7/14/13
My age is uncertain: I am at least 16, past the major developments of puberty, but I most certainly am still a minor. Therefore I am left with a generous two-year window to exist in tonight, and in which to experience all those feelings of anxiety, amorphous anticipation, and confusion associated with a sexual plot not even explicitly disclosed or defined between the two participating parties.
I have been driven here by my mother, to this vacation-style cabin, to visit some family friend, or perhaps just a friend of my parents. Her age is also unknown, but certainly different enough from mine. She's also about a foot taller than me---Amazonian wouldn't be an exaggeration---but she was dressed in fashionable outdoorsy clothing, relaxed, and her strong features, wide smile and eyes, and brown skin caused her to strongly resemble Carly Simon.
When the dream begins, the two of us have already telepathically committed ourselves to each other for the evening...the question of "how" was not consciously known to me, but the enabling circumstance worked itself out perfectly. It was late in the evening, a fire might have been roaring, and the seated conversations could be heard simmering down to a collective sigh. I was lying in a bean bag chair on the floor, eyes gently closed and focusing my attention on listening to the room. I was actually rather tired---enough so that the volume from my mother and this woman, and the other people with us, was wavering---but more than anything I was waiting for our chance. I didn't even know what exactly to expect, except I knew "it" would manifest into something that would consume the both of us together. And I was thinking about how beautiful she was.
My mother interjected something like "Oh, it's getting late, and we have a busy day tomorrow, so let's wake Joseph up and get everyone home." But this woman countered, so expertly, "But look at how he's sleeping soundly! Let him sleep over here tonight, he'll take the spare bed, and I'll give him back to you tomorrow, when we meet for lunch before going to...." and whatever we were to do as vacationers tomorrow was lost on me. Victory was secured. My mother caved too easily, moved by my peaceful composure on the floor, and she left with the other family members she was toting around.
As the cabin acquired a refreshing new tranquility after the last visitor had left the room, a warm glow began to permeate around the house, and low trace lights faded on to illuminate the doorways and molding around the fireplace. I opened my eyes to see the feet of this woman disappear into her bedroom at the end of a short, unlit hallway branching off from the main room. I kind of stared off into that space, satisfied that we had made it this far already...so far and yet still nowhere, but headed somewhere, is all I knew.
I get up and head for the bathroom, also in that hallway, and when I return she is setting up a makeshift bed in the middle of the floor, in front of the fireplace. Quilts are stacked to approximate a mattress, and even more quilts she is pulling back and already slipping under. Finally, I am standing over her as she casually reclines under the most welcoming and assorted array of blankets I have ever seen, and she acknowledges me for the first time with a few pats of her hand to the empty place beside her, coaxing me under. Ceremoniously I kneel down and enter the flap of quilts peeled back for me, and she says something, and I say something, and we proceed to awkwardly, clumsily grope at one another for a few minutes, still fully clothed and mostly silent. I'm feeling her---or individual parts of her in broken and miscalculated strokes---and she reciprocates by knocking into me with matched ambivalence. And although we cannot fully embrace even once, let alone find enough of one another in the dark, I am giving this all I have, because I could not have imagined wanting anything else from this moment, from her. I was inexperienced.
-
From my fumbling under the sheets, Sophia walks over and literally plucks me up like a ball of socks from a drawer. I am out of the cabin now, walking with Sophia along the Little Neck Bay around midnight, and the abundance of street lights from the nearby parkway give the illusion that the stars have descended to hover close above the bay. The night sky is dark and light at the same time, very golden while being very black. The rippling water is striped like a bumblebee from the lights' reflection. I am very happy to be with Sophia...it's such an uncomplicated and tangible emotion. We find my car parked near the dock, with a view completely unobstructed to the bay and the glowing parkway. From the front seat, the lights seem brighter than ever. The water and the sky are twinkling on a macro level from the density of bulbs lining the shore. Sophia and I have sex in the driver's seat of my car, and as I rock her in my lap we look out onto the water, and I am euphoric over the sight.
