River of Dreams #42: The End/Beginning

Posted on November 28, 2010 by randomyriad

Final Chapter

The Beginning of Another Story

Emmylou was the first one wake, her mind full of the events that seemed more a dream than what had just faded from her mind as she came awake. She stretched cautiously and crossed to the window looking out on the flattened  Porsche. It looked like a bug hit with a fly swatter, juices leaking in dark stains amid the puddles and debris.

That really happened, she thought and then thought of Larry. She threw a robe on and walked quickly to the room across the hall and, opening the door just wide enough to peer in with one eye, she was relieved to see him sleeping deeply with a healthy color to his face. She went quietly down the stairs. Maddie lay sprawled on her back, arms spread and snoring loudly. Jered was slumped in the ancient overstuffed arm chair of an undeterminable color. His face held the look of someone without regrets, like a child who has spent all of his energy in frantic and curious games, finally stops and falls instantly asleep. She moved into the kitchen thinking, I don’t know these people. Even Random has changed so much that I have no idea who he is now.

She bustled about starting water for coffee and tea. Then a thought floated into her mind like a black bird in a brilliant blue sky. Essie will have to come and live with me. She needs to be here. The thought pleased her, imagining sharing the house with someone she didn’t know, little by little filling in the blanks. I wonder what will come next?

Random woke from the feeling of being a world into the world of his body that was next to Essie’s body. He drew her close and put his face in her dark thick hair. What next? He thought as she made little sounds of contentment. He looked at the wall where the snake mouth tunnel had been and saw a wall. He looked at the blue sky of morning through the window in the opposite wall. What next?

When everyone was awake, they all sat around the table in the kitchen. Emmylou stood cooking the last of the bacon. Larry sat with his leg propped as Essie examined the wounds.

“Eet don’ look too bad,” She swabbed the clean holes with antibiotic. “I wonder eef dream wolves have dream germs.”

“I just don’t ever want to have any beasts teeth in me dream type or real world they feel about the same I’m thinkin’.”

“I’m just glad they weren’t trying to kill you,” Emmylou said without turning.

“Not more than I am.”

Emmy picked the last of bacon out of the pan, plopped it on the paper towel covered plate amongst the other gnarled pieces, and carried it to the table. She stopped across from Essie and said matter of factly, “You know you have to come here to live with me now.”

Essie drew back her face into a question.

“Somehow I’m supposed to just lose the end of this story. I need to know how our story turns out.”

“I would love to leev here,” she glanced hopefully at Random.

“I still have to work, but I could keep my apartment and only commute a few days a week.”

“You mean, you would be up here helpin’ Emmy with the ranch an’ I could come on the weekends and be the little sister you never had.”

“That would be nice,” Essie said smiling and touching Maddie’s arm.

“Well, I am glad things are working out. I for one have had enough of all this interference from the beyond,“ Jered added.

“I guess you’ll be needing a lift into town.” Emmylou said in as casual a manner as she could manage.

“Yeah, that car out there isn’t  gonna get me very far.”

“I think my ride is shot, too.” Random said looking down at his plate. “Dream snakes are hell on cars.”

“I’ll need a ride to school, if it isn’t too much trouble.”

“Everyone will fit in the van. We need to go get Essie’s things and check her out of the motel.”

Later they all got in the van and headed into another story. Life goes on that way.

Posted in California, conversations, dangerous creatures, developing relationships, Dreamtime, Fiction, House and home, mindworks, NaNoWriMo, novel projects, River of Dreams, the end is the beginning | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Built To Spill

Posted on November 21, 2010 by randomyriad
Doug Martsch performing with the band @ Primav...

Image via Wikipedia

My youngest son and I went to see and hear Built To Spill at the Showbox last night (the only all ages show). Doug Martsch is a true mad genius of rock. He and the band are all business on stage like sound sculptors working real time in front of the audience. They are serious about the madness of the music. At one point Martsch came out with an acoustic guitar and did some off the wall blues renditions of 3 of his songs, very basic folk style over the top of some complex musical and lyrical ideas as well as a deft slide. This is a man who thinks about music and then plays it from his soul. The final number went from a complex rock poem to a wall of  woven noise in which all three guitarists spun a thread. I am not completely sure it was music but my mind and body were so engrossed in it that it didn’t matter.


