The links to the downloads of Fat Tony are well and truly gone. It's time to send it out to agents, so I'm taking it down. It's a blow against freedom of information, but I don't want to go stepping on any toes, and until a publisher says 'yes' I want to tread carefully.
However, I still want readers! Please, do send me an email at andrew[dot]g[dot]cannon@gmail[dot]com and I'll send you the most recent file.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for being with me through this whole process! Five months ago, Fat Tony was the muddled remains of a short story I wrote the year before. Now it's a 73,000 word novel.
Enough nostalgia. Time to go finish City of Dreams.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Apparently, I Shouted
Six months after submission, and two months after I'd given up hearing from anyone, I received a letter from an agent about Pete and The Dog. The relevant parts are, one, that she wanted the whole manuscript, and two, she wrote this:
"I apologize for the long delay in my response - I'm kicking myself for getting so behind in my reading. I truly hope your ms. is still available - I would love to read more of this book!"
Whether we're the right fit for each other or not, that kind of thing is always good to read. Hooray! Let's hope this goes somewhere. Pray for us.
"I apologize for the long delay in my response - I'm kicking myself for getting so behind in my reading. I truly hope your ms. is still available - I would love to read more of this book!"
Whether we're the right fit for each other or not, that kind of thing is always good to read. Hooray! Let's hope this goes somewhere. Pray for us.
Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest Entry 2
“All gods die,” said Borgath, driving his dagger deep into the heart of Mimwick, the Star God, claiming the power as his own—but unaware of Amrod’s sword, sweeping in to remove his head from his shoulders—who was unaware of Lordin’s arrow, ripping through the air to his throat—who was unaware of Tordal’s poison, coursing through his veins to its final climax—who was unaware of the barrel, accidentally dropped by Wad, the stable-boy, who was to become the first accidental god in a thousand years.
Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest Entry
[A fantasy review blog I follow (www.fantasyliterature.com) is having a little mini-contest, and I decided to submit to the real thing as well (http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/)--a contest based entirely on bad first sentences to a novel.
[It may not rise to the genius of the 1997 winner (find that one HERE), but it's all the attention it's getting from me today. Time to finish Fat Tony.]
[It may not rise to the genius of the 1997 winner (find that one HERE), but it's all the attention it's getting from me today. Time to finish Fat Tony.]
The wind swept down the mountain—not any particular mountain, though this mountain mattered to the locals because of its high concentration of maple trees that did so much for the local economy which, in general, was in a slump due to the crash in the novelty magic item market, a market that had given jobs to any number of farmers in the winter off-months, but other than that, this mountain was unremarkable to anyone outside a twelve mile radius, unless you’re particularly fond of maple syrup—and the wind brushed past the river—once again, not much of a river, one way or the other, but Billy McGuppins had slipped off the ferry just that morning and dunked himself (and his father’s expensive tobacco pouch) right into the water, though he came out of it all right (alas! the same can’t be said for the tobacco), but do any of us really care about a boy named Billy McGuppins?—and the wind found its way to a city—a city that hereafter would become known as Plague Home, Death’s Gate, the Lower Lip of the Mouth of Hell, but that (before all this) was simply called Twice Town, because if you’d been through twice you’d seen all there was to see, even including the Mayor’s prize chicken, Burp, who had been swallowed whole by a young dragon and come out the other end, three days later, just as happy as she’d gone in (which wasn’t very happy, by all accounts)—and the wind was a beginning—not the beginning, since that actually happened last October about the time that Grace Kudgins opened that Blasted Urn her father had traded for in Far Eastern Brukle’s market for odds and sundries—but it was a beginning.
Friday, March 26, 2010
The City of Dreams -- Part 20
[This is actually more like Part 19b, since it's more of the Mall date, but these are the crazy times we live in that writers like me can skip section 19b entirely and jump right to section 20.
[Another sign that disaster is right around the corner.
[But before that, here's more City of Dreams.]
"This is the Mall," said Brie.
"This is the Mall," I said.
"It looks a lot like a normal mall," she said.
"Just without the people," I replied. "And with a directory sign that's bobbing up and down to get our attention."
"That totally happens in the real world," said Brie. "And massage chairs giving each other massages. I saw that last weekend."
"Right." I looked over at a jewelry store. "I get the impression that Diamond Emporium doesn't want any customers."
"What was your first clue?" asked Brie. "The spiked grate with the shattered shopping carts under it? Or the blood-red lighting?"
"So no shopping for diamonds. Where should we go instead?"
