I had ridden my bike over to a Mexican restaurant in the northeast part of town, where some friends of mine were holding a birthday party for another friend before they headed back to the house for the remainder of the festivities. Before I left the house, I reminded myself to take a shower, pick up my earrings from where I'd left them in the bathroom and put my keys (along with a few spare quarters) in my pocket, as these were the supplies I would need for the outing. I ended up initially forgetting the keys and coins, but I did walk out of the house with them the second time around.
When I eventually arrived at the party, I found that they'd begun dinner without me, but that was just fine because I wasn't really hungry in the first place. When I'd settled in with the guests, the squire of my dance team, Tabby, came over to sit next to me and asked if I would be attending practice the next day. I told her that regretfully, no, I would not be, as I would have yet another birthday party to attend the next day.
Dinner progressed and eventually finished, and we walked through a light, enjoyable rain back to the house (which was only a few blocks away). Upon our arrival, we all went to the roof where punch was being served. Music was being lined up by a DJ for the coming dance party, which was to occur once the sun went down.
About halfway through the party, in what I would guess to be the late-afternoon (it was still cloudy, so I couldn't tell exactly where the sun was, nor was I paying too much attention), I saw a woman riding a bike down on the sidewalk. Behind her, she towed a trailer with two girls seated comfortably in it. The woman had extremely curly, sandy-blonde hair, and the more I gazed at it, the more I began to realize that I knew this woman. Why, she was Mandrake's mother!
Without second thought, I climbed as hurriedly as I could through the window, raced downstairs, grabbed my bike and helmet (because Mom always warns me never to ride without one) and raced after the woman. But by this time, she was already out of sight, and I had no idea where she might have gone. Still, I pedalled quickly down the street, sure that I would be able to catch up with her eventually.
I soon entered another neighborhood that had appeared several times before in my dreamscape -- kind of an artsy place in the reclaimed-warehouse sort of way. The sidewalk was still wet and as I zoomed along, my tires kicked up great puddles behind me. At that point, I was completely happy.
However, only a few seconds later, a small dog raced, screeching and yapping at me, from the homely doorstep it was gaurding. I accelerated past, thinking I'd leave it behind once it was convinced I was no longer infringing upon it's territory, but it miraculously managed to keep pace with me, chugging it's stubby legs as fast as they would go. The little dog began snapping viciously at my ankles, despite the fact that they were still pedalling the bike. More and more dogs streamed from the front yards of houses and followed the example of the small dog until there were twelve or so of them on my tail.
I knew I had to find some way to escape them, or they would catch me and devour me. So, at the next warehouse, I jumped off my bike and ran into the building, slamming the door behind me.
The place I found myself in was quite peculiar. I was backstage of an amatuer auditions session for Shakespeare's "Macbeth." A couple of snotty-looking kids turned my way and favored me with a "What the hell do you think you're doing here" sneer that I had thought could only be pulled of by TV-show high school preps. These kids pulled it off with nastiness to spare.
I really wanted to leave, but I couldn't; the dogs were still waiting outside, I was quite sure of it. I looked around for a quiet corner where I could sit and look as inconspicuous as a broom or a mop, but I couldn't find one. the preps were called onto stage in short order though, so I was spared any more nasty stares.
Just when I had got to thinking that it might be safe to go outside again and reclaim my bike, a cute, blonde girl poked her head around the curtain, popped the pink bubblegum bubble that she had been blowing (it was quite and impressive one) with her teeth and said to me, "Oh, Green, there you are. We've been waiting ages for you!" At that, another girl with shoulder-length dark brown hair and freckles across the bridge of her nose stepped around the curtain.
"Yeah, come on, Green; we're going to be late for the dance-out!" she said, tugging at my sleeve. She was so earnest and kind that I felt my dream-self must know her well and trust her, so I followed her and the blonde girl out the back stage door. Thankfully, the dogs were no longer outside; they must have all returned to their houses.
Before we caught the bus from what had suddenly morphed from a warehouse into my high school, I stopped by the garden and grabbed my earrings from atop a gray rock; I'd been wearing them only a little while before, but they'd somehow appeared there and I knew I would need them with me. Otherwise, Mom would be furious that I'd lost them.
After that, the two girls and I were on our way: we caught the bus and took it to the train station downtown, where the dance-out was taking place. I wanted badly to join in with the dancing, but the girls dragged me on to the ladies' watercloset, where we had a serious discussion that I can't remember the details of. After that, we caught one of the trains and ended up back at the high school.
The two girls and I parted ways -- they walked back into the building, waving over their shoulders, and I scrambled to get on my bike before the dogs found me again. I knew if I tarried too long here and didn't build up enough speed before passing their domiciles, they'd have me in an instant.
I set off, not bothering to put on my helmet in my haste, and pedalled furiously away, this time riding down the middle of the traffic-devoid street. I was no longer concerned with the woman on the bike I'd been chasing before; in fact, I'd forgotten all about her. I made it safely back to the house where the party was still happening and rejoined the crowd on the roof, feeling oddly satisfied with my adventures for the day.
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
5/24/2011
I had taken on the role of the hobbit, Bilbo Baggins, and I was traveling with the thirteen dwarves -- though not through the expected setting of Middle Earth, but rather the cool, green pine forests along the shore of Lake Superior.
Evidently, we were on our way to visit the gym of one of the Pokemon trainers to negotiate on the behalf of Gandalf, who was away on business (he had recently become the director of an airline and was busy making some reformations).
The gym turned out to be a sumptuous mansion with a driveway three miles long. When we finally arrived at the front door, Ash Catch'em was standing in the doorway to welcome us. He showed us to a dimly-lit parlor, and we spent a forgettable couple of hours discussing terms for a lengthy contract concerning the airline. Sometime during these monotonous dronings-on (I was paying more attention to the refreshments served about half-way through), Pikachu wandered into the room and casually stowed himself away in one of the numerous pockets of my green cloak, shrinking a bit so as to fit. Nobody seemed to notice, and I thought nothing of it, assuming he only wanted a warm place to take a nap.
