‘I was a boy when the Merchant of Dreams took my future and kept it safe in his kaleidoscope; now I’m a father, and I’ve become the Merchant of Dreams for my children.’
A touching multi-generational story about a mysterious old man with a kaleidoscope who collects and preserves people’s most valuable dreams. Through the eyes of a young boy guided by his wise friend, the ancient Turtle, this magical tale explores the transformative journey from unanswered questions to discovered purpose.
It was a cold December afternoon when I met the strangest of all old men. His bushy and unruly, silver hair, peeked from underneath a bright yellow skull cap, and he wore a bright red pyjama and shirt. He was certainly an old man, but instead of stooping shoulders and shuffling feet, he was walking with a purpose – eyes looking straight ahead and back straight as a bamboo.
There was a wooden, green box, which was mounted on a metallic tripod and carefully balanced on his shoulders. He was truly a spectacle – more than enough spectacle to catch the fancy of a young boy. Children gathered around him and he let each one of them peep inside the box, in exchange for a few coins. I approached him hesitantly once the children moved away and he picked up the wooden box and started to leave.
‘Please wait!’ I requested him politely. ‘I want to see too what’s inside this box.’
‘This box is called a Kaleidoscope.’ He informed me in a serious tone.
‘Okay. I want to see what’s inside the Kaleidoscope?’ I repeated my request.
‘Of course, you do.’ He smiled at me kindly, ‘But it is not yet time for you to look into it.’
‘Oh! But why?’ I felt so dejected, ‘Everyone else has looked into it. Why can’t I do the same?’
‘Because you are not everyone else.’ He was still smiling. ‘You are a friend of the Turtle and therefore, you deserve special treatment.’
‘Wait…what?’ I was startled. ‘How do you know about the Turtle?’
‘We are old friends.’ He patted my head and walked away, while completely ignoring my questions, ‘Run along now! It’s getting late!
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It was a strange afternoon indeed, and it was filled with questions. I love questions especially once I have to search hard for answers. Easy questions do not excite me, but difficult questions fan the fire of my curiosity.
I knew where to find the answers. I had a friend who could answer any question that I had – the ancient Turtle in our backyard. As usual, he was taking a siesta under the Banyan tree, but woke up as soon as he heard my approaching steps.
‘Where were you this afternoon?’ He asked me with his eyes half-closed.
‘I was with someone.’ I said in a mysterious tone, ‘Someone, who is an old friend of yours.’
‘Oh?’ The Turtle looked at me questioningly, ‘And who might be that?’
‘It was a strange, old man carrying a big wooden box. He called it a kaleidoscope.’ I pronounced the word with some difficulty.
‘Ah!’ The Turtle smiled with pleasure, ‘So you have finally met the Merchant of Dreams.’
‘The Merchant of Dreams?’ I asked as the name fascinated me so much. ‘What is a merchant of dreams?’
‘Not ‘a’ merchant, it is ‘the’ Merchant. He is an ever-vigilant sentinel, who jealously guards the threshold between reality and fantasy.’ The Turtle said with closed eyes, ‘His task is to preserve the most valuable of human dreams.’
‘Please use simple words.’ I requested the Turtle. ‘These are too big words for my understanding.’
‘Don’t worry about the words, son.’ The Turtle said, ‘You’ll meet the Merchant again, sooner than you expect. And remember son, once the time comes, hand over the most valuable of your dreams to the Merchant without any worry. He will keep it safe and will make it come true one day.’
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The Turtle was right. I met the Merchant of Dreams again after only a few days.
I was riding my bicycle with my pockets filled with stale bread, and was looking for stray dogs to feed. My attention was so much focused on my quest that I almost missed seeing him. And when I did see him, my first thought was that I was imagining him. He was standing at the same place, I left him that afternoon.
By the time I realized that he was real and not a figment of my over-active imagination, I had nearly passed by him. I applied emergency brakes by firmly planting my sneaker between the tire and the axel and escaped crashing down by a very small margin.
I approached him and his peculiar smell overwhelmed me. It was not an unpleasant smell at all. He smelt of old books, stacked and forgotten forever, and he smelt of memories, painful and sweet, but half-obscured by the fog swirling over the lands of nostalgia. Though I was unaware of the smell of memories back then, I was quite familiar with the smell of old books – courtesy of my late grandfather and his amazing library.
His outfit also looked somewhat different. I looked at him closely and detected a pair of cheap plastic-framed glasses, which were tied around his head with a piece of bright, blue ribbon. The lens were cloudy and thick but still failed to hide his piercing gaze. There was also a small gold earring, dangling from his left ear.
‘Who are you, really?’ I asked and then got embarrassed at the absurdity of my own question.