"Food court?" she suggested.
"Sure. I could eat something." We stopped to consult the ecstatic mall directory that quivered like a puppy as we looked over its map. It was a mostly-straight walk to the collection of fast-food places that are the real heart of any mall, so we set out. Still hand in hand. I thought I might get used to that.
"Uh-oh," said Brie, dragging me to a stop.
"What?" I said, looking around. I didn't see anything that warranted an 'uh-oh.' I mean, there was a greeting card store with every musical card ever, all playing at the same time, but I didn't see that as an 'uh-oh.' More of an 'oh my.' Distressing, but not scary.
"Hand lotion kiosks," said Brie.
I followed her glance and saw them: a collection of counters-on-wheels, topped with row after row of buffing cream and softening cream and anti-aging cream.
"Is that a problem?" I asked.
"Haven't you ever been to a mall?" she said.
I stopped to think. "Not for a long time. Christmas last year I bought a video game and, somehow, a summer sausage. I'm not sure what happened, but the lady was there, and she was nice, and next thing I knew, I had a sausage."
"Exactly," said Brie. "Here's the plan. Eyes on the floor, look straight ahead, walk with purpose."
"We just made it past a parking lot filled with psychotic automobiles. This can't be THAT bad."
"They're going to try to give us free samples. They're going to rub it into our hands. They're going to keep us here until we wake up."
I looked at the kiosks. "How are they going to rub it into our hands? They don't have any--"
"Look at them, Perry!"
I looked at them. They seemed closer than before. They were moving together, gradually blocking off the hall. There was something ridiculously ominous about it all.
"Maybe we should take a different way," I said, fighting back a laugh.
"They'll probably try to give me something SCENTED," said Brie, cringing. "I like scented shampoo, but NOT hand lotion."
I put a serious look on my face. "We can make it, Brie, but if one of them gets me, don't stop. Go on without me. Honor my memory."
She glared at me. "I'm so going to hit you."
"Here we go!" I shouted, pulling her along behind me. I dragged us to the left, eyes on the ground but watching from the corner of my eye for--there it was! A break in their formation to the right. With a battle cry of 'we're just looking,' I lead the charge toward the gap. They realized their mistake too late and we slipped through, their wheels squeaking in protest as they tried to roll after us.
I pulled Brie's hand up into the air and raised my other hand, fist held high. "Victory is ours!"
Brie was laughing as we kept jogging down the hall. "This is you," she said.
"Of course it's me."
"No, this is the REAL you. This is the you I knew was there."
We slowed to a walk and I looked at her. "I guess I'm not much like this during the day, am I."
She looked in my eyes. "But you ARE. I know it. It's like it's in there, just under your skin, and if I just scratched you, it would all come pouring out."
"Don't scratch me during the day, though," I said.
"Idiot," she said. "Let's go get some food."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"The food court is just up there," she said, and pointed.
"No, about the real me."
"Food first. Then I'll tell you, if you still want me to."
"Why wouldn't I want you to?"
She shrugged. "It just seems like you don't always want to talk about serious things."
"I talk about serious things."
"Really?"
I opened my mouth and closed it again. "Maybe it's just a guy thing," I said finally.
"Or a depressed guy thing," said Brie.
"Could be that, too."
"We're here," she said, dropping my hand and putting hers on her hips. "What to choose?"
I tried not to feel let down, avoided grabbing after her hand, and looked around the food court. Tables and chairs were calm, scattered around the open space in some kind of order that left enough room for walking. Moonlight shone down through a clear ceiling, and small trees in pots added accents of glowing color. I looked to the food-stalls that lined the walls, trying to find something familiar. There wasn't.
"Wow," I said. "PRETZELS & SALMON UNLIMITED sounds like something my dad would go for."
"I was just thinking that my parents would go for HOT DOGS THAT ACTUALLY TASTE GOOD,” said Brie. “That, or NEVER MEANT TO BLEND THAT. Do they serve accidental food?"
"Definitely scary. Why don't we try PIZZA AND ALL."
"I think that's PIZZA AND WALL," said Brie.
"No it's not. That's just a stylized logo thingie," I said. "I think."
"Look closer," she said.
I did. "Dang, it really DOES say 'wall.'"
"We may have to go with the pretzels and salmon," said Brie, laughing again. "You like fish?"
"Wait!" I said. "ICE CREAM SANDWICHES. There. Can't go wrong with an ice cream sandwich."
"Why not," said Brie.
We wandered over and got a closer look at their menu.
