Writing A Dream I Just Woke Up From [E]

[kalon]

This is the rough draft of the story I want to submit for my creative writing class. I finally was able to churn something out after several of you OB members gave me some excellent advice.

I had a plot idea, I strangled it, beat it, and made it into a smoothie, which brings you to this rough draft. While writing this, I was purposely trying to break some of the suggested "rules" of short stories (the things that are hard to pull off, and not suggested). Any constructive criticism or comments are welcomed.



[size=3][CENTER]A Dream I Just Woke Up From[/CENTER][/size]

The best thing about school is going home. I walk in, take the two minutes required to divest myself of my tightly-laced shoes (that make me miss my old ratty sneakers which I could kick off easily) and drop back on the couch. No essays are due, no biology projects, no more homework, no more? ?Books, no more teachers? dirty looks,? I finish aloud. I must correct my earlier statement: the best thing about school is going home on the day summer vacation starts.

I twist on the couch to find a comfortable position. It?s covered with several books, comics, a few video games, some magazines from six months back? It?ll take too long to list everything. Point is, I shift around until I?m only lying on the fluffy oddly textured pillow that?s comfy even though it?s blue and stands out against the green-brown floral pattern of the couch. Not that it matters. Relaxation over fashion, always.

I don?t sleep, just listen to the murmur of actors turned to the barest of volumes on the TV. Daydreaming suits me, it?s all I ever do, and I can lie for hours doing nothing more than thinking in lethargy or explosion. I watch the cream ceiling change to gold, then yellow, then blue as dusk falls as slow and silent as ash. The ceiling?s odd, not flat, but ridged haphazardly, but not sharply, just smoothly, a really good ceiling if you have to do a blending project in art class and want some good value. Eventually the blue evaporates, leaving behind only tints and shades, black, and gray, and not-quite-white. It?s the time in the evening when nothing is moving, and at the same time, the silence of the world is fresh, a stillness that is not suffocating.

With lazy realization I remember I forgot to check the mail, so, standing on tiptoe to stretch my calves tingling from a cut-off blood supply from being cramped on the couch, I walk into the hall connecting my apartment to all the others. Like my ceiling, the hallway and the stairs leading to other levels of the building are in shades of gray now, and white, and shadow that is beyond gray but not black. I turn up the stairwell that twists upward for several flights and start ascending. I reach a door, old and oak, covered in shades. The paint on the wall around it is peeling, and it makes another area good for a blending project. I open the door to another set of stairs and stare at the white coat with tails with the black trim the man in wearing. It matches the stairwell. He nods to me, tipping his top hat that goes from gray to black.

He turns away, and I have already forgotten his face. I grab his shoulder, and he turns. He?s wearing a Mardi Gras mask, half red and half gold, all darkened by shadow. I feel a sudden apprehension as he steps towards me, uncomfortably close, but he smiles, and there is no more harm because I know he is good.
I stretch out and notice with vague interest that I?m lying on the couch in the apartment, and the ceiling is the shade of post-twilight gray.


The days of summer are never long or short. They simply are, and they simply run together in a never-ending cycle. I do not think of life as eras, not at all, because time never stops, and though it can be measured, it cannot be divided.

Of course, that does not stop me from separating all the hourglass sand minutes of summer. The second best day of the break is the first day going on a trip, not that it matters where or when as long as there are other people you love there with you. I find myself on a bus, going for a visit with my friends to a state park.

First thing, I want to feed the geese bread from a paddle boat. I did that once, when I was little with my mom, and about twenty of them swam after us in a parade of water fowl. I?m squishing my bag of crusts, because I put it in the middle of the seat while I?m sitting next to the window with one of my friends beside me. The car is lulling, and peaceful. Everyone is used to me drifting in and out on car trips. The bus could drive off a ravine without me noticing. I hear my friends? chatter in my ears like the soft rushing of a stream and it?s comforting.

Eventually, the vehicle jerks to a stop. My friend and seatmate Ryan nudges me to get up and ?Don?t forget your breadcrumbs, Gretel.? I hit her for calling me Gretel, but she and I and everyone else are laughing as we leave the magic of public transportation.