Eventually, having reached some sort of conclusion, the dwarves stood up; Thorin shook Ash's hand solemnly (I don't think there's ever been a moment where he wasn't solemn) and tucked a scroll into an inner pocket of his sky-blue cloak. Ash ordered the company to take the winding dirt roads on our way to Gandalf's airport (our next mission was to deliver the contract to him for signing), then he showed us out, wishing us safe travels. As we trudged down the long, gravel-covered driveway, the dwarves grumbled about how much time would be wasted if we took the back-roads instead of the highway, especially traveling on foot as we were. They all came to the agreement that we would disobey Ash's orders and take the quickest route to the airport.
A couple hours later while we were on the road, we got word from a talking raven that Ash's prized Pikachu had been swiped from the manor and that he was also on the lookout for a band of disobedient henchmen.
The dwarves got spooked, even though they didn't know that I had Pikachu. We ran to the next overpass and spent some time huddled underneath it while carriages, which presumably contained Ash's angry goons, rumbled overhead.
Finally, we made it to the airport and were ready to board the flight back to Middle Earth. The goons were hot on our tails, though, so there was no time to haggle Pikachu (my new little friend) through security. I ended up leaving him, looking very melancholy, in the Lost and Found bin.
We ran all the way to the boarding terminal and got on the plane just in time. Thorin and Balin, the two senior dwarves, took their places in the cockpit and we were finally on our way home, safe from Ash's schemes and soon to see Gandalf again. I wondered if the teacakes would still be good when I got back to my hobbit-hole.
Evidently, we were on our way to visit the gym of one of the Pokemon trainers to negotiate on the behalf of Gandalf, who was away on business (he had recently become the director of an airline and was busy making some reformations).
The gym turned out to be a sumptuous mansion with a driveway three miles long. When we finally arrived at the front door, Ash Catch'em was standing in the doorway to welcome us. He showed us to a dimly-lit parlor, and we spent a forgettable couple of hours discussing terms for a lengthy contract concerning the airline. Sometime during these monotonous dronings-on (I was paying more attention to the refreshments served about half-way through), Pikachu wandered into the room and casually stowed himself away in one of the numerous pockets of my green cloak, shrinking a bit so as to fit. Nobody seemed to notice, and I thought nothing of it, assuming he only wanted a warm place to take a nap.
Eventually, having reached some sort of conclusion, the dwarves stood up; Thorin shook Ash's hand solemnly (I don't think there's ever been a moment where he wasn't solemn) and tucked a scroll into an inner pocket of his sky-blue cloak. Ash ordered the company to take the winding dirt roads on our way to Gandalf's airport (our next mission was to deliver the contract to him for signing), then he showed us out, wishing us safe travels. As we trudged down the long, gravel-covered driveway, the dwarves grumbled about how much time would be wasted if we took the back-roads instead of the highway, especially traveling on foot as we were. They all came to the agreement that we would disobey Ash's orders and take the quickest route to the airport.
A couple hours later while we were on the road, we got word from a talking raven that Ash's prized Pikachu had been swiped from the manor and that he was also on the lookout for a band of disobedient henchmen.
The dwarves got spooked, even though they didn't know that I had Pikachu. We ran to the next overpass and spent some time huddled underneath it while carriages, which presumably contained Ash's angry goons, rumbled overhead.
Finally, we made it to the airport and were ready to board the flight back to Middle Earth. The goons were hot on our tails, though, so there was no time to haggle Pikachu (my new little friend) through security. I ended up leaving him, looking very melancholy, in the Lost and Found bin.
We ran all the way to the boarding terminal and got on the plane just in time. Thorin and Balin, the two senior dwarves, took their places in the cockpit and we were finally on our way home, safe from Ash's schemes and soon to see Gandalf again. I wondered if the teacakes would still be good when I got back to my hobbit-hole.
Saturday, May 21, 2011
5/21/2011
The year was 2051. It was winter, and the outdoor temperature was hovering around ninety-five degrees Fahrenhiet.
Of course, I was holed up inside. Everyone was holed up inside, just as they always were -- that is, of course, except for the dregs and radiation mutants.
You see, back in the thirties, a new painkiller was developed and put on the market. It was a real hit; it was more effective than Advil or Tylenol and was used in almost every household. What the pharmacists didn't know, though was thet when the tablet or gel capsule of the painkiller was exposed to sugar (outside of the digestive system), it became a heavily psychoactive drug. This, of course, was passed around quite prolifically and unstoppably, as everyone thought it was unaddictive and harmless. The drug, called "cloud," was distributed mainly in airports, trainstations and warehouses, or in places where statues were present. Earlier in my life, I'd had some pretty bad experiences with the kids hanging around these places.
However, reports started popping up of people who had gone missing after flying into unquellable rages while using cloud and running out into the night after horribly maiming or murdering everyone around them. By this time, it was getting dangerous to be out in the sun during the day, so it was assumed that they'd died.
Retrospectively, these cases all had a few things in common: the beserkers in question had all recieved the vaccinations against cancer that were now being handed out as freely as vaccines against the flu, they were all using cloud, and all of their freak-outs had occurred at night after the sun had set.
These beserkers were (well, are) the dregs; the reason everyone disposed of their painkillers, the reason no-one goes outside anymore, and the reason why no houses are allowed to have lights on at night. The dregs are attacted to and infuriated by it.
My family and I are currently staying in what used to be my grandmother's house, out in the suburbs. She died just a few years after this all started to happen. Some days, I wish I had met what seems to have been such a timely fate.
