This was a long dream.
At first I was in an old house, a kind of boarding school for troubled children. Each child had some strange and bizarre mental disorder. I can't remember most of them, but I'll get to one of the main children later.
The children, all dressed in Victorian era clothing, went on a field trip in the mountains. It was a beautiful trip, filled with these towns I've dreamed about previously, including the one where a giant stage was built on the edge of a peak. It was winter, but not crushingly winter, if you know what I mean. The bus left one of the towns, but it was short three people, plus myself, though I was more of a floating spirit in this dream.
The three people, two adults and one child, had no way of contacting the bus, and after waiting for a while, they decided to make the trek back to the boarding school by themselves. Insert dream visions of sweeping vistas where the three walked along glaciers, around majestic peaks, and so forth.
I realized the three wouldn't last long walking through the mountains so came up with backstory of one of the adults. She was a young adult, maybe 20, and she used to live with her aunt in one of the nearby towns. They walked to her aunt's house, only to find it was abandoned. The power was on, but none of the lights worked in the ground floors.
They went to the basement to find it was full of long letters written in a script only the young woman could read. There was food in the basement and the lights worked. The little girl who had been complaining strongly about hunger, tucked into the meal while she listened to the older women.
The young lady had started reading the letters and came across one with the numbers to open a safe in town and a warning that once opened, things would move quickly. The aunt seemed to have some kind of vision about the three of them. The young lady was intrigued, but on the suggestion of the older woman, decided not to open the safe.
They went into town to get supplies, suddenly careful not to mention the bus to anyone, but gossip was heavy in the town and they learned the bus had come through and had been looking for them. The other teachers on the bus were distraught they had left their precious teacher, older student, and young boarding girl behind and would take a reward for anyone that saw them.
The young woman made sure to tell everyone she was visiting her aunt and had nothing to do with the bus. The young girl... Somehow she came into the town with the paper with the numbers to open the safe on them and when they went to the post office, she saw the PO box that was actually the safe. She opened it and pulled out children's books and more letters and descriptions of the boarding school.
The boarding school, the letters wrote, was actually and evil place. After each field trip, they would round up everyone there and take them away, never to be seen again.
When the little girl told the others about the letters, they decided to go to the school in secret and sneak in and see what they could find.
My dream jumped here, there was something about them closing up the aunt's house, but then they were just at the boarding school with very little between.
The boarding school was a mess of a building. Built on the mountain, it was in multiple levels. The outside of the house was a long dorm. It was crawling with men in dark clothing and no children were around. The girl decided to sneak into the dorm via a window that led to a storage room. She left the window open and snuck in.
None of the children were there alive, but they were all around dead. There were long pits filled with meat eating worms and snakes and she could see the remains of some of her friends down there. With horror she kept looking around and my memory is vague, but all the students and adults had been used in large pits with various creatures in strange black magic rituals. The hole place, the little girl decided, was a factory for black magic.
Distraught and horrified, she went back to the storage room to leave, but as she did, one of the black mages felt the cold of the open window and shut it. She was not strong enough to open it, nor get in the storage room once the mage closed the door. She was trapped inside the building!
My dream shifted. It was years later at a modern school. The girl was a teenager now, but something happened to her mind. She could no longer retain her memories, they were tied up in things and people. It was crazy. For classes, she had to go to her locker and pull out the items that kept the memories from each class in them. For math class, the memories were tied up in rulers and calculators. For science class it was notebooks filled with chemical equations and such.
She had two lockers. One with the primary memories, and a second with the darker, older memories. To get to the second locker she had to open the first and find the scrap of paper with the combination to the second.
I had focused on the locker combination. 36-18-4. I remembered the combination, but she didn't. She was very frustrated by this and the bell was about to ring, but she had to get her items for the next class.
One of her best friends was with her, and she could remember the first number. The first friend was joined by a second, and she could remember the second number. Right as the bell was ringing her third friend came and she could remember all three. In desperation she opened the first locker, but realized she had to get into the second. Never in her scattered memory could she remember having to have people around to know the numbers to the locker.
She opened the first, dug out the objects for the next class, and took the paper to the second locker, only to find it was opened. Her three friends were quick to explain they had been curious why she had been given an extra locker and had a friend who could break combination locks hack into the locker so they could see what was in there. None of them could understand the old, moldy children books, dusty and crumbling dead flowers, and other Victorian era items in there.
The girl had to explain about her memories being attached to objects. At the same time she was pulling out item after item, searching for something that would tell her if she'd ever had to have people around to remember things. Her fingers brushed one of the children's books from the aunt's home and memories flooded back to her.
Before she had gotten to the modern school, she hadn't been able to control her memory powers and had done some horrible things.
The one I remember most clearly is she had a pet dog that stored a lot of thoughts for her. Happy thoughts. She didn't understand how to take care of the dog because the dog had no memories stored of animal care. So when she was done playing with the dog and remembering things because of him, she would stuff him into a closet and go on her merry way, not realizing she should have put him in his crate and fed and watered him. Naturally the dog got sick and near death before someone at the place she was staying figured out about the dog and came in after her to take care of it.
She was back at school, then, thinking of her memories. The ones stored in the dried flowers, she realized, would be gone soon. She couldn't pull memories from one object to another and she couldn't figure out how to store a memory in something specific. For example, her car held the thoughts for how to drive in the various parts. So if her car broke and they replaced something that held the thoughts on how to brake, she wouldn't know how to stop the car.
I started to wake up at this point and realized what a sad girl she would be. Unable to remember anything unless she had the object, and unable to function without some things constantly on her person. She wanted to figure out the boarding school and what had happened, but to do that she'd have to collect the objects that held those memories. And memories like that took her right back into the place she had been, as if she was dreaming. So finding those objects would mean her having a vivid dream about them, including her being stuck in the boarding school, hiding from the black mages while they did terrible things to her friends.
