Saving the world before breakfast
Real life is very busy. Even after mind-numblingly bombarding my own brain with hundreds of kanji compounds, my brain still has the time to be incredibly creative. I mean my dreams. Alien green frogs or dancing monkeys aside, lately my brain has been giving me dreams in a SERIES. That is, to say, they all seemed to come from the same universe, or part of one big plot. It's tantalizing enough that I wonder what the next 'room' is about. Yes, that's right, 'rooms'. I had this introductory dream that was a setting for a person (a 'girl', I think, since I still get cross-gendered dreams, but these days, I don't bother checking if I'm a girl or a guy in the dream any more. Well, dream part '5', the boy who could fly, I was positive that I was a boy in that one) who checked into a strange dormitory with a Third floor meant for strange residents. and even stranger rooms to match them. The dreams after had this theme of individual 'rooms' on the same floor (about one room per dream) and I can see the viewpoint of either the resident of that room or a bystander. Interesting shit I might use for a story someday.
Dream 1: Checking in (the conversation was a bit fragmentary in the dream, but I cleaned it up)
"Have you ever played that game, the one where you try to find out if there's a ghost nearby?"
"What game?"
"Yes, that game where you all sit in a room, turn off the lights, and count out loud, one for each person. When a voice calls out a number higher than the number of persons in the room, that's a ghost. Say, if you're three girls, you each call out one to three, and a new voice says four and oh, there-"
"Sir, my application for a dorm room?"
"Ah yes, your application for a dorm room, well, at the dormitory's current capacity, I would say that we don't have room for someone applying in the middle of the semester, but the case is that..."
"Is there a problem? Is a room available or not?"
"Well, I was talking about the ghost game.."
"Are you saying, sir, that any available room you have is haunted?"
"No! No, not quite, you see, the ghost game, the rooms... the rooms on the third floor are like that."
"I don't understand."
"No, what I'm saying is, there is always room on the third floor."
"..."
"The.. the numbers never add up right, you see. I've tried, always, by mapping out the third floor, and checking the numbers, but whenever someone new comes in, I'd think 'aah, it's already full' but when I check again, there, you see, there's a space somewhere."
"Sir, I don't see any problem with my applicatio-"
"No, no, of course not. I-I just wanted to warn you, you see. A lot of people don't want to live on the third floor. They say the facilities-"
"There's a problem with the facilities, sir?"
"-well, aesthetically, yes, otherwise they work fine."
"Aesthetically?"
"Yes, you can see from my office, this is a wonderful dorm, indeed. The rooms are spacious, the design is top notch, very modern. Lots of clean bathrooms on the 2nd, 1st and more in the basement floor. All straight lines, all concrete and steel, I tell you and mathematically precise. I was proud of how we managed to renovate everything, the building was so old..."
"Sir, about the third floor?"
"Well, the third floor, you see, it never got renovated."
"..."
"O-of course, if you love antique wood panelling, it's quite endearing or perhaps nostalgic, but sadly the wood have darkened and knotted so much, they creak during the cold and warp in the summer and during the rain it.."
"Sir, is the third floor livable?"
"Well, yes, yes of course, it's very livable. Just that some residents avoid it, but those who actually stay long there seem to like it. And uh, well, I'll warn you, if you don't feel like staying there, you may be permitted to transfer to the other floors, granted that uh, we have room."
"Is there room on the other floors?"
"There's no available room in the other rooms, they're that mathematically precise, I told you, I know exactly when they are filled. As for now, there is no free room in the 1st or 2nd floor of the women's wing. Except on the third floor."
"Then, if there's no problem, I'll be taking-"
"Yes, yes here it is. Room 359 on the east wing-"
"Sir, the men's wing is the east wing."
"Oh no, dearie, on the third floor, there is no east or west wing, it's all one big floor, you see, even though I arrange for the east wing to be all boys' rooms and the west for the girls' the rooms.. the rooms they.."
"Sir?"
"The rooms, they kind of, rearrange themselves. So sometimes' there are girls' rooms on the east wing and.."
"Sir, isn't there a problem with the residents-"
"Oh no, no. No history of assault exists on the third floor, not that I know of. The rooms would never allow it."