Anyways, this day dragged on like any normal day. Once the sun had risen, my brother, sister and I pulled on our astronaut suits (which had imporved over the years and became available to the general public "for all your traveling needs." Which reminds me: the richer class made a break for it at the beginning of the thirties and went to live on the moon.) and strapped on our oxygen tanks before opening the reinforced back door out onto the jungle that the world had become.
The plants and animals, of course, had adapted quickly, developing waxy coverings to keep out radiation and growing tougher, spiny skind to ward off dregs and radiation mutants. Humans, after living in evolutionary stagnancy for so long, had been incapable of adapting to the changes.
Our goal this afternoon was to replenish our stores of fruits, greens and meat, if we could find any of the latter. The fruits and veggies were easy; we'd always had a garden, so the smaller plots of stawberries, salad and flowers had transformed into larger areas for our mini-sustenence-farm that had grown up with the jungle. I'd never been so grateful for all the canning mom had done when I was a kid -- food preservation is extremely easy when you can just put all your edibles in glass jars in the basement.
Somehow, we ended up staying out past sunset, even though there was no way that the oxygen in our tanks could've lasted that long. The lights in the house were on, and I began to get the sickening feeling that we were being watched.
A strange, stick-thin man stepped around the corner of the house, regarding us with wide, huge eyes that reflected the moonlight in a perfect sheen, making him apppear blind. He smiled a slow, feral smile. That's when my siblings and I bolted for the door.
We managed to close the screen door on him, but couldn't manage the second, reinforced door for some inexplicable reason. As the dreg punched his hand through the glass, I woke up.
Of course, I was holed up inside. Everyone was holed up inside, just as they always were -- that is, of course, except for the dregs and radiation mutants.
You see, back in the thirties, a new painkiller was developed and put on the market. It was a real hit; it was more effective than Advil or Tylenol and was used in almost every household. What the pharmacists didn't know, though was thet when the tablet or gel capsule of the painkiller was exposed to sugar (outside of the digestive system), it became a heavily psychoactive drug. This, of course, was passed around quite prolifically and unstoppably, as everyone thought it was unaddictive and harmless. The drug, called "cloud," was distributed mainly in airports, trainstations and warehouses, or in places where statues were present. Earlier in my life, I'd had some pretty bad experiences with the kids hanging around these places.
However, reports started popping up of people who had gone missing after flying into unquellable rages while using cloud and running out into the night after horribly maiming or murdering everyone around them. By this time, it was getting dangerous to be out in the sun during the day, so it was assumed that they'd died.
Retrospectively, these cases all had a few things in common: the beserkers in question had all recieved the vaccinations against cancer that were now being handed out as freely as vaccines against the flu, they were all using cloud, and all of their freak-outs had occurred at night after the sun had set.
These beserkers were (well, are) the dregs; the reason everyone disposed of their painkillers, the reason no-one goes outside anymore, and the reason why no houses are allowed to have lights on at night. The dregs are attacted to and infuriated by it.
My family and I are currently staying in what used to be my grandmother's house, out in the suburbs. She died just a few years after this all started to happen. Some days, I wish I had met what seems to have been such a timely fate.
Anyways, this day dragged on like any normal day. Once the sun had risen, my brother, sister and I pulled on our astronaut suits (which had imporved over the years and became available to the general public "for all your traveling needs." Which reminds me: the richer class made a break for it at the beginning of the thirties and went to live on the moon.) and strapped on our oxygen tanks before opening the reinforced back door out onto the jungle that the world had become.
The plants and animals, of course, had adapted quickly, developing waxy coverings to keep out radiation and growing tougher, spiny skind to ward off dregs and radiation mutants. Humans, after living in evolutionary stagnancy for so long, had been incapable of adapting to the changes.
Our goal this afternoon was to replenish our stores of fruits, greens and meat, if we could find any of the latter. The fruits and veggies were easy; we'd always had a garden, so the smaller plots of stawberries, salad and flowers had transformed into larger areas for our mini-sustenence-farm that had grown up with the jungle. I'd never been so grateful for all the canning mom had done when I was a kid -- food preservation is extremely easy when you can just put all your edibles in glass jars in the basement.
Somehow, we ended up staying out past sunset, even though there was no way that the oxygen in our tanks could've lasted that long. The lights in the house were on, and I began to get the sickening feeling that we were being watched.
A strange, stick-thin man stepped around the corner of the house, regarding us with wide, huge eyes that reflected the moonlight in a perfect sheen, making him apppear blind. He smiled a slow, feral smile. That's when my siblings and I bolted for the door.
We managed to close the screen door on him, but couldn't manage the second, reinforced door for some inexplicable reason. As the dreg punched his hand through the glass, I woke up.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
3/15/2011
I was strolling through the airport with my father, carrying my worn, trusty, ten-year-old veteran of a backpack (which was presumably stuffed full of clothing and other necessities for a trip) and a furry, light blue Blue's Clue's briefcase (which was surprisingly light -- I couldn't fathom what could possibly be in there) that I have never seen in my life.
Eventually, we reached the car, which was parked next to an oddly-situated information booth. I threw my bags in the back and got in the front passenger's seat. Strange. Earlier on I had been under the impression that I was about to travel somewhere by plane. Perhaps my flight had been delayed for an egregious amount of time. It was raining pretty hard, but that didn't bother me.
Without ever seeming to have traveled anywhere, Dad and I were in the house again. My bags sat heaped on the couch, and I puttered around the kitchen, preparing a bowl of soup.
Looking at the soup can, I had the strange feeling that it was very familiar. "Where'd these come from?" I inquired.
Dad, who'd been standing at the back doorway since we'd come home, suddenly appeared at my shoulder. "Don't you remember, Green? You helped Bjorn make those this summer."