-
A bunch of guys and girls from Fordham have come over my Aunt Dolly's house---the regular Nick, Paul & Co. crowd. We decide to take acid, which Nick is amply stocked in. He starts distributing tiny paper wads to everybody, and as I receive mine I notice it is actually a series of individual wads cleverly folded over one another...Nick was stealthily trying to quadruple my dose. I said "Nick! What the fuck, why'd you give me so much?!" holding the unfolded strip of acid tabs out like an accordion paper craft in front of his face. His lips curl back in a wily smile, acknowledging that the trick is spoiled...he has been caught. I tear off one wad for myself and give him back the unused tabs, and take the acid.
A few minutes later, I get up from the plastic-tarp-coated dining room table and begin to pace the living room, anxious for activity and stimulation as I begin to peak. The entire group is vegetating on the couches or floor--- completely inert. I try to rouse them to action: "Guys, let's do something! Make something!" Anil responds for the group that he'd rather watch some television while tripping on acid, and I am indignant towards their lethargy and lack of inspiration. "Why would you guys want to watch TV right now? It's fucking pathetic that you all are just sitting there, when you could be creating something awesome." I give up on the group and enter the kitchen, where I dump a big barrel of Lego's on the table and begin to meticulously assemble this red-and-blue hovercraft-looking object. I am hunched over, holding the Lego model very close to my face and inspecting each individual brick before I place it.
A Dream / Art Journal
Tuesday, July 16, 2013
Thursday, June 27, 2013
Dream 19: Keys
7/7/13
We are waiting in the cockpit of a tractor-trailer, cruising down a highway late at night, somewhere between the coasts. We consist of I, Sam, and two others---at least one more female is present, perhaps KC. Who is driving right now, is unknown.
We pull over along the shoulder of the road and pick up a stranger, a man. Quickly he is in the trailer with us, and we have pinned him up up against a stack of logs, actually tree trunks, with hands and legs spread and face down, as if we were going to frisk him. I walk up behind him resolutely, and in one fluid motion I insert my house keys through the finger-gaps in my closed fist and punch the man in the back, hard. I grit my teeth as I see the keys disappear into his back and feel his spine jerk. He probably screams---I don't hear anything---but his shoulders flare up in recoil to the blow, and it looks like he's instantly grown a foot taller.
As the others (my friends? team? accomplices?) look on, I pummel this guy a few more times from behind, into his back, and I become conscious that my keys are really tearing into him---blood is soaking his shirt through a dozen small, scattered holes. I pull myself away, at which point the others join in beating this man, and I become consumed by the sight of my hand, smeared in his blood. Bright red streaks flash across my knuckles and wet the soft flesh in the crook of my thumb, and I am horrified, transfixed at this evidence of murder. As I stare at my hands in bewilderment, an acute sense of regret overtakes me. In my periphery I see my crew continue to kick this man with such speed that he remains standing through it all.
Later on, we are sitting in the cabin of the truck, again cruising through the night, staring out into the blackness before us. No one is speaking. For a few moments I watch the slice of road illuminated by the headlights spin beneath us. I receive a keen premonition that this crew will abduct and murder three more people, hitchhikers, throughout the course of the night. I retire to the back of trailer, to figure things out by myself.
This area of the trailer, the back right corner of the storage unit, has been partitioned off and converted into a liquid waste facility. A metal-grate walkway encircles a pool of greenish water, and I am standing along the back, slumped over the railing, ruminating, staring blankly at the floating waster barrels as they bob along the surface to the shifting inertia of the truck. Sam finds me back here and eagerly informs me that they picked up their next hitchhiker; somehow I know he is a tall, bald man.
I tell Sam that I have to leave, that I can't kill another person with them. She is hurt but not discouraged, and tries to lift my spirits and persuade me to follow her to the other area, where they are holding this man. At this point, KC also walks in and tries to console me, putting her hand around my shoulder in a maternal gesture. Whatever she says doesn't reach me, however, and I calmly step back and walk out of the water area, open a side door to the trailer, and jump out onto the road, where it is so cold that I can see a trace of my own breath.