I really woke up at this point and started writing this all down but holy cow! What a long dream!
Monday, May 28, 2012
Saturday, May 26, 2012
Red Balloon for Caturday!
Fly away, fly away to Caturday! Where the days are full of cat naps and lazing around like a Smokeyfur!
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| Smokeyfur on Caturday! |
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Prompt and Share: Undead killing
This is a short story based on the main character of my undead/zombie story. This is in the point of view of the undead, Mikael. I dunno how much of this will make sense without knowing more about the story, but I hope it makes some sort of sense. This was for a Wednesday Prompt-and-Share by Nina Pelletier.
Per the prompt:
According to the world calendar, today is World Turtle Day. So we are going to write about turtles. Okay, I'm kidding. But in honor of World Turtle Day today's prompt will focus on having a tough outer shell. What is your character carefully hiding beneath their hard surface?
hint keep in mind and use the "sense of the unknown"
Word Limit 500
The usual still applies: At least one character, one setting, one conflict and one resolution
Per the prompt:
According to the world calendar, today is World Turtle Day. So we are going to write about turtles. Okay, I'm kidding. But in honor of World Turtle Day today's prompt will focus on having a tough outer shell. What is your character carefully hiding beneath their hard surface?
hint keep in mind and use the "sense of the unknown"
Word Limit 500
The usual still applies: At least one character, one setting, one conflict and one resolution
Her command reverberated into my dead bones. I could no more ignore her bidding than I could stop my constant hunger for living flesh. I looked over the city’s wall, the horde beating against the wall looked like ants from this height. I knew why they beat against stone walls. Inside it were humans with blood pumping through their veins. The hunger I felt was tempered by logic and the orders of my mistress, but the horde below us followed their blind hunger for living flesh. Their mistress did not care for her undead to think or reason. She was a goddess of death.
My mistress was little more than a girl trying to save the humans. I was her only weapon.
I heard the breath catch in my mistress’ throat as I leapt onto the thick stone balustrade and fell down into the horde below. I wanted to land head first and kill myself, but I couldn’t. I had to kill them.
I landed hard, my legs snapping as they took the brunt of the fall. I fell into a heap of broken bones. I would survive, I had the human flesh of a criminal I had been allowed to eat in my belly. Human flesh gave me the strongest magic. Without my feast, I would not be able to do this task.
Bones stitched themselves back together and tendons tightened. My muscles grew in strength and speed. The armor that was my skin became thicker. My metal nails grew long and sharp. By the time I rolled back up to my feet, my body was whole and ready for battle.
I began to fight my kin. At first I could see the confusion in their face. Why was one of their kin attacking them? The confusion turned to anger as I betrayed my people and murdered them. I replaced the anger in their glowing eyes with the bliss of death. My undead heart did not beat, I drew no breath, but I still felt my chest tightening in anger as I became the weapon my mistress wanted me to be.
I knew the humans on the wall rejoiced as a circle of true dead formed around me. I did not see victory. I was giving my brethren the peace of a true death and I envied them. No, I hated them.
I cut into them with sharp strokes of my claws, I dug my hands into their chests and heads and ripped out their dead brains and hearts. I was violent, a whirlwind of destruction. Despite the chaos I created, every one died with peace in their faces. I hated the peace they were given.
My soul was dead and withered inside me but it still wanted a freedom I would never be given.
Too soon there were no more undead to kill. I had laid them all to rest. I slumped to my knees as the last of the human flesh burning in my belly faded. I was empty of magic, empty of thought, empty of movement.
The humans cheered on the wall, they believed they were safe. More would come. I would fight my kin again. I was nothing but a weapon for the humans, a weapon to kill my own people.
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Dreamtime Dreamscape: Barrels of Moonshine
Last night was very bizarre dream. It took me a while to remember it, but I have scenes stuck in my head. I'll do my best to write what I remember.
It started out with me at some hotel in the Appalachian mountains. It was made up of run down cabins deep in the woods. Everything was covered with thick vegetation and the sound of crickets. The hotel manager, a man with a strange gerhuckle laugh and one good tooth, told me that one of the features of the place was their big wood tubs, like what them pioneers used to use. I could order one of the bath tubs, or barrels used to brew beer and moonshine. Apparently the idea of soaking in an old barrel once used to make moonshine was a big selling point. The manager said it would make one's skin really soft.
Curious, I ordered one. Then I decided that just being curious wasn't reason enough. I told myself I was a writer and reporter, come to investigate the claims of better skin through moonshine barrels.
I started going through the history of these barrels. Each barrel was big enough for a grown man to lay down in, and in the olden days they would cut open a hole on the side, prop the barrel up on some logs, and fill it with water and moonshine, then set it over a fire to get warm. Once the water was warm, they would bathe in the water.
But why would they warm it, I asked myself? These were tough frontiersmen, they were hard men, used to going without anything. Why would they need warm water?
They wouldn't, I decided. They would drop the tubs in lakes and rivers and let the river water fill them up, but somehow having the moonshine mixed with the water would warm it up enough that the barrels would stay slightly warmer than the lake water.
This was somehow important. There was some huge secret in the moonshine.
I took a bath in one of the barrels and ordered a few to make my own beer. I started my own distillery in the cabin I was renting, making beer out of fruits and tree leaves. Outside my dreams I don't like beer, but this brew was fantastic.
But you can't make beer out of fruits and tree leaves! This alarmed me. There had to be another story to all of this! I had to dig deeper...
I went back in time to when they were creating these moonshine bath barrels. The manufacture of them was held in secret. I had to plant secret wiretaps in the rooms of these secret meetings. Somehow I had salt crystals which also acted as wiretaps, and I had little bits of paper. The little bits of paper were very important to the tradition of barrel making. The recipe for the moonshine was written on small scraps of paper, and I knew someone on the moonshine committee who would write little bigs of the recipe on scraps of paper I would pick up after the meetings.
