Dream: Both Gunns Blazing
Monday, 7 Dec 2009
The orange light of Sonoran afternoon blanketed the valley. Everything it touched buzzed too brightly for us in the shady interior of a ruined building on the cliff side. Below us, tall grasses waved around the edges of a shallow pond.
We expected trouble. Steph Davis took a heavy rifle and hiked down to be our lookout. She climbed up the trestle stilts to the big machine shed, about 60 feet above the water. Some of the planks were missing, and the cable cars were gone, but the bullwheel still hung in place. A flock of tiny black things swept past the shed; Davis and her rifle fell into the water.
I went down later and climbed up to the machine shed. I nestled into a corner in the most protected spot I could find and kept my eyes on the few small openings left by missing boards. A flock of black sparrows flew by. Most of them swooped to one side of the building, but the few that came in darted straight at me. I didn't have time to shoot; I threw myself forward, covered my face with my arm, and tried to swat down a bird with the heavy pistol.
The birds all missed me, burying their beaks in the wall timbers; then the birds exploded. Unwholesome wisps of darkness curled and dissipated through an impossibly small number of fluttering black feathers.
We walked through back yards and residential alleys at night, hoping we'd be on time. I pointed out a small, drowsy bear behind a fence to our left, warning the others not to wake it. A hundred feet later I warned them of a tiger in a snowy yard ahead of us.
"Pot tiger," musicin68 corrected; it was only the size of a large beagle, and too young to have teeth or claws.
Our path lead through a tiny white shed. The tiger jumped on my chest as I approached, then wandered away. beltramgregor went into the shed and down the stairs, then clattered around. We followed him down and found him standing over a dead beagle, looking regretful.
"Jens told me to be careful with the wild dogsthey don't have bonesbut I forgot," he explained, hefting a cast-iron double-boiler.
We walked out the lower door onto a sidewalk and turned right.
We got to the house a little later and walked down to the finished basement. gunn lounged on a daybed by the wall, and also on a daybed by the pillar in the middle of the room... there were two of her. I paused, then waved hello and smiled to the gunn by the wall.
"The original," I said.
"Yeah," she said, beaming back smiles she could barely contain. "This is my other younger sister."
Her double looked a couple years younger, and her hair was a little longer, but otherwise she looked identical. She grinned impishly and the room glowed with welcome. She cast an appraising glance at Jens and the other visitors that didn't recognize her.
A cocktail-party crowd developed. I mentioned to a debonair fellow in his late 30's that I was rereading Grossman's Soon I Will Be Invincible. He chuckled indulgently.
"I'd be more interested in his less derivative work," he said with casual derision, "like The Swimming Pool."
"Why would I want to read that?" I replied. "I've read serious dramas before. There's nothing new to it."
He smirked at me, unimpressed.
"Have you seen the Focus Features film called 'Swimming Pool?'" I asked lamely.
I mingled and chatted. Later, I discovered the plot of Grossman's The Swimming Pool is not quite as literary-serious as the fellow supposed. Grossman tells the tale from a third-person limited-omniscient, but he's also a central character in the book. In the story, a reclusive author (Grossman) invites a handful of strangers to his manse for a dinner party, to include Louise Jameson, a pair of college students, one of the more prolific screenwriters for Doctor Who from the late-70's and early 80's, and a contemporary Hollywood producer. (The screenwriter constantly wears brown ceramic telegraph insulators over his ears.) The attendees are surprised to discover the seven of them constitute the entire gathering. Over the second course, the host reveals he gathered them because his research leads him to believe "someone in this room is a vampire," and he intends to find out who it is. The host includes himself as a candidate, genuinely uncertain of his own humanity.
We had arrived at Grossman's house only to find it empty... or maybe the cocktail party had evaporated. We knew the evil wind that prowled the neighborhood had smelled us. I quietly climbed the steps, followed by Jens, beltramgregor, musicin68, and the few other people who were with us by the bear, plus gunn and gunn2. We gathered shiftlessly in the darkened living room. The house looked long-abandoned, nearly unfurnished, the hardwood floors weathered gray over the last century.
