Free What Dreams May Come by Richard Matheson Page B

the sofa and I sank down on it as he sat on one of the chairs. Katie sat beside my right leg and I stroked her head as Albert and I continued talking.
    “You called this place Harvest,” I said. “Why?”
    “Because the seeds a man plants in life create the harvest he reaps here,” he answered. “Actually, the most authentic name—if one wants to be a purist—is the third sphere.”
    “Why?”
    “It’s somewhat complicated,” Albert said. “Why don’t we wait until you’ve rested first?”
    Odd, I thought. How could he know that I was starting to feel weary? I’d only become aware of it that very moment. “How can that be?” I asked, knowing he would understand the question.
    “You’ve been through a traumatic experience,” he told me. “And rest between periods of activity is nature’s way; here as on earth.”
    “You get tired too?” I asked in surprise.
    “Well, perhaps not tired,” Albert said. “You’ll soon find that there’s little actual fatigue here. To refresh oneself, however, there are periods of mental rest.” He gestured toward the sofa. “Why don’t you lie down?” he told me.
    I did and looked up at the beamed ceiling, then, after several moments, at my hands. I made a soft, incredulous sound. “They look so real,” I said.
    “They are,” he replied. “Your body may not have fiber but it isn’t vapor either. It’s simply finer grained than the body you left behind. It still has a heart and lungs to breathe air with and purify your blood. Hair still grows on your head, you still have teeth and finger- and toenails.”
    I felt my eyelids getting heavy. “Do nails stop growing at the right length like the grass?” I asked.
    Albert laughed. “I’ll have to check that out,” he said.
    “What about my clothes?” I asked. My eyes closed momentarily, then opened again.
    “They’re as real as your body,” Albert told me. “Everybody—except certain natives, of course—has, in their mind, the conviction that clothes are indispensable. The conviction garbs them after death.”
    I closed my eyes again. “It’s hard to comprehend it all,” I said.
    “You still think it’s a dream?” he asked.
    I opened my eyes and looked at him. “You know- about that too?”
    He smiled.
    I looked around the room. “No, I can hardly believe that,” I said. I looked at him sleepily. “What would you do if I did though?”
    “There are ways,” he said. “Close your eyes while we talk.” He smiled as I hesitated. “Don’t worry, you’ll wake up again. And Katie will stay with you, won’t you Kate?”
    I looked at her. She wagged her tail, then lay down with a sigh beside the sofa. Albert rose to put a pillow underneath my head. “There,” he said. “Close your eyes now.”
    I did. I actually yawned. “What ways?” I murmured.
    “Well—” I heard him sit back on his chair. “I might ask you to recall some relative who died, then show the relative to you. I might bring, to your recollection, the details of what happened just before your passing. In an extreme case, I might take you back to earth and show you your environment without you.”
    Despite the mounting grogginess I felt, I reopened my eyes to look at him. “You said I couldn’t go back,” I said. “You couldn’t, alone.” “Then—“
    “We could only go as observers, Chris,” he said. “Which would only plunge you back into that terrible frustration. You couldn’t help your wife, only watch her distress again.”
    I sighed unhappily. “Will she be all right, Albert?” I asked. “I’m so worried about her.”
    “I know you are,” he said, “but it’s out of your hands now, you can see that. Close your eyes.”
    I closed them again and, for an instant, thought I saw her lovely face in front of me: those childlike features, her dark brown eyes.
    “When I met her, all I could see were those eyes,” I thought aloud. “They seemed enormous to me.” “You met her on a beach, didn’t