I disguised myself as a cleaning lady. I went into the secret rooms to clean up and spilled salt over the tables to scrub out the tough stains and to put down my salt crystal wire taps, then I hid little bits of paper in the corners and crevices of the table, walls, and benches. It was how people shove scraps of paper between the floor and chair stops to keep a chair from squeaking or being uneven. I had to be careful not to be caught.
The moonshine meetings started and I waited impatiently to hear what was going on.
I started reviewing what I knew and kept seeing these moonshine men making their brews in the waters and lakes of the area. Only, it wasn't moonshine they were making, it was bath salts. That was the secret, what everything thought was booze was bath salts. The salts kept the bugs away, and the barrels were dumped everywhere there was water, and in my time I would be able to dive under almost every lake in the mountains and find a secret barrel where once salty moonshine was made for the purposes of bathing.
I was secreted the recipe by the scraps of paper and found out it was high in salt, but these moonshine men knew what they were doing. The tree leaves used to make the beer and moonshine were high in natural ingredients that kept them from getting truly drunk on the moonshine, yet restored their skin to being healthy after hard labor, so they would live longer.
It was soon after this that I woke up. I think I had started filling my own barrel with this strange mixture of water, salt, and booze, in order to help myself have soft skin, get slightly tipsy, and live longer. The rest of the dream is fuzzy in my head, the last thing I really remember is this barrel on it's side with a hole in it, vines draped over it as if it'd been there for a long time. It was a hidden barrel, missing for generations in the woods and I was filling it up with cold water that became hot when it sat in the barrel. I was exited about this, but I woke up before I knew why I was so excited about this particular barrel...
It started out with me at some hotel in the Appalachian mountains. It was made up of run down cabins deep in the woods. Everything was covered with thick vegetation and the sound of crickets. The hotel manager, a man with a strange gerhuckle laugh and one good tooth, told me that one of the features of the place was their big wood tubs, like what them pioneers used to use. I could order one of the bath tubs, or barrels used to brew beer and moonshine. Apparently the idea of soaking in an old barrel once used to make moonshine was a big selling point. The manager said it would make one's skin really soft.
Curious, I ordered one. Then I decided that just being curious wasn't reason enough. I told myself I was a writer and reporter, come to investigate the claims of better skin through moonshine barrels.
I started going through the history of these barrels. Each barrel was big enough for a grown man to lay down in, and in the olden days they would cut open a hole on the side, prop the barrel up on some logs, and fill it with water and moonshine, then set it over a fire to get warm. Once the water was warm, they would bathe in the water.
But why would they warm it, I asked myself? These were tough frontiersmen, they were hard men, used to going without anything. Why would they need warm water?
They wouldn't, I decided. They would drop the tubs in lakes and rivers and let the river water fill them up, but somehow having the moonshine mixed with the water would warm it up enough that the barrels would stay slightly warmer than the lake water.
This was somehow important. There was some huge secret in the moonshine.
I took a bath in one of the barrels and ordered a few to make my own beer. I started my own distillery in the cabin I was renting, making beer out of fruits and tree leaves. Outside my dreams I don't like beer, but this brew was fantastic.
But you can't make beer out of fruits and tree leaves! This alarmed me. There had to be another story to all of this! I had to dig deeper...
I went back in time to when they were creating these moonshine bath barrels. The manufacture of them was held in secret. I had to plant secret wiretaps in the rooms of these secret meetings. Somehow I had salt crystals which also acted as wiretaps, and I had little bits of paper. The little bits of paper were very important to the tradition of barrel making. The recipe for the moonshine was written on small scraps of paper, and I knew someone on the moonshine committee who would write little bigs of the recipe on scraps of paper I would pick up after the meetings.
I disguised myself as a cleaning lady. I went into the secret rooms to clean up and spilled salt over the tables to scrub out the tough stains and to put down my salt crystal wire taps, then I hid little bits of paper in the corners and crevices of the table, walls, and benches. It was how people shove scraps of paper between the floor and chair stops to keep a chair from squeaking or being uneven. I had to be careful not to be caught.
The moonshine meetings started and I waited impatiently to hear what was going on.
I started reviewing what I knew and kept seeing these moonshine men making their brews in the waters and lakes of the area. Only, it wasn't moonshine they were making, it was bath salts. That was the secret, what everything thought was booze was bath salts. The salts kept the bugs away, and the barrels were dumped everywhere there was water, and in my time I would be able to dive under almost every lake in the mountains and find a secret barrel where once salty moonshine was made for the purposes of bathing.
I was secreted the recipe by the scraps of paper and found out it was high in salt, but these moonshine men knew what they were doing. The tree leaves used to make the beer and moonshine were high in natural ingredients that kept them from getting truly drunk on the moonshine, yet restored their skin to being healthy after hard labor, so they would live longer.
It was soon after this that I woke up. I think I had started filling my own barrel with this strange mixture of water, salt, and booze, in order to help myself have soft skin, get slightly tipsy, and live longer. The rest of the dream is fuzzy in my head, the last thing I really remember is this barrel on it's side with a hole in it, vines draped over it as if it'd been there for a long time. It was a hidden barrel, missing for generations in the woods and I was filling it up with cold water that became hot when it sat in the barrel. I was exited about this, but I woke up before I knew why I was so excited about this particular barrel...
Monday, May 21, 2012
Failed bread
A while ago I tried to make bread. It didn't turn out... Being the blogger that I am, I will post on my sad, sad failure. I was using the recipe for sourdough bread from The Bread Baker's Apprentice by Peter Reinhart, a very good book on bread baking.
Clearly I didn't listen to the part of the book that talked about being patient. I think the biggest problem was I didn't let the sourdough starter sit out long enough to get the proper yeast development, and after that I didn't let the bread poof long enough. Our house tends to be on the cool side, so I really need to remember to double any poof time.