"'Vanilla, ketchup, and pickles,'" read Brie.
"'English toffee and pastrami on nine-grain bread,'" I read.
"I think I'm hungry for a hot dog," said Brie, turning back.
I followed, shaking my head.
"These actually do taste good," I said around a mouthful.
"Truth in advertising is a good thing," said Brie.
Once we'd managed to get the food trays to calm down enough for us to grab one--seemed like the mall had been desperate for customers for a while--getting our hot dogs had been relatively easy. All the food set out in trays, kept warm somehow, with buns apparently fresh from the oven. There was a hint of something in the meat--garlic?--that gave the hot dogs zest.
"These have zest," I said.
"They have what?" asked Brie, smiling.
"They taste good," I answered.
"You said 'zest.' I heard it."
"I said they're the best."
"No, you said 'zest.' That's, like, an old person word."
"Plenty of young people say 'zest.'"
"Like who?"
"I'm sure I heard it on one of those kids TV awards shows. The ones with celebrities younger than we are."
Brie looked at me askance. "You've never watched one of those shows in your life."
"Maybe."
Brie took a bite of her hot dog and chuckled. "You said 'zest.'"
"What's wrong with the word? It's a perfectly good word."
"Sure," she said. "If you're into baking or air fresheners."
"I'm not talking to you any more," I said.
She leaned into my shoulder and looked up through her eye lashes at me. Her mouth made a sad pout. "Please?"
How do girls know how to do that? Maybe that's what they talk about when they all move in a herd to go to the bathroom.
"Fine," I said. "I'll talk to you more, but only if you're NICE."
"I'm always nice," she said, sitting back up, leaving an empty space next to my shoulder. "When am I ever not nice?"
"When talking about 'zest.'"
She grinned at me. "You said it again."
I held my hot dog in front of her mouth.
"What's this for?" she asked.
"Take a bite."
"It has boy cooties on it."
"I'll give you a cootie shot later. Take a bite."
She took a bite.
"Chew."
She chewed.
"Does that, or does that not have zest?"
"It has zest," she said obediently, her eyes still smiling at me. I supposed it was as much of a victory as I was going to get, so I settled back into my chair and took another bite. Zesty.
I was happy with our seating arrangement. I'd helped Brie sit at a table, then taken a seat across from her, and she'd promptly stood up and sat down in the chair next to me. Was this what dating was like? Having a girl sit next to you all the time? Mom and Dad still sat next to each other, but it didn't seem to turn them inside out the way it did me.
"Where should we go after this?" asked Brie. "Assuming neither of us wakes up."
"I wonder what's playing in the movie theater," I said.
She shook her head. "If the movies are anything like the restaurants, it's not going to be anything we know."
"Maybe that's not such a bad thing. I'm not sure there are any movies in theaters I want to see right now."
We ate in quiet for a while--quiet except for the music playing through the Mall. I hadn't noticed it before, a blend of generic pop and saxophone-shmooze.
"You'd think we could dream up better mall music," I said.
"Some dreams are nightmares," said Brie.
"Changing the subject," I said, "what did you mean before about the real me?"
Brie looked at me. "That was abrupt."
"I couldn't think of a good transition."
She shrugged. "I guess that one worked. What do you want to know?"
I blinked. "I don't know. You're the one who said it."
"This is a little embarrassing," she said, looking down at her hot dog. "I've been watching you."
"I do sit in front of you in English."
She shook her head. "No, I mean I've been watching you since I moved here. I kind of got a crush on you." She glanced up at me and I gave her a cheesy smile. She rolled her eyes. "Anyway," she went on, "I saw how you acted around people. You didn't look happy most of the time, but sometimes...." She stopped.
"Sometimes what?"
"You know those cars that look black most of the time, but when you see them in the sunlight, they look green, or blue, or purple?"
I nodded. She raised her shoulders.
"You mean I was like that."
"Sometimes," she said.
"Can we go back to the part where you had a crush on me?"
"No," said Brie, taking another bite of her hot dog.
"Why didn't I notice you?" I wondered out loud.
"Duh," she said.
"Right. I didn't notice anyone." I looked down at my hot dog and dropped it onto my paper plate.
"You ever think about doing something about it all?" asked Brie.
"About how I feel? What would I do. It's not like I tried to do anything to get that way. Sometime along the line I just got broken. That's it. That's what it feels like."
"But don't they have medication for it? Counseling? You don't have to be crazy to see a psychiatrist."
