Aftershocks 21.1: To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

[black_cigarette]

TITLE: Aftershocks: A Story in Shattered Pieces
SUMMARY: When the bough breaks ...
CHARACTERS: Wilson
RATING: R for language and themes (gen fic).
WARNINGS: Details the aftermath of events in Bad Company, a rough, violent story. Aftermath isn't always pretty; may distress some readers. Adult themes and adult language.
SPOILERS: No.
DISCLAIMER:

Comments

[rnwannabe]

As a lucid dreamer, I immediately identify with this chapter.

The sequence of dreams that Wilson goes through is so accurate, it is almost creepy.

He dreams of all kinds of shit now; it's like his mind is trying to disgorge everything he's ever done in a brain dump that takes place every night.

Yes, this is a typical night........

Thanks.

[mystcphoenxcafe]

Greetings!

It's called... if you don't deal w/it during the day, it will bite you in the ass at night. And from the looks of things, this has been waiting quite the while to happen. So, no... it's not the drugs, it's the denial. The secrets can kill, so they are going away. Very simple. Except of course, for the fact that it isn't.

"He dreams of being a kid and playing with his brothers, except they're always in California or on the moon, and he doesn't know which is weirder." *hehehehehehe!!!*

That last bit was just spooky. Past and recent past coming together in unholy alliance to illustrate fears of the future. *shiver*

-Katrina

[idonmatrix]

This chapter is absolutely beautiful the tempo made it feel more like a poem. Oh I can see everything so clearly in Wilson's dream.

Oh and I know what it feels like to live without enough sleep for years. Truly an amzing chapter.

By the way, I will be returning to my previous level of pestering :) I was out of town on business and just couldn't fit it in.

[alemyrddin]

another beautifully evocative chapter.
poor Wilson, he really needs to be able to relax and rest for real.

[bironic]

The drugs (and the healing) may be making him sleep so much, and they may be making him sleep shallowly so the dreams come fast and thick, but like others have said, it's the trauma breaking out at night that's responsible for the content of those dreams, and his unrest when he's awake. I don't think it's a coincidence that he dreams of being young so often, since he's been knocked back so badly by what happened to him.

Can I offer some crit? Because I know you're already on to the next part(s). It's just that in the first line, you say that Wilson has never slept so much in his life, and then in the second line you say he slept this much when he was a baby. IMO one or the other could go, and I like the second more, sticking with all the childhood imagery of this chapter and the story as a whole.

[idonmatrix]

Can I offer some crit? Because I know you're already on to the next part(s). It's just that in the first line, you say that Wilson has never slept so much in his life, and then in the second line you say he slept this much when he was a baby.

I think both are needed. The first is the narrator's voice and the second is Wilson's subconscious speaking. I think it's a necessary transition between the narrator and Wilson's voice. For me it works beautifully, epsecially since both lines are two of my chapter favorites :)

[bironic]

Hm. I'd read both of those lines as coming from the same POV, but either way, my concern was more that the lines contradict each other.