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| Final bread, very small |
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| Bread pulled apart. Absolutely no bubbles. Dense as a brick |
Sunday, May 20, 2012
Eye of the Kendall!
To the tune of "Eye of the Tiger"
It's the eye of the Kendall
It's the thrill of chasing mice
Risin' up to the nomming
Of the goooshies
And the last known kittah
Stalks her bowl in the night
And she's watching us all with the
EYE OF THE KENDALL
<pencil guitar riff>
It's the thrill of chasing mice
Risin' up to the nomming
Of the goooshies
And the last known kittah
Stalks her bowl in the night
And she's watching us all with the
EYE OF THE KENDALL
<pencil guitar riff>
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Dreamscape Dreamtime: Knee Surgery
I should start this one out by saying I hate knee surgery. I see operative reports every now and then on laparoscopic knee surgery and every time it makes my stomach turn and I feel sick. It just makes me sick to think about things mucking with my kneecaps... My phobia of kneecaps started very young when I read The Oath of Gold at a young age and well... it has some torture in it that involves kneecaps. Blehuhuhrrrrch...
So last night my brain decided to play a prank on me. I had a dream about bone spurs on the kneecap. Ewwww!
So I was limping around in my dream, hardly able to get around. Somehow I knew I was in college and I had to get to classes. I had to get my knee fixed, I could see the bone spurs on the kneecap under my skin. Shudder.
I had the surgery. Thank goodness my brain skipped the surgery part. Or maybe I just blocked it out from my waking memory... Ok, well, I do remember parts of it. Giant daggers of bone sticking out of round kneecaps, surrounded by twitching red muscle and pale tendons. A telescoping camera stuck under a flap of skin. Gross!
The doctor told me that he’d taken out some pretty big bone spurs, so I’d have to take it easy for a week or two.
Now me, I’m stubborn, even in my dreams. I had to get to my college classes, which were being held downtown in this old main street where the buildings were tall, stacked next to each other, and built on narrow streets with few parking spots. It felt like London during the Industrial Revolution, or what I would expect that to look. Closely built brown brick buildings, lots of people rushing around.
I had to go, the surgery had put me back a few days of college and I just knew I couldn’t miss any more classes. So instead of staying home, I drove and got the closest parking spot to my classes as I could, then used my crutches to get to class. The pain was intense! I kept crying out in pain but no one would listen. Everyone on the street just walked past me as if I wasn’t even there.
My alarm must have gone off and mentally I got out of that pain filled part of my dream and I was in my classes. I had one class where the teacher was unsympathetic to my pain and demanded I get all my work done, no matter how much I hurt. I kept pointing at my knees, which did this creepy opening up to show the inside of my knee like a rose opening up, thing that really made me sick. Excuse me while I gag under my breath for a second...
The second teacher, though, he was an old gym teacher I had. He started yelling at me as if I was crazy for getting out of bed. I told him about the bone spurs and about the last teacher who’d had no sympathy, and he nearly blew a gasket he was so mad.
My dream shifted.
Suddenly I was the doctor, the surgeon that had scraped the bone spurs. I was walking down this old main street, avoiding panhandlers, when I saw my patient hobbling around so close after surgery and walked quickly to her. I asked her why she was even up and she told me she had to get to classes. I wanted to scream at her, but I saw the pain in her eyes, so I told her to get into my car and I would bring her home. She refused, saying she had her own car.
The gym teacher came out of one of the red stone buildings and between the two of us, we got the girl up on our shoulders and pretty much forced her to the car. I explained on the way that the bone spur removal was not a minor surgery. She wanted to be stubborn, but I didn’t let her.
I guess soon after that I woke up, mostly grossed out. It was so strange for me to dream about a procedure that is more like a nightmare to me. It made me a little queasy when I woke up. Blechy.
So last night my brain decided to play a prank on me. I had a dream about bone spurs on the kneecap. Ewwww!
So I was limping around in my dream, hardly able to get around. Somehow I knew I was in college and I had to get to classes. I had to get my knee fixed, I could see the bone spurs on the kneecap under my skin. Shudder.
I had the surgery. Thank goodness my brain skipped the surgery part. Or maybe I just blocked it out from my waking memory... Ok, well, I do remember parts of it. Giant daggers of bone sticking out of round kneecaps, surrounded by twitching red muscle and pale tendons. A telescoping camera stuck under a flap of skin. Gross!
The doctor told me that he’d taken out some pretty big bone spurs, so I’d have to take it easy for a week or two.
Now me, I’m stubborn, even in my dreams. I had to get to my college classes, which were being held downtown in this old main street where the buildings were tall, stacked next to each other, and built on narrow streets with few parking spots. It felt like London during the Industrial Revolution, or what I would expect that to look. Closely built brown brick buildings, lots of people rushing around.
I had to go, the surgery had put me back a few days of college and I just knew I couldn’t miss any more classes. So instead of staying home, I drove and got the closest parking spot to my classes as I could, then used my crutches to get to class. The pain was intense! I kept crying out in pain but no one would listen. Everyone on the street just walked past me as if I wasn’t even there.
My alarm must have gone off and mentally I got out of that pain filled part of my dream and I was in my classes. I had one class where the teacher was unsympathetic to my pain and demanded I get all my work done, no matter how much I hurt. I kept pointing at my knees, which did this creepy opening up to show the inside of my knee like a rose opening up, thing that really made me sick. Excuse me while I gag under my breath for a second...
The second teacher, though, he was an old gym teacher I had. He started yelling at me as if I was crazy for getting out of bed. I told him about the bone spurs and about the last teacher who’d had no sympathy, and he nearly blew a gasket he was so mad.
My dream shifted.