"The rooms? Allow? Sir, what-"
"Oh, if you're fine with the third floor, I have the key right here and we could go meet your roommates right now and you may even move right in if you feel like it."
"..."
The manager hesitated with the keys just an inch above the palm of her hand.
"Oh and one more thing, before we go, the residents of the third floor themselves made a special request. It's been a tradition, and they've been quite insistent on it, and I must say, it's pretty effective when you consider the odds, it's the only thing that's statistically correct that happens-"
"Sir, what one other thing is it?"
"Ah, I just need to ask you one question before I give you the keys. No need to answer it, no. But the times I forget to ask, they always seem to want to move out by the end of the month. The ones I forget to ask, that is."
"... All you'll need to do is ask me this question?"
"Ah, yes, how does that go again, Oh, there, 'Would you settle for a life less frightening?', they say. Awfully silly line, I thought it was a prank, but they insist on it, says it's just a popular song lyric- Well, how do you like it?"
"I'll be taking the room, sir."
"Well, now that's settled, toddle off that chair now and bring your bags."
Dream 2 (or room number 1?): 6 or 18
The six girls slept along 3 double deck beds. But along those 3 double decks, were 3 others more, containing 6 or more sleeping forms. They told us that the sleeping ones were merely nocturnal, but after a couple of days staying awake through the night told us otherwise. They were not dead, nor were they living either. They seemed to sleep an eternal sleep, partly showered in cobwebs and dusty filigree, mummified to a porcelain finish. But they sometimes breathe, or so we think when we watch them long enough. We thought of waking them up, but the management relented and warned us not too. It might kill us, they say, should the sleeping ones awake while we were there. Pray that they don’t awaken while we reside in the room, or we might become food for empty stomachs long devoid of even fluid. What were we doing there then, we asked, if not emergency rations should they wake up. The management tells us, no, we were not food, they merely thought that was one of the possible events, but we may be even killed by other means, other reasons. But they allowed us to take the rooms, because that was what the rooms wanted, and, even though awakening might still be centuries yet, the sleeping ones thrived on the presence of living warmth. I slept in the middle bed, often looking askance at the prone figure next to me, delicate profile in white jade, decorated with spidery veil. I once reached out to trace the line of her(or he, or it) nose, and the creature stirred in slumber, rubbing it’s nose on the pillow, but did not wake. My breath stopped for a moment, wondering if the Sunday afternoon sun that lazily poured golden pools of haze would be my last scene, but it was not so.
Dream 3 (room number 2): Father
It was a student dorm, that was true, but in one of the rooms lived a father, who claimed that his son disappeared while living in the very same room, 18 years before. He had lost everything else, his wife and daughter left him following their grief of the son’s absence and, unable to live alone, he had asked for room and lo, it was granted. On the third floor, we almost never doubted how things ran, though a mixture of thrill and fear ran in the undercurrents of our everyday life. Every room looked different and somewhat unique, depending on how the light moved. In my room, the light is perpetually dim and gloomy, like a gas lamp lit in a forest camp, it seems suffocated by the darkness. In the girls’ room, the one were sleeping ones lie, the light is a hazy golden, as if it’s always afternoon, although it does change to a hazy white during evenings and mornings, on any day. their open door glowed a strange warmth. I always thought it was as though a cocoon chamber, intent of keeping those changing creatures alive throughout the harshest of winters. In the father’s room, the light was ordinary, maybe a little sharp, for being modern and contemporary. In that room, he shared with boys the same age as his son 18 years ago, and their colorful clutter spread everywhere on the floor, like a normal teenager’s nest. The man tolerated their noise and exuberance, though it must’ve pained him to be reminded everyday of what his son must’ve been like. Likewise, in the presence of rational guidance, any young male that resided in that room developed a melancholy, kind demeanor over time, echoing that man’s countenance. He always smiled when you conversed with him, though the smile belied his sadness.
(I once held his hand and we walked around the post next to the door of the room three times, on the day of his grieving. The day that his son disappeared, people watched while he walked around that pole three times, and on the third time he walked around, he simply disappeared.) The father told me, he dreamed that the room itself was a doorway to somewhere else, and that his son was merely taken, and if only he could get there, he would be able to see him again.
