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tokoz's post about the cool dream she had, it reminded me of something.
I wrote a short story about a year ago or so for a creative writing class I took at DigiPen. The subject of this particular story was the "false awakening" dreams that I have from time to time and which I loathe so very much. For a while, I'd kept meaning to post it here, because I was actually rather pleased with how it turned out (unlike the first one that I wrote for that class, which was utter shit). But then, I just completely forgot about it until now.
Well, for what it's worth, here it is finally. I've copy/pasted it directly from the doc into this edit window, but it looked like crap when I previewed it so I had to format it a bit, but it still looks a bit bad. The tabs were simply replaced with 5 non-breakable spaces, but the double spacing has been lost, sadly. Also, I had to go back and html-ize the italics and such, because those were lost in the copy/paste as well. I think I got them all. Meh.
False Awakenings
I wake up.
It’s time to start my day. I get out of bed, slowly. I really don’t want to get up and would like nothing better than to go back to sleep, but I have a short story to write and it can’t be put off any longer. Well, I’m already up now, regardless, so I decide to head to the bathroom and prepare for a shower.
As I’m standing in the bathroom and looking in the mirror, I notice a hint of movement out of the corner of my eye, which is reflected in the mirror as well. I turn and look into the bathtub. For some strange reason, it is filled with water. However, what is stranger is that there is a goldfish swimming around in my tub. Why would there be a goldfish in my tub? I really can’t think of what to do about this situation for the moment, so I simply stand there staring dumbly into the tub at the goldfish.
I wake up again.
Oh. I get it now. So that’s how it’s going to be, huh? It’s going to be one of those mornings, is it? God, I hate these false awakening dreams. They invariably leave me messed up for the entire day afterwards. They usually only cycle through maybe one or two times, so I am hopefully awake now. Hopefully. Sometimes they cycle for more than that.
Well, once again, I get out of bed and head into the bathroom. I glance quickly into the bathtub, hoping that I won’t see another goldfish swimming around in there. Ah, good. The tub is empty, as it should be.
I won’t bore the reader with the particulars, but I finish doing my normal routine in the bathroom and then head to my computer. As I’m checking my email, I notice something odd. There is an email sitting in my inbox with the subject line “DO NOT GO OUTSIDE.” The sender field is blank. Usually I would just discard this as spam, but for some reason I decide to open this one. The body of the email, like the subject, is simply “DO NOT GO OUTSIDE.” It’s a bit unnerving, but as I have to go to school now, I decide to ignore the advice. I glance out the window just to see if there is anything odd outside, but everything looks fine. I shrug, pick up my backpack, and head to the door.
I open the door and am suddenly overwhelmed by the sight before me. Or, rather, I suppose I should say the lack of a sight before me. There is absolutely nothing outside of my door. All that is visible, and I use that word tenuously, is complete and total blackness. I look back at my windows and see that now they, too, are displaying nothing but this eerie blackness.
Not sure of any other options available to me, I decide to step out into this blackness. As soon as I lose contact with my floor, I immediately start falling. However, I’m not falling in the direction of down as is relative to my door, but I am falling away from my door. It is as though my condo had suddenly been picked up and turned sideways so that my open door now faces in the direction of what used to be down for me, and I was swiftly falling away from it. Soon, the door was nothing but a speck in the distance, and then that finally disappeared as well.
I woke up again.
Okay, now I’m starting to get annoyed. I’m not sure how many times I’ve awakened now, but this will be at least the third time that I can fully recall. I can’t be sure that I’m not still dreaming even now, but whatever. I can’t operate under the assumption that I am dreaming, because that would be dangerous. What if I did something irresponsible and ended up killing myself, thinking it was all just a stupid dream? Wouldn’t that be tragic?
I get up out of bed and do my usual morning ritual and then head back to the computer again. This time, there is an email with the subject “YOU WERE TOLD NOT TO GO OUTSIDE”. I open this email and the body simply says the same thing as the subject, just like last time. So I’m not supposed to go outside? I went to the door and opened it again, but this time everything looked normal. Since I don’t care for being told where I can and cannot go, especially by some anonymous email spammer, I head out the door as I usually do.