Le Fleur opened with their interesting blend of high energy music. I would like to hear more of their music live. 50 minutes is not long enough. Ivy Meissner has an infectious energy and plays a mean bass. The whole band is very polished with some interesting musical ideas. Beyond all that they seem to be enjoying themselves on stage. Nice to see musicians who take joy in their craft.

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River of Dreams #41: Becoming the Dream

Posted on November 14, 2010 by randomyriad

Chapter 21

Together Into the Dream

A ragged crash and shattering glass wrenched Essie and Random out of the daze they had fallen into in each other’s arms. They squinted through the dimness to where the window used to be and saw a deep oval shadow.

“Swallow me,” the thought winked in Essie’s mind like a neon motel sign. “Follow me,” it winked again.

“We’ve got to go!”

Essie jumped up peeling Random’s arms away frantically.

He shook his thoughts loose, and rose more slowly. She pulled him up toward what she began to realize was the giant snake’s mouth which had at attached itself to the side of the house like the rolling dock to the side of a 747.

“Eet ees the snake.” Essies said flatly eyes wide with the knowledge of where they were headed.

“Oh, no! I’m not going in there!” Random pulled back.

“We have no choice, Carida !” Essie pulled him along toward the tooth bordered passage, 3 inch daggers neatly spaced catching bits of light. “Eet is the only way to the tree. We must get to the tree. I know eet now.”

“I don’t know I feel like a walking meal.”

“Eet ees a dream snake. Eet looks like a snake, but it will not behave like a snake.”

They had to duck a little and step up over the teeth to enter. The floor was smooth and felt hard and smooth like burnished wood, and to their surprise slanted up twisting.

“It’s like a giant root tunnel,” Random noted feeling a little more confident with each step.

“I tink we don’ have much time!” Essie said as she began a slippery assent. Random followed closely.

Random and Essie came out of the tunnel

Bright scarlet, magenta, lemon colored, flowers flashed around them amid the huge leaves and arm thick vines clinging to smooth trunks of trees. To south where they headed dark clouds gathered ominously and thunder rumbled. They did not fear the rain, but arriving to late to complete the task that awaited them.

The path they ran on became riddled with twisting roots they slipped and slid as rain began to splat about them from thundering skies. Herds of immense obsidian clouds ran before gusts of wet wind and were broken among the upper branches of all encompassing tree. They both slipped and stumbled nearly sliding off of the slick root trail. They helped each other up, and in this way they went on for a long while. The root became thicker until they became 5 larger roots braided in twisting macramé knots and they had to climb over and around and then it became 3 huge roots and finally into 2 roots like the trunks of gargantuan trees parallel twisting away and back together all around them the wind pushed them at first from one side, then in front and then from behind like invisible hands. Then they saw through the mist of the rain, the trunk of valley filling tree a vague shadow looming in dimness. Bright sparks flickered off of the shining leaves whenever a flash of lightning snaked across the sky.

The two roots merged into one and they moved as along it holding each other. They mad slow but steady progress in the chaos of wind, water and now tangled branches. They glimpsed flower buds like people-sized green eggs perched on the lower branches when the wind moved the glittering leaves out of the way.

Essie was wondering how they would get up into the tree, the trunk was at least a hundred yards wide at the base, maybe there would be a way to climb or steps or vines she could not tell. They were too far away.

Random held tight and followed his senses overwhelming any thoughts that might enter his mind.

A gust of wet wind hit and swept them up shattering their dream bodies into rain, driving them toward the low branches, swirling up through the huge golden leaves. Their atomized bodies mixed with each other and the storm, rising on the air. Suddenly they were falling into an enormous open white shimmering flower as the buds began to open.