‘Who am I, really?’ He repeated my question to himself and seemed perplexed at first. But then raised his eyes towards the sky and chuckled softly, ‘I am the Merchant of Dreams, humbly at your service.’
‘I know that.’ I hurriedly replied, ‘The Turtle has already made introductions.’
‘How is my old friend?’ The old man asked with a kind smile. ‘Still fond of his siestas?’
‘Yes!’ I smiled back at first but then mustering up a serious expression, asked, ‘Why are you here?’
‘You are a dreamer.’ He peered at me closely. ‘I am here so that you can give me your most prized dream for safekeeping.’
I looked deep into his eyes and found them quite familiar. They looked just like the eyes of the Turtle.
‘My most prized dream?’ I asked thoughtfully, ‘Oh yes, I have dreams – millions and billions of dreams, each more precious than the last.’ I decided to humor the old man. ‘But what will you give me in return old man? Perhaps, your own dreams?’
‘Nah!’ The old man chuckled, ‘My dreams have been fulfilled since long. Instead, I will give you a promise – the promise of your dream coming true one day.’
‘And where will you keep my dream?’ I knew I was mocking him but I couldn’t control myself.
‘In here of course.’ He lovingly caressed the kaleidoscope, carefully unscrewed the lens cover and waved at me to peep inside.
‘Don’t worry. It won’t cost a dime.’ He smiled at my worried expression.
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I looked closely at the kaleidoscope. It was a simple box of wood, painted in bright parrot green. The paint was peeling at several places. I looked around. There was nobody. I hesitated but then curiosity assumed control. I took a deep breath, bent down and fixed my right eye firmly to the lens.
At first I saw nothing but mirrors. There was a cacophony of colored mirrors. Small and large, blue and red and green and yellow, oval and rectangular, triangular and round, there were mirrors everywhere. The light from some invisible source reflected off the surface of the mirrors and then entered my eye.
I tried to find some meaningful pattern, but failed. There was nothing but moving jolts of intense, bright and colored light. ‘There is nothing.’ I laughed at my own stupidity and tried to straighten up.
‘Have patience, child.’ The soft pressure of the old man’s hand on my shoulder did not let me get up, ‘Keep on looking. Search within the folds of light. Look for a vision, riding the shoulders of light beams.’
I suppressed the urge to straighten up and looked more closely. At first there was nothing but blinding flashes of light. But then….something – a small figure, visible in the far distance and growing larger by the minute. It was a young man with a head full of dark, unruly hair, quite like my own and he looked very familiar. He was walking tiredly on a rough thorny path. His lips were parched with thirst and his feet shuffled with exhaustion. But yet he walked on, his eyes fixed on a mountain in the far distance.
I felt myself being transformed into light and diffusing inside the kaleidoscope and found myself walking with the man. I could sense that there was a great burden on his soul. It was the burden of unanswered questions: ‘What is life? What is my purpose? What is universal conscience and how do I communicate with it?’ They were all difficult questions and the agony of carrying around the heavy burden of unanswered questions, was burning up his soul.
My heart grew heavy at his plight. I did not know him but somehow I knew he deserved kindness and understanding. I tried to hold his hand but my hand passed through his. He was oblivious of my presence. We walked on and the mountain loomed closer. We walked some more and reached the foot of the mountain. He started climbing up and I climbed up with him.
From time to time, he stopped and looked across the valley, receding under our feet. I looked across the valley too, which was filled with abstract patterns of yellow and green – indistinguishable and intermingling. Somehow, the abstractness of the patterns troubled me greatly. I could feel the same abstractness intensifying the young man’s anguish and frustration.
We climbed up some more and something strange started happening. There was a subtle transformation. With each step up the slope of the mountain, the abstractness of the patterns changed into definite and precise geometrical shapes. Chaos was slowly giving birth to order.
It was a strange place – away from the confines of time and space. In a few moments, we had reached the mountain top. The young man took out a beautifully carved wooden pipe, filled it with tobacco and lit it with a match. Smoke rose out of the pipe’s bowl and was dispersed by the soft breeze. He took a deep puff and once again, looked across the valley.
The patterns had all settled into definite shapes. Each color and every shape had started making sense. The puzzle was finally solved.
‘Ah! So that is what everything really means.’ The man smiled and breathed a sigh of relief.
I looked at him and found him smiling. His eyes were no more troubled and his brow was no more knitted in worry. But strangely, his hair had turned all white and silver. He was no more a young man, but had grown old. Old, but happy and satisfied.