What scares him more was that they might walk past each other without knowing, and that would be his last chance to see him. I fell asleep on a beanbag in the middle of the room, on one of the nights that I ventured around the floor disturbing friends and acquaintances. In that dream, I walked around that pole alone, and met a fat woman and a man whose face was easily forgotten. A young man was there too, but he was lying prone on a couch bleeding. The father flew into the room, saying that he had followed me, and he fell weeping to his knees in front of the young man. The fat woman sneered at him, telling him that they had corrupted the young man into killing, and the last of those instances had injured him deeply. We took the young man and ran, but the way back around the pole stretched away indefinitely. We fled down labyrinths and gray stone walls until we found the pole, and around it we ran until dizzy-ness and the sound of the fat woman’s laughter echoed in our ears. I woke up the next day, but the father was gone, and nobody knew where he went.
Dream 4 (room 3): Old room (probably inspired by my dormitory room in Camia....)
The first time I walked along the corridors of the third floor, I thought it was incredibly small and crowded, and people walked past each other so closely, you’d think you were in the middle of a mosh pit in concert. The second time I did, though it was the same corridor, only back again in reverse as I was leaving my room to go out, the corridors were at least seven meters wide, with the rooms far apart, and people hung out in the doorways to watch you thoughtfully as you pass by. If you glance backwards at them quick enough, they all looked different. (People told me that from the back, I looked like a different person, someone taller and bigger, maybe. But on the third floor, everyone looked different from the back. Sometimes, they would have two heads and three necks, but would you look long enough to count?) I understood soon enough that the corridors seemed to breath, constricting and expanding according to its whims, just as the rooms loved to rearrange themselves, and every morning, simply finding the doors to the elevators and stairs is a mini-labyrinth that we all traverse. The only thing that doesn’t change about the corridors is that they were made of old, black-stained, knotty wood. Think of the way deeply grooved wood looks when you splash black paint on it, the dark settles in the spaces between relief and it looks organic and dusty grime filmed over. My room is a stable replica of the corridors, and people call it the old room. In there, the dimming light bulbs hang from the ceiling, sputtering softly, the corners lined with old moonshine bottles, empty with age, but oddly colorful. My wooden cabinet creaked miserably every time I opened it, and inside, when you push the coat hangers aside you can see the numbers of old residents written rebelliously on the interior. (my number started with a 02-xxxxx, and I’ve always wondered who you were, Ms. 67-XXXXX, and Ms. 73-XXXXX.)
Room 4: grandmother (Will be added later, but it was a dream about my grandmother who died recently, except in this dream, she was a half-skeleton talking person. O_o )
Room 5: The boy who could fly (using only the snap of an automatic ballpen)
Dream 1: Checking in (the conversation was a bit fragmentary in the dream, but I cleaned it up)
"Have you ever played that game, the one where you try to find out if there's a ghost nearby?"
"What game?"
"Yes, that game where you all sit in a room, turn off the lights, and count out loud, one for each person. When a voice calls out a number higher than the number of persons in the room, that's a ghost. Say, if you're three girls, you each call out one to three, and a new voice says four and oh, there-"
"Sir, my application for a dorm room?"
"Ah yes, your application for a dorm room, well, at the dormitory's current capacity, I would say that we don't have room for someone applying in the middle of the semester, but the case is that..."
"Is there a problem? Is a room available or not?"
"Well, I was talking about the ghost game.."
"Are you saying, sir, that any available room you have is haunted?"
"No! No, not quite, you see, the ghost game, the rooms... the rooms on the third floor are like that."
"I don't understand."
"No, what I'm saying is, there is always room on the third floor."
"..."
"The.. the numbers never add up right, you see. I've tried, always, by mapping out the third floor, and checking the numbers, but whenever someone new comes in, I'd think 'aah, it's already full' but when I check again, there, you see, there's a space somewhere."
"Sir, I don't see any problem with my applicatio-"
"No, no, of course not. I-I just wanted to warn you, you see. A lot of people don't want to live on the third floor. They say the facilities-"
"There's a problem with the facilities, sir?"
"-well, aesthetically, yes, otherwise they work fine."
"Aesthetically?"