We start down a stone path to get to the water. Somewhere along the way, I?ve dropped my bread, so I go wandering back the way I came in order to find it. I really want to feed the geese. My friends don?t mind; they?re used to me meandering around by myself after all these years. I skip?yes, skip, no laughing?down the smoothed brown stone glancing around for the bag with the bunny on it. All I really seem to notice is the sky. It holds my attention with its cloudiness, yet the light is washing down in streaks of warm orange like a Thomas Kinkade painting. There are high brick walls about the pathway, and in this golden light, I am suddenly afraid.

I act on instinct and start running. I head down the alleyway. The full moon overhead casts everything in pearlescent light. The world is in shades of blue as I dash up the fire escapes and reach the top of the building. I see the man again.

He has no top hat, no Mardi Gras mask, but I recognize that smile. It is the smile of a Harlequin, a trickster smile, but playful. I feel the fear recede.

He?s whispering something. I know what it is, but I can?t hear, and I forget as soon as?

?Hey, sleepy, get up! And don?t forget your bread, Gretel!? Ryan yells, shaking me awake as the bus jolts to a stop. My friends and I leave behind public transportation. There are no brown stone pathways or trees or randomly appearing alleyways. There is a concrete walk to the water that we walk down until we reach the water and the place to rent paddleboats. The sky is pure blue, no clouds today.

We do rent a paddleboat, and we do feed ducks, and we play tag, and I?m pretty sure we just ruined the romantic lakeside picnic a young couple was having when we start playing hide-and-seek and use the concrete picnic table they are sitting at as a hiding place?hey, the park is public. Eventually we collapse on the grass. If there were clouds, we might point at them and call out shapes, but there are no clouds. Green horizon and blue sky, nothing else.

Afternoon rolls around and rolls right into sundown. The sky is tinged yellow and the sun is a neon orange bouncy ball, the kind from twenty-five cent toy machines. I like the world the way it is right now, silent and golden, and it?s not until too late that I realize I?m in the way of the speeding bus (I hate public transportation) with its harsh lights in my face making my pupils contract.

At the last second, I melt into the pavement and avoid getting hit. I sit up and I?m back in the grass with the sky so blue over my head. There is the paddleboat rental place to my left and a picnic table to my right and right next to me the man with the caring smile. I think he?s either younger than me or older or ageless or beyond comprehension. We stare up at the cloudless sky in silence. When I finally turn to look at him the sky goes black. He still smiles but grabs my arm and hurries me along as we start to run. He speaks like before. It is different, because this time I hear him.

?Are you dreaming??


I sit up on my couch in the lazy humid afternoon. On the television actors are murmuring with the sound almost mute. The calendar in the kitchen has today?s date circled, because I always have today?s date circled. It is the third day of summer break. My wallet is missing enough money for the bus to and from the park and a paddleboat rental.


Even in summer, I snuggle deep under a thick blanket. The fan is on, so I?m not quite suffocating, but kept in that warm drowsiness that I always am. It?s not quite sleep or awake or dream. At the moment, I think it?s the latter. I am fairly certain. Especially certain, since something much too big to be my cat is shifting next to me on my bed.

When I grudgingly open my eyes, I?m not surprised to be walking down the street arm in arm with the man from before.

?Do you know of Descartes??

? ?I think therefore I am,? isn?t that the quote he?s famous for?? I ask.

?Sometimes,? he says, and I wish to wipe the smile off of his face. Suddenly, I cannot see his features clearly. His form blurs like a spirit in Elysium. ?But also, it has been quoted, ?Dubito, ergo cogito, ergo sum.? ?

I?ve never heard it said that way before. Too bad I don?t speak Latin (or whatever it was Descartes spoke).

I blink and the stranger has disappeared like smoke in rain. I do not question why I am not under my blanket at home but in front of my friend Pat?s house. I knock on the door to find that, although I don?t remember when, Pat has been expecting me. We watch some movies I rented who-knows-when. I know I don?t.


It?s not waking up in a field that bothers me. I mean, it?s summer, it?s cool since the sun is just rising, and there is a pleasant breeze wafting over the field. No, it?s the cows that bug me. Stupid cattle standing there all nonchalant, eating grass. Like I?m not even here. And the cows probably aren?t going to answer any of my questions.

In fact, I know they aren?t, because they?re all moving away now, tails swishing, and of course a giant black hole has opened under my feet.

I fall for awhile, and eventually, I end up sitting at a table at the coffeehouse near my apartment. It?s still dawn, but I?m sitting there with a fresh cup of?from the smell it?s French vanilla, which is soothing (and sounds so much better than Freedom vanilla).