We are waiting in the cockpit of a tractor-trailer, cruising down a highway late at night, somewhere between the coasts. We consist of I, Sam, and two others---at least one more female is present, perhaps KC. Who is driving right now, is unknown.
We pull over along the shoulder of the road and pick up a stranger, a man. Quickly he is in the trailer with us, and we have pinned him up up against a stack of logs, actually tree trunks, with hands and legs spread and face down, as if we were going to frisk him. I walk up behind him resolutely, and in one fluid motion I insert my house keys through the finger-gaps in my closed fist and punch the man in the back, hard. I grit my teeth as I see the keys disappear into his back and feel his spine jerk. He probably screams---I don't hear anything---but his shoulders flare up in recoil to the blow, and it looks like he's instantly grown a foot taller.
As the others (my friends? team? accomplices?) look on, I pummel this guy a few more times from behind, into his back, and I become conscious that my keys are really tearing into him---blood is soaking his shirt through a dozen small, scattered holes. I pull myself away, at which point the others join in beating this man, and I become consumed by the sight of my hand, smeared in his blood. Bright red streaks flash across my knuckles and wet the soft flesh in the crook of my thumb, and I am horrified, transfixed at this evidence of murder. As I stare at my hands in bewilderment, an acute sense of regret overtakes me. In my periphery I see my crew continue to kick this man with such speed that he remains standing through it all.
Later on, we are sitting in the cabin of the truck, again cruising through the night, staring out into the blackness before us. No one is speaking. For a few moments I watch the slice of road illuminated by the headlights spin beneath us. I receive a keen premonition that this crew will abduct and murder three more people, hitchhikers, throughout the course of the night. I retire to the back of trailer, to figure things out by myself.
This area of the trailer, the back right corner of the storage unit, has been partitioned off and converted into a liquid waste facility. A metal-grate walkway encircles a pool of greenish water, and I am standing along the back, slumped over the railing, ruminating, staring blankly at the floating waster barrels as they bob along the surface to the shifting inertia of the truck. Sam finds me back here and eagerly informs me that they picked up their next hitchhiker; somehow I know he is a tall, bald man.
I tell Sam that I have to leave, that I can't kill another person with them. She is hurt but not discouraged, and tries to lift my spirits and persuade me to follow her to the other area, where they are holding this man. At this point, KC also walks in and tries to console me, putting her hand around my shoulder in a maternal gesture. Whatever she says doesn't reach me, however, and I calmly step back and walk out of the water area, open a side door to the trailer, and jump out onto the road, where it is so cold that I can see a trace of my own breath.
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
Dream 18 - Vegetables in Easter Hay
4/7/13
I had recently completed my online TEFL certification and had been hired to teach English as a second language to non-English speakers. My first student was a young Chinese girl, 5 years old according to my dossier, living just around the block from me.
As I approach her house, I observe that it is a perfect box-shape, like some sort of modular home, riveted together with massive copper plates. It resembles a treasure chest or deep-sea diving helmet.
Standing at the door, the mother greets me warmly and welcomes me inside. Playing in the foyer are a small girl (maybe 3 years old, still clueless), a slightly older boy (9 and obnoxious), and an older girl, 11, who turns out is actually my student. Shit, my lesson isn't age-appropriate...I'll have to improvise.
I go to turn on the sink in the kitchen, and it violently rumbles while coughing out dust. I notice the kitchen island is covered in a plastic tarp, which itself is covered in sawdust. The floor in the kitchen hasn't been laid yet: I am standing on bare plywood. Forget about the bathroom, it's filled to eye-level with central air-conditioning units and aluminum siding, and the sink isn't even connected to anything. The central stairway in the house is only half-installed, and the grandmother is standing at the 2nd-floor landing, placidly observing us from up above. How'd she get up there?