As I round the corner of my building and start heading for the street, I see a strange man standing in the middle of the small parking lot. He’s very tall and gaunt and is wearing a black suit. It’s one of those old timey formal things, with the tails and cufflinks and everything. He is also wearing a large black top hat. I can’t clearly see his face however, since it appears to be in the shadow of the rim of the top hat, even though the sun is out and it is rather bright outside today. He holds up his hand, points at me, and then walks in my direction.
“The protagonist was warned to not vacate his dwelling,” says the man in a deep, monotone voice. “The protagonist was sent two separate electronic notifications to this effect.”
I glare at this man as he continues to approach. I find it a bit weird, but I do not feel as though I am in any danger, despite the surreal nature of the situation. I may be mistaken in this, but I can’t help but feeling the way that I feel. If anything I feel kind of reckless and angry. As the man continues to approach (and it’s really taking him a long time just to walk the few feet that is separating us, for some reason) I shout at him, “First of all, nobody tells me when I can and cannot leave my home. Second of all, who the hell are you?”
“The protagonist makes meaningless threats and asks meaningless questions. The protagonist must return to his dwelling immediately,” says the man.
“And what if I don’t?” I ask, belligerently.
The man says nothing, having finally reached me. He simply opens his hand, which had until now been pointing at me the whole time, and grabs my shoulder. For the slightest of instances, I feel nothing but the cold of deep space, similar to the void from before.
I wake up again.
What the hell is going on here? I’m getting sick and tired of these dreams. Okay, so maybe when I said I was operating under the impression that I was actually awake last time, I was stretching the truth a bit. Now, however, I am under no such false illusions. I am perfectly sure that I am still asleep and still dreaming now.
I get up and don’t even bother taking a shower. I don’t care if the goldfish is there or not. I simply go to the computer in my sleep clothes and look at my email. This time, there are no emails waiting in my inbox. I look out the windows to see if there is anything strange, and this time, sure enough, there is that same weird man from the last dream standing across the street and staring up at me.
I open the sliding glass door leading out to the balcony which rests over the carport underneath. I head out and take in a breath to yell at the man when he is suddenly standing directly in front of me, up on my balcony.
“The protagonist must not go outside!” he says loudly and touches my shoulder again.
I wake up again.
I instantly note that my room is now filled with water. I am completely submerged as the water reaches to the very ceiling. Strangely, I am still able to breathe, however. As such, I am not very alarmed by this predicament, despite the weirdness of it, so I simply swim into the bathroom and begin to do my daily routine. I look over into the tub and am a bit surprised at what I see.
The bathtub is once again filled with water and there is a goldfish swimming around in it. Isn’t the room itself already filled with water? How can the bathtub be, separately, filled with water? The goldfish doesn’t offer any answers to my unvoiced questions and merely continues swimming around in his little pool of water in the bathtub, which is somehow separate from the water that is filling the entire rest of the room. I reach my hand down into the water in the tub and note that there is absolutely no difference between the feeling of the water in the tub and the rest of the water. I shrug and swim out of the room, deciding that there is no point in taking a shower right now, especially since it would disturb the goldfish.
I swim over to my computer, noting that it is still on and working normally despite being completely covered in water, just like everything else. There is no email waiting for me. I look out the window and do not see anything amiss outside. The strange man is nowhere to be seen.
I then swim over to the front door and look through the peephole. The strange man is standing directly outside my door. With rage, I yank open the door to give him a piece of my mind. Suddenly, a torrent of water smashes into the room, knocking me back against the wall. This water, like that in the tub appears to be separate from the rest of the water filling the condo. But, unlike the other water, I cannot breathe in this water. As I begin to drown in the new water that is quickly replacing the other water, I hear the strange man repeat his warning that The Protagonist must not go outside.
I wake up again.
Okay, nothing strange so far. No water filling my room or anything like that. After a few seconds of lying there on the bed, I finally decide to actually open my eyes. There is a woman standing in the room, next to the open door.
“Hi,” she says.
Uh huh, yeah, now this is what I’m talking about. Why can’t all my dreams be like this? Forget goldfish and creepy guys in old fashioned formal wear. My dreams need more gorgeous women like this in them, seriously.