While we searched for materials to secure the house, the strangers left to look for a way out of the neighborhood. Two- and three-story homes from the 1920's and earlier lined both sides of the street, shoulder-to-shoulder, making room for an occasional brick low-rise or a stand of shops. The neighborhood had no streetlights and no traffic signals; every window was packed to the brim with dusty darkness. The three strangers walked slowly down the middle of the empty, curving streets. They spread out over a couple blocks and were almost out of sight of the house when an invisible force picked up the guy in back and hurled him across the street, bouncing him off a parked car and breaking most of his bones. The others ran in different directions, unable to tell that the evil wind was pursuing them.
We waited tensely inside for a few minutes, then guessed the wind had probably followed one of them. Jens volunteered to go outside and begin covering the entrances with the bedsheets we'd found. The others paired up and worked silently inside, measuring windows and cutting sheets to fit. Jens quietly tacked them into place, starting on the front porch and moving around the side of the house. I sat on the floor and astrally-projected myself to search for the strangers.
The evil wind didn't see very well, and by luck the strangers lost it between a street cafe and some antique shops. They covered the whole neighborhood in their panic, but every road looped back on itself.
Jens had finished with the first floor and was heading across the porch when he saw a tree and the porch swing sway in a breeze he didn't feel. Jens froze. When it stirred another tree, he vaulted over the porch railing to crouch behind it and hide. The evil wind came for him, but he outmaneuvered it and got back to the front door, which they slammed shut behind him.
I found the strangers when they reached the monument by the edge of a small park where a pillar of moonlight relieved the universal gray dimness. They passed through the archway in the wrought-iron fence; one of them climbed the concrete steps. A concrete archway in the monument lead to the footbridge over the park and out of the neighborhood.
The man on the steps rounded the corner and paused. Looking over his shoulder, I saw the incongruous gray wallpaper and wainscoting that blocked the huge archway. It looked badly composited; the resolution was too low for the rest of the world, and it jittered very slightly. It was dark in the moon-shadow of the deep archway, but a line of gray light lurked at its lowest edge. Dust wafted in and out through the line of gray light like smoke breathing from under a door inside a burning building.
The man on the stairs took another step forward.
No, I told him silently. That's where it lives, where it comes from. It was at the house a little while ago, but it left.
We heard a swallowed gasp as the other man suddenly flew backwards over the fence and down the street. He landed heavily on the cobblestones and lay still.
The man on the steps tensed.
Slowly, I said. Move... very... slowly.
The orange light of Sonoran afternoon blanketed the valley. Everything it touched buzzed too brightly for us in the shady interior of a ruined building on the cliff side. Below us, tall grasses waved around the edges of a shallow pond.
We expected trouble. Steph Davis took a heavy rifle and hiked down to be our lookout. She climbed up the trestle stilts to the big machine shed, about 60 feet above the water. Some of the planks were missing, and the cable cars were gone, but the bullwheel still hung in place. A flock of tiny black things swept past the shed; Davis and her rifle fell into the water.
I went down later and climbed up to the machine shed. I nestled into a corner in the most protected spot I could find and kept my eyes on the few small openings left by missing boards. A flock of black sparrows flew by. Most of them swooped to one side of the building, but the few that came in darted straight at me. I didn't have time to shoot; I threw myself forward, covered my face with my arm, and tried to swat down a bird with the heavy pistol.
The birds all missed me, burying their beaks in the wall timbers; then the birds exploded. Unwholesome wisps of darkness curled and dissipated through an impossibly small number of fluttering black feathers.
We walked through back yards and residential alleys at night, hoping we'd be on time. I pointed out a small, drowsy bear behind a fence to our left, warning the others not to wake it. A hundred feet later I warned them of a tiger in a snowy yard ahead of us.
"Pot tiger," musicin68 corrected; it was only the size of a large beagle, and too young to have teeth or claws.
Our path lead through a tiny white shed. The tiger jumped on my chest as I approached, then wandered away. beltramgregor went into the shed and down the stairs, then clattered around. We followed him down and found him standing over a dead beagle, looking regretful.
"Jens told me to be careful with the wild dogsthey don't have bonesbut I forgot," he explained, hefting a cast-iron double-boiler.
We walked out the lower door onto a sidewalk and turned right.
We got to the house a little later and walked down to the finished basement. gunn lounged on a daybed by the wall, and also on a daybed by the pillar in the middle of the room... there were two of her. I paused, then waved hello and smiled to the gunn by the wall.
"The original," I said.
"Yeah," she said, beaming back smiles she could barely contain. "This is my other younger sister."