He sucked onto the stem of the pipe and then exhaled thick rings of smoke. The rings swirled and rose up into the air and started forming words. They were simple yet beautiful words. I tried to read them but could not. They were strange words yet familiar in an inexplicable way. The wind grew stronger and tried to blow away the words. They danced but held firm and gradually descended over the valley. I could sense the man’s happiness and my heart was filled with joy.
‘I can see him. I can see him.’ I straightened up and looked at the Merchant. My throat had gone hoarse with tears of excitement.
‘Oh yes child! You saw him, didn’t you?’ He smiled at me kindly and screwed the cap over the lens again.
‘Who was he?’ I wiped my tears and asked the old man.
‘Why child? He was you of course. He is your future and your most valuable dream.’
‘But how can I see my own future? How can I see a dream while being awake? And what did it all mean?’ I had a lot of questions as my young mind was unable to grasp the meaning of the strange vision.
‘With time, will come understanding. For now, it is enough for you that your most valuable dream is safe with me.’
The old man picked up the kaleidoscope and placed the tripod carefully over his shoulder.
‘Run along now. It’s getting late.’ The old man waved a final goodbye and vanished into the swirling fog.
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‘I met him again. I met the Merchant of Dreams.’ I announced excitedly.
The afternoon was almost over, when I found the Turtle lounging idly in the sun under the rose bushes. The sunlight, being filtered by the leaves, was drawing interesting patterns across his mottled back.
‘You did eh?’ The Turtle smiled without opening his eyes. ‘And what did he tell you?’
‘He showed me my dream and it was marvelous. But I couldn’t understand it.’ I informed him, expecting a detailed explanation. But the Turtle remained quiet.
‘Dreams! Dreams! For God’s sake, Turtle, tell the boy about the dreams.’ The Raven screeched from atop the Banyan tree. But the Turtle still remained quiet.
‘What are dreams, old friend?’ Getting tired of his silence and closed eyes, I finally asked, while lightly prodding his neck with a twig.
‘Huh! What?’ Startled, he opened up his eyes and looked at me.
‘I am asking you about dreams. What are dreams?’ I chewed my words deliberately.
‘Oh yes! Dreams!’ The Turtle smiled at my impatience, ‘Well dreams can either be the most terrible or the most wonderful of all experiences, God has ever created.’
‘Why terrible?’ I was taken aback at the turtle’s response. I thought he was a dreamer like me.
‘All dreams are questions. Dreams become terrible when the question remains unanswered. The questions try hard to survive by raising their delicate heads and breathing in the air of imagination and wisdom. But a time comes when they fail to find their answers. Then, these dreams become nightmares and turn into the grey dust of regret.’ The turtle said, sadly poking the dry leaves littering the pale grass.
‘But I always thought that dreams are wonderful.’ I felt my legs weakening and I sat down on the pale grass besides the turtle.
‘Yes, sometimes, dreams can be wonderful too. They are wonderful once they evolve into something meaningful. They are wonderful when the question is answered and the answer is cherished and finally becomes a legacy.’ The Turtle tried to console me.
‘So, what about my dream?’ I asked him anxiously, ‘Is it wonderful or terrible?’
‘Well, that choice belongs to you alone.’ The Turtle smiled again, ‘If you do not seek answers, your dreams will become terrible nightmares. But if you do seek answers and find them, your dreams will become a legacy carved in wisdom.’
‘What do you mean?’ I pleaded, ‘You know I don’t like difficult words. I cannot understand what you are saying.’
‘With time, will come understanding. For now, it is enough for you that your dream is safe with the Merchant of Dreams. He won’t let it die.’ The turtle said softly and closed his eyes again.
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‘Baba!’ My daughter comes along, running excitedly.
I stop typing and look up. She is growing into a beautiful woman, my little one. I grab her arm softly and gently pull her into my lap. She laughs and hides her face in my neck. I smell her thick luxurious hair and my world turns into a beautiful place.
‘Tell me what’s bothering you?’ I ask while running my fingers through her beautiful hair.
‘I dream of becoming a singer one day but I am afraid my dream won’t come true.’ She growled into my neck frustratingly. ‘Will I ever become a singer?’
‘Hmm!’ I caress her neck. ‘Why don’t you give your dream to me?’
‘Where will you keep it?’ She giggled mischievously, ‘And what will you do with it?’
‘I will keep it safe…here.’ I place her tiny hand on my heart. ‘I will make sure that it never dies. I will ensure that one day it evolves into something meaningful, something which can be cherished and something, which can become a legacy.’
‘Baba! Would you please talk in simple words? I don’t understand what you are saying.’ She asks confusedly. ‘With time, will come understanding. For now, it is enough for you that your dream is safe with the Merchant of Dreams. He won’t let them die.’ I whisper into her ear and see the Turtle wink at me from across the thresholds of time.
Shehryar khawar 