I laughed, though it wasn't funny. "But I probably am crazy."
"No, you're not," said Brie, grabbing my hand and looking in my eyes. "You're just sad. It's okay to be sad."
"What do I have to be sad about? My life is fine. I'm fine. Good grades, nice family, it's not like I'm living in a project with gang violence happening on my doorstep. I'm lucky. Really lucky."
"So what?" asked Brie. "When you go to a doctor with a broken leg, he doesn't send you back out, saying that you've got another leg and two arms that are fine, so you should just deal with it."
"I think I get what you're saying," I said, "but I'm not sure."
Her eyes were strong, looking at mine. "It doesn't matter how many good things there are in your life, if you've got a problem then you've got a problem. And if you can FIX that problem, then won't all the other things be that much better?"
I was shaking my head. "But I shouldn't--"
"Shouldn't what?" she interrupted. "Be sick? Be sad? Be a boy? Be in the choir? You are a boy, you are in choir, you are sad, and you are sick. So you deal with it."
I looked down at the ruins of my hot dog again.
"I think you're right," I said.
"About what?"
"I don't like talking about serious things. Not when they're about me."
"We don't have to. I just wanted to help, if I could. You look so...trapped...during the day. I wish I could help you get free."
"I wish I knew what I was trying to get free from," I said. I looked around the food court. It was strange being in a mall completely empty of people. "Let's go do something fun."
"Like what?" said Brie, sliding her tray away from her.
"Try on coats, shop for silverware, something else. I don't know what."
"Okay," said Brie, leaning over to bump into my shoulder. "It's fine, Perry. We don't have to figure this out all at once."
"Right," I said. "Hey, did you really have a crush on me?"
Brie rolled her eyes and went to throw away her garbage.
[Another sign that disaster is right around the corner.
[But before that, here's more City of Dreams.]
"This is the Mall," said Brie.
"This is the Mall," I said.
"It looks a lot like a normal mall," she said.
"Just without the people," I replied. "And with a directory sign that's bobbing up and down to get our attention."
"That totally happens in the real world," said Brie. "And massage chairs giving each other massages. I saw that last weekend."
"Right." I looked over at a jewelry store. "I get the impression that Diamond Emporium doesn't want any customers."
"What was your first clue?" asked Brie. "The spiked grate with the shattered shopping carts under it? Or the blood-red lighting?"
"So no shopping for diamonds. Where should we go instead?"
"Food court?" she suggested.
"Sure. I could eat something." We stopped to consult the ecstatic mall directory that quivered like a puppy as we looked over its map. It was a mostly-straight walk to the collection of fast-food places that are the real heart of any mall, so we set out. Still hand in hand. I thought I might get used to that.
"Uh-oh," said Brie, dragging me to a stop.
"What?" I said, looking around. I didn't see anything that warranted an 'uh-oh.' I mean, there was a greeting card store with every musical card ever, all playing at the same time, but I didn't see that as an 'uh-oh.' More of an 'oh my.' Distressing, but not scary.
"Hand lotion kiosks," said Brie.
I followed her glance and saw them: a collection of counters-on-wheels, topped with row after row of buffing cream and softening cream and anti-aging cream.
"Is that a problem?" I asked.
"Haven't you ever been to a mall?" she said.
I stopped to think. "Not for a long time. Christmas last year I bought a video game and, somehow, a summer sausage. I'm not sure what happened, but the lady was there, and she was nice, and next thing I knew, I had a sausage."
"Exactly," said Brie. "Here's the plan. Eyes on the floor, look straight ahead, walk with purpose."
"We just made it past a parking lot filled with psychotic automobiles. This can't be THAT bad."
"They're going to try to give us free samples. They're going to rub it into our hands. They're going to keep us here until we wake up."
I looked at the kiosks. "How are they going to rub it into our hands? They don't have any--"
"Look at them, Perry!"
I looked at them. They seemed closer than before. They were moving together, gradually blocking off the hall. There was something ridiculously ominous about it all.
"Maybe we should take a different way," I said, fighting back a laugh.
"They'll probably try to give me something SCENTED," said Brie, cringing. "I like scented shampoo, but NOT hand lotion."
I put a serious look on my face. "We can make it, Brie, but if one of them gets me, don't stop. Go on without me. Honor my memory."
She glared at me. "I'm so going to hit you."
"Here we go!" I shouted, pulling her along behind me. I dragged us to the left, eyes on the ground but watching from the corner of my eye for--there it was! A break in their formation to the right. With a battle cry of 'we're just looking,' I lead the charge toward the gap. They realized their mistake too late and we slipped through, their wheels squeaking in protest as they tried to roll after us.
