock in the morning until ten o'clock in the morning of the following day. At this moment Reignvald was flying down to the floor and woke up in his bed. He used this waking hour to feed himself, but once a bad omen happened to him.

One day when he was flying over the Black Forest of Germany, a giant bird chased him. It was a kind of black vulture that screamed dreary. Every time Reignvald tried to come down to earth, the vulture stopped him. Thus three months passed without Reignvald’s eyes woke up in the bed. From the sky, anguished, he saw how his body grew weaker by the day. Finally the heart of Vintersson died. Once occasion the vulture went out the world. Reignvald made landfall in a great desert. Despite the sun, he was not thirsty or hot.

He saw a group of women dressed in black. They were following a wagon carrying a coffin. Reignvald opened the lid. He saw his own cadaverous and decayed face. Then, he tried to take flight again. But he could not do it anymore. He remained in that desert forever.