At that particular moment, I had no clue who Bjorn was...but after looking at the soup can for a while more (it read "Bjorn's Amazing Stew -- That Smoky Flavor You Won't Find Anywhere Else!" and had a picture of a chimp on a Hawaiian island playing guitar and smoking a cigar on it), memories started filtering back (these were really a mish-mash of events from other dreams, but oh well): making soup on the patio with Bjorn, trying to decide what ingredients were going to be in it; the night-time scene of somebody's back garden, filled with ferns and frond-y plants; walking along a beach somewhere in Thailand with Bjorn and a group of other peope when I was just four or five, stopping because we found an interesting carnivorous plant that would leap into the air, catch and devour anything that was thrown it's way; collecting seashells on a beach in Florida with Bjorn; and finally, the late nights from back when the now disbanded yoga club met up at the house with the fern-filled back garden, training themselves in balance and ease of contortion. "Oh," I said. "That Bjorn." Understatement.
I finished preparing the soup and then ate it, savoring the smoky flavor that I now knew came from copious amounts of chili powder and burning the soup on the bottom of the pot before canning it. By the time I was finished, it was nearly eight-o'-clock in the evening -- we were going to be late!
Dad and I bundled back into the car, Dad hurriedly explaining to me all the while what I was supposed to do when we got to the airport. Suffice to say, I heard everything he said, but didn't understand a snippet of what I was hearing, so by the time he dropped me off at the information booth where the car had been parked approximately two hours ago, I was utterly confused.
I decided I might try going through security, so I strolled over to where I knew it to be. Upon arriving there, I tried to check in and follow normal procedure, but my passing through the metal detector set off a horrid alarm. So I tried again. Same result. I beat a hasty retreat back to the little gray information booth, sat down on a train track that dead-ended when it hit the building, and put my head on my knees in despair.
Quite a while later, a duo of airport police officers' shoes appeared in my limited line of sight. They told me I couldn't sit here anymore. I jumped up in indignation; where else was I supposed to go?! I didn't know how an airport worked! They were already strutting away, though.
Fortunately, the man inside the information booth was kind enough to give me some assistance. He said that if I took the escalator directly in front of me going down, turned left and took the moving pathway heading that direction, I could bypass security and still board my plane on time. I thanked him, picked up my bags and walked to the escalators.
These presented another conundrum. Both the escalators were going up, and there was no hope of just walking down them because they were moving too fast. As I stood there, unsure of what action to take, a man came up behind me, pressed a button in between the escalators that I hadn't seen, and one of the pairs of stairs reversed the direction it was moving in. The man stepped casually onto the escalator. Well, that solved the problem. I followed suit.
The escalator was moving more rapidly than I had expected. At the bottom, it flung me off, nearly landing me on another rapidly moving walkway. I managed to straddle the path like you would a treadmill, and carefully extracted myself from the situation. I then prepared myself to ride the up-going escalator and hopped on. This time, I was ready for the dismount, and hopped off at the right time. I then took the down-going escalator again.
When I got off this time, I noticed there was something different about the room I was standing in. The back wall was missing, and through that hole I could see moonlit ferns swaying gently in the breeze. Forgetting my plane, I strolled into the garden.
Everything was there, just the way I remembered it. But that also meant...
Before I could finish that thought, the large pit-bull I had been expecting to see rounded the corner of the house, saw me, barked and started to advance towards me. Knowing this scene all too well, I turned and ran, jumping into a raised fern-bed that the dog couldn't reach and concealing myself in the ferns. Now, if I wanted, I could make my escape by jumping over the high picket fence that walled off the garden.
But I waited. The dog barked below me as though it had treed a raccoon, incessant and angry. Still, I waited.
Eventually, the French doors on the house slid open and out stepped a scowling little girl wearing a white sundress that glowed in the moonlight. "Hush, Puckett," she said, walking over to stand below the place where I was hidden. Yes, this was exactly like all my other dreams of this place.
She looked up and was about to discover me when, out of nowhere, some shelving to her left collapsed and tipped over on top of her and the dog, burying them in boardgames, buckets, cans of Bjorn's Amazing Stew and other items. I turned, jumped over the fence, and was devoured by a carnivorous plant. "Well, that was a new addition," I thought wryly.
Eventually, we reached the car, which was parked next to an oddly-situated information booth. I threw my bags in the back and got in the front passenger's seat. Strange. Earlier on I had been under the impression that I was about to travel somewhere by plane. Perhaps my flight had been delayed for an egregious amount of time. It was raining pretty hard, but that didn't bother me.
Without ever seeming to have traveled anywhere, Dad and I were in the house again. My bags sat heaped on the couch, and I puttered around the kitchen, preparing a bowl of soup.
Looking at the soup can, I had the strange feeling that it was very familiar. "Where'd these come from?" I inquired.
Dad, who'd been standing at the back doorway since we'd come home, suddenly appeared at my shoulder. "Don't you remember, Green? You helped Bjorn make those this summer."
At that particular moment, I had no clue who Bjorn was...but after looking at the soup can for a while more (it read "Bjorn's Amazing Stew -- That Smoky Flavor You Won't Find Anywhere Else!" and had a picture of a chimp on a Hawaiian island playing guitar and smoking a cigar on it), memories started filtering back (these were really a mish-mash of events from other dreams, but oh well): making soup on the patio with Bjorn, trying to decide what ingredients were going to be in it; the night-time scene of somebody's back garden, filled with ferns and frond-y plants; walking along a beach somewhere in Thailand with Bjorn and a group of other peope when I was just four or five, stopping because we found an interesting carnivorous plant that would leap into the air, catch and devour anything that was thrown it's way; collecting seashells on a beach in Florida with Bjorn; and finally, the late nights from back when the now disbanded yoga club met up at the house with the fern-filled back garden, training themselves in balance and ease of contortion. "Oh," I said. "That Bjorn." Understatement.
I finished preparing the soup and then ate it, savoring the smoky flavor that I now knew came from copious amounts of chili powder and burning the soup on the bottom of the pot before canning it. By the time I was finished, it was nearly eight-o'-clock in the evening -- we were going to be late!
