The Ninth Wave

[Adrian N Ogden <ano@csres.cs.reading.ac.uk>]

Has anyone else out there got any idea what "The Ninth Wave" is about?
(I'm a somewhat-less-than-occasional reader of this group, so if there
has been an answer I've missed it.)

I've come to the conclusion that it's about a close brush with
death, and the soul/astral body being separated from the
material one. Preface everything which follows with IMHO.

"And Dream Of Sheep" - this introduces the character, a child
lost in her own dreamworld. She pays little attention to the
real world, her mind is always straying to an imaginary better
place, ("I can't be left to my imagination") and sleep is just
a doorway to that place.

"Under Ice" - It's winter and the land is covered in snow. (One
of the few settings in which the real world aquires a dreamlike
quality which would appeal to such a child.) Skating alone on
the frozen river, lost in her own world, the ice cracks and
gives way...

"Waking The Witch" - very metaphorical, as opposed to the
previous parts, this tries to describe simultaneously the
fear of drowning and the phenomenon of having one's life
flash before one's eyes. It does so by making her the subject
of a witchhunter trial, and her life is paraded before her
eyes and meticulously dissected. On top of fearing for her
life, this also brings in the question: "If I'm dying, am I
going to go to Heaven or Hell?" ("What say you, good people?
Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!")

"Watching You Without Me" - separated from her physical body,
she finds herself in/goes to her house, watching her family.
They know only that she's not returned home and that something
must be wrong. Seeing their concern is a revelation for her,
but in her disembodied form she can't speak to them.

"Jig Of Life" - travelling farther afield, she meets another
disembodied spirit. This one is truly dead, and is jealous of
her, for she still has a link to life. It wants the life force
that she still has.

"Hello Earth" - now the whole world is before her. At a glance
she can see all the far-flung places and people she has until
now only dreamed of. And still not knowing whether she will live
or die, she tries to see everything, to savour everything. This
is the fulfilment of all her dreams, but it might be the only
time she sees it all before she has to say goodbye to it forever.

"The Morning Fog" - returning to her body, she wakes up in her own
bed. Suddenly being alive, with her family, means more to her than
it ever has before. Now all she wants is the real world, because
she knows every dream has it's nightmare.

Or maybe it _was_ just a nightmare.


Does anyone have any different ideas? And can anyone explain
what the title "The Ninth Wave" means?

_______________________________________________________________________
   /||  ||\ ||   //\\    # "From his lips come truth, within insanity # 
  //||  ||\\||  ||  ||   #  And people passing by                     #
 //=||  || \||   \\//    #  Don't hear and cannot see"  -  Kings X    #
//ano@csres.cs.rdg.ac.uk #============================================#