Except, is she really gorgeous? Well, obviously she is. Yet I can’t make out any distinct features about her. Everything about her seems to be constantly changing, yet simultaneously remaining constant. It’s the same in that I can tell she is overwhelmingly beautiful, but it is changing in the sense that I can’t get a bead on what, exactly, she actually looks like. Everything from her hair, to her facial features, to the clothes she’s wearing, to the color of her skin is totally indistinct.
“Aren’t ya gonna say anything?” she asks.
“Um,” I say, “uh, not to be rude or anything, since I certainly don’t mind it, but, er, who are you and why are you here?”
“I’m just the girl of your dreams, silly,” she says, and giggles. It’s completely endearing.
How could I have not known that? It seems so obviously when she explains it that way. “Well, okay, that explains who you are, but not why you’re here.”
“Well, duh. I’m a hot girl, and I’m in your dream. Put two and two together. It’s really not that complicated, is it?” she says. She moves her hands up to her throat and starts working the… clasp? buttons? necktie? whatever it is that’s at her throat.
“Oh,” I say, “cool. Cool.” And, for effect, I add, “That’s cool.”
“You ready?” she asks.
“Do you really have to ask?” I ask. “I’m cool with it.”
“Good,” she says, and starts to let the… shirt? blouse? jacket? tuxedo? whatever it is that she’s wearing drop to the floor.
I wake up again.
I am in an intense, unfathomable rage. A rage so great the very earth itself should quake in fear of it. Dammit, why do those kinds of dreams always end right before it starts getting good? Without thinking, I hurl a curse at the ceiling. A black pock mark appears where the curse hits.
This gives me reason for pause. I don’t recall my curses ever doing that before now. Experimentally, I sling another short curse at the ceiling next to the one I had just uttered. Once again, a black burn mark appears on the ceiling. Very interesting.
This reminds me of a computer game that I have played through a few times. In it, there is a character that is nothing but a floating, talking skull. He has the ability to curse at his enemies, and when those curses hit, bad things happen to the target. If this is anything like that, it could be very cool indeed.
Just then, my alarm clock comes on, with the radio tuned to the AM talk radio station that I normally listen to as I’m getting up. As I am in the process of hurling a curse at the radio, it vaguely occurs to me that this is the first time, in the course of the dreams that I’ve had thus far, that the radio has bothered to come on. I decide to put these musings aside when the radio suddenly and violently explodes in a hail of molten plastic and charred smoking wires. Very interesting, indeed.
I get up out of bed and head into the bathroom. Once again, the tub is filled with water and there is a goldfish swimming around in it. I toss an offhand curse at the goldfish, but the goldfish dodges out of the way. Instead, the curse knocks a hole in the bottom of the tub, through which the goldfish escapes, along with all of the water in the tub. Nodding my head at a job well done, I head out to my computer.
“ONCE AGAIN, REMAIN INSIDE!” warns my email. A few seconds and a couple of curses later, and my computer is a smoking ruin. Let’s see him send me any more emails now. Jerk.
Speaking of jerks, I head over to the window and see that same strange guy standing there looking up at me from across the street. Before he can react, or so I hope, I wrench open the glass door and hurl myself off the balcony in his direction, firing off the biggest and nastiest curses I can think of. He simply sidesteps and allows the curses to strike the ground at his feet.
“The Protagonist will not be warned again,” says the unusual man, who simply turns and leaves. I find it odd that he didn’t decide to touch me again. I start to follow him, but am knocked off my feet when the ground begins to shake violently. I am not sure what is going on, until I notice the ground where the man had been standing when I hurled my curse at him. Apparently, the force of my curses have drilled a hole straight down into the core of the earth. Wow. As the earthquake grows stronger, I perhaps unwisely hurl more curses at the hole, but I don’t care because I am really angry now. The world, of course, doesn’t take too kindly to this and promptly explodes.
I wake up again.
I found myself transformed in my bed into a monstrous vermin.