Dad and I bundled back into the car, Dad hurriedly explaining to me all the while what I was supposed to do when we got to the airport. Suffice to say, I heard everything he said, but didn't understand a snippet of what I was hearing, so by the time he dropped me off at the information booth where the car had been parked approximately two hours ago, I was utterly confused.
I decided I might try going through security, so I strolled over to where I knew it to be. Upon arriving there, I tried to check in and follow normal procedure, but my passing through the metal detector set off a horrid alarm. So I tried again. Same result. I beat a hasty retreat back to the little gray information booth, sat down on a train track that dead-ended when it hit the building, and put my head on my knees in despair.
Quite a while later, a duo of airport police officers' shoes appeared in my limited line of sight. They told me I couldn't sit here anymore. I jumped up in indignation; where else was I supposed to go?! I didn't know how an airport worked! They were already strutting away, though.
Fortunately, the man inside the information booth was kind enough to give me some assistance. He said that if I took the escalator directly in front of me going down, turned left and took the moving pathway heading that direction, I could bypass security and still board my plane on time. I thanked him, picked up my bags and walked to the escalators.
These presented another conundrum. Both the escalators were going up, and there was no hope of just walking down them because they were moving too fast. As I stood there, unsure of what action to take, a man came up behind me, pressed a button in between the escalators that I hadn't seen, and one of the pairs of stairs reversed the direction it was moving in. The man stepped casually onto the escalator. Well, that solved the problem. I followed suit.
The escalator was moving more rapidly than I had expected. At the bottom, it flung me off, nearly landing me on another rapidly moving walkway. I managed to straddle the path like you would a treadmill, and carefully extracted myself from the situation. I then prepared myself to ride the up-going escalator and hopped on. This time, I was ready for the dismount, and hopped off at the right time. I then took the down-going escalator again.
When I got off this time, I noticed there was something different about the room I was standing in. The back wall was missing, and through that hole I could see moonlit ferns swaying gently in the breeze. Forgetting my plane, I strolled into the garden.
Everything was there, just the way I remembered it. But that also meant...
Before I could finish that thought, the large pit-bull I had been expecting to see rounded the corner of the house, saw me, barked and started to advance towards me. Knowing this scene all too well, I turned and ran, jumping into a raised fern-bed that the dog couldn't reach and concealing myself in the ferns. Now, if I wanted, I could make my escape by jumping over the high picket fence that walled off the garden.
But I waited. The dog barked below me as though it had treed a raccoon, incessant and angry. Still, I waited.
Eventually, the French doors on the house slid open and out stepped a scowling little girl wearing a white sundress that glowed in the moonlight. "Hush, Puckett," she said, walking over to stand below the place where I was hidden. Yes, this was exactly like all my other dreams of this place.
She looked up and was about to discover me when, out of nowhere, some shelving to her left collapsed and tipped over on top of her and the dog, burying them in boardgames, buckets, cans of Bjorn's Amazing Stew and other items. I turned, jumped over the fence, and was devoured by a carnivorous plant. "Well, that was a new addition," I thought wryly.
Monday, March 14, 2011
3/13/2011
It was a cool summer afternoon, and by that I mean that it was seventy degrees Fahrenheit (at the least) in the shade, and if you were lucky, the humidity was low enough for things to be bearably hot and stifling. My boyfriend (here referred to as Mandrake) and I, my siblings (Sol and Rose) and my mother were strolling through Minnehaha Park, a place I've been to a bare few times in my life, but that I'm still greatly enamored with.
Evidently, a festival of sorts was taking place there today: people lounged about on blankets thrown over the grass, children ran barefoot from the hills to the stream and back again, live music was playing and food was being made available.
Mom and Sol parted ways with us, saying they were going down to the stream to cool off. Mandrake, Rose and I shrugged and ambled over to where a group of people were performing an acapella line-up. Suddenly, they started singing Jason Mraz's "I'm Yours." Rose and I jumped up and joined their circle, which was now singing and dancing, as the song was quite familiar to us and we were fond of it. Mandrake watched bemusedly from the grass, perhaps humming along.
By the time the song was over, the whole park was singing and clapping in time with the music. the performers finished with a soulful flourish, the crowd clapped and ululated, we bowed and congratulated each other. It was only then that I realized the person next to me was a boy from my past -- he had been one of my closest friends for a long time, and it had been about five years since I last saw him. We'll refer to him here as Mac.
As I gaped at him in surprise, he looked over at me smilingly, offering a hand to shake, but as he took in who I was, he dropped his hand and his expression changed to mimic my own. Of course, afterwards came the general excitement of encountering someone close to you who had been gone for many years. I thought to introduce Mac to Mandrake, but he seemed to have disappeared without my noticing before now. I was vaguely worried, but I figured he could take care of himself. Besides, I suspected that he had transformed into Mac for some reason I couldn't put my finger on.
Anyways, Mac, Rose (she was happy to see him, too) and I spent the remainder of the afternoon in merry frolicking and catching up. It was a pleasant enough dream.
Evidently, a festival of sorts was taking place there today: people lounged about on blankets thrown over the grass, children ran barefoot from the hills to the stream and back again, live music was playing and food was being made available.
Mom and Sol parted ways with us, saying they were going down to the stream to cool off. Mandrake, Rose and I shrugged and ambled over to where a group of people were performing an acapella line-up. Suddenly, they started singing Jason Mraz's "I'm Yours." Rose and I jumped up and joined their circle, which was now singing and dancing, as the song was quite familiar to us and we were fond of it. Mandrake watched bemusedly from the grass, perhaps humming along.
