Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
I approached a tall and ancient tree wrapped in silvery fog. I had an impression that I’d been climbing for some time as I felt bone weary with effort. The foggy air had me shivering in the dream, but I think it was also nervousness. Stopping in front of the tree, I stared at the rough blackened gray bark. Slowly a face rose into the gnarly surface. Eyes opening, they moved around several moments before finding me. With unrelenting attention given to me, the face separated from the tree and slowly floated up into the sky. As it did, I found that the fog was gone. I watched the face floating away until it could no longer be seen, and I was alone with the tree, surrounded by a clear blue sky.
Bright sunshine storms the world outside the coffee shop window. Yes, it’s a sunstorm fronting a blue sky, a cruel thing. Exerts the kind of pull felt when he was a teenager and a girl asked him to come to her house to listen to music.
He’s here to write. Edit. Just thirteen months into the novel in progress. Third revision session. Halfway through. Must be done.
With a promise to the day, I’ll join you later, he opens the novel and resumes.
A young man once again in my dream, thirty-something, I was staying at a sprawling hotel, enjoying a reunion with friends. Suite doors were open, and we were freely intermingling, chatting, drinking, eating, whatever moved you at the moment. Coming into one unit, four RL friends, military officers not seen in over thirty years, told me they were going for a run and asked me to come along.
Well, I protested, I’m not in running gear and I have nothing suitable to wear. Another old friend came up with something, though, so I agreed to go running. The newcomer was going to, so he waited for me to change. The others, meanwhile, jogged away. As I continued changing, the other guy announced he was going to start running now, too, because he didn’t want to fall too far behind. “Go on,” I answered. “I’ll catch up.”
I was almost done changing by then, and I started jogging a just a few seconds after he began. I caught him quickly.
We were running outside but on the cement balcony that connected our rooms, which were located on the inside of a courtyard. As we ran, we frequently had to dodge non-runners, people go in and out of rooms or standing and chatting or eating. I saw many friends among them.
We were catching the others, but I was impatient with the slow pace. When the opportunity came, I surged forward. Catching the first four easily, I went around them and set out at a faster speed. They laughed, shouting that I was a showoff and predicting that I’d soon tired out. But I found the running invigorating. As I rounded a corner and turned right, I saw a long, straight stretch empty of people, and pressed myself into a higher gear. I was almost flat our sprinting. People were talking about this and watching.
Sweat plastered my hair down and slathered my face. My breathing was hard. The running felt good, so I decided to run as fast and hard and long as I could. Entering into an all-out sprint with others cheering for me, I finished a lap and caught the first running group and passed them. I felt that I couldn’t go much longer and slowed, but then told himself, no, you’re not done, you have more, and forced myself into a max sprint again. I managed to complete another lap as the others stopped and returned to the room where we started. As I finished a third lap, drenched in sweat and cheered on by almost everyone, my original four friends shouted, “Stop running, you show off. It’s time to eat.”
I ran into the room and stopped. Talking about how much I was sweating, they were laughing. Others came in and urged me, take a shower, but someone pressed a plate of food on me, saying, “I made this for you. Eat.”
I started eating. Dream end.
I was working, just finishing a job. I don’t know any details of the work but it’d been administrative, computer stuff. My boss came over and said, “I just want to let you know that you’ve been doing really great work.” I liked, admired, and enjoyed him, so that really pleased me. Afterward, I went out with a few others. When I returned, I presented my boss with a gift of a bottle of red wine, which he happily accepted. Witnessing this, the company head loudly said, “You know, I like wine, too.” He repeated this a few times in a joshing way. We all laughed, and I told him that I got the message.
Leaving again, I entered my car and drove away. This was a car I once owned in RL, a black1993 Mazda RX-7. After driving some street roads, I entered the outskirts of a city where I picked up a friend to give him a ride.
He and I chatted away. Stopping at a traffic light, I looked over at the man in the car beside me. He was looking at me and my car. I immediately knew he was Korean, although I don’t know why that mattered.
Leaning over, he looked in my car’s open window. He complimented the car’s condition and took out a small brown cardboard box. Inside were two small white pieces. (Awakening, the pieces reminded me of the microwave pieces I’d used to fix it.) Saying, “I know these cars, and although yours is in excellent condition, you’ll need these parts to keep it going,” the man reached into the car and put the box into a small alcove in the dash that doesn’t exist in the real car.
The dream’s end found me in my little black RX-7 with my wife and the guy I was giving a ride. Three in that small sports car isn’t a pragmatic expectation but it worked in the dream. We were driving asses to elbows through city traffic under a cloudless sky. I was telling her about the Korean man and the parts he’d given me. Then I said to my wife, “Oh, damn, I forgot my new uniform.”
Dream end.
Michael Seidel, writer 