Before I can fancy a guess, the mother shoves a steaming palate of colors in my face, and stepping back I realize it's food. Chinese food. The mother cordially insists I dine with the family before commencing my English lesson with her child. She made General Tso's Chicken, and it looks delicious.
Sitting around the dinner table, I watch the youngest child slap her dinner plate with both hands---broccoli rockets across the room like fireworks. This gives me an idea: the shelves behind me are lined with plastic models of vegetables...toys, in fact. I will teach my student the vegetables' names in English, using these "realia" (in teacher-speak) to spur the lesson and make it interesting! I excitedly shovel the plastic vegetables off the shelves into my open knapsack: Carrots, Celery, Tomatoes ('why not?'), Eggplant, Potatoes...everything goes in the bag.
Suddenly I notice that Sam is sitting next to me; I proudly tell her my plan, and she approves.
-----------------------
Dan, Alex, and I are in a theater watching a shitty disney/dreamworks/pixar movie, replete with nauseating confetti candy-coated scenery and special effects. It's the new Johnny Depp movie.
Bored to tears, Dan and Alex produce from somewhere these neon-colored paint-pens (Hot Pink and Screamin' Orange) and start tagging up their seats. Actually, they are tagging up everything, leaking globs of fluorescent paint onto any surface in the theater. In the bathroom, where we stop to take a piss before bouncing, Dan scrawls a massive splat of Hot Pink on the tiled wall next to the sink. it looks haphazard and amorphous, as if someone literally launched a handfull of paint at the wall.
We give less of a shit and head for the bathroom's exit when the matron of the theater---an old and grisly woman with her hair in a beehive, personifying "expired"---barges in and orders us to clean up our graffiti. She specifically points to the big pink mess on the wall, and actually doesn't stop pointing at it until we acknowledge its existence. The three of us just awkwardly glance at one another, not really wanting to clean it up and telepathically weighing our options, looking for an escape. Tensions are high as two bouncers of considerable heft float in to give the manager's threats some muscle.
Realizing there is only one sensible option left to us, I sigh, grab some paper towels, and begin to scrub off the paint as Dan and Alex watch me uncomfortably. However, I'm not so much cleaning as I am polishing...the paint is not coming off the wall. Rather it seems to be changing color, a metallic white with a navy blue border. Actually, the more vigorously I scrub the more the splat assumes a resemblance of...words? Gradually, where there once was a nondescript tumor of paint on the wall, there now appears to be a bona fide graffiti tag, in ornate block-style lettering, with a shadow effect, spelling out the name of the movie we just walked out of!
Suddenly everyone is aware that Dan has painted this beautiful typographical specimen with a magnificent 3D effect, and I am just stunned. I drop my handful of paper towels and back away from the wall, towards the exit, which is now unobstructed. "This is beautiful," I declare to the theater manager, who is only more infuriated. "I can't erase this." Alex and Dan cautiously sidle toward the exit with me. I take one last look around the bathroom, at the fresco of pink and orange smeared all over the stalls---works of art also waiting to be uncovered---and walk out with my friends.
The woman screams, "SOMEONE has to clean this up!! Who is going to do it?!" Alex, Dan, and I break into a sprint across the theater's hallway and towards the parking lot, hysterical with glee, and I call back to our challenger, "I don't know! Why don't YOU do it!... HAHAHA!" as we slide down the handrails to freedom.
--------
(Actual) lyrics to the Frank Zappa Song, "Watermelon in Easter Hay":
"This is the CENTRAL SCRUTINIZER. Joe has just worked himself into an imaginary frenzy during the fade-out of his imaginary song. He begins to feel depressed now. He knows the end is near. He has realized at last that imaginary guitar notes and imaginary vocals exist only in the mind of the imaginer. And ultimately, who gives a fuck anyway?! Excuse me. Who gives a fuck anyway? So he goes back to his ugly little room and quietly dreams his last imaginary guitar solo."
