[RP] Dreams in Salt, Part 2

I dreamed of the sea.

For days and weeks I stood hip-deep in waters that extended out to the horizon in every direction. The waves were gentle, or rather they were nil--not a breath of air stirred, and the ripples in the water lacked a current--but the water was deep on all sides and I dared not move for fear of what may lie beneath.

Each minute that passed was pregnant with feeling, though my surroundings seemed devoid of stimulus. The unchanging, tideless water belied the turmoil I felt within me.

Should I take a step forward and risk the depths? Or was it safer on this tiny bar of sand where I stood, both feet planted firmly on a disc of stone?

Weeks passed into months, months to years, years to centuries. I lived eternities on that rock. My skirt stuck to my legs as the sun baked in its berth in the mellow orange sky. My arms hung at my sides like sacks of grain, plunged to the forearms in saltwater that reflected vermilion fire on its rippling skin.

I began to wonder if I was frozen in time, if the tideless water merely paused mid-current, if the sun that never moved from its hook over the southwestern horizon, bloated and hot, simply waited for a sign.

If the world held its collective breath, what command could free me from this infinity of stillness?

Simply considering the question seemed to break the spell. Time crashed forward with a start and I stumbled from my perch, falling headlong into the dark, churning waters. The sun had long since passed and the stars gave off too feeble a light to guide me to the surface. I sank.

A strand of kelp twisted itself about my ears as I plummeted into the depths. Be ready, it seemed to say. We fell for hours, and just as I resigned myself to another eternity, this one of submersion in a cold, murky hell from which I would never escape, my feet touched bottom.

“Child,” came a voice from behind me, sweet and androgynous of tone. “My daughter. You struggle so.”

I opened my mouth to speak and was silenced by the sea. I tasted salt on my tongue. I tasted millennia and the tide of time.

“A wave alone cannot turn stone to sand,” I heard it say. “A leg alone cannot hope to stand. You are a criminal of circumstance, in a prison of your own making.”

Unseen fingers gently untangled the kelp from my ear. That brief touch opened a window in my mind and I saw the entirety of the ocean’s mighty existence in a single instant, every breath and gust of wind that ever carved the surface of its waters, every current that shaped the earth with painful slowness, the birth and death of every creature born beneath the waves, like secrets time forgot.

“Seek not all there is to know, but all that is worth knowing.” Those hands pressed the strand of kelp into mine and I felt again the wholeness of the sea, a totality almost too beautiful and complex for my mortal mind to bear, let alone comprehend.

The seaweed curled about my open fingers and palm. The complexity of its being struck me with full force as the owner of that strange, ethereal voice closed my hand around it; no longer simply an errant strand of kelp, it was an entity made up of countless interconnected parts, a creation of infinite beauty in finite form.

“Even kelp grows toward the sun.”

***

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[CW] Night People

I created a new tag, [CW], to mark posts that contain creative writing but don't have diddly squat to do with roleplaying or WoW. Not that I have a ton of stuff to put under this label, but sometimes these things happen and it's my damn blog, so I get to put it up there.

Treating my Raynaud's means I have to take a medication that causes very vivid, movie-quality dreams. I borrowed one from last night for this.

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Pulling up a steep driveway into someone's quiet evening, I am an annoyance on four wheels, my headlights breaking a twilight reverie as my victims sit sipping drinks from white mugs in the semi-dark. My directions are a bit off. Eventually I find where I am supposed to be, a home filled with my displaced family.

I find myself baffled by their daily routines and wonder why the real toilet paper is on a hook so high on the wall. It's to keep it away from my cousin, who had meningitis as a baby. They have rolls upon rolls of a special toilet paper, made just for her, that is supposed to be easier for her to use and encourage her bathroom training. I hate it. It is thick and feels like ace bandages or gauze in my hands as I peel the rolls trying to figure out what is wrong with them. No wonder she doesn't like to use it. I wouldn't either.

Everything in the house is covered in bits of patchwork ruffles, tiers of clashing patterns softening all the corners. My mother is there, watching programs on a small portable TV while she makes beds and smooths out quilts she has made. "I wish I could quilt, I never had a knack for it," she says as she unfolds the heavy, cool fabric. The tiny stitches are delicate under my fingertips. The quilts are fine and dark, the patterns intricate, the blocks cut and sewn into perfect symmetry. I think they are beautiful.

I help her make beds. She tells me I should watch the show. She thinks I will like it too, so watch, watch.

Later I'm driven to the city, where I'm supposed to spend the night all alone. Dropped off downtown with a coat, a scarf and a handful of worldly possessions, I huddle near a closed car wash or laundromat, watching from a distance the Night People as they walk by.

It's scary but after some time I begin to explore the sidewalks, peering into the windows of places that are only open in the middle of the night. The denizens frighten me, but at least they are human. Some are quirky, some are poor, some are tough and marked with ropes of colored ink that cover their limbs like a second set of clothes. They are all different, but they share the same dark eyes that speak of loneliness. Their bodies are hunches, slouches, and angles in the cold florescent light.

