The Third Alternative.
Narrator: It was getting late, and i was losing it fast. There was an old movie on TV but i was too tired and too nervous to concentrate properly.It had Jimmy Stewart and some blonde woman, Kim Novak maybe or Tippi Hendren, and a plot i just couldn't follow.Someone was dead, or maybe she wasn't, i don't know. I took a sip of coffee and it had gone cold, and i was trying to decide whether to see if there was any left in the pot, or just forget it and go to bed when someone knocked at the door. (the story is told from a first person perspective, and so the narrator is also todd.)
Todd: Janet?
Janet: Hi Todd, i saw your light was on, so i figured you wouldn't mind if i came by.Y'see i was going over my part in my head, trying to figure out what it must have been like for Mary, out on that island, i sort of thought.. Don't look at me like that Todd, i know you're thinking "Why doesnt she wait for rehearsals tomorrow?" well--
Todd: Janet, you might as well be the first to know, I won't be at the rehearsal tomorrow. I'm pulling out.
Janet: You what? But it's your play. You wrote it. Even the dumb songs in the third act. And you're the director. And--
Todd: Uh uh. Look. Bag packed. Todd Faber go-bye-bye-leave-town, not come back.
Janet: You're serious aren't you. Why?
Todd: "What's Entertainment?" phoned this afternoon. The TV show.They wanted to know all about Todd Faber and Typhoid Mary Blues. And i told them i was out. And i put down the phone and my hands were shaking. And.. I'm leaving because i'm scared okay?
Janet: But it's your play. We open next week. I mean, it's off broadway. But it's not as if it's off-off. Or even off-off-off.
Todd: Janet, i don't want to talk now. I've written a letter that'll be read at rehearsal tomorrow, telling them what i've done and why.
Janet: What is it you're afraid off? Failing? Or succeeding?
Todd: Goodnight, Janet.
Janet: Goodbye, Todd.
Narrator: I gave up on them movie, and went to bed. Eventually i got to sleep. Eventually. Some dreams are different. Most dreams are a tangle of things foreground and background, subject and object. I once had a dream in which i was chasing a mad clown around Saint Patrick's Cathedral which was also my old high school. And after awhile i was the clown they were chasing. This dream was one of the different ones. It was in real time and i was climbing up a rock face. I've never done any climbing in real life. Not even trees when i was a little kid. I live on the first floor which means it costs more and means there's no view to speak off, but i don't care. I don't like heights. But here I am, in my dream climbing climbing like i was born to it. Hunting down handholds and footholds, wedging my hands and feet into rock crevices and slowly inch by inch pushing myself up. And finally I get to the top. And i start to realize how far up I am. And how far down everything else is. And then i realize that I'm not alone. (Todd has ascended a sheer cliff face and is now at the top of the needle like mountain.)
Todd: It's a long way down.
Morpheus: Yes. (this is morpheus king of dreams with a thousand names, among which are kai'ckul and the sandman, and he is the anthromophic personification of dreams.)
Todd: I can't believe i climbed all the way up here. I hate heights. I really do. I've hated them since i was a kid. You see.. Hey I don't want to bore you. Are you interested in dreams?
Morpheus: You might say that.
Todd: That's good. Most people are bored to death bt other people's dreams. You see for me, it all goes back to this one dream i had when i was five or six. I couldn't have been any older. I remember i was trapped in this house full of witches and i couldn't get out. And finally, i got to the top of the house, and i climbed out onto the roof, and suddenly, slowly, it tilted and threw me off. I couldn't see the ground coming up below me. And i knew that if i hit the ground I'd die. I knew that. It didn't matter if it was a dream or not. I'd still be killed, just as hard, if not worse, maybe. I remember the panic. The sheer gut fear as i tumbled down towards the ground and couldn't do anything to stop it. So i...
Todd: I made it stop. I.. I didn't wake myself up. But i pulled out of the dream and was just trapped inside a sleeping body. I didn't dare go back to the dream, i'd die. But i didn't know how to wake myself up. I tried to scream hoping that maybe I could wake someone up, who'd come and wake me up. I tried to thrash about. It was the longest time I've ever spent, trapped in my head, in the dark. And eventually somehow, I did manage to open my eyes. I was soaked in sweat, and I started crying, partly because I hadn't died and partyl because i was alive. Ever since then I've been.. a little scared of high places.
Morpheus: I see.
Narrator: And then the raven spoke to me. I thought, birds can't talk. And i thought maybe they can in dreams. That was when i knew i was dreaming.
Matthew: You're running away aren't you? (Matthew is Morpheus' pet raven. He was once a man who died, and instead of going to heaven or hell, he sought to live in the dreaming.)
Todd: I'm not running away. It's just... I don't know. It's all getting to be too much for me. I feel I'm out of my depth. I'm scared, I'm scared to do something stupid.
Morpheus: And if you do something stupid, what next?
Todd: Aren't you scared of falling?
Morpheus: IT is sometimes a mistake to climb; It is always a mistake never even to make the attempt.
Todd: What are you saying? That i ought to go back to the show? Not walk out? Is that what you're saying? You're just a dream, listen I've made up my mind.
Morpheus: If you do not climb you will not fall. This is true. But is it that bad to fail, that hard to fall? Sometimes you wake, and yes, sometimes you die. But there is a third alternative. (Morpheus disappears, and Todd is left alone on the mountain.)
Todd: And that is? ... (Todd looks down in despair.)
(A lightning bolt cracks from the sky and strikes the mountain that Todd is standing on. The mountain begins to crumble.)
Todd: no. please no.
Narrator: When it's really happening it's not like the roadrunner cartoons. There's not going tobe a me-sized hole in the dessert floor. I'm just going to hit the hard rock from a great height, and that will be that. And I'm about to try and wake myself up when..
(Morpheus voice ringing in his head): But there is a third alternative...
Narrator: And I stayed with it. And i didn't wake up. And I didn't die.
(change of scenery. We're at a small New York playhouse rehearsal.)
Janet: Hi everyone, look guys, there's something I have to tell you. It's about Todd...
Random person cast in the play: What about Todd, Janet?
Todd: Yes, Janet. What about Todd?
Janet: Todd i thought...
Todd: Okay, now everybody. Can we take this from the scene in the basement? That's Act 2 Scene 4. I need God, Sappho, The hanged man, The slave of the lamp, and Typhoid Mary on stage. Everyone else, go over your lines, or practice pretending not to read your notices.
Janet: You seem different today.
Todd: I met someone who changed my mind about a lot of things.
Janet: I'd like to meet her.
Todd: It's a he. And I don't even think he exists. He's just a little voice in the back of my head, saying..
Janet: Yes?
Todd: Sometimes you wake up. Sometimes the fall kills you. And sometimes, when you fall you fly. Okay everybody! Let's take it rom the top!
This story is by no means mine. Actually if it seems familiar, it's because i copied it verbatim off of Neil Gaiman's Sandman book 6: Fables and Reflections. It's the first story of the book, and acts as a sort of prologue. But it kicks ass. I won't even attempt to explain thsymbolism, because if you don't get it.. then you shouldn't really be reading it.