The Dream Giver

Dr. John Walker stood at his kitchen counter in the morning making eggs and bacon for his wife Ruth and son Luke. Christmas was three days away. Luke was six years old and John left it was time to tell him Santa Clause did not exist.

Ruth stepped into the kitchen and put a hand on John’s shoulder. “Are you sure about this? He could believe for another year or so.”

John shook his head and frowned. “When I was young, I was never told to believe in the first place.”

Ruth sighed and nodded. “Okay, but we do this together.”

“Agreed.”

Luke’s parents entered the living room an sat on a leather couch. “Come sit down Luke, we need to talk with you.”

Luke bounced on the couch and looked up at Ruth with sparkling eyes. “What is it mom?”

Ruth gave a glance to her husband. He nodded and looked at Luke. “Son, I want to let you down slowly.” John cleared his throat and liked his lips. “You know how we tell you stories that are just for make believe?”

“Yeah,” uttered Luke.

“Well, there is something we have told you for a long time that is actually fairytale,” said Ruth.

“What is it?” asked Luke.

John put a hand to his forehead and exhaled deeply. “It’s about Santa Clause.”

Luke raised his eyebrows and pouted. “Yes?”

John and Ruth cringed.

“He is…he’s…not real,” said John.

“What?” Luke said with a tilted head. He laughed. “But Santa is real. The last two Christmases he gave me a special dream. Last year I walked on the moon.”

“Your dream does not come from Santa, Luke,” said Ruth. “If it was, wouldn’t we get dreams too?”

“You’re grownups. You don’t believe.”

Ruth and John raised an eyebrow.

“He’ll come around dear,” said Ruth. She stood and smiled at Luke. “Go outside son. Your bus will be here soon.”

Luke nodded, jumped from the couch and took his backpack from the table and darted outside.

“He’ll grow out of it John. Just go to work.”

John ran a palm down his face and stood. “You’re right. See you soon honey.”

John drove to work and arrived at the Nevada Science Institute and parked his car. Inside the desk clerk greeted him as well as his fellow colleagues.

“Good morning Dr. Walker,” said a man with glasses in a white-collar shirt and brown Khakis.

Dr. Walker smiled. “Hello Dr. Fale.”

“Ready for more work on the project?” said Dr. Fale.

“I am always thinking of it,” John said with a laugh. “Fill me in with what happened over the weekend.”

Both men walked to a metal door with a card swiper. Dr. Fale slid his ID card and a green light lit up with a beep.

They opened the door and walked inside where there was a white room with a large cylindrical device.

“A significant discovery has been made. We have located the general origin to the psycho-flux anomaly.”

John sat in front of a computer and punched in some numbers. Stats, charts and brain scans popped up. “This looks like it comes from space.”

“Look at the scans of our child subjects. It is quite stronger than adults.”

“Why is this so?” John asked himself.

“Based on the data patterns, we estimate the flux will apex on the twenty-fifth day of December.”

John looked at Dr. Fale with a raised eyebrow.

“I know. It is strange, almost humorous,” said Fale. “We have prepped a child subject to test later at night while in REM. By inputting algorithms into the thalamus, prefrontal cortex and posterior cingulate cortex during sleep, we hope to identify the source of the phyco-flux,” said Dr. Fale.

John rose and paced with a hand to his chin. “I wonder,” he said.

“What is it?”

“What of the source is a metaphysical entity?” asked John.

“An intelligence?”

John nodded “What if we put questions into the algorithmic input.”

Dr. Fale tilted his head. “Hmm…intriguing. We could get an answer. This would be the find of a lifetime!”

“I will get started on the algorithm.”

John drew up the inquiry he would integrate into the algorithm. He finished right in time at around noon.

A young child lay on a bed support while electrodes hooked up to his head. They were connected to the cylindrical mechanism.

“Hello Nick, I am Dr. Walker. We will give you something to help you sleep and then we will run a test, okay?”

“My mom said we will get paid. Can we get an Xbox game with it?”

John chuckled. “That is up to her.”

Dr. Fale put an IV into Nick’s arm and in ten minutes, he fell asleep. John used the computer to send the electronic algorithm into the child’s brain. An hour went by with normal brainwaves showing on the screen.

“Dr Fale! Look!” said John, pointing to a spike in the readings. Below the brainwave activity, a message showed up in numerical code. He typed on his keyboard and deciphered the message: WHO ARE YOU?

The two men looked at each other with gaping mouths. John typed an answer: I AM A HUMAN, LIKE THE BEING YOU ARE SPEAKING THROUGH.

Fale put his face into screen. “Ask it what it what it is,” he spewed out.

John typed on the keyboard. They waited. I AM THE GIFT GIVER.

“What could the entity mean?” asked Fale. “Ask it what wants.”

John typed more. WHAT DO YOU WANT?

I WANT TO BLESS CHILDREN.

John typed another question. HOW DO YOU BLESS CHILDREN?

The answer followed. I GIVE THEM FANTASIES.

Something popped into John’s head. It was silly but he had to know and typed another question. HOW DO YOU DO THIS?

THROUGH THEIR MINDS.

“What could it mean?” said Dr. Fale.