They are the Night People, and they are comfortable in their skins, shifting and drifting and stalking with confidence to their positions. I cannot guess where they are going. They have places to be, because it is Night Time, and Night Time belongs to the Night People.

I leave my things in a locker and walk along the city blocks. I am hesitant. Everyone else knows what they are doing, and where they will go. Everyone else has a Place and a Plan. I am different. I am aimless.

A narrow door reveals a gathering of people with long, pale faces at an even longer table. They turn their heads to examine me with those dark eyes that whisper to me I am alone, I am alone, I am alone. Many of them smoke, wisps of poison wreathing their heads where they sit. It makes me want a cigarette. After a silence during which I am certain he has seen and weighed my very soul, the man at the head of the table motions casually for me to sit. I join them and they continue with their business. I have been absorbed.

I pass the rest of the wee small hours going from place to place, observing what people do in the night. When the dawn comes and the streets are lit with something other than sodium-arcs and shop lights, Day People begin to appear on their morning routes and there are so many of them I can only see one face for every twenty that pass. They move in currents and tides so unlike the individually significant journeys of their nocturnal counterparts.

Gradually the Night People are purged by the push. It is cold outside so the people huddle together when they aren't rushing, rushing. Clustered in groups of two or three at the corners of great stone buildings, the remnants of the Night People smoke with the Day People, together in their vice. Harried businesswomen and leggy men in uncomfortable women's shoes and bargain feathers share lights and the dirty looks of passers-by, but mostly they're just part of the scenery, like everything else.

It smells like donuts, cold air and high rises.

[RP] The Faire, Chapter 1

Thiyenn is not a new character. Over the last year or two she's grown a lot, and I'm profoundly affectionate toward the timid little thing. No matter where she finds herself, or how terrified she is, she always manages to get by. I had an epic dream the other night and, while I can't remember much of it, it sparked the idea for a formidable writing project that really fills out the character and makes her feel even more real to me.

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When I was little, the open sky was my roof and canvas tents my shelter. The earth was my floor. I would like to say that simple living brought peace, but I cannot; I was never suited to the life to which I was born, and for me, peace was a rarity.

The Darkmoon are a people of wanderers. For those who do not know them, the name invokes images of dark, exotic beauty, brazen deception, squalor and tawdry mysticism. As one who has belonged to them, I can truthfully say that only two things can be claimed almost universally of the Darkmoon's diverse tribe: they are hardworking, and deeply superstitious.

The Faire was only quiet in the early mornings just before dawn, and this was when I liked it. I saw only my own people then, bright costumes hanging over their shoulders as they finished preparing their stalls and games for another day and ate the morning meal standing up or sitting on mats, or on the tall stools behind their tables while they arranged their wares. Their mugs steamed with a drink the Darkmoon love, a pungent, syrupy brew made from roasted leaves. Mama said I tasted it once, when I was small. My eyes went wide "just so," she would say-- and here she would open her own beautiful dark eyes until they swallowed me whole -- "and then they stuck that way." I was a mirror of her in those days, a perfect miniature. Only my blue eyes were my own, yet I envied hers, the color of coffee swimming with flecks of gold.

Mama told fortunes. She wore her wealth on her body, gold loops circling her wrists and ankles, chiming softly halfway up to her dark elbows; coils of hammered gold with ruby eyes, like snakes, wrapped themselves around her thin upper arms. I made myself small and hid in our tent while she made herself a dusky oracle for strangers. Men and women, young and old sat spellbound before her, helpless as I was helpless to resist the pull of her spirit and those soulful eyes. I crouched in the corner and stared at my bare feet, dark with sun and dirt. I smelled the earth and incense and my mother's perfume, enthralled by the lulling and husky tones of her voice.

At night, long after I first slept, Mama would scatter her bowl of spent incense across the entrance to our tent to ward off demons and evil spirits. Then she would lower the heavy flap of canvas that served as a door and undress, peeling off the rustling red and orange silks, the peacock velvets and cinnamon satins, all woven through with threads of gold. She left them hanging like shed skins over the crates and chests that were our tables and chairs and held everything we owned. She came to bed in simple nightclothes, made for warmth, and there she would wake me, curling one of her bangled arms under my head in the dark. Sometimes she spoke to me, sometimes she sang the old lullabies the Grandmothers taught her, and sometimes she merely watched me until I fell asleep again, my eyelids heavy under the weight of night.

I loved her.

Another dream? Ugh, don't read this. I'm not crazy.

I really don't want to post this, but since I've started on the dream catalog it seems dumb to stop now, especially since they're so goddam vivid. I'm in a weird mood now, and I don't want to play.