Her double looked a couple years younger, and her hair was a little longer, but otherwise she looked identical. She grinned impishly and the room glowed with welcome. She cast an appraising glance at Jens and the other visitors that didn't recognize her.
A cocktail-party crowd developed. I mentioned to a debonair fellow in his late 30's that I was rereading Grossman's Soon I Will Be Invincible. He chuckled indulgently.
"I'd be more interested in his less derivative work," he said with casual derision, "like The Swimming Pool."
"Why would I want to read that?" I replied. "I've read serious dramas before. There's nothing new to it."
He smirked at me, unimpressed.
"Have you seen the Focus Features film called 'Swimming Pool?'" I asked lamely.
I mingled and chatted. Later, I discovered the plot of Grossman's The Swimming Pool is not quite as literary-serious as the fellow supposed. Grossman tells the tale from a third-person limited-omniscient, but he's also a central character in the book. In the story, a reclusive author (Grossman) invites a handful of strangers to his manse for a dinner party, to include Louise Jameson, a pair of college students, one of the more prolific screenwriters for Doctor Who from the late-70's and early 80's, and a contemporary Hollywood producer. (The screenwriter constantly wears brown ceramic telegraph insulators over his ears.) The attendees are surprised to discover the seven of them constitute the entire gathering. Over the second course, the host reveals he gathered them because his research leads him to believe "someone in this room is a vampire," and he intends to find out who it is. The host includes himself as a candidate, genuinely uncertain of his own humanity.
We had arrived at Grossman's house only to find it empty... or maybe the cocktail party had evaporated. We knew the evil wind that prowled the neighborhood had smelled us. I quietly climbed the steps, followed by Jens, beltramgregor, musicin68, and the few other people who were with us by the bear, plus gunn and gunn2. We gathered shiftlessly in the darkened living room. The house looked long-abandoned, nearly unfurnished, the hardwood floors weathered gray over the last century.
While we searched for materials to secure the house, the strangers left to look for a way out of the neighborhood. Two- and three-story homes from the 1920's and earlier lined both sides of the street, shoulder-to-shoulder, making room for an occasional brick low-rise or a stand of shops. The neighborhood had no streetlights and no traffic signals; every window was packed to the brim with dusty darkness. The three strangers walked slowly down the middle of the empty, curving streets. They spread out over a couple blocks and were almost out of sight of the house when an invisible force picked up the guy in back and hurled him across the street, bouncing him off a parked car and breaking most of his bones. The others ran in different directions, unable to tell that the evil wind was pursuing them.
We waited tensely inside for a few minutes, then guessed the wind had probably followed one of them. Jens volunteered to go outside and begin covering the entrances with the bedsheets we'd found. The others paired up and worked silently inside, measuring windows and cutting sheets to fit. Jens quietly tacked them into place, starting on the front porch and moving around the side of the house. I sat on the floor and astrally-projected myself to search for the strangers.
The evil wind didn't see very well, and by luck the strangers lost it between a street cafe and some antique shops. They covered the whole neighborhood in their panic, but every road looped back on itself.
Jens had finished with the first floor and was heading across the porch when he saw a tree and the porch swing sway in a breeze he didn't feel. Jens froze. When it stirred another tree, he vaulted over the porch railing to crouch behind it and hide. The evil wind came for him, but he outmaneuvered it and got back to the front door, which they slammed shut behind him.
I found the strangers when they reached the monument by the edge of a small park where a pillar of moonlight relieved the universal gray dimness. They passed through the archway in the wrought-iron fence; one of them climbed the concrete steps. A concrete archway in the monument lead to the footbridge over the park and out of the neighborhood.
The man on the steps rounded the corner and paused. Looking over his shoulder, I saw the incongruous gray wallpaper and wainscoting that blocked the huge archway. It looked badly composited; the resolution was too low for the rest of the world, and it jittered very slightly. It was dark in the moon-shadow of the deep archway, but a line of gray light lurked at its lowest edge. Dust wafted in and out through the line of gray light like smoke breathing from under a door inside a burning building.
The man on the stairs took another step forward.
No, I told him silently. That's where it lives, where it comes from. It was at the house a little while ago, but it left.
We heard a swallowed gasp as the other man suddenly flew backwards over the fence and down the street. He landed heavily on the cobblestones and lay still.
The man on the steps tensed.
Slowly, I said. Move... very... slowly.