Okay. No. Just, no. I can handle black voids outside my door. I can handle weird men in formal attire. I can handle water filling up my entire condo. I can handle hot women in my bedroom (or, at least, I would be able to if the dreams would stop bloody ending just as they got to the good part). I can handle the world exploding. I can even handle goldfish in my bathtub. But this? No. This is too weird even for me and my dreams. I decide to just say screw it and go back to sleep.
I wake up again.
This time, something seems subtly different. Everything is sharper and more distinct than before. It is almost as if I am actually awake this time, but surely that can’t be the case. I’m obviously still asleep. I’ll get up and go to the bathroom and see a goldfish swimming around in the bathtub, I’m sure of it.
I get up and go to the bathroom, but there’s no goldfish in the tub. I get the feeling that if there had been, it would have really creeped me out this time, so I’m glad that it wasn’t in there. I decide to do my normal morning routine and then head to the computer.
In my email are the usual things: stuff from school, stuff from my family, spam stuff. That’s about it. No ominous warnings about not going outside or anything like that. I decide that this is a good sign, but I am still not convinced that I’m not still dreaming.
I get up and look out the window. Everything seems normal. That creepy guy isn’t out there, at least. I’m sure he’ll show up sooner or later though. I know I’m still not really awake yet.
I grab up my backpack and head to the door. I tentatively open it, but don’t see a black void or feel an onrush of water or anything like that. So far, so good.
I head out of the door and turn the corner, fully expecting to see the fashionably dressed man standing in the parking lot as before. He’s still nowhere to be seen.
I’m almost beginning to think that I’m actually awake for real this time, but it’s surely just a trick. I head down to the sidewalk and start heading for the intersection which I need to cross in order to head to the Redmond Park and Ride, where I normally catch the bus to head to school.
I’m still waiting for the other shoe to drop as I head out into the street to cross. I am so busy looking around for strange and fantastical things to happen that I am paying little attention to the mundane.
As such, it catches me completely by surprise when I am suddenly run down by a passing bus. I am only dimly aware of the squalling of tires and the blaring of the horn before the bus slams into me at nearly full speed. As I am sailing through the air to land about twenty feet or so away, I am almost convinced that I am awake now, because this really, really, really hurts.
My vision begins to dim as cars screech to a stop and people rush to my side. Maybe I really was awake this time, after all. That sucks. As things begin to black out and the voices begin to fade away, I notice a light in the distance. It is quickly growing brighter and brighter as it approaches. Yeah, I guess I really was awake this time, and now I’ve gone and gotten myself hit by a bus.
I gaze up into the light. This is it. I must be dead now.
I notice a figure approaching from within the bright light. I try to narrow my eyes in order to see who or what it may be, but the figure is still too indistinct. Still, I’m dead now, and this is a bright blinding light, so there can only be one explanation. As the figure finally comes into focus, I think that, surely, I am about to look into the face of God himself.
At that moment I notice a mouse standing on its hind legs: a bald mouse.
What the hell?
Also, suddenly, there’s the goldfish, floating in the air before me and smiling beneficently down upon me. The man in the black suit stands off to the side, shaking his head sadly. “The Protagonist was warned many times, but did not heed,” he said mournfully. The girl of my dreams stands next to him, with her arm wrapped around his.
“Yeah, it’s too bad,” she sighs. “If only he hadn’t woke up that time. Ah well.”
What is going on here? Am I dreaming again? Or is this finally the end of my story?
The answer comes when the bald mouse screams, “WAKE UP!”
I wake up again, for real this time.
I get out of bed and immediately rush to my computer, so that I can type up this experience and turn it in for my short story writing project. It’s going to be awesome!
I’m really not sure if I should actually leave home to go to class to turn it in, however.
A few notes:
-- The game I mention is Planescape: Torment.
-- Yes, we read Kafka's The Metamorphosis prior to being given this assignment.
-- The line "At that moment I notice a mouse standing on its hind legs: a bald mouse." was required by the teacher to be worked into our stories somehow, whether it made sense or not. I think I stuck it in at a pretty good point in mine, if I do say so myself. It was a bit better in the printed version compared to this LJ version though, since it came directly after a page break.