By the time the song was over, the whole park was singing and clapping in time with the music. the performers finished with a soulful flourish, the crowd clapped and ululated, we bowed and congratulated each other. It was only then that I realized the person next to me was a boy from my past -- he had been one of my closest friends for a long time, and it had been about five years since I last saw him. We'll refer to him here as Mac.
As I gaped at him in surprise, he looked over at me smilingly, offering a hand to shake, but as he took in who I was, he dropped his hand and his expression changed to mimic my own. Of course, afterwards came the general excitement of encountering someone close to you who had been gone for many years. I thought to introduce Mac to Mandrake, but he seemed to have disappeared without my noticing before now. I was vaguely worried, but I figured he could take care of himself. Besides, I suspected that he had transformed into Mac for some reason I couldn't put my finger on.
Anyways, Mac, Rose (she was happy to see him, too) and I spent the remainder of the afternoon in merry frolicking and catching up. It was a pleasant enough dream.
Unremembered Date
It was drizzling lightly as my friend (here referred to as "Elayne") and I walked down a rutted and muddy track bordered by fall-season forest that led to an open field. We had just met up there, seemingly by coincidence, and were heading to a cultural dance event that was to take place at the field. I had recently escaped from what promised to ultimate doom. Let me tell you about it.
I had been traveling with a band of knights, though they were not exactly the paladin-type knights-in-shining-armor one normally envisions when talking about these things. Sure, they had the swords, the armor and the brawn, but they were, in character, more the scruffy, roving, take-what-you-can-get-when-you-can-get-it rogues that can either cause a person great mischief or great fortune. Fortunately, it seemed I was in their good favor.
However, we had become trapped on a raised platform of stone, about five-and-a-half feet tall, that was surrounded by a low stone wall. For some reason, we couldn't escape. The motley crew of men were huddled around a fire they had built, feeling grim and desolate.
That was when the first cloaked figure rode by on a horse. As he passed, he flicked something silver high in the air. It landed on my palm with a satisfying "plip" sound, and I saw that it was a quarter. On the back was the California quarter design. One I've never encountered before.
I turned triumphantly towards the men, only to realize that they were staring at me in shock and horror.
"Put. That. Down," one of them hissed.
I tilted my palm and let the quarter drop to the ground.
"No, I meant outside the prison!" he said, hysteria rising in his voice. "Now, only three hundred and thirty-two to go...Oh, we'll never make it out of here alive."
Bewildered, I stooped to pick up the coin, but could not part it from the stone of the platform. It was stuck, though by no means that I could see.
At that moment, another rider came past, flicking more coins into our hollow as he did so. It became clear to me that if the hollow was filled with three hundred and thirty-three quarters, the whole place would go up in flames and no-one would be able to escape.
We spent the next hour madly trying to catch quarters and throw them out into the forest or somehow pry the quarters that had landed on the floor off of it. All to no avail.
It was a while before I got a grip on things and just left, jumping to the ground from a hole in the wall. None of the knights noticed me leaving, and in no time at all I found the path and met up with Elayne.
By this time, we had reached the field. I was surprised to see that there were no Morris dancers present, except for Elayne and myself. All the rest of the people were from a local Hmong traditional dance group.
Elayne and I walked up to them and began to learn a dance. It was fun, but I can't remember any of what we were doing. About halfway through, I noticed Elayne had disappeared.
I made my excuses to the dancers and set out to find her. Eventually, I discovered a track much like the one we had followed into the field, except that along this one there was a railway upon which rested sleek, black, carriage-style train cars. One of the porters beckoned to me to join him on the train, but I, distrustful of him and the train, shook my head and stuck to the muddy path. I hoisted my skirts and walked.
At last, I arrived at -- you guessed it -- the Mall of America, though in this dream it was a different version, made all out of reflective copper and silver, black velvet and poshness. It had a kind of steam-punky feel to it, though this was more ominous. I had a feeling that Elayne was in trouble.
I found her in an elevator, staring blankly into the shining metal wall at her reflection and whispering quietly to herself.
"Elayne," I said softly, reaching out to touch her shoulder.
At the sound of her name, she whipped around, turning her blank stare on me for a fraction of a second before her facial features returned to their more normal state. "Oh, hi there, Green," she said pleasantly. "You should check this out, it's really jazzy," she chirped, turning to face her makeshift mirror again as her eyes glazed over.
I stared at her in confusion. There was nothing reflected in the metal except the pair of us.
"It's really cool. I got these implants in my eyes that allow me to see things written on pieces of glass or other reflective surfaces. It's like somebody breathed on a cold windowpane and is writing in it with their finger," Elayne said, still transfixed by her reflection.
"What sorts of things?" I asked, grimly fascinated.
"Oh, stuff like relevant advertising, the latest gossip," said she, as if it were perfectly normal to want to read about these things non-stop.
"Alright," I replied, trying to hide my worry. The elevator bell dinged and we stepped out into a part of the mall that looked a little more like shopping centers usually do: all sparkling lights, polished surfaces and easy-listening music. I privately shuddered.
"Ooo, let's look in there!" squealed Elayne, pointing to a jewelery store immediately in front of us. I decided it was best to humor her at this point, so we walked over.
A Jamaican man met us at the door and led us on a tour through his shop. He refused, however, to show us the back room, claiming that there was something extremely dangerous, a medusa, in there. But, while he was distracted by a girlishly giggling group of customers, Elayne and I crept into the off-limits room.
Inside, we found Elayne's older sister. She turned around and smiled cutely at as, then continued arranging jewelery on a mannequin. For some reason, Elayne and I both agreed that it wasn't safe for her sister to stay with the Jamaican man anymore, so we brought her with us when we left. He didn't notice she was leaving.
We caught the carriage-train back to the field and rejoined the Hmong dancers before my dream ended.
I had been traveling with a band of knights, though they were not exactly the paladin-type knights-in-shining-armor one normally envisions when talking about these things. Sure, they had the swords, the armor and the brawn, but they were, in character, more the scruffy, roving, take-what-you-can-get-when-you-can-get-it rogues that can either cause a person great mischief or great fortune. Fortunately, it seemed I was in their good favor.