Sometime in the future, I re-enter the movie theater and take my seat near the back row, watching Frank Zappa perform live. A deep purple glow illuminates the theater. At intermission, he invites a member of the audience to assist him in the next song, and I am fortunate enough to be selected. I walk down to the the stage and take a seat at a table across from Frank Zappa---a table on which he lays an elaborate sampler pad, furnished with not only buttons but switches, dials, cables, and antenna you can flick to produce buzzing and whirring noises.
The audience settles in, and Frank triggers a low synth back drop, against which he and I begin toying around with the pad and creating a medley of fleeting beats we continually evolve. We scrap one sound for another, our four hands and all twenty fingers weaving across the sampler, him untwisting what I just twisted, me hammering out patterns, him rattling, me scraping...for a few minutes it's just noise. But then...
But then I press these three drum-pad buttons, followed by two antenna that create "swish" noises, and Frank fiddles with a dial to fix the levels...and this is the sound that ultimately suits the mood. Resembling the opening to Animal Collective's "Cobwebs," it is minimalist, a little dark, and driving. Frank Zappa and I release the sampler from our clutches and relax back into our chairs as the groove loops onward and the stage guitarist licks a nasty solo for minutes.
After the song fades, before the crowd even realizes it's over, Frank exhales for the first time since the song started and remains dazed for another moment. "Wow," he breathes, staring into space, "that was amazing." I am beside myself with delight as I give Frank Zappa a hearty high-five in celebration of our impromptu opus. I shout "Yeah!" and take a victory lap back up to the nosebleed section to sit among my friends.
Back in my seat, I am searching through my backpack, and dig up a large bundle of fireworks that I was not aware I had. Some commotion is reverberating through the audience, and as I glance towards the stage it appears that Frank Zappa has accidentally set a stage curtain on fire. Many people are confused or concerned, wondering whether the fire is part of his performance, as Frank is just standing downstage shrugging his shoulders nonchalantly.
I look back down into my bag and pull out the fireworks.
Back at the stage, the fire has combusted up into the scaffolding above the stage, spreading rapidly, while Frank Zappa doesn't do much besides fumble on the floor of the stage. People are rioting and looking for an escape before the flames overtake the theater, and pandemonium reigns. Scrambling out of my seat, I light the fuse of my handful of firecrackers and chuck them down the aisle towards the stage, and as I turn the corner towards the exit door I can hear their POPOPOPOPOP over the tumult of rushing, panicked crowds and an all-consuming flame.
Someone grabs my sleeve as I dash out of the theater---I recognize him as a friend of a friend, whom I consider a complete asshole---as if his intent is not to use my speed to help his escape, but rather only to slow me down. I shove the guy away and brush past a family as I clear the glass doors of the burning theater.
I had recently completed my online TEFL certification and had been hired to teach English as a second language to non-English speakers. My first student was a young Chinese girl, 5 years old according to my dossier, living just around the block from me.
As I approach her house, I observe that it is a perfect box-shape, like some sort of modular home, riveted together with massive copper plates. It resembles a treasure chest or deep-sea diving helmet.
Standing at the door, the mother greets me warmly and welcomes me inside. Playing in the foyer are a small girl (maybe 3 years old, still clueless), a slightly older boy (9 and obnoxious), and an older girl, 11, who turns out is actually my student. Shit, my lesson isn't age-appropriate...I'll have to improvise.
I go to turn on the sink in the kitchen, and it violently rumbles while coughing out dust. I notice the kitchen island is covered in a plastic tarp, which itself is covered in sawdust. The floor in the kitchen hasn't been laid yet: I am standing on bare plywood. Forget about the bathroom, it's filled to eye-level with central air-conditioning units and aluminum siding, and the sink isn't even connected to anything. The central stairway in the house is only half-installed, and the grandmother is standing at the 2nd-floor landing, placidly observing us from up above. How'd she get up there?