Suddenly I was the doctor, the surgeon that had scraped the bone spurs. I was walking down this old main street, avoiding panhandlers, when I saw my patient hobbling around so close after surgery and walked quickly to her. I asked her why she was even up and she told me she had to get to classes. I wanted to scream at her, but I saw the pain in her eyes, so I told her to get into my car and I would bring her home. She refused, saying she had her own car.
The gym teacher came out of one of the red stone buildings and between the two of us, we got the girl up on our shoulders and pretty much forced her to the car. I explained on the way that the bone spur removal was not a minor surgery. She wanted to be stubborn, but I didn’t let her.
I guess soon after that I woke up, mostly grossed out. It was so strange for me to dream about a procedure that is more like a nightmare to me. It made me a little queasy when I woke up. Blechy.
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Dreamtime Dreamscape: The Aristocrat
The night before last's dream was a long one, mostly because I kept hitting my alarm clock and dreamed between snooze buttons.
I was an aristocrat lady, in my 20s, and I was trying to stop being an aristocrat. The dream from what I remember started with some kind of dinner ball. The ballroom was made up of huge pond lilies, on each lily leaf was a table with fantasticly dressed people with mostly gothic dresses, the tables and chairs were all set high above the lilies. It gave the impression that the lilies were in the basement, and the tables and chairs were on stilts that went up to the first floor. Yet.. there wasn't any floor. It was like a Salvador Dali painting, with the tables on stilts that went down impossibly far.
It was all dramatically lit, with colored stain glass lights here and there. The tables were all black… Anyway, I was on the side of the room where there was an actual floor at the level of the tables and I was yelling at someone in the middle of the ball room about how I didn't want to be an aristocrat anymore. I think it was my mother or the Queen, or both. They told me I'd never survive outside the lifestyle I was used to. How could I when I knew nothing about living on my own without servants?
I stormed off in a rage, walking through hallways, bypassing busy servants on my way to my rooms. The whole building seemed to be built on these lilies, so it was more like I was walking along walkways, yet the door frames off the walkways didn't show the inside of the rooms, just the doors.
I got to my room and opened the door. The room was lavish, but I ignored the rich wood furnishings and went to the closet and pulled out a plain dress. Somehow I got out of the black gothic dress myself. Also, somehow my body was a lot smaller than I am, more like how I had looked when I was a young teenager. This happens a lot in my dreams.
I left the mansion by way of a giant three way walkway that curved around the lilies and onto the actual ground. The city outside the lily mansion was huge, dirty, and looked a little like Bowerstone from Fable 3. There was a huge gated door in front of the mansion, the three way walkway split into different levels and plain clothed servants were everywhere. I had to stop on the side of a walkway to catch my breath. I nearly was pushed off the walkway and somehow knew landing in the water under the lilies was not a good idea.
My dream is a little unclear with what happened next. I have a memory of me learning how to wait tables, but being terrible at it. This is true in real life, too. The one waitressing job I had I was miserable at it. I woke up at some point in all this while I was walking along a dusty street, lamenting my escape from the mansion and it's easy life. After I punched the snooze button and went back to sleep I was back at the mansion, leaping between tables in the ballroom and wondering how come none of the other guests thought it was strange their tables floated a story off the ground.
I fell at some point in my leaping, and it was the falling that jolted me awake. I didn't fall asleep after that.
I was an aristocrat lady, in my 20s, and I was trying to stop being an aristocrat. The dream from what I remember started with some kind of dinner ball. The ballroom was made up of huge pond lilies, on each lily leaf was a table with fantasticly dressed people with mostly gothic dresses, the tables and chairs were all set high above the lilies. It gave the impression that the lilies were in the basement, and the tables and chairs were on stilts that went up to the first floor. Yet.. there wasn't any floor. It was like a Salvador Dali painting, with the tables on stilts that went down impossibly far.
It was all dramatically lit, with colored stain glass lights here and there. The tables were all black… Anyway, I was on the side of the room where there was an actual floor at the level of the tables and I was yelling at someone in the middle of the ball room about how I didn't want to be an aristocrat anymore. I think it was my mother or the Queen, or both. They told me I'd never survive outside the lifestyle I was used to. How could I when I knew nothing about living on my own without servants?
I stormed off in a rage, walking through hallways, bypassing busy servants on my way to my rooms. The whole building seemed to be built on these lilies, so it was more like I was walking along walkways, yet the door frames off the walkways didn't show the inside of the rooms, just the doors.
I got to my room and opened the door. The room was lavish, but I ignored the rich wood furnishings and went to the closet and pulled out a plain dress. Somehow I got out of the black gothic dress myself. Also, somehow my body was a lot smaller than I am, more like how I had looked when I was a young teenager. This happens a lot in my dreams.
I left the mansion by way of a giant three way walkway that curved around the lilies and onto the actual ground. The city outside the lily mansion was huge, dirty, and looked a little like Bowerstone from Fable 3. There was a huge gated door in front of the mansion, the three way walkway split into different levels and plain clothed servants were everywhere. I had to stop on the side of a walkway to catch my breath. I nearly was pushed off the walkway and somehow knew landing in the water under the lilies was not a good idea.
My dream is a little unclear with what happened next. I have a memory of me learning how to wait tables, but being terrible at it. This is true in real life, too. The one waitressing job I had I was miserable at it. I woke up at some point in all this while I was walking along a dusty street, lamenting my escape from the mansion and it's easy life. After I punched the snooze button and went back to sleep I was back at the mansion, leaping between tables in the ballroom and wondering how come none of the other guests thought it was strange their tables floated a story off the ground.
I fell at some point in my leaping, and it was the falling that jolted me awake. I didn't fall asleep after that.
Sunday, May 13, 2012
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
Of Mobsters and Magic
From a prompt and share Tuesday on G+. The rules are: 750 words max - write a short story (Must include setting, conflict, resolution and character) that starts with the same first lined used in JD Salinger's A Catcher in the Rye
“If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.
