![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
veronica_richA few years ago, I had a dream one Sunday morning. It wasn't my usual Tim Burtonesque hodgepodge nightmare (those are the only dreams I remember - none of the happy ones, if I have them) of Plexiglass body parts and 50-foot-long parasites. This one seemed very factual and real, and probably contrived, since I have absolutely no way of actually knowing if this is what death is like.
So, because I occasionally dabble in something other than fanfiction, I got up and wrote it out with a storytelling framework device. I don't pretend it'll appeal to everyone, or even anyone, but I did copyright it under my real name, and here it is. I don't have a dedication, per se, and if you honestly can't figure out what it's referencing, don't feel bad - ask and ye shall be told.
The title is taken from one of the best songs I know, off the soundtrack of "Donnie Darko." (It's not a songfic, don't worry; the title came after, not before.)
Dreams In Which I'm Dying
“What would you take?”
The ground shifts, rumbles beneath my unsteady feet, and that’s what my overstimulated mind gropes for as a distraction. A game my friend and I once played. Some nights we used to sit and chat back and forth on our cell phones, of the really pointless and useless things we would go on about, perhaps this was the most futile. And the most fun.
My mind slips into the middle of one. “What do you mean, what would I take?”
“It’s a game. Close your eyes and picture it: You’re in a big city – New York, let’s say – and someone takes you to this building that’s scheduled for demolition-”
“What building?”
“I don’t know. Pick a building. Anyway, there’s all these priceless items in there – works of art, rare books, collectibles, treasure through the ages. You can take one thing, just like a lot of other people who’re going to be led through to take something for themselves before the building‘s torn down. Just one thing. What would you take?”
Something grinds near me and I close my eyes, forcibly pushing down the lightness in my stomach. My breakfast isn’t going to stay down; I knew I shouldn’t have eaten today. I never eat breakfast. Why did I eat today?
Instead, I concentrate on what’s inside my head. She’s still asking. “What would you take?”
“I can have anything?”
“Right.”
I paused, soaking that in. Then something occurred to me. “Am I the first person through this room? Have there been other people here?”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake, Mel. Nobody’s taken anything yet.”
“So I am the first in here? Why am I so special?”
She sighed. I remember that sound well. Funny world, what occurs to you in these moments. Most people never get to realize one. “It’s all fantasy. I doubt in your life you’re ever going to be in New York and someone’s going to sweep you inside and offer you free, valuable stuff. What would you like most in the world, something you can actually pick up and hold?”
Right now, I thought, I’d give just about anything for a good set of earmuffs and shock absorbers. Or, you know, a helicopter. The walls are creaking again, or maybe the rafters. Does a place like this have rafters? No, probably beams. Big beams. Stupid musings; either one’s going to fall, I think. I force my mind back to the memory.
“That’s … quite a tall order,” I told her. “How am I supposed to answer that?”
“Pretty much just like I told you to. Come on, Melanie, what do you want? An old Roman statue of Claudius? The original Old Testament Bible?”
“No, nothing that religious. You know better.”
“It’s an example.”
My eyes are closed. I’d closed them then, too, picturing around me. It was a common office-area floor, rather like this one, hemmed in on all sides with glass where I could see out. I had no idea how accurate my placement was, but my mind conjured up all sorts of images. On one side was the Statue of Liberty, the only thing obstructing my view of the harbor at which she stood; on the other was the Christmas tree gracing Rockefeller Center’s plaza. For some reason, it was snowing in my fantastical view. Then again, given the Christmas tree …
As I say, I don’t know how accurate that is – I’ve never been in New York before right now. And it seems I’m not leaving.
It’s silent, so I open my eyes and look around, back and forth. I’ve really no idea what floor this is, but it’s not a bad view. I have no idea of any of the things I’m looking at; mostly, I see a lot of blue sky marred by wisps of black smoke. It seems to be branching outward, looping around. I could walk or crawl to the window and look, I suppose, but my heart just isn’t in it. I’m not really sure what I’ll find there, not sure I wish to know.
“The ‘Mona Lisa?’ Some piece of artwork?”