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Yet another visit to the compound in the woods where my parents and grandparents live. (My dreams are always coming back to my grandmother's house and I'm not sure why. It's an all-the-time thing, once I even dreamed I witnessed a nuclear incident from up on the hill near the end of their driveway. It's a common setting, as are the woods around the house. They live in a hundred-year-old Christmas tree farm, I guess. It's full of douglas fir. It almost always looks more fantastic and brooding and awesome in my dreams than it is irl. It looks more real and more fake at the same time.) I'm in the kitchen and I hear a noise from the living room. I go look.

There's a recliner set by the patio doors, and in it is a lump of carpet scraps stapled to jello. I get closer and I see that it seems to have some kind of form, and looks matted. It has a wrinkled portion at one end and when I get close, it opens its wrinkled mouth and eyes and sniffs me. It's a dog. A very, very old dog. And it belongs to my great-grandmother (who lives with my grandparents, for real).

It can tell I am female and of bearing age, and before I realize what the hell is going on it's nipped open the front of my shirt with its teeth. It is upset that I'm wearing a tank top underneath, and rouses itself to pounce on me and hump my (leg? please say leg, I don't know)-- but then I swat this stupid old muppet-dog and tell it NO. It growls, annoyed, but it leaves me alone.

Some other stuff happened, but I can't really remember so well. I just know I narrowly avoided being raped by a muppet, and it's got me a little creeped.

School started. Hubby's leaving. And I keep having dreams.

The kid's happy, he's excited to go to school. I can't complain. But we got less than a week to go before Iraq happens and I have to admit I hate to see him go this time. A paycheck is a paycheck, though. Gotta pay the bills.

So this dream.

I was in this country club, it was full of snobs and military men, ex-military men and snobs. They sold me a membership to their club. I paid $200, on credit. The receptionist held my card. Did I want to add $50 for towels? Gym access, $50, a month. "Uhh," I said. I came up with a plan. They all stared at me like dogshit. I rolled out my excuse. "I'll sign up for that next week, after my husband goes back to Iraq." Oh, the horror. "My god," said the one who looked like my recruiter. I nodded. "See you in a week. When I start working out and all."

So I go out to the parking lot, there's this fucking sports car out there. I have the keys. I guess it's a loaner from the club, you know? Well, I sit down in the thing. It purrs when you turn it on, no lie. So I'm trying to get out of this parking lot just before dusk and there's some kinda bullshit road construction and a block on my right side. I can't see for shit. People are waiting for me to go. I can't. There are cones! Well, eventually I see how I'm supposed to get out. It's stupid easy and makes me feel like a retard who ought to be wearing mittens and drooling on a tray, not in a fucking Lamborghini or whatever the hell kind of car this is but goddam, is it fast. It's tearing up the road, and I just drive and drive. It's beautiful. I drive all down those country roads in bumfuck nowhere and pretty soon I'm turned back around looking for my street, the road that will take me up to where my parents live, up in the woods.

I see the sign, it's got the right name on it, just this dirt road cutting off from the highway and curving around. I have to park the car, you just can't drive on a road so narrow. It's nuts. I leave the keys in it and start walking. I crest this hill and there's two houses right there at the top, houses made of nothing but the hollowed-out rotten stumps of trees and hippie junk everywhere. They're like hobbit-holes without any goddam doors. Nobody's in them that I can see. I keep going. The trees clear up and I can see all these gorgeous rocks, this ancient open space full of odd rock formations and red-gold sunset boulders the color of clay and they're beautiful, I can see this old ladder I used to climb to get to the forest up above all this stone, and it's hanging from another one of those gorgeous rock ledges. The end of it's broken, it's too short to reach the rock below it. Not even close. Well, Fuck.

So I decide I'll keep going. Maybe the road goes somewhere good, maybe there's even more beautiful things to see. I'm wrong. It ends, a whole fucking box canyon made of this lovely clay. I don't know what to do, so I stand there. Soon I'm hearing music. It's muffled, faint as hell. I start climbing on some of the rocks. Some of it's rock, some looks like camouflaged wood and cardboard and shit. The music is louder. I hear a door slam. I look down from this rock/roof I've climbed up on. There's a door in the side of the canyon/wall. It's a fucking kitchen. I can see a logo printed everywhere. Some fucking bar and grill. I get down from the rocks and approach the door. A girl opens it. "You got something I can cover up with?" I say. She looks down, horrified. Also amused. I'm completely naked. Somehow my hands and arms are covering most of the damage, but she points to this crazy apron. A passing girl laughs. They're waitresses. "You got anything bigger than that? I'll work for it."

And that's how I got a job slinging grub at snotty country club douchebags in the side of a fucking cliff.

I had a dream...

...that my mom gave me a hair treatment and put mushrooms on my head (wtf?). My cousin Tree walked in and started laughing at me. "You look like a pork chop," she said.

I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean. I can't even remember the last time I ate a pork chop.

If you can interpret this one, feel free to leave a comment. *snerk*