I’ve been really terrible about making efforts to recall my dreams lately, despite my enduring fascination with lucid dreams. I know it’s the first and most important step to having them, and yet it’s still difficult to remember to remember.
Anyway, I thought it would be fun to use the bits I do remember as writing exercises. Hopefully I’ll be motivated to remember my dreams so that I can write them up as little snapshots to add to my collection. I’ll update this post with new pieces as I writemember them. Here’s the first!
Spires
I wedge my right foot and press myself further up the rock. I’m nearing the top now. The rock is a deep gray, irregularly shaped yet smooth like some giant tooth. The night is perfectly still, temperatureless. My friction against the rock is the only sound as I pull myself over its upper lip. I stay low instinctively, slithering myself into a slight depression. All around me, other towers of gray stone rise into the dead air. They crowd to the horizon, giant blunted stalagmites with infinite corridors winding darkly between them. I can see distant mountains in the moonlight, but there is no moon. I’m waiting for something. The rock spires feel comforting, and I hug closer to my own. I am terrified of something down in those corridors. Some things. I know that they are far away, but also that my fear is justified. I can hear them now. It starts as a high, ululating call. Like a distant alarm, only horribly organic. Other voices join it, wet and sickly and yelping. I envision a bucket thick with worms writhing blindly against each other. Soon, now. I press even flatter against the rock, as if its shallow rim will keep the sound from twisting into my ears. It happens.
There is no sound, but an impossible rush of dust billows out from somewhere far among the spires. It expands, faster than I can understand, until a wall of boiling brown fills half the now-bright sky. Its expansion is so colossal that I feel it’s the rock beneath me which is moving, shooting forwards into a seething oblivion. My body tenses but I do not move. Then the wall is a sphere. A perfectly sharp, enormous sphere with everything rebounding silently within. The patterns are beautiful, like milk in coffee, an entire planet of brown and tan and black half-sunk into the landscape before me. It is quiet. It has been quiet for some time, and bright. The sphere of debris has mixed itself to an even tan, and even now is growing clearer. Soon nothing remains. Everywhere the sphere had been, nothing. It has left an emptiness so perfectly opposite itself that its presence is not lessened. It strikes me that the sphere and the absolute lack of sphere are not opposites; they are the same. As I begin to climb back down over the rock, I can hear a dull roar as the remaining half of some body of water begins to fill the void. I am going home.
Train
The train is running late again. I sigh and wriggle my dress shoes deeper into the sand. A little kid with a bucket runs by me towards his mother, who sweeps him up and shushes him. A scattering of businesspeople and tourists wait with me by the tracks, some sitting or leaning on the overturned cars dotting the station. I turn and throw my leg up onto the cab of the nearest vehicle. It’s a blue pickup truck lying sideways, buried a good three feet in. I hesitate a little before hoisting myself up, twisting my back leg to get better traction against the sand. Carefully sidestepping the passenger-side window, I stand as tall as I can atop it and peer along the beach hoping to spot the train. Nothing. I lower myself to sit at the edge of the nearest wheel, careful to keep my dress pants away from any oil that might still be coating the truck’s exposed underbelly. A businesswoman with a black umbrella to my right checks her watch and shakes her head. The kid with the bucket is loose again. He’s digging energetically near the windshield of a capsized Beetle. The Beetle’s cracked tires point skyward, grimly evoking a stuck turtle, or maybe a real beetle unable to right itself. The kid gives a little shriek, sending his bucket rolling and grabbing at his foot. I drop down from my truck and walk over as his mother pulls something from the sand. She holds up a cruel-looking shard of brown pottery, looking disgusted. ‘Who would leave something like that lying around a train station?’ I wonder. It seems criminally irresponsible. I tell her to wait a minute, and grab up one of the empty plastic shopping bags lying nearby. She drops the thing carefully into my bag, and I start pawing through the sand near where it was found – in case there are any more. I find three more pieces, all wickedly sharp and well-camouflaged in the sun-tanned sand. Disgusting. As I’m standing up and tying the bag safely shut, I see the train rolling up towards us. A little wave of sand is being thrown up at the front as it’s brushed from the half-buried tracks. I toss the bag into one of the Beetle’s wheel wells, packing it all in so it won’t get blown back out. When it’s secured, I lope across the sand to join the line of other passengers already boarding the train. It wasn’t so late after all, today.
Spree
“Hey no, don’t pull over!” I bite out, “That’s definitely weird. What kind of ambulance pulls over right before a police checkpoint?” I reposition the gun, heavy in my lap, as she directs us back into the flow of traffic. “Alright, relax. I’ve got another idea anyway.” It’s nearly our turn. An officer squints at our windshield in the dark, and raises his arm to motion something. I loosen my jaw – “What exactl-” but she slams the accelerator, and it’s all pressed back into me. I feel the bags of money shift around in the back. The officer is giving chase. I’m outside of the ambulance, I am the ambulance, bending my whole body to push against the asphalt like a sprinter starting a race. The rhythm isn’t quite right, and I feel robbed of acceleration by some floaty ineffectuality. He’s close behind us, massive and moving too fast. She’s laughing – “They probably think we’ve got a couple of stiffs back there!” The cop raises a hand like a Christmas ham, and a rubbery lead whips out to wrap around the back door handle. It pulls partly open, but then slides free and slams shut again. He hasn’t seen what’s inside.
Elsewhere, I’m racing up a dingy apartment building stairwell with my radio crackling. We’ve traced the license to this address. “Are you inside? Send your report ASAP!” I don’t bother responding, just set my shoulder and blow through the door. A couple had been watching tv, are staring up at me in slack-jawed surprise. I go straight for the fridge, tearing it open. It’s empty. Every shelf bare, an arctic expanse, vast and remote. I knew it! I finally thumb my radio, “It’s empty! The vehicle is stolen!”
She’s still laughing, eyes glittering in the dark. The cab shudders as the cop’s whip pulls at us again. Finally something seems to give way in the guts of the ambulance, the engine roars and I’m shoved back harder into my seat. Those massive footfalls begin to recede into the night. I’m smiling now too, I can’t help myself. She really is something else.
Edge
They watch from the treeline, squinting with concern through the salty air. Nearly there, now. I test another rock before giving it my full weight and moving further onto the promontory. Many explorers of old came to these cliffs, intrigued by the occasional footprints and other signs of habitation. A scraggly bush strains at my palms but holds firm as I lower myself to another ledge. The sea sparkles below. Over the years, they built concrete platforms jutting from the rock. The rough ground below my feet gives way to cool gray planes. It’s a massive bulk, a man-made protrusion rivaling the natural forms beneath. I wonder how securely they’re joined. The path slopes under some kind of overpass. As I duck from under it, I find myself at the edge. I’ve heard it’s sheer. I ease myself down to peek over, the concrete harsh yet reassuring against my knees. It’s sheer. A perfect slab, straight and smooth, reflections dancing across it as it approaches the water so impossibly far away.
I clamber back a bit, searching for the controls. Of course there are no railings. I find them in a small depression right at the edge. Lying there is like being on the wing of an airplane, and a sudden thrill of fear runs through me. I steel myself and thumb the accelerator. For a moment all is still. Then – CRACK and it’s free. I can just glimpse the rocks and trees beginning to move away, faint shouts of wonder and joy floating over me. The concrete shudders and my weight shifts in the depression. No time to panic… I shade my eyes and sight on the dark smudge on the Eastern horizon, then ratchet up to full power. I cannot afford to fail.
Within Riesen 