I laugh at her as something occurred to me. Now I’m mixing my tenses, something I just don’t do. Grammar is very important to me, in thought and speech as well as the written word. Something’s happening to my mind. “You say anything, right?”
“I say anything.” Then she fell quiet, and I could barely hear her breathing, just enough to know I’d not been disconnected. Obviously, she was going to wait for the answer.
I scoot a short way across the floor, my side against a desk. Why am I the only one in this particular office? I ran like everyone else not too long ago when I felt the first shudder, but somehow I ended up in here, not on the staircase with them. I can’t remember how. I hear another creak, and swallow, closing my eyes. I suppose what I’m experiencing is abject terror, an emotion so overwhelming it’s been known to induce heart attacks and cardiac arrests. Strokes. I believe it, but I’m too young to suffer that easily. So instead, I sit here and try to amuse myself with riddles.
The room should have been full of gold and jewels and all kinds of treasure. Most people would want to plunder all of it, but that’s never meant much to me. If I could get enough in my hands to pay off my debts, I’d be ecstatic, and would let someone else have the rest. I have a feeling my debts won’t matter much longer, and I find a weird comfort in that.
(It occurs to me I should have bought life insurance. Shit.)
No, my room is expansive like this, but there’s not nearly as much stuff in it as you’d presume. Lots of cylindrical pedestals for art. A few things hanging on the walls. And for some odd reason, there were other people in the room with me. A girl I’d once known, giving me a tour of the space. My boss, picking through sculptures to try to find the one he wanted.
Times like this, you’re supposed to think of your loved ones, your family. Friends. I’ve already given them thought, but the act of doing so nearly crushed my unsteadily-thumping chest, so I quickly dismissed them. Better just to be glad none of them are here with me.
Another twisting groan from overhead, my side – who knows? All around me, and nowhere I couldn’t hear it. They were coming in staccato now, only a couple of beats apart instead of several minutes between each strained warning.
My hand snakes up over the side of the desk, fastens onto something. I think it’s a stapler, but I pay little attention to reality as I pull it down to my chest, my knees pulled up protectively against it, shielding the little treasure. It’s not an office supply, it’s what I’ve chosen, the thing I most want from this room. It’s something stupid and pointless, and the hell of it is, Nell would understand. She really would’ve; I could’ve told her this is what I wanted and she would’ve laughed, but agreed value is only what we put on things, nothing more or less.
Instead, I told her something else, something that made me seem a little better than just a cheap collector. “Hmm … the ‘Mona Lisa,’ I guess.”
“You’d take the ‘Mona Lisa.’ Of everything in the free world offered to you, you’d take the ‘Mona Lisa.’” Her tone indicated she didn’t believe me, but what was she going to do? Divine my silly baubles through telepathy?
“That’s right. You asked. What would you take?” I turned back on her.
Her answer’s forgotten when I hear the loudest noise yet. This time it’s below me, and I feel it as well. Things are going to hell, and I can’t spend time remembering a silly conversation that meant nothing. Most of my life feels like it was silly, spent in pursuits for which nobody would remember me, and they certainly won’t now. Then again, if nobody else is watching, does that somehow lessen the value of your life?
And then I have the answer. It occurs to me, as the universe’s revelations probably do to anyone who can’t do a damn thing with them. I feel bits of things dropping on me; I don’t know if it’s plaster or what. I don’t look. I curl instead around my imagined treasure, clutched in my hands, the one thing I’d take from that hypothetical room. It’s a lot smaller than a painting, sheer whimsy on my part.
Da Vinci’s just dandy, but what I took from that room was the pair of red ruby slippers Judy Garland wore in “The Wizard of Oz.” I can’t remember a time when I didn’t love that movie, and I was always jealous as a little girl of her shoes. This is a foolish choice, of course, which is why I couldn’t bring myself to tell even Nell, who would’ve understood. I felt so common most of the time, anyway – might as well let one person think I’m a lot smarter than I really am.
My head hurts, and all I can see behind my eyes in the starburst of color are twin pinpoints of blooming red light, sparkling and beckoning. Dorothy‘s slippers. I can’t help a grin, even as I feel my body moving, everything moving very fast, finally.