Before I can fancy a guess, the mother shoves a steaming palate of colors in my face, and stepping back I realize it's food. Chinese food. The mother cordially insists I dine with the family before commencing my English lesson with her child. She made General Tso's Chicken, and it looks delicious.
Sitting around the dinner table, I watch the youngest child slap her dinner plate with both hands---broccoli rockets across the room like fireworks. This gives me an idea: the shelves behind me are lined with plastic models of vegetables...toys, in fact. I will teach my student the vegetables' names in English, using these "realia" (in teacher-speak) to spur the lesson and make it interesting! I excitedly shovel the plastic vegetables off the shelves into my open knapsack: Carrots, Celery, Tomatoes ('why not?'), Eggplant, Potatoes...everything goes in the bag.
Suddenly I notice that Sam is sitting next to me; I proudly tell her my plan, and she approves.
-----------------------
Dan, Alex, and I are in a theater watching a shitty disney/dreamworks/pixar movie, replete with nauseating confetti candy-coated scenery and special effects. It's the new Johnny Depp movie.
Bored to tears, Dan and Alex produce from somewhere these neon-colored paint-pens (Hot Pink and Screamin' Orange) and start tagging up their seats. Actually, they are tagging up everything, leaking globs of fluorescent paint onto any surface in the theater. In the bathroom, where we stop to take a piss before bouncing, Dan scrawls a massive splat of Hot Pink on the tiled wall next to the sink. it looks haphazard and amorphous, as if someone literally launched a handfull of paint at the wall.
We give less of a shit and head for the bathroom's exit when the matron of the theater---an old and grisly woman with her hair in a beehive, personifying "expired"---barges in and orders us to clean up our graffiti. She specifically points to the big pink mess on the wall, and actually doesn't stop pointing at it until we acknowledge its existence. The three of us just awkwardly glance at one another, not really wanting to clean it up and telepathically weighing our options, looking for an escape. Tensions are high as two bouncers of considerable heft float in to give the manager's threats some muscle.
Realizing there is only one sensible option left to us, I sigh, grab some paper towels, and begin to scrub off the paint as Dan and Alex watch me uncomfortably. However, I'm not so much cleaning as I am polishing...the paint is not coming off the wall. Rather it seems to be changing color, a metallic white with a navy blue border. Actually, the more vigorously I scrub the more the splat assumes a resemblance of...words? Gradually, where there once was a nondescript tumor of paint on the wall, there now appears to be a bona fide graffiti tag, in ornate block-style lettering, with a shadow effect, spelling out the name of the movie we just walked out of!
Suddenly everyone is aware that Dan has painted this beautiful typographical specimen with a magnificent 3D effect, and I am just stunned. I drop my handful of paper towels and back away from the wall, towards the exit, which is now unobstructed. "This is beautiful," I declare to the theater manager, who is only more infuriated. "I can't erase this." Alex and Dan cautiously sidle toward the exit with me. I take one last look around the bathroom, at the fresco of pink and orange smeared all over the stalls---works of art also waiting to be uncovered---and walk out with my friends.
The woman screams, "SOMEONE has to clean this up!! Who is going to do it?!" Alex, Dan, and I break into a sprint across the theater's hallway and towards the parking lot, hysterical with glee, and I call back to our challenger, "I don't know! Why don't YOU do it!... HAHAHA!" as we slide down the handrails to freedom.
--------
(Actual) lyrics to the Frank Zappa Song, "Watermelon in Easter Hay":
"This is the CENTRAL SCRUTINIZER. Joe has just worked himself into an imaginary frenzy during the fade-out of his imaginary song. He begins to feel depressed now. He knows the end is near. He has realized at last that imaginary guitar notes and imaginary vocals exist only in the mind of the imaginer. And ultimately, who gives a fuck anyway?! Excuse me. Who gives a fuck anyway? So he goes back to his ugly little room and quietly dreams his last imaginary guitar solo."
