This is Dreaming Boy. Whereas some people do schoolwork or have jobs, Dreaming Boy has a far more exciting life. No two days are the same. On Monday he may be a dragon fighting muffins in space, on Tuesday he may be a chair who is disgruntled that everyone sits on him.
Many people think Dreaming Boy is going nowhere, that he is trapped in a boring, Grey suburban life. Those people are wrong, so woefully wrong. Dreaming Boy is freer than any Boy he knows. His life does not stop when he goes to sleep, it is just properly beginning. In his sleep he travels to faraway lands, alternate universes, lives lived in the fast lane. Those people might say that this is no way to live, that he should get out of his own head and just see the world. Dreaming Boy does not care. Reality has not once failed to disappoint him. Dreaming Boy sometimes attempts to “live” as others say he should be, but to him these experiences are like leaving the oasis for the desert, the haven for the hell. Dreaming Boy never truly sees anything of Colour. He sees only Grey people with Grey faces and Grey lives. These people reflect bitterly that they could have been so much more colourful. He looks in the mirror and sees Grey Boy staring back at him, but when he looks inside his own head, he sees Dreaming Boy.
Dreaming Boy is full of colour, of life and of happiness. He cannot comprehend why anyone would want to spend their entire lives sitting in their Grey offices doing Grey jobs, thinking Grey thoughts and doing Grey things.
Dreaming Boy’s greatest fear is that the colour will be stamped out of him by all the Grey feet with their Grey boots. The Grey people are jealous of the colour. Were they capable of anything but Grey, they would be Green with envy. The Grey people were once like Dreaming Boy. They were once Red, Purple, Pink, Blue, Yellow, Orange and countless other things with funny names like Magenta and Turquoise, but the older, Greyer Grey people got to them with the Grey voices and Grey lectures about Grey careers and Grey lives.
Dreaming Boy hopes very dearly that he can remain Dreaming Boy all his life. He does not want to become Grey. Dreaming Boy wants to remain Colourful. Many of the Grey people attempt to paint themselves so they might seem colourful, but no one is fooled, least of all themselves. They are still Grey at heart. None of the Grey people truly believe that they are Colourful.
Dreaming Boy dreams of finding other Dreaming Boys and Dreaming Girls. Together, they could lend the Grey people some of their Colour. It wouldn’t have to be much, perhaps just a breath of Blue or a gasp of Green or yelp of Yellow. Then the Colour could grow inside them like a germinating seed. It would have to be a strong seed though, to grow in such dead soil. Dreaming Boy is not disheartened though. He dreams of the seeds growing and flourishing, flourishing into Colours that touch the Heavens with their brilliance. Dreaming Boy nearly cries colourful tears at such a happy dream.
Dreaming Boy does not just have happy dreams though. The Grey that is forced upon him from nine until five also attempts to take root. The Grey is like a weed, thriving on the fear and despair in him. Dreaming Boy does all he can do to fight off the Grey nightmares that drop like overripe fruit from the ever-growing Grey. He assails the Grey with all the Colours of the rainbow and more, desperately trying to stop it from creeping over the Colour and leeching life from the soil of his fertile mind.
Dreaming Boy never once loses hope though. The beauty of Dreaming Boys and Dreaming Girls is that there are fields upon fields of Colour in their extraordinary minds. The roots of the Colour are all touching, supporting each other, so if one dies the others grow higher, defiant of the terrifying Grey that attempts the takeover.
Dreaming Boy does not think of his waking world as his “real” one. How could that be so, when his Dreaming world is so real to him, so completely tangible that it is the Grey world that feels like a dream to him?
Dreaming Boy swears every day that he will make his life like his mind, thriving with colour and joy and such breathtaking wonder that one can’t help but be touched by the beautiful branches that reach from the Dreaming Boy’s impossibly Colourful fields.