DREAM (FRAGMENT) #8

I am holding a container of plants. It is gross because there are pieces of meat in it. I am mournful about the meat because I would like to salvage that meat, and I wonder what possessed me to put meat in with plants. It smells delicious and edible even when soaked in plant water. I seriously consider taking the meat out and washing it off. I dig my finger inside the container and find lots of bean sprouts and a large plant with fresh green leaves. Excitedly, I pull the plant from the pot and am horrified that its stem is a rib cage. A rib cage! Ew! Is it going to breathe?! I am absolutely disgusted by now, feel nauseous, and decide to give up my quest to be a gardener.

Dreams

Wrote this yesterday. Was too bored to post it.

Whenever I try to write a story, I feel absolutely bored with my lack of imagination. Author blogs that I read [Robin McKinley, Malinda Lo, Sara Ryan] often explain that writing—real story writing and not blog writing—is like a job, where I need to have goals and keep at it day after day no matter how I struggle to form a coherent story-line. I’m still an adolescent-apprentice writer, which means that when I get kinda good ideas, I slap them all together and then forget about them for months (while I go to school/work), and then look at them again when I’m on vacation to see if they’re salvageable. None so far have been salvageable. I have dozens of little story projects going on, and I think I should focus on just one, but when I focus on just one, my imagination dies.

Since I’m a failure as a storywriter right now, I like to explore my dreams, because I seem to have plenty of imagination when I dream. I take my dreams very seriously, i.e. when I wake up from a dream worth recording, I spend my whole day returning to the dream-world, trying to remember tiny details and straighten problematic plotlines. I try to stay true to the dreams, i.e. not making stuff up or resolving details when the dream was cut short or when I don’t remember. Some dreams, I write down months after I dreamed it. Geez, am I self-absorbed or what? But no, I like writing about my dreams not because I want to interpret them but because they’re little stories. Maybe over time, I can look back at them, and make them into real stories. Which reminds me—

DREAM #7

I am running with a woman who is wearing a red dress. She has long black hair and white, white skin. She is tall and slender. She is so beautiful, and I am mesmerized. We are running along hallways carved exquisitely with birds and trees. When I look at the birds, they take flight and their wings are made of multicolored textiles. A story forms in my mind—there is a man dressed in black robes looking for the woman. He has grey hair and a pale face. Suddenly, we are on a cliff and looking down on a waterfall. I see the glitter of golden scales. The man grabs the woman and makes her look down at the waterfall. I do nothing but watch. The man pushes her off the cliff and she falls, silent. I watch the way her dress ripples as she falls. I am horrified and sad. I say—You murdered her. You are guilty. He looks at me calmly, and I notice how grey his eyes are. He says—Yes, I am guilty. I need to pay for my crime. He walks to the edge of the cliff and falls off. Before he falls away from my sight, his body suddenly curves upward and he is floating, circling me, flying. His flight is joyous. I ask—Why? Why does she die and he lives? The answer comes—Because he has been forgiven. She was too afraid, and that’s why she fell.

DREAM #6

I was watching a lesbian movie—two women in the desert loving each other. I think—must be Desert Hearts, and it is. I am watching the movie with my mother and wondering why because there is a lesbian love scene and I don’t want my mother to see it. I leave, hoping my mother will leave too, and she does. I go to the bathroom, and the floor is covered with seaweed, and the toilet is gross, as though it has flooded with the ocean. I try to fix the toilet. I lift it, and it is suddenly cleaved into two perfect pieces, and the water in the top portion collapses onto the floor when I touch it. [Dream time shifts] My father is with me, and he asks—Do you want to see where I hide my things? It is the safest place in the world. We drove into violent white rushing water, and my father opens his car door. Somehow, we are not soaked by the water. I cannot feel the water. He reaches into the water and I can suddenly see into another car. There is another car under the flood waters and it is locked into place. My father looks at me and says—This is the safest place I could find. I look at his treasures and I see old, ragged, tattered books, carefully placed on a makeshift shelf hammered on the dashboard. How sad, I think, these are all he has, and they will be swept away. This place is not safe.