It’ll be all right. I have my treasure.
Any kind of feedback is welcomed.
So, because I occasionally dabble in something other than fanfiction, I got up and wrote it out with a storytelling framework device. I don't pretend it'll appeal to everyone, or even anyone, but I did copyright it under my real name, and here it is. I don't have a dedication, per se, and if you honestly can't figure out what it's referencing, don't feel bad - ask and ye shall be told.
The title is taken from one of the best songs I know, off the soundtrack of "Donnie Darko." (It's not a songfic, don't worry; the title came after, not before.)
Dreams In Which I'm Dying
“What would you take?”
The ground shifts, rumbles beneath my unsteady feet, and that’s what my overstimulated mind gropes for as a distraction. A game my friend and I once played. Some nights we used to sit and chat back and forth on our cell phones, of the really pointless and useless things we would go on about, perhaps this was the most futile. And the most fun.
My mind slips into the middle of one. “What do you mean, what would I take?”
“It’s a game. Close your eyes and picture it: You’re in a big city – New York, let’s say – and someone takes you to this building that’s scheduled for demolition-”
“What building?”
“I don’t know. Pick a building. Anyway, there’s all these priceless items in there – works of art, rare books, collectibles, treasure through the ages. You can take one thing, just like a lot of other people who’re going to be led through to take something for themselves before the building‘s torn down. Just one thing. What would you take?”
Something grinds near me and I close my eyes, forcibly pushing down the lightness in my stomach. My breakfast isn’t going to stay down; I knew I shouldn’t have eaten today. I never eat breakfast. Why did I eat today?
Instead, I concentrate on what’s inside my head. She’s still asking. “What would you take?”
“I can have anything?”
“Right.”
I paused, soaking that in. Then something occurred to me. “Am I the first person through this room? Have there been other people here?”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake, Mel. Nobody’s taken anything yet.”
“So I am the first in here? Why am I so special?”
She sighed. I remember that sound well. Funny world, what occurs to you in these moments. Most people never get to realize one. “It’s all fantasy. I doubt in your life you’re ever going to be in New York and someone’s going to sweep you inside and offer you free, valuable stuff. What would you like most in the world, something you can actually pick up and hold?”
Right now, I thought, I’d give just about anything for a good set of earmuffs and shock absorbers. Or, you know, a helicopter. The walls are creaking again, or maybe the rafters. Does a place like this have rafters? No, probably beams. Big beams. Stupid musings; either one’s going to fall, I think. I force my mind back to the memory.
“That’s … quite a tall order,” I told her. “How am I supposed to answer that?”
“Pretty much just like I told you to. Come on, Melanie, what do you want? An old Roman statue of Claudius? The original Old Testament Bible?”
“No, nothing that religious. You know better.”
“It’s an example.”
My eyes are closed. I’d closed them then, too, picturing around me. It was a common office-area floor, rather like this one, hemmed in on all sides with glass where I could see out. I had no idea how accurate my placement was, but my mind conjured up all sorts of images. On one side was the Statue of Liberty, the only thing obstructing my view of the harbor at which she stood; on the other was the Christmas tree gracing Rockefeller Center’s plaza. For some reason, it was snowing in my fantastical view. Then again, given the Christmas tree …
As I say, I don’t know how accurate that is – I’ve never been in New York before right now. And it seems I’m not leaving.
It’s silent, so I open my eyes and look around, back and forth. I’ve really no idea what floor this is, but it’s not a bad view. I have no idea of any of the things I’m looking at; mostly, I see a lot of blue sky marred by wisps of black smoke. It seems to be branching outward, looping around. I could walk or crawl to the window and look, I suppose, but my heart just isn’t in it. I’m not really sure what I’ll find there, not sure I wish to know.
“The ‘Mona Lisa?’ Some piece of artwork?”
I laugh at her as something occurred to me. Now I’m mixing my tenses, something I just don’t do. Grammar is very important to me, in thought and speech as well as the written word. Something’s happening to my mind. “You say anything, right?”