-- No, I didn't actually have any of these dreams IRL (that I can recall, anyway).
tokoz's post about the cool dream she had, it reminded me of something.I wrote a short story about a year ago or so for a creative writing class I took at DigiPen. The subject of this particular story was the "false awakening" dreams that I have from time to time and which I loathe so very much. For a while, I'd kept meaning to post it here, because I was actually rather pleased with how it turned out (unlike the first one that I wrote for that class, which was utter shit). But then, I just completely forgot about it until now.
Well, for what it's worth, here it is finally. I've copy/pasted it directly from the doc into this edit window, but it looked like crap when I previewed it so I had to format it a bit, but it still looks a bit bad. The tabs were simply replaced with 5 non-breakable spaces, but the double spacing has been lost, sadly. Also, I had to go back and html-ize the italics and such, because those were lost in the copy/paste as well. I think I got them all. Meh.
I wake up.
It’s time to start my day. I get out of bed, slowly. I really don’t want to get up and would like nothing better than to go back to sleep, but I have a short story to write and it can’t be put off any longer. Well, I’m already up now, regardless, so I decide to head to the bathroom and prepare for a shower.
As I’m standing in the bathroom and looking in the mirror, I notice a hint of movement out of the corner of my eye, which is reflected in the mirror as well. I turn and look into the bathtub. For some strange reason, it is filled with water. However, what is stranger is that there is a goldfish swimming around in my tub. Why would there be a goldfish in my tub? I really can’t think of what to do about this situation for the moment, so I simply stand there staring dumbly into the tub at the goldfish.
I wake up again.
Oh. I get it now. So that’s how it’s going to be, huh? It’s going to be one of those mornings, is it? God, I hate these false awakening dreams. They invariably leave me messed up for the entire day afterwards. They usually only cycle through maybe one or two times, so I am hopefully awake now. Hopefully. Sometimes they cycle for more than that.
Well, once again, I get out of bed and head into the bathroom. I glance quickly into the bathtub, hoping that I won’t see another goldfish swimming around in there. Ah, good. The tub is empty, as it should be.
I won’t bore the reader with the particulars, but I finish doing my normal routine in the bathroom and then head to my computer. As I’m checking my email, I notice something odd. There is an email sitting in my inbox with the subject line “DO NOT GO OUTSIDE.” The sender field is blank. Usually I would just discard this as spam, but for some reason I decide to open this one. The body of the email, like the subject, is simply “DO NOT GO OUTSIDE.” It’s a bit unnerving, but as I have to go to school now, I decide to ignore the advice. I glance out the window just to see if there is anything odd outside, but everything looks fine. I shrug, pick up my backpack, and head to the door.
I open the door and am suddenly overwhelmed by the sight before me. Or, rather, I suppose I should say the lack of a sight before me. There is absolutely nothing outside of my door. All that is visible, and I use that word tenuously, is complete and total blackness. I look back at my windows and see that now they, too, are displaying nothing but this eerie blackness.
Not sure of any other options available to me, I decide to step out into this blackness. As soon as I lose contact with my floor, I immediately start falling. However, I’m not falling in the direction of down as is relative to my door, but I am falling away from my door. It is as though my condo had suddenly been picked up and turned sideways so that my open door now faces in the direction of what used to be down for me, and I was swiftly falling away from it. Soon, the door was nothing but a speck in the distance, and then that finally disappeared as well.
I woke up again.
Okay, now I’m starting to get annoyed. I’m not sure how many times I’ve awakened now, but this will be at least the third time that I can fully recall. I can’t be sure that I’m not still dreaming even now, but whatever. I can’t operate under the assumption that I am dreaming, because that would be dangerous. What if I did something irresponsible and ended up killing myself, thinking it was all just a stupid dream? Wouldn’t that be tragic?
I get up out of bed and do my usual morning ritual and then head back to the computer again. This time, there is an email with the subject “YOU WERE TOLD NOT TO GO OUTSIDE”. I open this email and the body simply says the same thing as the subject, just like last time. So I’m not supposed to go outside? I went to the door and opened it again, but this time everything looked normal. Since I don’t care for being told where I can and cannot go, especially by some anonymous email spammer, I head out the door as I usually do.
