February 1998. ‘Let’s go, champ,’ says Max’s mind. It shakes him gently and breaks into song. ‘“Just pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again.”’
‘Now I know why people lose their minds,’ says Max.
‘You don’t want to lose me,’ says his mind. ‘I only want what’s best for you.’
‘And what’s that?’ says Max.
‘I can’t say. I’ll know it when I see it.’
‘You’re no better off than I am,’ says Max. ‘So where’s all this cheerfulness coming from?’
‘You always keep a little joie de vivre stashed away, remember?’ says his mind. ‘So I thought this might be a good time to open a can.’
‘That won’t help,’ says Max. ‘I’m an orphan father and I can’t write. Charlotte Prickles has gone strange and Moe Levy fired me. I don’t feel real any more.’
‘Now we’re getting somewhere,’ says his mind. ‘When you felt real you weren’t. Now you’re a two-time loser and probably a two-time father and you’ve got two No Page Ones. Get real with that. Feel it inside you.’
‘Shit,’ says Max.
‘You’re boring me,’ says his mind. ‘You think Edward Lear wasn’t feeling lousy when he wrote “The Courtship of the Yonghy-Bonghy Bo”? But he got real with it, and the base metal of that reality was transmuted into the gold of art.’
‘Hang on,’ says Max, ‘I want to make a note not to write that down.’
‘OK, smartass,’ says his mind. ‘Do it your way. But don’t come crying to me any more. Be a fucking man.’
‘I’ve been that,’ says Max. ‘That’s how I got where I am today.’ He pulls himself together and thinks about his latest attempts at Page One. ‘Charlotte Prickles had a strange dream,’ he says. ‘I wonder what it was.’ He nudges Fujitsu/Siemens out of its screen saver of flying toasters and types:
THE STRANGE DREAM OF CHARLOTTE PRICKLES
‘Charlotte,’ says Max, ‘talk to me.’
‘I had a dream,’ says Charlotte.
‘Right,’ says Max. ‘Go on.’
‘“I had a dream,”’ sings Charlotte, ‘“You had one too. Mine was the best dream because it was of you.”’
‘Stop kidding around, Charlotte,’ says Max. ‘I’m serious. You had a strange dream. What was it?’
‘I’m trying to remember,’ says Charlotte. She goes quiet for a long time, looking inward. ‘There was moonlight on a river. The full moon reflected in the water, in the glimmers of the water in the night. Strange moonlight, not from now. Moonlight from long ago. The sound of a fish jumping. Close but far away, far away in time.’
‘Go on,’ says Max.
‘That’s all that comes to me now,’ says Charlotte. ‘Maybe I’ll have that dream again and I’ll remember more next time. If I do I’ll let you know.’
‘Thanks, Charlotte,’ says Max. ‘I’d be very grateful.’