the dream where we pull the bodies out of the lake.
first posted at we_are_cities .
the dream where we pull the bodies out of the lake.
for the 5 june 10 prompt || (about 400 words) || rated: g.
title from richard siken's "scheherazade."
He had a dream that the planet started spinning in reverse, and there were 24 less hours in a day, and 365 less days in a year, and eventually all the scientists and mathematicians grew depressed and stopped keeping track of all the time being stolen back from them. The sun and moon hung side by side in a pale green sky, and there were no clouds, and there was no rain. The sand had spilled out of all the hourglasses. The clocks and watches had lost their hands. Everywhere in this inverted world, the time stood fixed at 0:00.
Slowly, very slowly, people began to seep out of their houses and apartments, their offices and favorite coffee shops. The wide-eyed tax accountant dropped his calculator, numbers spraying onto the sidewalk, irrelevant. The disheveled writer collapsed, exhausted, her goals and deadlines now meaningless. Students turned this strange state of affairs into an indefinite summer break.
He - the boy who had the dream - set out to find what else had changed.
He took his bike for a ride through the city and felt the loss of time, tangible in the slow, languid way everything moved. The streets, which once throbbed with a pulse engineered of noise, pure noise, honks and shouts and hums - these streets were quiet. He imagined putting an ear to the concrete and hearing the silent heartbeat of a corpse. As he rode further into the city, skyscrapers and towers sprang up around him. They were so thin, so empty inside. He wondered how they hadn’t yet collapsed.
At some point, the roads tapered off into trails, which tapered off into beaches. He left his bike in the sand and walked until he was up to his knees in water. The sky was the same pale green it had been when he left. There were still no clouds. There was still no rain. He closed his eyes and tried to count seconds, then minutes. He found that he had already forgotten how to measure time.
He opened his eyes. The water rushed out.
He noticed then that the sea was stained a myriad of colors. He knelt to touch it, hold it, cup it in his hands. The water flew out and left his palms tinged brown. When he stood again, the ocean was charging toward the horizon - a lone stampede by a huge, stained-glass beast. Come back, he said. He began to run.
This is my dream, he thought. I can control this.
And yet. He couldn’t.
When he realized this, the ocean was already gone.
*
the dream where we pull the bodies out of the lake.
for the 5 june 10 prompt || (about 400 words) || rated: g.
title from richard siken's "scheherazade."
He had a dream that the planet started spinning in reverse, and there were 24 less hours in a day, and 365 less days in a year, and eventually all the scientists and mathematicians grew depressed and stopped keeping track of all the time being stolen back from them. The sun and moon hung side by side in a pale green sky, and there were no clouds, and there was no rain. The sand had spilled out of all the hourglasses. The clocks and watches had lost their hands. Everywhere in this inverted world, the time stood fixed at 0:00.
Slowly, very slowly, people began to seep out of their houses and apartments, their offices and favorite coffee shops. The wide-eyed tax accountant dropped his calculator, numbers spraying onto the sidewalk, irrelevant. The disheveled writer collapsed, exhausted, her goals and deadlines now meaningless. Students turned this strange state of affairs into an indefinite summer break.
He - the boy who had the dream - set out to find what else had changed.
He took his bike for a ride through the city and felt the loss of time, tangible in the slow, languid way everything moved. The streets, which once throbbed with a pulse engineered of noise, pure noise, honks and shouts and hums - these streets were quiet. He imagined putting an ear to the concrete and hearing the silent heartbeat of a corpse. As he rode further into the city, skyscrapers and towers sprang up around him. They were so thin, so empty inside. He wondered how they hadn’t yet collapsed.
At some point, the roads tapered off into trails, which tapered off into beaches. He left his bike in the sand and walked until he was up to his knees in water. The sky was the same pale green it had been when he left. There were still no clouds. There was still no rain. He closed his eyes and tried to count seconds, then minutes. He found that he had already forgotten how to measure time.
He opened his eyes. The water rushed out.
He noticed then that the sea was stained a myriad of colors. He knelt to touch it, hold it, cup it in his hands. The water flew out and left his palms tinged brown. When he stood again, the ocean was charging toward the horizon - a lone stampede by a huge, stained-glass beast. Come back, he said. He began to run.
This is my dream, he thought. I can control this.
And yet. He couldn’t.
When he realized this, the ocean was already gone.
*