As I round the corner of my building and start heading for the street, I see a strange man standing in the middle of the small parking lot. He’s very tall and gaunt and is wearing a black suit. It’s one of those old timey formal things, with the tails and cufflinks and everything. He is also wearing a large black top hat. I can’t clearly see his face however, since it appears to be in the shadow of the rim of the top hat, even though the sun is out and it is rather bright outside today. He holds up his hand, points at me, and then walks in my direction.
“The protagonist was warned to not vacate his dwelling,” says the man in a deep, monotone voice. “The protagonist was sent two separate electronic notifications to this effect.”
I glare at this man as he continues to approach. I find it a bit weird, but I do not feel as though I am in any danger, despite the surreal nature of the situation. I may be mistaken in this, but I can’t help but feeling the way that I feel. If anything I feel kind of reckless and angry. As the man continues to approach (and it’s really taking him a long time just to walk the few feet that is separating us, for some reason) I shout at him, “First of all, nobody tells me when I can and cannot leave my home. Second of all, who the hell are you?”
“The protagonist makes meaningless threats and asks meaningless questions. The protagonist must return to his dwelling immediately,” says the man.
“And what if I don’t?” I ask, belligerently.
The man says nothing, having finally reached me. He simply opens his hand, which had until now been pointing at me the whole time, and grabs my shoulder. For the slightest of instances, I feel nothing but the cold of deep space, similar to the void from before.
I wake up again.
What the hell is going on here? I’m getting sick and tired of these dreams. Okay, so maybe when I said I was operating under the impression that I was actually awake last time, I was stretching the truth a bit. Now, however, I am under no such false illusions. I am perfectly sure that I am still asleep and still dreaming now.
I get up and don’t even bother taking a shower. I don’t care if the goldfish is there or not. I simply go to the computer in my sleep clothes and look at my email. This time, there are no emails waiting in my inbox. I look out the windows to see if there is anything strange, and this time, sure enough, there is that same weird man from the last dream standing across the street and staring up at me.
I open the sliding glass door leading out to the balcony which rests over the carport underneath. I head out and take in a breath to yell at the man when he is suddenly standing directly in front of me, up on my balcony.
“The protagonist must not go outside!” he says loudly and touches my shoulder again.
I wake up again.
I instantly note that my room is now filled with water. I am completely submerged as the water reaches to the very ceiling. Strangely, I am still able to breathe, however. As such, I am not very alarmed by this predicament, despite the weirdness of it, so I simply swim into the bathroom and begin to do my daily routine. I look over into the tub and am a bit surprised at what I see.
The bathtub is once again filled with water and there is a goldfish swimming around in it. Isn’t the room itself already filled with water? How can the bathtub be, separately, filled with water? The goldfish doesn’t offer any answers to my unvoiced questions and merely continues swimming around in his little pool of water in the bathtub, which is somehow separate from the water that is filling the entire rest of the room. I reach my hand down into the water in the tub and note that there is absolutely no difference between the feeling of the water in the tub and the rest of the water. I shrug and swim out of the room, deciding that there is no point in taking a shower right now, especially since it would disturb the goldfish.
I swim over to my computer, noting that it is still on and working normally despite being completely covered in water, just like everything else. There is no email waiting for me. I look out the window and do not see anything amiss outside. The strange man is nowhere to be seen.
I then swim over to the front door and look through the peephole. The strange man is standing directly outside my door. With rage, I yank open the door to give him a piece of my mind. Suddenly, a torrent of water smashes into the room, knocking me back against the wall. This water, like that in the tub appears to be separate from the rest of the water filling the condo. But, unlike the other water, I cannot breathe in this water. As I begin to drown in the new water that is quickly replacing the other water, I hear the strange man repeat his warning that The Protagonist must not go outside.
I wake up again.
Okay, nothing strange so far. No water filling my room or anything like that. After a few seconds of lying there on the bed, I finally decide to actually open my eyes. There is a woman standing in the room, next to the open door.
“Hi,” she says.
Uh huh, yeah, now this is what I’m talking about. Why can’t all my dreams be like this? Forget goldfish and creepy guys in old fashioned formal wear. My dreams need more gorgeous women like this in them, seriously.