Sometime in the future, I re-enter the movie theater and take my seat near the back row, watching Frank Zappa perform live. A deep purple glow illuminates the theater. At intermission, he invites a member of the audience to assist him in the next song, and I am fortunate enough to be selected. I walk down to the the stage and take a seat at a table across from Frank Zappa---a table on which he lays an elaborate sampler pad, furnished with not only buttons but switches, dials, cables, and antenna you can flick to produce buzzing and whirring noises.
The audience settles in, and Frank triggers a low synth back drop, against which he and I begin toying around with the pad and creating a medley of fleeting beats we continually evolve. We scrap one sound for another, our four hands and all twenty fingers weaving across the sampler, him untwisting what I just twisted, me hammering out patterns, him rattling, me scraping...for a few minutes it's just noise. But then...
But then I press these three drum-pad buttons, followed by two antenna that create "swish" noises, and Frank fiddles with a dial to fix the levels...and this is the sound that ultimately suits the mood. Resembling the opening to Animal Collective's "Cobwebs," it is minimalist, a little dark, and driving. Frank Zappa and I release the sampler from our clutches and relax back into our chairs as the groove loops onward and the stage guitarist licks a nasty solo for minutes.
After the song fades, before the crowd even realizes it's over, Frank exhales for the first time since the song started and remains dazed for another moment. "Wow," he breathes, staring into space, "that was amazing." I am beside myself with delight as I give Frank Zappa a hearty high-five in celebration of our impromptu opus. I shout "Yeah!" and take a victory lap back up to the nosebleed section to sit among my friends.
Back in my seat, I am searching through my backpack, and dig up a large bundle of fireworks that I was not aware I had. Some commotion is reverberating through the audience, and as I glance towards the stage it appears that Frank Zappa has accidentally set a stage curtain on fire. Many people are confused or concerned, wondering whether the fire is part of his performance, as Frank is just standing downstage shrugging his shoulders nonchalantly.
I look back down into my bag and pull out the fireworks.
Back at the stage, the fire has combusted up into the scaffolding above the stage, spreading rapidly, while Frank Zappa doesn't do much besides fumble on the floor of the stage. People are rioting and looking for an escape before the flames overtake the theater, and pandemonium reigns. Scrambling out of my seat, I light the fuse of my handful of firecrackers and chuck them down the aisle towards the stage, and as I turn the corner towards the exit door I can hear their POPOPOPOPOP over the tumult of rushing, panicked crowds and an all-consuming flame.
Someone grabs my sleeve as I dash out of the theater---I recognize him as a friend of a friend, whom I consider a complete asshole---as if his intent is not to use my speed to help his escape, but rather only to slow me down. I shove the guy away and brush past a family as I clear the glass doors of the burning theater.
Thursday, September 6, 2012
Dream 17: Moment to Impact
8/30/2011
...I run in from outside, after a long day...
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The wood of this room is old; I rest my hand upon the sill of the fixed window and stare out from my cabin overlooking downtown Manhattan. Sam (my girlfriend) and Nick are with me, but I am the first to notice the large object falling through the sky towards the city.
I focus intently through the afternoon haze upon what becomes a large yellow waste container with a bright red "nuclear" logo printed along the side, as tall as the container itself. Time begins to slow down : the container descends, by far the most sharply defined object in my vision.
"That's a hydrogen bomb," I realize, "and it's going to impact in less than a second." Panic paralyses me as the knowledge manifests that within seconds my life will end, and along with physically evaporating in the path of the blast, my consciousness will also die ::: my complete existence terminated.
I gesture mechanically to Sam and Nick; they see it too. By now the massive container, with the inertia of Jupiter, has been partially eclipsed by a silhouette of buildings. As I watch the bomb disappear completely behind the skyscrapers, a moment to impact, I tightly hug Sam, my girlfriend, and apologize inwardly that she must die also. I'm too afraid to realize that I am afraid. The scene dissolves to white.
...I run in from outside, after a long day...
