"I’m going to take you back into your dream. The dream that terrifies and fascinates you. Focus your thoughts on it, now. Do not be afraid. You will not be alone this time. I’ll be with you, to help you. When I tell you, you will go to the place in your dream where you see the woman and see the thing.”

There were some other things she said and did, too, to get me into the right dream state but eventually she said, “I’m going to begin counting down and then you will be there…Ten… nine… eight… seven… six… five… four… three… two……….one. Now. Where are you?”

“On the street. Out front.”

“Of here?”

“Yes. My session is ended. I’m going home.”

“No. Go to the place.”

“No. Please. I want to go home.”

“You have to go to the place. I’m going with you. I’ll protect you. Do not be afraid. You will be safe.”

“It’s… there. Around the corner.”

“Go around the corner with me. We turn the corner, together. What do you see?”

“I see someone standing alone. It’s her. Just like always. And the thing. The thing is hanging over her. It seems closer this time.”

“Who is she?”

“I don't know. I couldn't ever see her face before. I can't see it now.”

“Speak to her.”

“I can’t.”

“Yes. Yes you can. I’m with you. You are calm. You are in control of your voice. I give you permission to speak. Take a deep breath. Speak to her.”

“Hey…Hello, there! She heard! She’s turning.”

"Keep talking to me. What do you see?"

"It's......”

“Hello, again. Recognize me?”

“But, that's impossible.”

“Obviously not. This is my dream, too. And you always called out to me before. And I always turned to see you.”

“Never.”

“You were helpless in your dreams. But in my copy of the dream, someone always called to me. To help me. Someone who looked like you.”

“Can’t you see the teeth? Look above you! All my dreams are about needing to warn you before it swallows you.”

“I know. There’s one above you as well. Don’t look at it. I’m going to end the dream now. When I say, you will awake. You will remember all of this. Ready?”

“To be anywhere but here, yes.”

“Ten…nine…eight…seven…six…five…four…three…two……….one. Awake.”

I remember I jolted up on the couch as if I’d been electrocuted. “Huh!”

“Where are you?”

“Here in your office. You hypnotized me. You were in my dream. No, it’s yours, too. We both had things hovering over us. You said not to look.”

“Do you know what the things mean to you now?”

“Hm… It’s a thing that will consume you but it goes nowhere. Like they’re windows or doorways to oblivion… or maybe hell. I bet if I had looked at mine, I wouldn’t be able to see it… or I wouldn’t be able to see it for what it was, the way I saw yours.”

“Tell me... what is to you, right now in this life, what is your hell? What torments you?”

“To be nothing. A no-one. To mean nothing to anyone at all.”

“Because no one loves you? Or because no one needs you? There’s a difference. You know that, don’t you?”

“Because no one needs me to do anything. Or even wants me to. That’s my life now. Is that why it hadn’t a body? Because it leads to nothing?”

“That was my life, too, before I got this work. And I was having the dream. It went away for a time but recently I realized that I can’t help the people I’m seeing and some don’t even want me to. They’re afraid to be something besides what they think they’ve always been. Did you know they’re developing an AI therapist?”

“I’ve never heard that.”

“Soon this work will be gone, too. So… my dream has been coming back again.”

“You knew me!”

“Yes. In all of my dreams someone called me and I turned to see them. When you came in that first day, I knew I'd seen you somewhere before. By our third session the dream came to me again, and I knew. Do you believe dreams have power?”

“I can’t say that I do but… I’m also like Hamlet. There’s more to the universe than we conceive in our philosophies… our sciences.”

“I think our shared dream means that somehow you are going to help me. By the way, this session is over, okay? We’re just two ordinary people having a chat. So… can I ask… is it a secret pleasure for you to do something really well and be praised for it… and then pretend it was easier than it really was? Be honest.”

“Yeah. I do that.”

“Me, too. You and me… we don’t fit very well in a society that places so little value on working. We don’t really belong here anymore.”

“You’re your little firefly, aren’t you? Stuck where you don’t belong.”

“You noticed that. Yes, it’s a metaphor.”

“Would you believe I thought a lot about that little guy, after I noticed it?”

“I’m not at all surprised. Few ever pay it any attention. It doesn’t speak to them.”

“You know…There’s… there is a place where work is still like it used to be. It’s no paradise. It’s hard work every day, but everything you do is important... Luna Colony. I think they could use someone like me. But I don’t have enough saved to go there.”

“Mmmm… I’d looked into that once. But I don’t have the money, either, and my present specialty isn’t high-value there even if I did.”

“Speaking of which; money, I mean… here… look at this. That’s my account balance. It’s much higher than it should be. Why?”

“Have you not been looking at your credits accounts?”

“No, I... I've been neglecting a lot of things...”

“I stopped billing these sessions when I recognized you. Hmmm… um, your balance is more than halfway there. To go up, I mean.”

“But I don’t have the income anymore to grow it the rest of the way before I grow old and die.”

“If… if I put mine with yours… it’s a little more than enough. “

“Huh?”

And… well… did you know they’re lifting contracted couples for the same fee as a single? It’s a frontier, you know…”

“They might assign more points for psychiatry if it came along with me. Not as valuable as two engineers, but still… There’s a ferry lifting in three months.”

“Would you…..”

“Hell, yes! Time enough to wind up loose ends here, flush the meds out of my system, and… Wait. Are we proposing to each other?”

“It’s a contract, Edward, not a marriage, but pretty close to the same thing. I don’t think we have to change names.”

“I’m afraid I must insist on it.”

“Truly? What if I said that’s a deal breaker?”

“It won’t be. I’d like to change mine to Firefly.”

<click>

“And that’s how my Mom and Dad met. And how we got to be here and how I got my name. Because Ed plus Amber equals Ember. See? And it’s also why we are the family Firefly.”

“Thank you for sharing your family story with us, Ember. Now, who wants to be next to show the class their video project on how they came to be Lunies? Malika? Excellent! Come on up to the front, dear, and let’s see yours.”

~~~~~~

Three pressure-suited figures stood outside an airlock, the entryway down into Luna Colony. (Lunies don’t live on the moon as much as they live in the moon.) Two were tall, one half-sized. All three wore an embroidered amber-colored patch with a brown elongated shape in the center. Underneath was a word, ‘Firefly’.

The Advanced Surface Procedures for Juvies training session had ended and the three waited as the lock finished cycling the next-to-last handful. Swarms of small boot prints marked the surface all around, with a smaller number of large prints among them.

The short figure reached down and unzipped one of many pockets and pouches. A small gloved hand retrieved something tiny and held it up against the black sky. The taller two crouched down to peer at it over the small shoulders. A little eggshape of amber with a tiny creature inside posed with the distant Earth behind it.