The borders of their bodies, skin, muscle, bone, nerves ceased to exist. Random whole being became liquid and flowing and one with water and Essie and flower. He couldn’t see but feel the light. All was vague feelings of being. He could feel Essie but there was no knowledge of names or who he was, or how he was separate from the flower, the water or Essie. They were without individuality mixed and poured through the flower into the heart of the flower where they were infused with the energy of light and immediately created the pressure of growth, explosion of life out into a shell of fruit and seed. There was no time in the process. All happened in second or month or years. There was no one to tell. A flower, water person has no time. The fruit burst forth in a shimmering sphere like a soap bubble creature hands and feet appeared out of the mass. Head, eyes, nose mouth and the rhythmic thump of a heart. The creature looked out at the tree and the dream world with the eyes of Random/Essie/Water/Flower and something more ancient and innocent than any of these. It could see the tree at the beginning and end and the energy of the tree and all that flowed in and out of the tree from the light and air.

Posted in conversations, Dreamtime, Flying and Falling, mindworks, Mythical and mysterious, NaNoWriMo, novel projects, River of Dreams, Telling Stories | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

River of Dreams #40:Into the Restless Night

Posted on November 11, 2010 by randomyriad

II

Into the Night

The talk died down and looks of dazed shock settled on all the faces. They all looked like they had walked into a major exam on their first day of class.

“I don’t think we have seen the enemy yet,” Random said softly more as question than a statement.

“I teenk mebe the enemy is de real world,” Essie said. “I haf been feeling dis ever since I came here. Like I don’ belong in a ceety.”

“Then maybe the beasts out there are trying to keep you here long enough so you won’t leave,” Jered said looking out the window. “I know something in the timing is right because everything came together like this. So it is almost certain that something is going to happen tonight, but I think there is a bigger message they are sending. They want you to stay here.”

“That doesn’t mean they’re going to be there in the morning does it,” Emmylou winced.

“I don’t think they will be able to stay for long,” Random said, “Lucille said dream beings cannot hold there form in the world very long.”

“That snake seems awful solid and those teeth on that wolf were pretty substantial too. I know I can still feel it.” Larry touched his injured leg.

“We are all jus’ guessing now,” Essie said with a frown, “Eet  Ees all we can do.”

“Well, maybe we should just settle in and have some supper and go to bed. I’ll finish cooking, and maybe you all could play cards or somethin’” Emmylou motioned over at Maddie who still had a vague look of shock on her pale face.

“Yes, Thees ees a good idea,” Essie forced a smile as she said this. “You got cards, Emmylou? Maddie here cleaned me outa peanut MnM’s a coupla nights ago.”

Maddie perked up at the mention of her name and the thought of a card game.

“I did kinda whoop your butt, dint I,”

They all played hearts while Emmylou finished up dinner all with many nervous glances out the windows at the monstrous snake that lay motionless scaly levee around the house.

After they ate, Emmylou about making sure all the rooms were ready and beds prepared. They insisted that Larry take a bed upstairs. Jered and Random maneuvered him to it with care. Emmylou found a sleeping bag after which Maddie insisted, “My young bones and the floor would get along just fine.” Jered settled in on the couch.

Emmylou turned out the lights leaving on one in the kitchen and one in the hall upstairs so that unfamiliar guests could find the bathroom. Everyone settled in nervously for a long restless night.

Random and Essie squeezed onto the twin bed, folding into one another and falling almost immediately into a loose and jangled sleep with many shifts of arms and legs and body positions like a wrestling match between puppets with blind puppeteers.

Posted in California, conversations, dangerous creatures, developing relationships, Dreamtime, Fiction, House and home, mindworks, Mythical and mysterious, NaNoWriMo, novel projects, River of Dreams, Telling Stories | Tagged , | Leave a comment

River of Dreams #39: Trapped

Posted on November 10, 2010 by randomyriad

Chapter 20

The Dream Snake

 

There was a quick little jolt rattling the loose items in the room and then a deep grating rumble that vibrated the house began to increase.