He?s sitting across from me again, and I?m not sure whether to like him, dislike him, or be neutral. I make a decision. My decision is to take a drink of the coffee, which is at the perfect temperature with just the right amount of sweetener.

It?s a normal early morning, with the early traffic commuters around, some joggers, an old lady that I don?t know personally but I know her yappy obnoxious dog that?s torn into my yard before. I hate that dog like I hate those cows like I think I hate the guy sitting across from me.

?You?ve been acting weird. Have you been getting enough sleep?? he asks. He smiles, and the smile is still nice, and caring, and something else entirely. By now I?m just so tired.

?I will pour this delicious?and delightfully scalding?French vanilla roast coffee over your head if you don?t back off.?

?Someone?s moody today,? he says.

?Seriously,? agrees Ryan. I did not notice her before. Or Pat. But there they are. ?We?re off for the summer. We don?t have any exams or professors or anything for months. Relax. It?s not like you?re still in chemistry with this guy.?

She swats the smiling man who I somehow blame for the cows playfully on his arm. I futilely try to set his gold and red wristbands (that he will not stop playing) with aflame with my mind. It does not work.

?Yeah, I remember when you two blew up that beaker. Man, that was an awesome fire,? adds Pat.

I?m pretty sure it was Pat and Ryan who set the lab on fire, especially since I know I always worked alone. I take another sip of coffee. A bird cries overhead. I look up.

When I look back down, it?s five in the afternoon by my watch, and I?m in my backyard with the annoying smiling guy beside me. I think I?m about to give up on questioning him.

?I don?t want you to give up, just think some more.?

?What was that different quote of Descartes??? I ask.

?I doubt, therefore I think, therefore I am. I don?t know that I doubt half as much as you, but I think enough to give myself an existence.?

?Did I make us blow up the chemistry lab??

?No, I did. I turned the burner on twice as high as it should have been, and you know, temperature is important. Remember how made Mr. Mackenzie was.?

That last sentence was something of a command. More like a request. I can see it, Mr. Mackenzie being mad at me and the odd guy next to me instead of Ryan and Pat.

I say, ?I think it?s my fault, because I tried to set you on fire when we went out for coffee, so I got fire, but got it wrong.?

?Of course,? he says, and smiles. ?I can feel thoughts pretty well. I wanted to outthink you. I do not want to be crispy.?

?So? what?s been the point??

?What am I trying to tell you??

I shrug, and we sit back down on the sand. The waves crash up to drench our toes. I do not like salt water.

?So?? I try again, leaning my hands against the patio table. He?s dogpaddling in the swimming pool.

?So what?? he counters. He gives me a hand up from the grass. ?So nothing. So it?s whatever you want.?

Overhead, the sky is the gray of post-twilight. I blink, a decisive blink. The sky is such a lovely splatter of pink and teal. Just one thing I would like to know.

?What?s your name?? I ask, and he smiles.

[Boo]

[size=1]There you were telling us you had no inspiration and now you have all of this written out. I love what you made of it. I simply love it. The writing was original and it kept my attention the whole time, which is great, because stories on my computer screen never keep my attention very long. The subtleness of how you create and pass a very thin line between dream and reality, especially in the first half, plays with one's mind in a great way.

The I didn't really like about it were the dialogues. The Mackenzie thing seemed really out of place to me and got me slightly distracted. As for myself, I would've probably used very little dialogue by "the man" and the main character and I think the parts where you talk to the reader are a bit unnecessary too.

In the second half it's a bit unclear how the main character suddenly lands in several different dreams after each other, but you handled them nicely. The dream with the cows was continued great for example with the [i]"and of course a giant black hole has opened under my feet"[/i] quote. This was followed up directly by some an other great part.
[quote=kalon][size=1]He?s sitting across from me again, and I?m not sure whether to like him, dislike him, or be neutral. I make a decision. My decision is to take a drink of the coffee, which is at the perfect temperature with just the right amount of sweetener.

It?s a normal early morning, with the early traffic commuters around, some joggers, an old lady that I don?t know personally but I know her yappy obnoxious dog that?s torn into my yard before. I hate that dog like I hate those cows like I think I hate the guy sitting across from me.[/size][/quote]I really adore those two paragraphs.

All together I think you made a really awesome short story. It's catchy, messes with one's mind, is original, has a lot of subtle humour through it and it has a catchy last line. Great job.

Great to see the psychology and dreams thing worked out so well.[/size]