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The year is 2200 and we live through the classic HG Wells story. A man narrates his story of dozing in his chair and waking in the future, in a Mediterranian country. His dream is like reality, and his dozing self in the chair like the dream. Which reality is which?
He is in an idylic place with a beautiful woman. What could go wrong? War has been abolished long ago, although those dark clouds of conflict begin appearing on the horizon. Back in current time, the man faces a nagging wife, and his overwhelming desire to sleep more than be awake begin to affect his life both at home and work. Who wouldn’t enjoy such an escape? He longs for his dreams of the future.
Things change though when war sweeps into that future paradise. Now which reality is best? How bad can the future become to cause this man to fear sleep, and visiting that dream world? Just listen in to find out how the dream turns into a nightmare.
This one was a bit confronting. I had read the original H.G. Wells story a long time ago, but the radio scriptwriters had taken what I thought was a figure of speech and rendered it literally, resulting in what is indeed a nightmarish conclusion.
I had to take time to locate the book, and give it a quick glance. Radio shows tend to give original stories a re-write with artistic liberties, so they fit the 30 minute format of a radio drama. Or sometimes to update them for the modern radio listener.
Similarities:
A man who has his dream world flipped. While in his current world, thinking his dream is just a vivid dream. But in the dream, this world fades into a memory.
His dream is in the future, where there is an attractive woman in the dream, and ultimately he dies. But first, a story of love won and lost is told.
Of course, there’s a bit more story development about how pleasant his dream life had been. The war that suddenly sweeps the land is more expansive, though the depiction in the radio drama is much more compressed.
The clencher is that he dies in his dream life. What does that mean for the reality of his current life? Will his dreams end? The story never quite comes back to the current life, and deal with the man’s distraught condition.
The collection of short stories that includes this one, is available for free from Project Gutenberg. Search for: Twelve Stories and a Dream by H. G. Wells