Except, is she really gorgeous? Well, obviously she is. Yet I can’t make out any distinct features about her. Everything about her seems to be constantly changing, yet simultaneously remaining constant. It’s the same in that I can tell she is overwhelmingly beautiful, but it is changing in the sense that I can’t get a bead on what, exactly, she actually looks like. Everything from her hair, to her facial features, to the clothes she’s wearing, to the color of her skin is totally indistinct.
“Aren’t ya gonna say anything?” she asks.
“Um,” I say, “uh, not to be rude or anything, since I certainly don’t mind it, but, er, who are you and why are you here?”
“I’m just the girl of your dreams, silly,” she says, and giggles. It’s completely endearing.
How could I have not known that? It seems so obviously when she explains it that way. “Well, okay, that explains who you are, but not why you’re here.”
“Well, duh. I’m a hot girl, and I’m in your dream. Put two and two together. It’s really not that complicated, is it?” she says. She moves her hands up to her throat and starts working the… clasp? buttons? necktie? whatever it is that’s at her throat.
“Oh,” I say, “cool. Cool.” And, for effect, I add, “That’s cool.”
“You ready?” she asks.
“Do you really have to ask?” I ask. “I’m cool with it.”
“Good,” she says, and starts to let the… shirt? blouse? jacket? tuxedo? whatever it is that she’s wearing drop to the floor.
I wake up again.
I am in an intense, unfathomable rage. A rage so great the very earth itself should quake in fear of it. Dammit, why do those kinds of dreams always end right before it starts getting good? Without thinking, I hurl a curse at the ceiling. A black pock mark appears where the curse hits.
This gives me reason for pause. I don’t recall my curses ever doing that before now. Experimentally, I sling another short curse at the ceiling next to the one I had just uttered. Once again, a black burn mark appears on the ceiling. Very interesting.
This reminds me of a computer game that I have played through a few times. In it, there is a character that is nothing but a floating, talking skull. He has the ability to curse at his enemies, and when those curses hit, bad things happen to the target. If this is anything like that, it could be very cool indeed.
Just then, my alarm clock comes on, with the radio tuned to the AM talk radio station that I normally listen to as I’m getting up. As I am in the process of hurling a curse at the radio, it vaguely occurs to me that this is the first time, in the course of the dreams that I’ve had thus far, that the radio has bothered to come on. I decide to put these musings aside when the radio suddenly and violently explodes in a hail of molten plastic and charred smoking wires. Very interesting, indeed.
I get up out of bed and head into the bathroom. Once again, the tub is filled with water and there is a goldfish swimming around in it. I toss an offhand curse at the goldfish, but the goldfish dodges out of the way. Instead, the curse knocks a hole in the bottom of the tub, through which the goldfish escapes, along with all of the water in the tub. Nodding my head at a job well done, I head out to my computer.
“ONCE AGAIN, REMAIN INSIDE!” warns my email. A few seconds and a couple of curses later, and my computer is a smoking ruin. Let’s see him send me any more emails now. Jerk.
Speaking of jerks, I head over to the window and see that same strange guy standing there looking up at me from across the street. Before he can react, or so I hope, I wrench open the glass door and hurl myself off the balcony in his direction, firing off the biggest and nastiest curses I can think of. He simply sidesteps and allows the curses to strike the ground at his feet.
“The Protagonist will not be warned again,” says the unusual man, who simply turns and leaves. I find it odd that he didn’t decide to touch me again. I start to follow him, but am knocked off my feet when the ground begins to shake violently. I am not sure what is going on, until I notice the ground where the man had been standing when I hurled my curse at him. Apparently, the force of my curses have drilled a hole straight down into the core of the earth. Wow. As the earthquake grows stronger, I perhaps unwisely hurl more curses at the hole, but I don’t care because I am really angry now. The world, of course, doesn’t take too kindly to this and promptly explodes.
I wake up again.
I found myself transformed in my bed into a monstrous vermin.