"Yes, you can see from my office, this is a wonderful dorm, indeed. The rooms are spacious, the design is top notch, very modern. Lots of clean bathrooms on the 2nd, 1st and more in the basement floor. All straight lines, all concrete and steel, I tell you and mathematically precise. I was proud of how we managed to renovate everything, the building was so old..."
"Sir, about the third floor?"
"Well, the third floor, you see, it never got renovated."
"..."
"O-of course, if you love antique wood panelling, it's quite endearing or perhaps nostalgic, but sadly the wood have darkened and knotted so much, they creak during the cold and warp in the summer and during the rain it.."
"Sir, is the third floor livable?"
"Well, yes, yes of course, it's very livable. Just that some residents avoid it, but those who actually stay long there seem to like it. And uh, well, I'll warn you, if you don't feel like staying there, you may be permitted to transfer to the other floors, granted that uh, we have room."
"Is there room on the other floors?"
"There's no available room in the other rooms, they're that mathematically precise, I told you, I know exactly when they are filled. As for now, there is no free room in the 1st or 2nd floor of the women's wing. Except on the third floor."
"Then, if there's no problem, I'll be taking-"
"Yes, yes here it is. Room 359 on the east wing-"
"Sir, the men's wing is the east wing."
"Oh no, dearie, on the third floor, there is no east or west wing, it's all one big floor, you see, even though I arrange for the east wing to be all boys' rooms and the west for the girls' the rooms.. the rooms they.."
"Sir?"
"The rooms, they kind of, rearrange themselves. So sometimes' there are girls' rooms on the east wing and.."
"Sir, isn't there a problem with the residents-"
"Oh no, no. No history of assault exists on the third floor, not that I know of. The rooms would never allow it."
"The rooms? Allow? Sir, what-"
"Oh, if you're fine with the third floor, I have the key right here and we could go meet your roommates right now and you may even move right in if you feel like it."
"..."
The manager hesitated with the keys just an inch above the palm of her hand.
"Oh and one more thing, before we go, the residents of the third floor themselves made a special request. It's been a tradition, and they've been quite insistent on it, and I must say, it's pretty effective when you consider the odds, it's the only thing that's statistically correct that happens-"
"Sir, what one other thing is it?"
"Ah, I just need to ask you one question before I give you the keys. No need to answer it, no. But the times I forget to ask, they always seem to want to move out by the end of the month. The ones I forget to ask, that is."
"... All you'll need to do is ask me this question?"
"Ah, yes, how does that go again, Oh, there, 'Would you settle for a life less frightening?', they say. Awfully silly line, I thought it was a prank, but they insist on it, says it's just a popular song lyric- Well, how do you like it?"
"I'll be taking the room, sir."
"Well, now that's settled, toddle off that chair now and bring your bags."
Dream 2 (or room number 1?): 6 or 18
The six girls slept along 3 double deck beds. But along those 3 double decks, were 3 others more, containing 6 or more sleeping forms. They told us that the sleeping ones were merely nocturnal, but after a couple of days staying awake through the night told us otherwise. They were not dead, nor were they living either. They seemed to sleep an eternal sleep, partly showered in cobwebs and dusty filigree, mummified to a porcelain finish. But they sometimes breathe, or so we think when we watch them long enough. We thought of waking them up, but the management relented and warned us not too. It might kill us, they say, should the sleeping ones awake while we were there. Pray that they don’t awaken while we reside in the room, or we might become food for empty stomachs long devoid of even fluid. What were we doing there then, we asked, if not emergency rations should they wake up. The management tells us, no, we were not food, they merely thought that was one of the possible events, but we may be even killed by other means, other reasons. But they allowed us to take the rooms, because that was what the rooms wanted, and, even though awakening might still be centuries yet, the sleeping ones thrived on the presence of living warmth. I slept in the middle bed, often looking askance at the prone figure next to me, delicate profile in white jade, decorated with spidery veil. I once reached out to trace the line of her(or he, or it) nose, and the creature stirred in slumber, rubbing it’s nose on the pillow, but did not wake. My breath stopped for a moment, wondering if the Sunday afternoon sun that lazily poured golden pools of haze would be my last scene, but it was not so.