DREAM #5

She said she had come from another world to release the animals. I said, cool, because I liked all the animals, loved to go down to the zoo, gawked like everyone else, and yet felt a little bit of pity for these wild creatures locked in cages. So I took her down to the zoo and showed her the animals. She was fascinated, but I knew these were not the right animals. I had shown her the wrong kinds of animals. She was waiting for me to see the world, truly, so she made me look into darkness, into mirrors. She put pieces of glass near the window and made me look at them as the sun colored them, but I saw nothing. I took her to see fireworks, and the strangest thing happened when the first burst of light took place—everything stopped. The sparks in the sky stopped, frozen, like the outlines of a glowing umbrella above our heads. I told her—let it go, let everything go, it is alright, the fire is harmless. She let go and the fire in the sky fell, glittering, and disappeared around our shoulders. All I can say is—the fireworks were weird that night—they pulsed and stilled and flared strangely, a strange pattern like a creature breathing, and I turned to the woman next to me, and saw them reflected in the expression of her eyes. I felt as though I was looking into her mind, falling, like those sparks of fire falling from the sky. She wanted me to trust her mind. She wanted me to follow her, and we went back into the caves, deeper and deeper. At some point, she turned off our flashlights, and for awhile, we stood still in the darkness and breathed next to each other. But I couldn’t help it, and I began to cry in terror. Trust me, she said. I told her, I trust you, but I don’t trust the dark. But I knew, I could not escape, because after all, she is the dark.

DREAM #4

I am trying to pick up our tawny rabbit. I reach one hand under its chest and lift while my other hand curls around its hind-quarters. [Dream time shifts] There is a university where the official flag is two black crossed blades on a background of red. There is a trial going on for the local superhero. He is not in disguise. He wins his case and now there is a long row of cars—rich college kids in their jaguars, corvettes, porsches. They are all ready to race and at the far end is our superhero masked and dressed in red. Everyone is laughing at his car, a red toy car which encases the lower half of his body. As the race is about to begin, his car vibrates, time-shifting quickly and its edges are no longer definable [Dream time shifts] Couples are trying to pirouette, where pirouette is two partners, the ballerino holding the ballerina to his side, his arms wide and flipping her upside-down and around. One couple is having an especially difficult time because the ballerina is too heavy. The superhero comes up to them and asks the ballerina—what are you going to do about it? The ballerino becomes violent and takes her away to another room. There is screaming. [Dream time shifts] I am in a bathroom. There are two books on the floor. One of them is Wild Child. I go into the next room and it is a library. I look around and it is my high school library—I look around and I see my high school best friend—the librarian. She has grey hair and she is smiling, serene and happy to see me after all these years. I’ve missed her so much and I have so much to tell her . . . [Dream time shifts] There is an Asian guy and he is trying to poison our tawny rabbit. We are sitting around watching him. He grins at us and puts his hand in the rabbit’s bowl of water, flicking the water around. He takes out a bottle and pours green fluid into the rabbit’s food bowl. He is still grinning at us. My father comes into the room and nods.

DREAM #3

I entered a room and there were two Asian ladies, giantesses who towered over me. They were kind and guided me through their home. Later, I met a blond man and I asked him, "Do you enjoy living with your aunts?" He replied, "I would love to live on my own, but I am not free." Then there commenced preparations for a large Asian gathering. A long table was set with small golden statues. The Asians filed into the room and sat in rows on the floor. The ones in front had huge eyes and pupils that wandered, as though they were blind. And I thought with relief, they can't see me, so they don't care how ugly I am. In the front of the Asians, on the stage, there were tall banners to end the Vietnam War and to free the war veterans. The Asians talked and their conversation was displeasing to me, I do not remember why. Suddenly, there were other rows of people around the Asians and I see my friend Erika. She stands up to save us and she shouts Kinsey! Kinsey! It is about sexual liberation. There are outraged mutters from everyone and I know that Erika must find a way to escape. Out of the crowd comes a war veteran, but he continues to morph, so that sometimes he is a businessman. He is distinguished and handsome/he is bent and ragged/he is worn and carefully clean. He morphs, but Erika recognizes him. He walks to Erika and bends down on one knee to talk to her, because she is suddenly a young girl. He picks her up in his arms tenderly and dances with her. She whispers to him, "I am not comfortable. Can we leave?" And suddenly she changes. She is older, and he is holding her in his arms, and they leave.

HAPPENINGS

In English class, our professor made us fill out a form with basic questions pertaining to our grade level and class experiences. The last question annoyed me: Describe something about you that no one else knows. A question to that effect. I despise this species of questions because I feel like I am bragging about myself. After thinking for a long time, I finally wrote something like this: "For many months, there was this ugly mole on my hand. It was large, pinkish, ugly, and tattered. It was disgusting. Then, over a matter of time, it shrunk and now it is completely gone. I was so amazed. Not a bit of mole left."