However, we had become trapped on a raised platform of stone, about five-and-a-half feet tall, that was surrounded by a low stone wall. For some reason, we couldn't escape. The motley crew of men were huddled around a fire they had built, feeling grim and desolate.
That was when the first cloaked figure rode by on a horse. As he passed, he flicked something silver high in the air. It landed on my palm with a satisfying "plip" sound, and I saw that it was a quarter. On the back was the California quarter design. One I've never encountered before.
I turned triumphantly towards the men, only to realize that they were staring at me in shock and horror.
"Put. That. Down," one of them hissed.
I tilted my palm and let the quarter drop to the ground.
"No, I meant outside the prison!" he said, hysteria rising in his voice. "Now, only three hundred and thirty-two to go...Oh, we'll never make it out of here alive."
Bewildered, I stooped to pick up the coin, but could not part it from the stone of the platform. It was stuck, though by no means that I could see.
At that moment, another rider came past, flicking more coins into our hollow as he did so. It became clear to me that if the hollow was filled with three hundred and thirty-three quarters, the whole place would go up in flames and no-one would be able to escape.
We spent the next hour madly trying to catch quarters and throw them out into the forest or somehow pry the quarters that had landed on the floor off of it. All to no avail.
It was a while before I got a grip on things and just left, jumping to the ground from a hole in the wall. None of the knights noticed me leaving, and in no time at all I found the path and met up with Elayne.
By this time, we had reached the field. I was surprised to see that there were no Morris dancers present, except for Elayne and myself. All the rest of the people were from a local Hmong traditional dance group.
Elayne and I walked up to them and began to learn a dance. It was fun, but I can't remember any of what we were doing. About halfway through, I noticed Elayne had disappeared.
I made my excuses to the dancers and set out to find her. Eventually, I discovered a track much like the one we had followed into the field, except that along this one there was a railway upon which rested sleek, black, carriage-style train cars. One of the porters beckoned to me to join him on the train, but I, distrustful of him and the train, shook my head and stuck to the muddy path. I hoisted my skirts and walked.
At last, I arrived at -- you guessed it -- the Mall of America, though in this dream it was a different version, made all out of reflective copper and silver, black velvet and poshness. It had a kind of steam-punky feel to it, though this was more ominous. I had a feeling that Elayne was in trouble.
I found her in an elevator, staring blankly into the shining metal wall at her reflection and whispering quietly to herself.
"Elayne," I said softly, reaching out to touch her shoulder.
At the sound of her name, she whipped around, turning her blank stare on me for a fraction of a second before her facial features returned to their more normal state. "Oh, hi there, Green," she said pleasantly. "You should check this out, it's really jazzy," she chirped, turning to face her makeshift mirror again as her eyes glazed over.
I stared at her in confusion. There was nothing reflected in the metal except the pair of us.
"It's really cool. I got these implants in my eyes that allow me to see things written on pieces of glass or other reflective surfaces. It's like somebody breathed on a cold windowpane and is writing in it with their finger," Elayne said, still transfixed by her reflection.
"What sorts of things?" I asked, grimly fascinated.
"Oh, stuff like relevant advertising, the latest gossip," said she, as if it were perfectly normal to want to read about these things non-stop.
"Alright," I replied, trying to hide my worry. The elevator bell dinged and we stepped out into a part of the mall that looked a little more like shopping centers usually do: all sparkling lights, polished surfaces and easy-listening music. I privately shuddered.
"Ooo, let's look in there!" squealed Elayne, pointing to a jewelery store immediately in front of us. I decided it was best to humor her at this point, so we walked over.
A Jamaican man met us at the door and led us on a tour through his shop. He refused, however, to show us the back room, claiming that there was something extremely dangerous, a medusa, in there. But, while he was distracted by a girlishly giggling group of customers, Elayne and I crept into the off-limits room.
Inside, we found Elayne's older sister. She turned around and smiled cutely at as, then continued arranging jewelery on a mannequin. For some reason, Elayne and I both agreed that it wasn't safe for her sister to stay with the Jamaican man anymore, so we brought her with us when we left. He didn't notice she was leaving.
We caught the carriage-train back to the field and rejoined the Hmong dancers before my dream ended.
Unremembered Date
I became conscious of the dream as my friends and I passed through a tea room on the third floor of the Mall of America. It was a familiar area, though one that I'd only ever visited in other dreams, at the time associating it with an art gallery. This time, though, the lighting was moody and brooding, the tables were small, circular and adorned with tea-lights, and there were no beanbags to speak of. Around the tables were seated snappy-looking business people, all uptight and tense in their shiny black shoes; they sipped their coffee (which was a black as their shoes) through precisely pursed lips, crossed, uncrossed and recrossed their legs, and adjusted the positions of their briefcases -- which were as equally shiny and angular as their apparel -- with a terseness and neatness that I found irritating to the extreme.
My group of friends swaggered noisily and unbotheredly through the tense atmosphere, chatting , laughing and goofing off. We flung open the double doors at the end of the room, letting the bright illumination flooding from skylights beyond the door to permeate some of the gloom of the tea room. As we departed, I turned and noticed with satisfaction that some of the room's occupants were grimacing and wincing in the sunlight. I left the door open as I ran to catch up with my friends.
At the food court, we parted ways, the more rambunctious of my friends wandering off into an amusement park section of the mall, leaving myself, my boyfriend and one of our quieter friends to fend for ourselves and go where we pleased.
Hoping to escape the hubbub and nerve-wracking humdrum of the building itself, we decided to go picnic on the front lawn (I had some food in my backpack, as I avoid eating mall food when I can). The mall doesn't really have a front lawn at all, but there was, to our knowledge, quite a verdant one waiting just beyond the sidewalks that led to the mall's entrances. Unfortunately, we would have to navigate our way through the all-too-garishly-colored theme park before we could take our luncheon.