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The wood of this room is old; I rest my hand upon the sill of the fixed window and stare out from my cabin overlooking downtown Manhattan. Sam (my girlfriend) and Nick are with me, but I am the first to notice the large object falling through the sky towards the city.
I focus intently through the afternoon haze upon what becomes a large yellow waste container with a bright red "nuclear" logo printed along the side, as tall as the container itself. Time begins to slow down : the container descends, by far the most sharply defined object in my vision.
"That's a hydrogen bomb," I realize, "and it's going to impact in less than a second." Panic paralyses me as the knowledge manifests that within seconds my life will end, and along with physically evaporating in the path of the blast, my consciousness will also die ::: my complete existence terminated.
(((("... these are the last thoughts I will ever have..."))))
I gesture mechanically to Sam and Nick; they see it too. By now the massive container, with the inertia of Jupiter, has been partially eclipsed by a silhouette of buildings. As I watch the bomb disappear completely behind the skyscrapers, a moment to impact, I tightly hug Sam, my girlfriend, and apologize inwardly that she must die also. I'm too afraid to realize that I am afraid. The scene dissolves to white.
Monday, July 4, 2011
Dream 16: Steaks
7/4/11
I was playing / socializing in the living room / bedroom of a house, when I remembered that I had left some steaks frying on the stove. The kitchen was fully furnished in black marble flooring, dark wood cabinets, stainless steel appliances, and mellowed in a blanket of refined, delicate, even sophisticated ambient yellow lighting.
The steaks were bubbling over the sides of the pan in coagulated, rich yellow fat and hissing grease, a pot of meat, smoking and salted. The butter popped and stirred, and I grabbed a fork and dumped the steaks in my plate, a juicy pile of slabs of flesh.
The steaks were salted; maybe someone had seasoned them earlier. Using only my hands, I gripped a flank and stuffed it into my voracious mouth, teeth tearing in as grease slid down my face. I chewed loudly and with zeal. My mouth never closed; it just kept on being fed.
Everything about the steaks was ecstasy. I smelled the meat still steaming into my nostrils -- I was breathing hunger. Every sinew tore in my teeth, gnashing fibers and slivers of the tenderest meat, dissolving on my tongue, melting as I chewed. And my hands were always reaching for the next piece: one groping the plate, blindly feeling around for the next piece, while the other in my lips, fumbling the loose bites downward, sliding along slick teeth and flapping tongue.
I grabbed a bottle of barbecue sauce, but I don’t recall using it. I just kind of waved it above my head and shook it like a rock, as I began to hear music and danced around the kitchen table in the hot yellow light.
I was playing / socializing in the living room / bedroom of a house, when I remembered that I had left some steaks frying on the stove. The kitchen was fully furnished in black marble flooring, dark wood cabinets, stainless steel appliances, and mellowed in a blanket of refined, delicate, even sophisticated ambient yellow lighting.
The steaks were bubbling over the sides of the pan in coagulated, rich yellow fat and hissing grease, a pot of meat, smoking and salted. The butter popped and stirred, and I grabbed a fork and dumped the steaks in my plate, a juicy pile of slabs of flesh.
The steaks were salted; maybe someone had seasoned them earlier. Using only my hands, I gripped a flank and stuffed it into my voracious mouth, teeth tearing in as grease slid down my face. I chewed loudly and with zeal. My mouth never closed; it just kept on being fed.
Everything about the steaks was ecstasy. I smelled the meat still steaming into my nostrils -- I was breathing hunger. Every sinew tore in my teeth, gnashing fibers and slivers of the tenderest meat, dissolving on my tongue, melting as I chewed. And my hands were always reaching for the next piece: one groping the plate, blindly feeling around for the next piece, while the other in my lips, fumbling the loose bites downward, sliding along slick teeth and flapping tongue.
I grabbed a bottle of barbecue sauce, but I don’t recall using it. I just kind of waved it above my head and shook it like a rock, as I began to hear music and danced around the kitchen table in the hot yellow light.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
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?”
Monday, March 14, 2011
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.
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.
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