Last Set of Dreams - for the Record
Last set of dreams, and now I am awake.
Death followed an old woman, and the sign by which she knew him was the cracks in the tiles where she walked had begun bursting with candy. He wanted to tell her that Death was sweet, like the song she'd been singing him all her life, calling him to her. He had performed many favors for her in their long years together.
(Her work was helping to prevent teen suicide.)
Three tiny preschoolers also knew that Death was near, and sang songs about it, and drew pictures.
The old woman's apprentice, a woman in her young twenties, was mad and miserable when the children sang to her that her friend was going to die.
(The young woman worked in T.V. for her day job, trying to write scripts about real teenagers, not high drama, air-brushed, cardboard cut-outs. She used to be an actress, but was replaced by someone thinner, which almost made her quit the whole business. For some reason she thought this was an unhealthy image on television - all thin girls, all the time. She also worked with that old woman, those preschoolers, some parapsychologists, and the police trying to help prevent teen suicide by methods more magical than mundane.)
In turn, the old woman was mad and miserable that her sweet and easy death could not have been her last gift to her apprentice. A passing along of powers.
Some ritual about boiling Death's volcanic candy in salt water and coating herself with its salty sweetness, and lying down to rest at last.
***
Death followed an old woman, and the sign by which she knew him was the cracks in the tiles where she walked had begun bursting with candy. He wanted to tell her that Death was sweet, like the song she'd been singing him all her life, calling him to her. He had performed many favors for her in their long years together.
(Her work was helping to prevent teen suicide.)
Three tiny preschoolers also knew that Death was near, and sang songs about it, and drew pictures.
The old woman's apprentice, a woman in her young twenties, was mad and miserable when the children sang to her that her friend was going to die.
(The young woman worked in T.V. for her day job, trying to write scripts about real teenagers, not high drama, air-brushed, cardboard cut-outs. She used to be an actress, but was replaced by someone thinner, which almost made her quit the whole business. For some reason she thought this was an unhealthy image on television - all thin girls, all the time. She also worked with that old woman, those preschoolers, some parapsychologists, and the police trying to help prevent teen suicide by methods more magical than mundane.)
In turn, the old woman was mad and miserable that her sweet and easy death could not have been her last gift to her apprentice. A passing along of powers.
Some ritual about boiling Death's volcanic candy in salt water and coating herself with its salty sweetness, and lying down to rest at last.
***