Radiance

From the Personal Reels of Percival Alfred Unck

[The screen is dim. SEVERIN UNCK has awakened from dark dreams in the middle of the night. She is five years old. Her father sits on her bed, an enormous wrought-iron bower of briars piled high against the lunar autumn with embroidered quilts and an infinitude of pillows. SEVERIN drowns in it; she is a tiny ship adrift on the sea of linen. PERCIVAL UNCK wraps his long arms around his daughter.]

PERCIVAL

Don’t fear, my little hippopotamus. Dreams can be frightening, but they can’t hurt you.

SEVERIN

They can! Oh, they can, Papa. [She begins to weep quietly.]

PERCIVAL

Tell your papa what you dreamt that was so terrible. When something is very awful indeed, so awful you can’t bear it, there’s a magic trick you can do. Tell the something’s story from start to finish, and by the time you get to the end, you will often find you can bear it quite well, and perhaps it was never so bad in the first place.

SEVERIN

I dreamt I grew up and I was all alone. I was the loneliest girl in the whole world.

PERCIVAL

Is that all?

SEVERIN

It’s a lot! I was in a little black room and everywhere I went I took the black room with me, and no one could get in, and I couldn’t get out.

PERCIVAL

That’s a very short story. I don’t know if the magic works when the story’s so short. Do you feel better?

SEVERIN

No. I shall never feel better again.

PERCIVAL

But you will, my love. The sun will come up and shine his brightest at the scary old beasties that scamper round your poor head, and everything will be right as rainbows. That’s what the sun is for.