“I think I know.” John would ask the most pertinent question. “Dr. Fale, you said the psycho flux peaks on December 25th. My son mentioned every Christmas Santa gave him as special dream.”

“Are you saying Santa clause is an alien?”

“I mean the exact opposite; the alien is Santa!”

John typed the breaking question. WHAT DO YOU CALL YOURSELF?

CHILDREN CALL ME SANTA. MY REAL NAME IS GRUZA.

“May I have the chair?” Fale asked John.

John nodded and got up and Fale took his seat. He typed in a question. DO YOU SPEAK FROM ANOTHER PLANET USING TELEPATHY?

NO.

ARE YOU METEPHYSICAL? Fale typed.

A short silence came before a response. WHO ARE YOU? WHAT IS YOUR PURPOSE WITH YOUR QUESTIONS?

“What do we say John?”

“We tell the being the truth. Let me sit down.” John sat back in the chair and typed. WE ARE CURIOUS BEINGS. WE WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT YOU AND YOUR INTENT.

Another silence followed. MY KIND ARE LIKE WHAT YOU CALL SPIRITS. WE LIVE IN THE CELESTIAL REALM.

HOW DO YOU KNOW SO MUCH ABOUT US? John asked.

A THOUSAND YEARS AGO, WE BECAME AWARE OF YOU. IN OUR TRAVELS THROUGHS SPACE, YOU ARE THE ONLY PHYSICAL INTELLIGENT LIFE.

WHY DO YOU ONLY GIVE CHILDREN DREAMS AND DO NOT OPENLY COMMUNICATE WITH OUR WHOLE SPECIES? John returned.

WE REQUIRE SOME KIND OF AVATAR TO SPEAK WITH. CHILDREN BELIEVE THE MYTH OF SANTA CLAUSE SO WE CAN USE HIS FORM.

I have another question.” John ran a palm down his face and exhaled deeply then began typing. CAN ADULTS SPEAK TO YOU LIKE WITH CHILDREN?

YOU MUST BELIEVE IN AN AVATAR.

Fale frowned and turned away from the screen and rubbed the back of his neck. “What do we do? Unless we believe in something like the Easter bunny, it is hopeless.”

John leaned back against the chair. He jumped to his feet. “I have an idea! Could the virtual reality device be recalibrated to display dream experiences and not just CPU simulations?”

“Perhaps. What is your intent?”

John shook his finger and tilted his head. “We could hook it up to Nick’s dreaming centers and see and communicate with Gruza with visual input.”

“That could work! I’ll get started!”

John faced the computer and asked the alien entity if the plan could proceed and Gruza agreed. Dr. Fale did the needed preparations so he and john could see what Nick would see. Thirty minutes later Nick awoke. “Santa asked me what dream I wanted for Christmas just like last year!”

Dr. Fale put a metal cap with wires onto Nick’s head. “We are going to put you to sleep again, okay?”

“Alright.”

John put the IV into Nick and he fell asleep again. Soon, he hit REM and an image displayed on the screen. It was a picture of a workshop with elves making toys through an assembly line process.

The two men watched as Nick turned to the side and looked out a window where Christmas trees and lights were arrayed everywhere. The elves sung Christmas songs with rosy cheeks on their faces. Golden stardust fluttered about the room and coalesced to a single spot like a whirlwind. In a flash of light a perfect rendition of Santa appeared a few feet in front of Nick.

“Santa!” said Nick as he hugged the fat man in red robes with white fringes.

“Hopefully, we should be able to exchange audible conversations like with computer simulations.”

Fale turned on the speaker and microphone peripherals. “Can you hear me Gruza?”

The Santa avatar nodded. “I can hear you.”

“What was that voice Santa?” asked Nick after hearing Fale’s voice echo around him.

“Other people are in your dream Nick. They want to talk to me.”

“Can you project and image of the spiritual realm where you come from Gruza?”

Gruza pursed his lips and closed his eyes. “I will try.”

An image of glistening golden stars, materialized. Celestial bodies, like nebulae, spiraling galaxies, and immense silver clouds made the two scientists reel back with wide eyes.

“It’s breathtaking!” said Fale.

“Where am I?” asked Nick.

A flash of light strobed in the scape, and when it abated, a man in shining robes and stork’s wings appeared. “I am the angel Nimithar. God has sent me to put a stop to this. Gruza, you are hereby forbidden to speak and share things of the spiritual realm.”

Fale blurted into the mike. “Please do not send us away! Show us heaven and the spiritual realm Gruza lives in!”

“No. Go to the Word of God. All you require to know of the spiritual is in its pages.” The angel turned to Gruza. “God has allowed this for long enough. You are banned from communion with children or adults.”

The screen went dark and Nick opened his eyes. “I heard you in my dream. And there was an angel!”

“We really did it, “ said Fale. “Children will no longer be gifted with Christmas dreams.”

“Perhaps it is for the best. It appears God is real-or so it seems. And if we persisted, it would have drawn people way from seeking God,” said John.

“This makes me want to read the Bible,” Fale said with a chuckle. “Do you believe there may be an afterlife now?”

“I genuinely consider it.” John stood, stretched and yawned. “I guess it’s back to the drawing board.”