Dreams are subtle things, and though at first they seem to not matter much, they lay beneath. What exactly they lay beneath, however, is harder to say. There are so many things that lay within each of us, memories and hopes, torments and secrets, even walls and cities erected deep in our silent depths. We are denizens of the world, but first and before that, private citizens of our own.

He was beginning to learn just that recently and it was a strange concept to begin to explore. Where he was born, he was raised with the belief that the community persisted and existed before all individuals. That the individual was a somewhat sour and distasteful experience in the mouth, and that only when shared and mixed with others did it become fragant and fascinating. To share and to grow, to become complete by becomming part of the whole. It was the very foundations that his world was built upon.

As he stared up into the black sky above and counted drowsily the tiny little white dots in it, he recounted to himself one of the first lessons he could remember. It was from a rather famous tutor his parents had come and give him his earliest lessons. One day the tutor had sat himself and his siblings down in a room together, just looking over the small stream outside of the big stone house his parents kept in the country. The tutor began his lesson with the words, “we are all but one.”

“Elias”, the tutor had said to get his attention, “can you tell me why there are so many stars in the sky?”

He remembered looking over at his sister’s bright and cheery face and having not a clue how to answer the question. The stars were just tiny white dots in the sky to him, as meaningless perhaps as the grains of sand gathering on the steps, waiting to be swept off into the dirt and forgotten as soon as noticed. “No, Mr. Devoroe.”

The tutor, Mr. Devoroe, shook his head and made a sharp ‘tsking’ sound with his tongue placed against the roof of his mouth. Elias almost laughed, but held it in knowing better than to insult such a wise man. “There are as many stars in the sky”, Mr. Devoroe continued, “as there are people in the world. Together they line the great blackness of space, forever reminding us how we are woven together. We are not one, but a great many of us and even the world around us reminds of us this very diligently. A woman, or a man, is never alone. Nor is any man or any woman of more equal value than any other. All stars appear to shine in the sky when it is night, and all stars in the sky appear to sleep when morning comes. Together it is this harmony that works to provide us with night and day.”

The wise old man continued. “Therefor we must seek to keep this balance, we must share our knowledge and ourselves with others. All achievements are the achievements of the many, and all problems are the problems of us all.” He stared at the boy. “What do you do when you see a man who looks to be lost?”

“You find a familiar adult and ask them to help the man.” Jennifer peeped her head up and answered rather quickly.

“Exactly my child”, said Mr. Devoroe, immediately patting the girl on the head softly. “But what if there is no adult around that you recognize or know?”

Jennifer stared at the ground for a few moments, then looked up once, a rather quizzical expression on her face, before she turned her head down to the floor again. For a few moments she chewed on her lip and then she looked at Elias, as if begging a response from her brother.

He sighed and looked at the tutor. “You find another child and ask them to have an adult they are familiar with help the stranger.”

“Exactly my dear boy! You have the right of it. Always lend a helping hand.” He reached out a hand toward Elias, who withdrew slightly, but was nonetheless patted on the head by the aging elder. “A stranger is a stranger still, yes, for there are many unscrupulous people about. That is why we although we must always have an adult approach a stranger. That, however, we must still do our best to help in the ways we can.”

“Mr. Devoroe, how come some of the stars in the sky are brighter than the others, if we are all the same?” Elias queried.

The elder man seemed rather amused at the question. “Well my dear boy, if you would get up for a moment I would gladly show you by example.” When Elias got up from his seat the old man did so also. “Jennifer, would you come stand next to your brother and join us in this, after all, everyone should do their best to join in on all things.”

Jennifer popped up from her seat and rushed to Elias’s side, standing not two inches from where he stood. “Is this fine?” She let out a small squeak of a voice and stood on his toes.

“Yes that will do nicely. Now, if you would both hold up your arms and touch your finger tips just barely to each others”, he motioned. When they were standing just so, he moved in front of them and held up his arms too. “See how your fingers are touching and yet there is still space between the two of you?” He asked.

The two children nodded their heads in sync. “Well then, that is because there is distance in between the two of you. The stars are much the same, though they are not exactly the same, they are equal in their importance and design, for no matter how small or grand each thing has a purpose and yet of course like the three of us, there is also distance between them. Like the buildings in the street, or the birds flying in the sky. There merely appear to be farther away or closer, but there is no difference other than that in them. The stars are not merely brighter or duller, but farther away and closer. A simple shift in perspective makes them appear to be vastly different. We perceive all things differently, not only because of their own facets… but the facets of ourselves. So then distance, and bias. All things are of equal importance. When we forget this we lose sight of truth.”

He leaned over and smiled. “Much like it is with people. We appear to be different, subtle variations, lighter and darker hair, different colored eyes, the colors of our skin nothing more than a pigment in differing quantities. But we are very much the same. We learn, we think, we eat, we breath and we sleep. All of us have feelings, all of us have likes and dislikes, each and every one of us comes up with thoughts and ideas. Which is why we must share as much as possible. We are interconnected by so many things and it is up to each of us to be sure we do not lose our ways. We must strive to share all we can about ourselves with others, and to listen and learn as much as we can about them. The process leading to knowledge is understanding and completeness.

“Without it we would be very much fragmented and lost. Who knows what would happen to people if we did not stay interconnected and intertwined. We may even forget oneday who we were. Like the poor men who out of ignorance’s sake spent years alone in the caves of allegory and lost their minds, all from being alone.” He let out a sigh at the last words. “They spent so much time being alone that it drove them mad. We must seek to learn from their experience and never repeat this. It is the great coming together of ideas and experiences that keeps us from going mad.”

The tutor went to pick up his things. “Remember the most important lesson of all, one must never keep a secret. One must never hoard thoughts or ideas to oneself. You must share every thing you think, ever thought to cross your mind and ever word to form upon your lips. Only through the great coming together can all of us exist.” He nodded his head and reached for the brass knob on the door, turning it to the right and then stepping outside.

When he had gone, and Elias had checked to be sure, he turned to Jennifer, sighing. “I thought he would never go.”

“Why is it wrong to have secrets?” She asked. “Papa used to say that it was alright to have a few secrets here and there, to not always share our thoughts.”

“I don’t know.” Elias said. “I don’t really understand it. I don’t say everything I think, do you?”

She shook her head, hugging a small stuffed animal that had three legs and a long head.

It was the first time he had ever known, that he could have someone sitting across from him, completely unaware of what he was really thinking about. The tutor had not asked him, or even noticed that he had been daydreaming away while he was talking, and Elias had missed half of what he had said. He was busy staring at a river filled with rocks and orange fish swimming through it. Mr. Devoroe had not even seemed as if he noticed the boy, busy thinking away and keeping it to himself.

People spoke about everything here, they recorded their thoughts and shared their most private contemplations with others. To share was to embrace and to embrace was to be part of the whole. The great coming together of ideas and experiences. However, it was the opposite of how he was feeling lately and he did not know why. His father had always spoke of having dreams, but he had never elaborated on what he had dreamt about. His father had kept a lot of secrets and it had never seemed to bother him.

When Elias looked at the sky at night, he did not see white dots closer or farther away. He saw white dots brighter and dimmer than the others. They were different, like outside of people were, and different like the inside of people seemed to be. In fact, he felt rather different as of late than all the other people around him seemed to feel. He had even begun having dreams, remembering them just briefly at times when he awoke on the edge of slumber.