[ WP ] You possess the ability of persistent lucid dreaming . Accompanied by a strange man/woman , together you build a world you revisit every night . One day you see them at a coffee shop . You immediately recognize each other .

I pulled up a chair and sat down at a table in Starbucks with a man I ’ d never seen in my waking life as easily as if I were tying my shoes. “ It ’ s good to see you. It had been a while. ” He was my collaborator. I built the world, and he filled it. 
 
 
 You see, I am a lucid dreamer, but it seems that I am so much more than that, now. I had dreamed for years now, since I was a boy, of great empty expanses, then filled them with land, sea, and sky. I raised mountains, smoothed steppes, and chiseled cliffs. And in my dreams, there was an old man like this one who followed me, building soaring towers and humble villages, and sprinkling animals all over the landscapes and seascapes. He tried to show me how to make a bird, once. He showed me how to fold my hands, how to focus the life and create - but it came out wrong. He took it from me, fixed it, and handed it back. 
 
 
 My collaborator said nothing but reached into the open satchel he had on the floor. He withdrew a clipboard with sheets of various colors and messy handwriting and handed it to me. I read for a while, then handed it back. 
 
 
 He gripped the arms of his chair as if to stand up and tensed them, but nothing happened. Three times he did this, his thin arms shaking with effort, but each time he failed and settled down again. I would have helped him, but I remembered the time I tried to show him how to build mountains. They came out like hills, so I went to wipe them away and let him start again, but he looked at me with lightning in his eyes and spent the rest of the time clearing away and building his own messes. 
 
 
 He fumbled in his backpack again, and withdrew a notepad and pen. With shaking hands he withdrew he scrawled in looping letters a number and a name…an address. Then tore it off and handed me the paper. And slid a key across the table. 
 
 
 Nothing needed to be said between us. No tears needed to be spilled, no last words to say. I pocketed the key and note, nodded to him, and walked to the address I had walked by many times before. It was a worn down house, the only one on the block with peeling paint and battered shingles. 
 
 
 Without any hesitation, I put the key in the front door and turned it, then stepped inside. It was perfectly dark, and I groped along the wall for a switch. I felt one, and flipped it. 
 
 
 Hanging from wires stretched across the room, stacked in piles, tucked in folders and laid out in rows were paintings and sketches of landscapes and buildings, little bits and pieces of the world we ’ d made. I recognized that jutting cliff from my earlier years - it was overly dramatic and poorly done. But somehow the old man ’ s castle, exaggerated in its features, fit the land and made it seem right. Perhaps a real artist might beg to differ, but it seemed right. 
 
 
 And there were some I did not recognize. Were these plans, or other worlds he ’ d made with other people? Were they ambitions, stories, something in between, nothing at all? I never found out. Instead, I looked at them and with the blank paper on the desk in the corner I began to plan out landscapes that would showcase their magnificence, or display their humility. 
 
 
 And after I had spent two feverish days working my soul out, I collapsed in sleep sitting there at the desk. And when I woke up, I walked home, drove my car over, and carefully made several trips back and forth to my house, until the place was empty. 
 
 
 The man died a few weeks later, of cancer. He had been a fairly important member of the community, it turned out. A fairly wealthy man who made sure some of the more mom-and-pop tenants downtown could keep their businesses open in the face of a huge tourism boom. I had never known. 
 
 
 I didn ’ t go to the funeral. Instead, I stayed at home and worked. Worked, worked, worked. Sketching, erasing, planning, and then going to sleep early, so that I would have more time to enact and improvise on the plans. I had never known the man, but I had known the dreamer, and I honored him the best way I knew.