“What de hell ees dat?” Essie’s voice trailed off lost in the growing sound.

Larry’s voice came drifting in above the low grating sound. They could hear no words just a sharp cry of panic and pain.

Random and Emmylou jumped up headed for the front door. Rod, Essie and Maddie followed.

A black lowering sky made the late afternoon almost night. Larry came stumbling down the path from the hill cabin and tumbled, rolling and cursing. Random and Emmy ran to where he lay as the others followed more cautiously.

As they approached they could see one of his pant legs was torn at the bottom and blood oozed from an unseen wound.

“There’s some kinda wolves up the trail. Two of ‘em came at me. I almost made it, but one got a hold of my leg. I punched him a good one, but I don’t think he was trying for the kill.”

“We need to get you inside so we can look at that leg. If Jered and I help can you make it to the house?” Random asked rapidly with a nervous glance up the trail where the sound of the rumbling was now joined by thin moaning howl.

“Hell yeah! Let’s git the hell inside!”

They picked him up with his arms across their shoulders like human crutches. They all moved as a unit with a few individual nervous glances back into the increasing noise and gloom.

They struggle up the front steps and into the living room depositing Larry on the couch. Emmy was at his side in an instant with a first aid kit and some scissors with which she cut away the torn pant leg and examined the wounds four clean punctures two on each side of his calf.

“Their teeth seem real enough for creatures of the dream world,” she said shaking her head. “I wonder if dream creatures carry rabies.”

“I’m pretty sure that guy that got me was way too big to be any wolf that lives around here,” Larry added. “But, this don’t feel like no dream!”

“Lucille told me that the Talagi myths say that the creatures are manifestations in our world, but live in a place somewhere outside our world. They can have an effect in real ways, but do not understand the subtleties and sometimes do damage.”

“This could be just a warning to you to stay in the house, maybe even to protect you,” Random added.

“If this was a warning I’d hate to see the real thing.”

Just then there was a thunderous crashing, crunching, with sharp cracks like gunshots. The sound of trees being crushed aside and the rumble rasp became almost too loud to shout over.

Essie stood at the window eyes wide as a snake the size of a freight train approached the house plowing aside trees and finally flattening the Porsche under its tubular bulk. The awful sound of crunching glass and straining, grating metal came as the body of the snake crushed the car.

“Well eef thees aint the real ting than I hope there’s nothin’ beeger,” she said mostly to herself. It circled the house and stopped.

“I hope he doesn’t like human sized snacks,” Jered said finally, “Shit! That’s my dad’s car under there. I wonder how I’ll explain this one to him?”

“I have a feeling this is thing that did my car in too.” Random put his hand on Jered’s shoulder as he said this.

“It’s just the dream worlds way of saying it’s time to get a new car,” Jered said shaking his head. “That was a sweet piece of machine lying under you Mr. Monster Snake.”

“Maybe you should go tell him to move.”

“I teenk we had just better pray that eet ees one of the teengs sent to protect us,” said Essie, her eyes wide and worried.

“Well if it was here to harm us I don’t think the house would hold it back,” Emmylou sighed, a baffled resignation settling on her features as she finished dressing Larry’s bite wound.

“Maybe if we just sit tight and wait til morning, everything will be done and the dream horde can go back to wherever they came from, and I can get back to running my farm.” She almost sounded irritated.

“Oh, honey, everyteeng gonna be fine you jes’ wait,” Essie soothed and then noticed Maddie’s blank look of terror.

“I ain’t never seen nothin’ like this,” for the first time Essie heard an edge of fear in Maddie’s voice.

“I’m pretty sure nobody’s ever seen anything like this,” Larry said patting her arm.

“Well, I guess I’m not a liar about the car anymore,” she brightened a little. “It’s about as broke as it can be.”

Posted in conversations, dangerous creatures, developing relationships, Dreamtime, House and home, mindworks, Mythical and mysterious, NaNoWriMo, novel projects, River of Dreams, Telling Stories, Wild Life | Tagged , , | Leave a comment