Dream 15: Tension

12/6/10

The first episode of this warped nightmare is a series of false awakenings. First, I am in bed, dark dawn, exhausted, cross-eyed and babbling for Theo my dog. Theeeeeeeeooooooooo I moan, eyeballs itching from pus and contact lenses, hands slapping the side of my bed in search of fur and ears. Space itself is bending and I am quickly losing consciousness again as the dense grey of morning masks everything.

Eyes open - I must have been dreaming, and it is in fact almost dawn. With greater lucidity, I roll over and  l u r c h  myself up onto my bedpost, keeling over the rail blindly as I fumble for the light switch. My knuckles grate against the cold wall, fingers limply reaching for ... it. click click click click click as I throw the switch, but the light doesn’t come on. Damn it, I must still be dreaming, so I collapse into sleep again…

Dawn a third time. I must be awake now (please), because I need to get to class. I manage to get out of bed and numbly tumble into the dark living room, turning down the hall. I stagger through narrow grey, void of thought, but before I make it out the front door I wake up a fourth time. ARGGGGG After some confusion, I discover a sizeable tarantula under my bed and vainly fight it.

After this saga, I find myself awake and dressed, storming out of my living room in Long Island and running madly up to my bedroom, as I’ve just quarreled with my mom. Of course she storms in, and my sister follows to watch. And we have ourselves a good old-fashioned showdown. I get up in her face, like noses touching, naturally towering over her and my shoulders thrust forward, daring her to do whatever it was she threatened. Do it. You wouldn’t. Stone-cold fury in my eyes as I try to conquer my mom, intimidating her to retreat backwards around my room and leave or leave me alone. Defensively she grabs my neck, which is bulging and tense, and words end; we just stare grimly. Who will falter first? Who will win? Raw grit embalms my brain as I draw all power of intimidation into my brow and she keeps a steady grip on my throat. Her face is ice and she looks about ready to burst...so must I. 

Surprisingly, nothing happens. The tension dissolves immediately as I give up and dash out of the house with my sister in toe. I knew I could count on her! We pile into our Black Humvee and drive off down the street, me riding shotgun. Cruising slowly, looking for something as we pass through residential streets filled with people. We sense war in the air, the presence of a foreign threat, and suddenly everyone is a suspect. But I get the feeling that we, my sister and I, are in fact the terrorists.

The reality is still unclear to me even as I write this.

Pulling over, we leave the vehicle and head towards a tree, where four pistols are stealthily hanging from branches. We both grab two each, steel Magnums, and prepare to blast off down the road, armed and dangerous! Action. 

Pickup trucks and vans are pulling up next to and behind us, trailing us for a few blocks, then speeding off down side streets, as we continue our reconnaissance. I keep my sights on anyone and everyone, especially the motorists eyeing us suspiciously, one gun cocked and raised and aimed at the head. Pieu! I whisper as I pull a mock trigger and fire one imaginary bullet at a time at cars and pedestrians. Mock recoil. Pieu!

No one is chasing us yet, but everyone seems to want us dead, and my sister Kim at the wheel is doing a great deal of pitching as we accelerate to the point of speeding tremendously. My anxiety creeps up, and I pull the hammer back, as beat-up trucks begin to keep speed with us. Pulling into an underground parking complex below the mall, we abduct an older woman and her middle-aged daughter, Southern and middle-class, opening the back door and throwing them in. I fire a warning shot or two in the air and at an approaching van, howling and cheering. Kim, hit the gas! 

Climbing out my passenger window, I hang from the careening Ranger by the door handle. The door swings open as we run over some sidewalk and I’m hanging over the edge of the roof by my armpit, beating up against the side of the truck with the wind, shooting wildly, blindly. By now all scenery is blurred and we are the only car on the road. So we crash into the house of our hostages, right through the garage, and I scour the rooms for any more occupants as Kim holds the women hostage in their kitchen. I discover the den, and as I notice the TV is on, an older, heavyset man turns slowly in his lay-z-boy chair from his view of TV, towards me, and I’ve already drawn to his forehead, ready to fire.

“Who are you?!” I yell, Aim. His hands are raised for surrender but his calm demeanor shakes me, and I sort of snap out of whatever survival, autonomic fight-or-flight combat mode I was in. 

My gun looks foreign to me, and it’s awfully quiet everywhere. Who is he? A husband or something, I don’t know. I don't know. I stop knowing what’s going on. What’s going on? I slouch in confusion and exhaustion. I forget my gun and purpose.

“What do I Do now?”

Idea: Short Story: Two Old Store Owners

Background: I was in an Economics class, thinking about the theoretical conditions under which a producer (firm, company) can obtain the most profit from his business. I don't want to get too technical, but the idea is that there is a Minimum price at which you can sell an item and still make a net profit from that sale. Any price below, and you're a sucker who's losing money (for fellow economic geeks out there, this is the marginal cost of the good -- it should not be larger than the marginal price for which you sell an extra unit).

Anyway, I was musing about one of the fundamental, crucial assumptions made by economists, that is, that people are rational beings, who make rational decisions. I thought, is this really true? Are people always so sane and logical? Instinct and years of economics has told me No, often decisions made in market situations are not the optimal ones. In fact, they can be rather disadvantageous. I want to investigate that error in judgment.

Execution: I'd like for someone to write a short story, comedic, about two elderly men in a small town who own the same type of store (hardware? auto repair? appliance?) and are trying to put the other out of business. Except they are so stubborn and curmudgeonly, that they are willing to cut their prices so much that they take a loss, just to draw business away from the other. It actually becomes absurd how often they undercut one another...it gets so severe that it begins to occur multiple times per hour. Eventually some of the townspeople become alarmed by the rivalry that they try to warn the old owners against putting themselves into bankruptcy by charging too little, but each is so hell-bent on ruining the other that soon they are just giving their goods away.

The competition ends with both stores going bankrupt and out of business, and the men having to suffer defeat. Still, no embarrassment though; they are firm in their (irrationale) price war until the very end.

But does the story necessarily end there? Where do the men go after they lose their businesses? Do they learn a lesson? (I'm guessing not). Does the audience?

Inspiration: The short stories of Nikolai Gogol, who exploits the absurdity of the everyman in his ego-driven interactions with others equally as dimwitted as he.