Okay. No. Just, no. I can handle black voids outside my door. I can handle weird men in formal attire. I can handle water filling up my entire condo. I can handle hot women in my bedroom (or, at least, I would be able to if the dreams would stop bloody ending just as they got to the good part). I can handle the world exploding. I can even handle goldfish in my bathtub. But this? No. This is too weird even for me and my dreams. I decide to just say screw it and go back to sleep.
I wake up again.
This time, something seems subtly different. Everything is sharper and more distinct than before. It is almost as if I am actually awake this time, but surely that can’t be the case. I’m obviously still asleep. I’ll get up and go to the bathroom and see a goldfish swimming around in the bathtub, I’m sure of it.
I get up and go to the bathroom, but there’s no goldfish in the tub. I get the feeling that if there had been, it would have really creeped me out this time, so I’m glad that it wasn’t in there. I decide to do my normal morning routine and then head to the computer.
In my email are the usual things: stuff from school, stuff from my family, spam stuff. That’s about it. No ominous warnings about not going outside or anything like that. I decide that this is a good sign, but I am still not convinced that I’m not still dreaming.
I get up and look out the window. Everything seems normal. That creepy guy isn’t out there, at least. I’m sure he’ll show up sooner or later though. I know I’m still not really awake yet.
I grab up my backpack and head to the door. I tentatively open it, but don’t see a black void or feel an onrush of water or anything like that. So far, so good.
I head out of the door and turn the corner, fully expecting to see the fashionably dressed man standing in the parking lot as before. He’s still nowhere to be seen.
I’m almost beginning to think that I’m actually awake for real this time, but it’s surely just a trick. I head down to the sidewalk and start heading for the intersection which I need to cross in order to head to the Redmond Park and Ride, where I normally catch the bus to head to school.
I’m still waiting for the other shoe to drop as I head out into the street to cross. I am so busy looking around for strange and fantastical things to happen that I am paying little attention to the mundane.
As such, it catches me completely by surprise when I am suddenly run down by a passing bus. I am only dimly aware of the squalling of tires and the blaring of the horn before the bus slams into me at nearly full speed. As I am sailing through the air to land about twenty feet or so away, I am almost convinced that I am awake now, because this really, really, really hurts.
My vision begins to dim as cars screech to a stop and people rush to my side. Maybe I really was awake this time, after all. That sucks. As things begin to black out and the voices begin to fade away, I notice a light in the distance. It is quickly growing brighter and brighter as it approaches. Yeah, I guess I really was awake this time, and now I’ve gone and gotten myself hit by a bus.
I gaze up into the light. This is it. I must be dead now.
I notice a figure approaching from within the bright light. I try to narrow my eyes in order to see who or what it may be, but the figure is still too indistinct. Still, I’m dead now, and this is a bright blinding light, so there can only be one explanation. As the figure finally comes into focus, I think that, surely, I am about to look into the face of God himself.
At that moment I notice a mouse standing on its hind legs: a bald mouse.
What the hell?
Also, suddenly, there’s the goldfish, floating in the air before me and smiling beneficently down upon me. The man in the black suit stands off to the side, shaking his head sadly. “The Protagonist was warned many times, but did not heed,” he said mournfully. The girl of my dreams stands next to him, with her arm wrapped around his.
“Yeah, it’s too bad,” she sighs. “If only he hadn’t woke up that time. Ah well.”
What is going on here? Am I dreaming again? Or is this finally the end of my story?
The answer comes when the bald mouse screams, “WAKE UP!”
I wake up again, for real this time.
I get out of bed and immediately rush to my computer, so that I can type up this experience and turn it in for my short story writing project. It’s going to be awesome!
I’m really not sure if I should actually leave home to go to class to turn it in, however.
A few notes:
-- The game I mention is Planescape: Torment.
-- Yes, we read Kafka's The Metamorphosis prior to being given this assignment.
-- The line "At that moment I notice a mouse standing on its hind legs: a bald mouse." was required by the teacher to be worked into our stories somehow, whether it made sense or not. I think I stuck it in at a pretty good point in mine, if I do say so myself. It was a bit better in the printed version compared to this LJ version though, since it came directly after a page break.
-- No, I didn't actually have any of these dreams IRL (that I can recall, anyway).