Dream 3 (room number 2): Father
It was a student dorm, that was true, but in one of the rooms lived a father, who claimed that his son disappeared while living in the very same room, 18 years before. He had lost everything else, his wife and daughter left him following their grief of the son’s absence and, unable to live alone, he had asked for room and lo, it was granted. On the third floor, we almost never doubted how things ran, though a mixture of thrill and fear ran in the undercurrents of our everyday life. Every room looked different and somewhat unique, depending on how the light moved. In my room, the light is perpetually dim and gloomy, like a gas lamp lit in a forest camp, it seems suffocated by the darkness. In the girls’ room, the one were sleeping ones lie, the light is a hazy golden, as if it’s always afternoon, although it does change to a hazy white during evenings and mornings, on any day. their open door glowed a strange warmth. I always thought it was as though a cocoon chamber, intent of keeping those changing creatures alive throughout the harshest of winters. In the father’s room, the light was ordinary, maybe a little sharp, for being modern and contemporary. In that room, he shared with boys the same age as his son 18 years ago, and their colorful clutter spread everywhere on the floor, like a normal teenager’s nest. The man tolerated their noise and exuberance, though it must’ve pained him to be reminded everyday of what his son must’ve been like. Likewise, in the presence of rational guidance, any young male that resided in that room developed a melancholy, kind demeanor over time, echoing that man’s countenance. He always smiled when you conversed with him, though the smile belied his sadness.
(I once held his hand and we walked around the post next to the door of the room three times, on the day of his grieving. The day that his son disappeared, people watched while he walked around that pole three times, and on the third time he walked around, he simply disappeared.) The father told me, he dreamed that the room itself was a doorway to somewhere else, and that his son was merely taken, and if only he could get there, he would be able to see him again.
What scares him more was that they might walk past each other without knowing, and that would be his last chance to see him. I fell asleep on a beanbag in the middle of the room, on one of the nights that I ventured around the floor disturbing friends and acquaintances. In that dream, I walked around that pole alone, and met a fat woman and a man whose face was easily forgotten. A young man was there too, but he was lying prone on a couch bleeding. The father flew into the room, saying that he had followed me, and he fell weeping to his knees in front of the young man. The fat woman sneered at him, telling him that they had corrupted the young man into killing, and the last of those instances had injured him deeply. We took the young man and ran, but the way back around the pole stretched away indefinitely. We fled down labyrinths and gray stone walls until we found the pole, and around it we ran until dizzy-ness and the sound of the fat woman’s laughter echoed in our ears. I woke up the next day, but the father was gone, and nobody knew where he went.
Dream 4 (room 3): Old room (probably inspired by my dormitory room in Camia....)
The first time I walked along the corridors of the third floor, I thought it was incredibly small and crowded, and people walked past each other so closely, you’d think you were in the middle of a mosh pit in concert. The second time I did, though it was the same corridor, only back again in reverse as I was leaving my room to go out, the corridors were at least seven meters wide, with the rooms far apart, and people hung out in the doorways to watch you thoughtfully as you pass by. If you glance backwards at them quick enough, they all looked different. (People told me that from the back, I looked like a different person, someone taller and bigger, maybe. But on the third floor, everyone looked different from the back. Sometimes, they would have two heads and three necks, but would you look long enough to count?) I understood soon enough that the corridors seemed to breath, constricting and expanding according to its whims, just as the rooms loved to rearrange themselves, and every morning, simply finding the doors to the elevators and stairs is a mini-labyrinth that we all traverse. The only thing that doesn’t change about the corridors is that they were made of old, black-stained, knotty wood. Think of the way deeply grooved wood looks when you splash black paint on it, the dark settles in the spaces between relief and it looks organic and dusty grime filmed over. My room is a stable replica of the corridors, and people call it the old room. In there, the dimming light bulbs hang from the ceiling, sputtering softly, the corners lined with old moonshine bottles, empty with age, but oddly colorful. My wooden cabinet creaked miserably every time I opened it, and inside, when you push the coat hangers aside you can see the numbers of old residents written rebelliously on the interior. (my number started with a 02-xxxxx, and I’ve always wondered who you were, Ms. 67-XXXXX, and Ms. 73-XXXXX.)
Room 4: grandmother (Will be added later, but it was a dream about my grandmother who died recently, except in this dream, she was a half-skeleton talking person. O_o )
Room 5: The boy who could fly (using only the snap of an automatic ballpen)