OBSERVATION

In Organic Chemistry class, our professor talked about a certain chemical reaction that we thought we knew backwards and forwards. We knew the reason for its existence and we knew why it reacted the way it did. Then, our professor drops this bomb: Wrong! Absolutely wrong! We had been lied to because the lie made it easier to teach the reaction. We had been lied to since Chemistry I! Thought: I love science because of these particular hilarious moments.

DREAM #2

There is a man in a wheelchair and there is something wrong with him. He cannot walk, as though he is missing legs. He glows a menacing orange/red. I and a team are trying to fix him, make him whole again. He watches us and comments on our work. My job is to bring him food every day. We are finally able to make him better again. We put him in a chamber. We stand outside in a hallway, pressing our bodies against the wall. I watch, and suddenly, rays of bright light shoots out of the chamber, and it hurts, as though I am burning away. The light stops and there is still pain on my arms. We enter the chamber and he looks fine. He is smiling widely and staring at me. I am scared but I smile too. I approach him and ask him what he wants to eat. The usual, he replies. He stares. The usual. He touches his ears. And these, he says. I touch my own ears. Yes, he replies, I want your ears, and a little of your cheek too. I go to prepare his meal. I have not refused.

HAPPENINGS

First class of the day is lyrical poetry. *snore* The professor makes jokes. He passes out a paper and we have to put our names in the location we are sitting, a ploy to learn our names. When the name sheet is passed to me, and I've looked at it, I snicker. The thing about English majors: we can analyze dead poetry, but we cannot seem to make a map of our own seating arrangements. When I look around at us, I recognize the shared characteristics of all English majors: we are all pale, sad-looking, and daydreaming. Some of us sprouts full beards, some of us wear the long black coats of the intense artist, some of us scribble furiously in our notebooks, as though the meaning of life were spouting from our pens.

A few minutes into class, the class "genius" breezes in. Every English class has one, and they have each been a complete bore. How to recognize one: he (usually a he) raises his hand each time the professor asks a question, he makes side comments about some ancient literary theory that the professor recognizes but no one else does, he talks about his "research project," he talks really fast, he uses a lot of hand gestures, he talks so much that you wish someone would gag him. I respect the intelligence of these class "geniuses," but I also wish they would respect the fact that they are not the most interesting person in the class.

THOUGHT

I don't respect English majors as I should.

DREAM #1

There was something wrong. We were all restricted. I went through a line for food. We each got a container, some two containers. We each had brown rice and meat. I was sneaking through the city, frightened and dirty. Dream time changes. There is more color--the green of grass, and I am walking among broken columns. My writing teacher is here. I wish to avoid her, so I am walking among the grass, picking flowers. Violets with thin, thin petals on stems long as my arm. Then, I know she is watching me, so I paint. It is a beautiful painting, but it is not an original. Somehow, it has morphed into the Mona Lisa, and I know I have failed.

HAPPENINGS

My sister and I went bike riding today. Cold. I wore a read wool sweater, and the wind cut through sometimes, like pieces of ice on my arms. Started out at perhaps 1:30 PM, when the sun was still out, a dulled yellow sunlight, as though the wind were blowing the light sideways. An hour later, among leafless, stark trees, the sun disappeared. Peering into the sky, we saw stormy clouds moving away, all in one narrowed direction, like they were sucked away, my sister said. Like into a black hole, I said.

The cold began to seep into my thin purple gloves, three fingers on each hand going numb. Uncomfortable and cramping. Then, what I dislike the most--my big toe was going numb.

When we first entered the trail, birds were chirping on the dead ground and taking flight among the naked branches. After that, inside the trail, it was quiet, hushed, broken by few lonely walkers here and there. Many beautiful dogs.

We came to a frozen lake and approached by foot. We struggled through stiff yellow grass blades tall as my shoulders. We stood on the icy, muddy edge, looking upon a white, light blue lake. The edges of the lake was uneven, gentle waves frozen.

We turned our tired, cold bodies and went back home.

SUPERHEROINE CHRONICLES

She walked along the cracked sidewalk, hands shoved into coat pockets. So cold. She had passed the wounded body of a rodent, curled into the gutter. The bleeding body had quivered. She passed it. She wished she had taken a rock nearby and killed it. Just a sharp blow to the head and that's it. No more pain. Too late. She's reached her apartment. Up some steps. Opens door. Warm now. Dark. Maybe tomorrow. If it's still alive tomorrow, she'll take that rock and end it.