Why would I? I hated my parents, who wouldn’t? They were parlor trick magicians with a talent for separating their customers from their money for the mob’s casino in Vegas. I didn’t believe in magic then, but I knew way too much about the mob.” I snorted.
“Leaving was a mistake, I knew that when I packed my bags, but I had to leave. There was no way I’d be able to live around my parents, not after what they’d done. I’d hoped the mob wouldn’t care what happened to the weakest daughter. My parents assumed I was an idiot and told the mobsters as much every chance they got.
Well, turns out the mob did care. Enough to send me flowers. The flowers were coated in arsenic. Very mobster-ish and I had expected it. I threw the flowers in the tub and burned them. Then burned the house down.” I smiled dreamily and took a long drag on my cigarette.
“The firemen had acted as I’d expected. My house wasn’t near anything that would be catastrophic if it burned, and I had made sure they would want to hurry over to the grocery store fire instead. Saving the only grocery store in town took precedence over a nearly abandoned house.
Once the firemen left, I crawled back in the smoldering house and found a place for my twin’s body. My parents killed her before I left getting pregnant by the wrong... ah... client.” I pursed my lips in annoyance, but continued.
“I’d exhumed the body from her cheap grave and brought her there to take my place. It was a trick none of them would expect. As I left the house, I built the fire back up. The smell of burning flesh accompanied me when I left. It took days to get the smell out of my clothes.” I shuddered. The smoke, I think that’s what changed me.
“What does a girl do when they’re free and presumed dead?” I asked. Their blank stares made it clear to me these cops were morons.
I continued before they could say anything asinine. “Get a facelift, wear contacts, and become a can-can dancer at Vegas, of course!” I said brightly. They gave each other a confused look. I know I looked too weak to be a can-can dancer. So I just crossed my legs and fluffed my hair.
“And then?” asked the cops.
“Then kill the mob boss. And your parents, who caused the mess in the first place.” I smiled darkly. “Did you know even the big man, the Godfather Bigs himself, squealed like a pig when I dragged that fire poker into his stomach? Smelled terrible, but that, gentleman, was worth the smell.”
The cops looked from one another, raising their eyebrows. I knew what they were thinking. There’s no way a sickly lady like myself could have done such terrible things. The mob case, it had long since closed. To the law, it had been a mob war gone horribly wrong. The great Cooper Mancinnicho had swooped in after Bigs had died. He set up his enemies to take the fall for Bigs’ death and never let on that it had all been done by one small woman who looked too weak to hold a glass of champagne, much less gut Bigs like the pig he was.
“Why’re you telling us all this, Miss Bluestone?” the first cop asked. The second looked at the two way mirror at the other end of the interrogation room.
I gave him a sweet smile. “To clear my conscious.”
“Of the deaths?” the cop asked, leaning closer to me.
I nodded and took another pull of the cigarette. “So you would know why the Bluestone Magic Duo was killed along with Bigs. I wanted you to know. Before...” I paused, exhaling a puff of pure white smoke into the face of the cop.
He blinked furiously at the pungent smell.
“Before what?” the second cop asked, looking back at me.
I grinned wider and pulled on the magic that kept me frail and weak looking, but gave me powers beyond anything these cops could understand. “... before I disappear...” I murmured. I was not above a little drama. I was gone in a puff of smoke.
Why would I? I hated my parents, who wouldn’t? They were parlor trick magicians with a talent for separating their customers from their money for the mob’s casino in Vegas. I didn’t believe in magic then, but I knew way too much about the mob.” I snorted.
“Leaving was a mistake, I knew that when I packed my bags, but I had to leave. There was no way I’d be able to live around my parents, not after what they’d done. I’d hoped the mob wouldn’t care what happened to the weakest daughter. My parents assumed I was an idiot and told the mobsters as much every chance they got.
Well, turns out the mob did care. Enough to send me flowers. The flowers were coated in arsenic. Very mobster-ish and I had expected it. I threw the flowers in the tub and burned them. Then burned the house down.” I smiled dreamily and took a long drag on my cigarette.
“The firemen had acted as I’d expected. My house wasn’t near anything that would be catastrophic if it burned, and I had made sure they would want to hurry over to the grocery store fire instead. Saving the only grocery store in town took precedence over a nearly abandoned house.
Once the firemen left, I crawled back in the smoldering house and found a place for my twin’s body. My parents killed her before I left getting pregnant by the wrong... ah... client.” I pursed my lips in annoyance, but continued.
“I’d exhumed the body from her cheap grave and brought her there to take my place. It was a trick none of them would expect. As I left the house, I built the fire back up. The smell of burning flesh accompanied me when I left. It took days to get the smell out of my clothes.” I shuddered. The smoke, I think that’s what changed me.
“What does a girl do when they’re free and presumed dead?” I asked. Their blank stares made it clear to me these cops were morons.
I continued before they could say anything asinine. “Get a facelift, wear contacts, and become a can-can dancer at Vegas, of course!” I said brightly. They gave each other a confused look. I know I looked too weak to be a can-can dancer. So I just crossed my legs and fluffed my hair.
“And then?” asked the cops.
“Then kill the mob boss. And your parents, who caused the mess in the first place.” I smiled darkly. “Did you know even the big man, the Godfather Bigs himself, squealed like a pig when I dragged that fire poker into his stomach? Smelled terrible, but that, gentleman, was worth the smell.”
The cops looked from one another, raising their eyebrows. I knew what they were thinking. There’s no way a sickly lady like myself could have done such terrible things. The mob case, it had long since closed. To the law, it had been a mob war gone horribly wrong. The great Cooper Mancinnicho had swooped in after Bigs had died. He set up his enemies to take the fall for Bigs’ death and never let on that it had all been done by one small woman who looked too weak to hold a glass of champagne, much less gut Bigs like the pig he was.