“I say anything.” Then she fell quiet, and I could barely hear her breathing, just enough to know I’d not been disconnected. Obviously, she was going to wait for the answer.
I scoot a short way across the floor, my side against a desk. Why am I the only one in this particular office? I ran like everyone else not too long ago when I felt the first shudder, but somehow I ended up in here, not on the staircase with them. I can’t remember how. I hear another creak, and swallow, closing my eyes. I suppose what I’m experiencing is abject terror, an emotion so overwhelming it’s been known to induce heart attacks and cardiac arrests. Strokes. I believe it, but I’m too young to suffer that easily. So instead, I sit here and try to amuse myself with riddles.
The room should have been full of gold and jewels and all kinds of treasure. Most people would want to plunder all of it, but that’s never meant much to me. If I could get enough in my hands to pay off my debts, I’d be ecstatic, and would let someone else have the rest. I have a feeling my debts won’t matter much longer, and I find a weird comfort in that.
(It occurs to me I should have bought life insurance. Shit.)
No, my room is expansive like this, but there’s not nearly as much stuff in it as you’d presume. Lots of cylindrical pedestals for art. A few things hanging on the walls. And for some odd reason, there were other people in the room with me. A girl I’d once known, giving me a tour of the space. My boss, picking through sculptures to try to find the one he wanted.
Times like this, you’re supposed to think of your loved ones, your family. Friends. I’ve already given them thought, but the act of doing so nearly crushed my unsteadily-thumping chest, so I quickly dismissed them. Better just to be glad none of them are here with me.
Another twisting groan from overhead, my side – who knows? All around me, and nowhere I couldn’t hear it. They were coming in staccato now, only a couple of beats apart instead of several minutes between each strained warning.
My hand snakes up over the side of the desk, fastens onto something. I think it’s a stapler, but I pay little attention to reality as I pull it down to my chest, my knees pulled up protectively against it, shielding the little treasure. It’s not an office supply, it’s what I’ve chosen, the thing I most want from this room. It’s something stupid and pointless, and the hell of it is, Nell would understand. She really would’ve; I could’ve told her this is what I wanted and she would’ve laughed, but agreed value is only what we put on things, nothing more or less.
Instead, I told her something else, something that made me seem a little better than just a cheap collector. “Hmm … the ‘Mona Lisa,’ I guess.”
“You’d take the ‘Mona Lisa.’ Of everything in the free world offered to you, you’d take the ‘Mona Lisa.’” Her tone indicated she didn’t believe me, but what was she going to do? Divine my silly baubles through telepathy?
“That’s right. You asked. What would you take?” I turned back on her.
Her answer’s forgotten when I hear the loudest noise yet. This time it’s below me, and I feel it as well. Things are going to hell, and I can’t spend time remembering a silly conversation that meant nothing. Most of my life feels like it was silly, spent in pursuits for which nobody would remember me, and they certainly won’t now. Then again, if nobody else is watching, does that somehow lessen the value of your life?
And then I have the answer. It occurs to me, as the universe’s revelations probably do to anyone who can’t do a damn thing with them. I feel bits of things dropping on me; I don’t know if it’s plaster or what. I don’t look. I curl instead around my imagined treasure, clutched in my hands, the one thing I’d take from that hypothetical room. It’s a lot smaller than a painting, sheer whimsy on my part.
Da Vinci’s just dandy, but what I took from that room was the pair of red ruby slippers Judy Garland wore in “The Wizard of Oz.” I can’t remember a time when I didn’t love that movie, and I was always jealous as a little girl of her shoes. This is a foolish choice, of course, which is why I couldn’t bring myself to tell even Nell, who would’ve understood. I felt so common most of the time, anyway – might as well let one person think I’m a lot smarter than I really am.
My head hurts, and all I can see behind my eyes in the starburst of color are twin pinpoints of blooming red light, sparkling and beckoning. Dorothy‘s slippers. I can’t help a grin, even as I feel my body moving, everything moving very fast, finally.
It’ll be all right. I have my treasure.
Any kind of feedback is welcomed.
