I've been a member here at Barbelith for about a month now, and I'm an active participator, contributing to as many topics as I can. I write a lot, but up until now I've never posted anything on the 'Lith because I was afraid that I'd get torn to shreds. Well, I've built up my courage and decided to finally post something. The following is an untitled work that I wrote about a month ago. I like it, but realize that it needs much improvement, so any (constructive) critiques are greatly appreciated. If I get a good response for this, I'll start posting some of my other stories too.
NOTE: the blank spaces are where I couldn't think of a specific word... a technical term for "sewer workers." If anyone can help me with that, I'd REALLY appreciate it.
I was flying. Well, no, not flying exactly, it was more like hovering. Yeah, that’s it, I was hovering. It was over a city. No, you’re right, that would be flying, it was more through the city. It was pretty high though. Oh I don’t know… twenty feet maybe. Well, I don’t know, what are the criteria for hovering? I always thought that flying was with your body horizontal, and hovering was with it vertical. Or maybe that’s floating? No? Okay, fine, then I guess it was flying.
Anyway, I was flying over this city, right, when all of a sudden, the ground opens up. No, it wasn’t like an earthquake or anything, it wasn’t violent like that, it was just gentle. The asphalt kind of just melted away. Will you hold on for Christ’s sake! I’m getting to that, just give me a minute! So then, I start to drop. No, not all at once, slowly, like I was slowly loosing the power to fly. And I went down into this deep chasm and it was all filled with fire and lava was flowing like a river. But it was weird, because it was like a sewer too. There were pipes where the lava flowed through and it smelled terrible. No, like a sewer. And then there were these people, sewer workers… well I don’t know what they’re called… okay, these _________s, and they were looking around the pipes with a flashlight.
Eventually, I reached the ground. Well, there was this walkway over the lava, that’s where the ________s were walking. I walked over to one of them and asked what he was looking for. He told me that someone had been complaining about their pipes not working properly and they had to go in there and check it out. I asked him if the lava was normal and he told me that he didn’t know what I was talking about. I tried to show him what I was talking about, but when I looked down to see the lava, all that was there was a rug. No, the walkway was gone, I was just standing on the rug. Yes the lava was gone! How would I be standing on a rug if there was lava there?
So then I looked up and the ________s weren’t _________s anymore, now they were actors working at Disney land, and they were dressed up as Mickey and Miney Mouse. I looked around and saw that I was in my living room, but there were all these people, dressed in business suits and wearing cheap, plastic pig masks. They were all in lines getting autographs from Mickey and Miney. I got scared and so I ran to the door, and when I opened it, Sigmund Freud was standing there smoking a cigar. He told me that the dream was stereotypical: a terrible amalgamation of postmodern experimental film clichés. Then he handed me a book and told me to read it. I don’t remember what the title was but there was a big sticker saying that it was featured on Oprah’s book club. Then I woke up.
What’s this? Oh, come one, I told you I don’t want any pills. What do you mean, they’ll help? All I’ve been doing is taking pills since I started seeing you! I don’t even know what most of them are for! There are two in the morning, one with food, one without, then the blue on in the afternoon, no alcohol, then two of the orange one at night, oh, and that small, round one, and the one that looks like Ronald Reagan’s head that suddenly I was trapped in the room and it was filling with smoke. There weren’t any doors and windows so… what do you mean, how did I get in? I told you it was suddenly! May I continue? Thank you. So I took one of the desk legs and broke it off. I jammed it through the wall and it made a big hole in the siding. I started to use my hands to tear away at the wall, and through it I could see… blah blah blah blah blah… but the instant before I hit the ground, I woke up. |