“Why’re you telling us all this, Miss Bluestone?” the first cop asked. The second looked at the two way mirror at the other end of the interrogation room.
I gave him a sweet smile. “To clear my conscious.”
“Of the deaths?” the cop asked, leaning closer to me.
I nodded and took another pull of the cigarette. “So you would know why the Bluestone Magic Duo was killed along with Bigs. I wanted you to know. Before...” I paused, exhaling a puff of pure white smoke into the face of the cop.
He blinked furiously at the pungent smell.
“Before what?” the second cop asked, looking back at me.
I grinned wider and pulled on the magic that kept me frail and weak looking, but gave me powers beyond anything these cops could understand. “... before I disappear...” I murmured. I was not above a little drama. I was gone in a puff of smoke.
Sunday, May 6, 2012
Dreamtime Dreamscape: The Garage
I've been having a reoccurring theme in my dreams for the past two nights about throwing things out and rebuilding. Last night I dreamed I was at the house I grew up in, only it wasn't exactly like that dream (as is in the manner of dreams) Specifically I was dreaming about the garage. Somehow, things were stuck in the rafters of the garage, and we had to seal it from the inside.
I had come to the house when we had a lot of friends over, old friends that I grew up around. They were helping us clear out the garage. Now, as a kid, the garage was used to store things, not our cars, so I can understand where the dream came from, once every five years or so we'd clean out the garage so we could park the cars in it.
So the garage was filled with all kinds of stuff. Stuff from other dreams. Ropes I had seen in a nautical dream. Some little bits and bobs from the thrift store nightmare dream. A lot of packaging material from all kinds of dreams. We pulled all of it out and made it to the floor of the garage when something yellow-green spat out of the rafters and dribbled down onto the mattress that was across the rafters as well.
Dad was there, he didn't want the mattress to get ruined. He also said that he had a spray we could use to coat the inside of the garage to keep it from rotting. In the manner of dreams, all of a sudden the wood in the rafters was really old and really brittle. We got everything out of the garage in a manner of moments, and I was handed a spray wand like comes at the end of hoses, and was told to spray this magical liquid across all the wood.
The spray was noxious. Full of bad fumes and it would burn my eyes if I got it in them, but I gave my mask and goggles to my dad, insisting he use them instead of me. We started spraying this snot colored liquid around. It made a perfectly clear varnish over all the wood surfaces and we were doing very good keeping it from getting on me or in my eyes, but every now and then I'd have to clench my eyes shut and stop breathing just to keep it from getting in my face. I can imagine these were moments where the cpap had to work hard to keep me breathing from my apnea. It just fits too well that I'd stop breathing in my dream and in real life.
It was a horrible part of the dream, doing that varnishing, climbing around in the endless rafters, but we got it done.
Then we had to lug all the stuff from the garage into the swamp. The swamp I grew up around makes the occasional appearance in my dreams, usually a lot bigger and more mysterious than it really was. Instead of just lugging everything around to the back of the house and dumping it over the retaining wall as I did growing up as a child, this time we treked across our neighbors yard, into the next yard, and then to the back of the houses into the swamps. It was mostly the packaging material, but all of us tromped ourselves back there in one long line.
I was starting to wake up at this point, so I questioned my dreams. Why did we walk all the way over, through the neighbors yards? I asked. Because, we couldn't bring the stuff down a steep incline, down the hill, because it would roll off. No, because some of the stuff was liquid. Of course. My dream brain comes up with all kinds of logical excuses.
So we got everything into the swamp. The dreamtime huge swamp with it's giant trees, and bubbling green water, where all manner of things live in the murky, cattail covered depths, and I thought to myself There, my chores are done, now I can wake up knowing that garage is clean and varnished.
And so that's what I did. I woke up.
I had come to the house when we had a lot of friends over, old friends that I grew up around. They were helping us clear out the garage. Now, as a kid, the garage was used to store things, not our cars, so I can understand where the dream came from, once every five years or so we'd clean out the garage so we could park the cars in it.
So the garage was filled with all kinds of stuff. Stuff from other dreams. Ropes I had seen in a nautical dream. Some little bits and bobs from the thrift store nightmare dream. A lot of packaging material from all kinds of dreams. We pulled all of it out and made it to the floor of the garage when something yellow-green spat out of the rafters and dribbled down onto the mattress that was across the rafters as well.
Dad was there, he didn't want the mattress to get ruined. He also said that he had a spray we could use to coat the inside of the garage to keep it from rotting. In the manner of dreams, all of a sudden the wood in the rafters was really old and really brittle. We got everything out of the garage in a manner of moments, and I was handed a spray wand like comes at the end of hoses, and was told to spray this magical liquid across all the wood.
The spray was noxious. Full of bad fumes and it would burn my eyes if I got it in them, but I gave my mask and goggles to my dad, insisting he use them instead of me. We started spraying this snot colored liquid around. It made a perfectly clear varnish over all the wood surfaces and we were doing very good keeping it from getting on me or in my eyes, but every now and then I'd have to clench my eyes shut and stop breathing just to keep it from getting in my face. I can imagine these were moments where the cpap had to work hard to keep me breathing from my apnea. It just fits too well that I'd stop breathing in my dream and in real life.
It was a horrible part of the dream, doing that varnishing, climbing around in the endless rafters, but we got it done.
Then we had to lug all the stuff from the garage into the swamp. The swamp I grew up around makes the occasional appearance in my dreams, usually a lot bigger and more mysterious than it really was. Instead of just lugging everything around to the back of the house and dumping it over the retaining wall as I did growing up as a child, this time we treked across our neighbors yard, into the next yard, and then to the back of the houses into the swamps. It was mostly the packaging material, but all of us tromped ourselves back there in one long line.
I was starting to wake up at this point, so I questioned my dreams. Why did we walk all the way over, through the neighbors yards? I asked. Because, we couldn't bring the stuff down a steep incline, down the hill, because it would roll off. No, because some of the stuff was liquid. Of course. My dream brain comes up with all kinds of logical excuses.
