By Ron Wetherington

Beatrice searched the membrane for tears. It was reported to be somewhere in this sector, but so far the fabric was smooth. As a Boundary Keeper, it was her job to keep it intact. Ripples and bulges were okay—normal—because dreamers pushed quietly through the semipermeable barrier and then back, as lucidity came and went, without ripping it. Eventually, they stayed on the other side and disappeared into wakefulness until the next sleep. But sudden breaks, usually accidental, required mending. 

There, just ahead. Beatrice could see, even at this distance, the damaged fabric. As she drew closer, she gasped at the enormity of it. “Omigod!” It was wide enough for two or three dreamers to pass through. “Omigod!” she exclaimed again.

Bertha, her supervisor, was drawn into the sector by the alarm. “Please, Bea, don’t say that!” she shushed. “No need to get the attention of higher powers.” Bertha was more experienced than the younger, more excitable, Beatrice. She needed to restore calmness and not attract undue attention.

“I know, I know!” Beatrice cowered a bit. “Sorry! It’s just so…”

“No,” Bertha said. “It’s not unnaturally large. I’ve seen larger.”

“Have you?” Beatrice looked at the opening again. “How many pushed through, do you think?”

Bertha frowned at her colleague. “Only one, of course,” she said as if correcting an ill-informed child. “People don’t dream collectively, silly!” She inspected the opening closely, retrieving her needle. “This was because of excitement, not volume,” she explained. “You can do the outside this time.”

“Thanks, Bert.” Beatrice pulled out her needle. “Of course, only one,” she chastised herself. “It’s just so big!” 

She threaded the needle and slipped through the opening. It was like a different world out here. She inhaled air! Watched dawn breaking on the horizon! Felt the chill! 

She pulled the edges together at one end of the tear and drew the needle through them. She had become skilled in making the blind hem stitch. Practically invisible. But she was distracted. The light. The air. There were aromas she had not experienced, sounds of wind, of distant thunder. Even before the day awakened, it was so noisy out here! 

It was taking longer than usual. “Push it back through as you stitch,” Bertha called to her from the other side. As Beatrice pressed the sewn fabric back, Bertha smoothed it. No wrinkles. Even up close, the fabric appeared pristine, the gossamer thread all but disappearing. 

“Gossamer,” she smiled to herself. Ethereal. It was spidery, silk-wormy. Bertha loved it! Bea had indeed become expert at this. Impulsive and undisciplined, yes, but trainable.

After reducing the opening to a mere nick, Beatrice slipped back inside. Bertha closed it with a few slip stitches and it was done. They both looked at the repaired fabric with satisfaction. Then they moved on. It was early dawn here and dreamers would soon slide through to wake-land, but other sectors were still in darkness, other sleepers still dreaming. Most of them had no lucid dreams and thus remained snuggled on this side the entire night, away from the membrane. The Boundary Keepers—an army of several thousand spread over all the night sectors—were only concerned with the liminal ones.

“Do you think they know where they are?” asked Beatrice.

“Who?”

“The boundary dreamers. Do they know they’re overlapping different worlds?”

Bertha scoffed, “But they’re not, Bea, you know that.” She laughed. “They just think they are. That’s how consciousness works, a dream world and a wakened world.” She cast a sidelong glance at Beatrice as they slid along the membrane, surveying its contours. “They’re in just one world all the time.” 

They continued in silence through the nighttime, across sectors, watching the occasional dreamers as they slid just outside the membrane and then back through it, contentedly. They were managing stories, helping to arrange episodes constrained in sleep but pliable through brief turns of wakefulness. Bulges and ripples undulated. The rhythm was quiet and absorbing. Each night sector was serene as night pivoted. Across continents which they couldn’t see, the two Boundary Keepers drifted. Over cities and villages, as night shadows entered and then receded, they checked the fabric for disruptions.

~

It happened about two-thirds of the way across. A soundless burst thrust a large group of dreamers violently against the membrane, ripping through it, leaving dozens of ugly wounds, ragged edges that would be difficult to mend, vulgar lacerations requiring reels of thread to stitch.

“Omigod!” Beatrice called out.

“Shush!” hissed Bertha. “We don’t yet need higher attention.”

Beatrice looked at the vast mutilation of the boundary, her eyes like saucers. It was chokingly chaotic, holes in the membrane everywhere. She looked alarmingly at her colleague. “Bert!” she cried out. “What…?”

“Must have been an explosion in wake-land,” Bertha whispered. She moved closer to examine the damage. “The dreamers did not stir as they were blown through.”

“What?” Beatrice listened in disbelief.

“They were not alive, Bea,” Bertha explained.

“Omigod!”

Another eruption followed. The damage was multiplied. “It must be a war zone, where they are!” Bertha exclaimed. She looked at Beatrice. “I’m calling in all the reserves for this, Bea. We’re going to need a lot of stitchers.” She pulled out her needle. “And the Manager needs to know.”

“What happens if we can’t…can’t…you know….” Beatrice stammered. “I mean, there’s so much damage!”

Bertha was inspecting one particularly ragged opening. “Then we close this sector, Bea.” She shook her head. “And all dreams will stop here…until the fabric is replaced.” 

Beatrice continued to stare at the scene as other Boundary Keepers began to arrive. “Omigod!” she repeated softly, and she reached for her spindle of thread.