We began to resignedly wend our way through the park, dodging anxious, flustered mothers, their runaway, sugar-high children wearing wheeled shoes, bored fathers, school groups, and vendors hawking their wares like you wouldn't believe. Ignoring all of this, we hurried through mazes of roller coaster lines, balloon stands, and ticket booths, finally emerging into a cobblestone-floored plaza; escape was near at hand!
I looked around me, grinning, hoping to share some wry witticism with my boyfriend or with my other friend, but they were nowhere to be found. Had they gotten lost in the crush of the crowd? I called out for them breathlessly, verging on panic, but I shouldn't have worried, for they stepped out from behind a hot-dog vendor's cart a moment later.
Travelling in company again, we stepped through the revolving doors and into the sunshine.
It was a bright, Spring-like day. Filled with a sudden enthusiasm, for the sun was like a balm to my worries, I cartwheeled across the lawn, springing and bouncing with delight. I came to a stop sprawled on the lawn, giggling to myself and staring up at the clouds. I waited for a few moments for the other two to catch up, but they didn't come. I heard their laughing voices retreating into the woods behind the mall. What were they doing? We were supposed to be having a picnic, but somehow my boyfriend had my backpack and he and my other friend were walking into the woods and ditching me.
In the time it took for me to register my immediate confusion and (surprisingly for me) anger, they had already turned a bend in the path and disappeared from my view. I sprung to my feet and ran into the woods after them.
For a long while I chased the two, never seeming to be able to catch them. Sometimes, as I rounded a corner, I would see them strolling ahead of me, casually holding hands and chatting amiably before they disappeared from my view again. Occasionally, I would hear one of the laugh from what sounded like very close by, and I would get excited, nervous, confused and angry all over again, thinking that I was about to happen upon them.
The farther I chased them into the woods, the more lost I became. The trees started morphing into shelving that held all manner of pharmaceuticals in shiny glass bottles, the carpet of underbrush turned into linoleum tiling, and woodland creatures took on the semblance of employees. One of them, a kind-looking blonde-haired lady, tried to stop me as I strode past her, asking what was wrong and if she could help me with anything. I shoved past her, paying her no heed, and opened a pair of double doors.
It was only when I stepped into the tea room, whose atmosphere didn't seem so unsuitable anymore, that I noticed I was crying. The double doors closed behind me and everything went black.
My group of friends swaggered noisily and unbotheredly through the tense atmosphere, chatting , laughing and goofing off. We flung open the double doors at the end of the room, letting the bright illumination flooding from skylights beyond the door to permeate some of the gloom of the tea room. As we departed, I turned and noticed with satisfaction that some of the room's occupants were grimacing and wincing in the sunlight. I left the door open as I ran to catch up with my friends.
At the food court, we parted ways, the more rambunctious of my friends wandering off into an amusement park section of the mall, leaving myself, my boyfriend and one of our quieter friends to fend for ourselves and go where we pleased.
Hoping to escape the hubbub and nerve-wracking humdrum of the building itself, we decided to go picnic on the front lawn (I had some food in my backpack, as I avoid eating mall food when I can). The mall doesn't really have a front lawn at all, but there was, to our knowledge, quite a verdant one waiting just beyond the sidewalks that led to the mall's entrances. Unfortunately, we would have to navigate our way through the all-too-garishly-colored theme park before we could take our luncheon.
We began to resignedly wend our way through the park, dodging anxious, flustered mothers, their runaway, sugar-high children wearing wheeled shoes, bored fathers, school groups, and vendors hawking their wares like you wouldn't believe. Ignoring all of this, we hurried through mazes of roller coaster lines, balloon stands, and ticket booths, finally emerging into a cobblestone-floored plaza; escape was near at hand!
I looked around me, grinning, hoping to share some wry witticism with my boyfriend or with my other friend, but they were nowhere to be found. Had they gotten lost in the crush of the crowd? I called out for them breathlessly, verging on panic, but I shouldn't have worried, for they stepped out from behind a hot-dog vendor's cart a moment later.
Travelling in company again, we stepped through the revolving doors and into the sunshine.
It was a bright, Spring-like day. Filled with a sudden enthusiasm, for the sun was like a balm to my worries, I cartwheeled across the lawn, springing and bouncing with delight. I came to a stop sprawled on the lawn, giggling to myself and staring up at the clouds. I waited for a few moments for the other two to catch up, but they didn't come. I heard their laughing voices retreating into the woods behind the mall. What were they doing? We were supposed to be having a picnic, but somehow my boyfriend had my backpack and he and my other friend were walking into the woods and ditching me.
In the time it took for me to register my immediate confusion and (surprisingly for me) anger, they had already turned a bend in the path and disappeared from my view. I sprung to my feet and ran into the woods after them.
For a long while I chased the two, never seeming to be able to catch them. Sometimes, as I rounded a corner, I would see them strolling ahead of me, casually holding hands and chatting amiably before they disappeared from my view again. Occasionally, I would hear one of the laugh from what sounded like very close by, and I would get excited, nervous, confused and angry all over again, thinking that I was about to happen upon them.
The farther I chased them into the woods, the more lost I became. The trees started morphing into shelving that held all manner of pharmaceuticals in shiny glass bottles, the carpet of underbrush turned into linoleum tiling, and woodland creatures took on the semblance of employees. One of them, a kind-looking blonde-haired lady, tried to stop me as I strode past her, asking what was wrong and if she could help me with anything. I shoved past her, paying her no heed, and opened a pair of double doors.
It was only when I stepped into the tea room, whose atmosphere didn't seem so unsuitable anymore, that I noticed I was crying. The double doors closed behind me and everything went black.
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