So we got everything into the swamp. The dreamtime huge swamp with it's giant trees, and bubbling green water, where all manner of things live in the murky, cattail covered depths, and I thought to myself There, my chores are done, now I can wake up knowing that garage is clean and varnished.
And so that's what I did. I woke up.
Saturday, May 5, 2012
SUPER BINX!
Is that a bird? Is that a plane? Is that a blimp!? NO! IT'S SUPER BINX!
Fly away Super Binx, fly away! Woooooooooosh!
 |
| Super Binx is here to save the day! |
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Dreamtime Dreamscape: Bring Ara to Work Day
So last night I had a dream based on a job I used to have. I was working at an office building in a downtown metropolis and it was my first day. Apparently I'd worked the job the summer before, I kept flashing back to this dreamscape college that I apparently attended for most of the year, and the year previous where I had been in a long line of computer desks, puttering away on a computer.
The supervisor who met me at the door to the office told me that they'd changed a few things and really wanted to show me them. She started climbing up a flight of stairs, and we ended in this abandoned floor. Everything looked like a barn, not some high rise, and I was really fascinated by the views.
The supervisor led me up across some of the ceiling beams and through a false roof and through a skylight and we were on top of the building. On the roof, which was a giant patio that clearly wasn't used much. Out in the distance I could see other high rise buildings and looking down I could see a huge park, lots of white concrete, and flying soldiers a'la a sci fi movie. Soldiers in flying exo suits were buzzing from here or there, approving ships to come into harbor. Yeah, somehow that park turned into a busy city port while I had looked away.
I was also wearing a huge trenchcoat and told her that I had to bring my cat, Ara, with me to my first day of work. She said that was fine. Ara was stuffed in my coat, quietly sleeping.
We clambered back down to a classroom type room, where rows of computers were set up on desks that faced the blackboard. I was stationed in the teacher's desk at the back of the room and was told to get the computer running with my old passwords from the summer before. I asked why I was given the teacher's position and was told it was only temporary, depending on how well I worked.
The pressure was on. I logged in and looked around. All the other desks had new computers, but I was running an old school computer, Windows 95 or something. Ara started waking up and I kept her under my coat because another supervisor came in to check up on things and I knew he didn't like cats. A few of my new co-workers were some of my friends from High School and I thought it was weird they automatically wanted me to be their trainer. Somehow I knew I'd do an ok job at it, but I had to get Ara somewhere that wasn't the office first. I was living in a dorm that had constant traffic and if I left her there, someone would open the door and she would escape. I thought to myself "I don't need to dream about the cats escaping from that dorm again because I dreamed that a few months ago." Which is true, I had that dream a few months ago in vivid detail.
Ara started squirming and I put her in a animal tote box. She started having to go to the bathroom and I was told I had to get her out of the office. I told them that I was only bringing her to work on this first day because I had to find a good place for her to stay while I was working, the place I was staying at didn't take good care of cats. My dad was coming to pick her up, I said.
I called dad and he teleported into the office room, no more than a foot away from me. This pissed the supes off because no one was supposed to be able to port into the building, but dad said he was part of special defense so he was given the clearance. I woke up with the supervisors and my dad arguing, and me petting Ara and keeping her happy, and my high school friends asking me how to log on. Also, when I logged on, I had a few hundred e-mails and notifications. Then I was truly awake.
The supervisor who met me at the door to the office told me that they'd changed a few things and really wanted to show me them. She started climbing up a flight of stairs, and we ended in this abandoned floor. Everything looked like a barn, not some high rise, and I was really fascinated by the views.
The supervisor led me up across some of the ceiling beams and through a false roof and through a skylight and we were on top of the building. On the roof, which was a giant patio that clearly wasn't used much. Out in the distance I could see other high rise buildings and looking down I could see a huge park, lots of white concrete, and flying soldiers a'la a sci fi movie. Soldiers in flying exo suits were buzzing from here or there, approving ships to come into harbor. Yeah, somehow that park turned into a busy city port while I had looked away.
I was also wearing a huge trenchcoat and told her that I had to bring my cat, Ara, with me to my first day of work. She said that was fine. Ara was stuffed in my coat, quietly sleeping.
We clambered back down to a classroom type room, where rows of computers were set up on desks that faced the blackboard. I was stationed in the teacher's desk at the back of the room and was told to get the computer running with my old passwords from the summer before. I asked why I was given the teacher's position and was told it was only temporary, depending on how well I worked.
The pressure was on. I logged in and looked around. All the other desks had new computers, but I was running an old school computer, Windows 95 or something. Ara started waking up and I kept her under my coat because another supervisor came in to check up on things and I knew he didn't like cats. A few of my new co-workers were some of my friends from High School and I thought it was weird they automatically wanted me to be their trainer. Somehow I knew I'd do an ok job at it, but I had to get Ara somewhere that wasn't the office first. I was living in a dorm that had constant traffic and if I left her there, someone would open the door and she would escape. I thought to myself "I don't need to dream about the cats escaping from that dorm again because I dreamed that a few months ago." Which is true, I had that dream a few months ago in vivid detail.
Ara started squirming and I put her in a animal tote box. She started having to go to the bathroom and I was told I had to get her out of the office. I told them that I was only bringing her to work on this first day because I had to find a good place for her to stay while I was working, the place I was staying at didn't take good care of cats. My dad was coming to pick her up, I said.
I called dad and he teleported into the office room, no more than a foot away from me. This pissed the supes off because no one was supposed to be able to port into the building, but dad said he was part of special defense so he was given the clearance. I woke up with the supervisors and my dad arguing, and me petting Ara and keeping her happy, and my high school friends asking me how to log on. Also, when I logged on, I had a few hundred e-mails and notifications. Then I was truly awake.
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