I pulled Brie's hand up into the air and raised my other hand, fist held high. "Victory is ours!"
Brie was laughing as we kept jogging down the hall. "This is you," she said.
"Of course it's me."
"No, this is the REAL you. This is the you I knew was there."
We slowed to a walk and I looked at her. "I guess I'm not much like this during the day, am I."
She looked in my eyes. "But you ARE. I know it. It's like it's in there, just under your skin, and if I just scratched you, it would all come pouring out."
"Don't scratch me during the day, though," I said.
"Idiot," she said. "Let's go get some food."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"The food court is just up there," she said, and pointed.
"No, about the real me."
"Food first. Then I'll tell you, if you still want me to."
"Why wouldn't I want you to?"
She shrugged. "It just seems like you don't always want to talk about serious things."
"I talk about serious things."
"Really?"
I opened my mouth and closed it again. "Maybe it's just a guy thing," I said finally.
"Or a depressed guy thing," said Brie.
"Could be that, too."
"We're here," she said, dropping my hand and putting hers on her hips. "What to choose?"
I tried not to feel let down, avoided grabbing after her hand, and looked around the food court. Tables and chairs were calm, scattered around the open space in some kind of order that left enough room for walking. Moonlight shone down through a clear ceiling, and small trees in pots added accents of glowing color. I looked to the food-stalls that lined the walls, trying to find something familiar. There wasn't.
"Wow," I said. "PRETZELS & SALMON UNLIMITED sounds like something my dad would go for."
"I was just thinking that my parents would go for HOT DOGS THAT ACTUALLY TASTE GOOD,” said Brie. “That, or NEVER MEANT TO BLEND THAT. Do they serve accidental food?"
"Definitely scary. Why don't we try PIZZA AND ALL."
"I think that's PIZZA AND WALL," said Brie.
"No it's not. That's just a stylized logo thingie," I said. "I think."
"Look closer," she said.
I did. "Dang, it really DOES say 'wall.'"
"We may have to go with the pretzels and salmon," said Brie, laughing again. "You like fish?"
"Wait!" I said. "ICE CREAM SANDWICHES. There. Can't go wrong with an ice cream sandwich."
"Why not," said Brie.
We wandered over and got a closer look at their menu.
"'Vanilla, ketchup, and pickles,'" read Brie.
"'English toffee and pastrami on nine-grain bread,'" I read.
"I think I'm hungry for a hot dog," said Brie, turning back.
I followed, shaking my head.
"These actually do taste good," I said around a mouthful.
"Truth in advertising is a good thing," said Brie.
Once we'd managed to get the food trays to calm down enough for us to grab one--seemed like the mall had been desperate for customers for a while--getting our hot dogs had been relatively easy. All the food set out in trays, kept warm somehow, with buns apparently fresh from the oven. There was a hint of something in the meat--garlic?--that gave the hot dogs zest.
"These have zest," I said.
"They have what?" asked Brie, smiling.
"They taste good," I answered.
"You said 'zest.' I heard it."
"I said they're the best."
"No, you said 'zest.' That's, like, an old person word."
"Plenty of young people say 'zest.'"
"Like who?"
"I'm sure I heard it on one of those kids TV awards shows. The ones with celebrities younger than we are."
Brie looked at me askance. "You've never watched one of those shows in your life."
"Maybe."
Brie took a bite of her hot dog and chuckled. "You said 'zest.'"
"What's wrong with the word? It's a perfectly good word."
"Sure," she said. "If you're into baking or air fresheners."
"I'm not talking to you any more," I said.
She leaned into my shoulder and looked up through her eye lashes at me. Her mouth made a sad pout. "Please?"
How do girls know how to do that? Maybe that's what they talk about when they all move in a herd to go to the bathroom.
"Fine," I said. "I'll talk to you more, but only if you're NICE."
"I'm always nice," she said, sitting back up, leaving an empty space next to my shoulder. "When am I ever not nice?"
"When talking about 'zest.'"
She grinned at me. "You said it again."
I held my hot dog in front of her mouth.
"What's this for?" she asked.
"Take a bite."
"It has boy cooties on it."
"I'll give you a cootie shot later. Take a bite."
She took a bite.
"Chew."
She chewed.
"Does that, or does that not have zest?"
"It has zest," she said obediently, her eyes still smiling at me. I supposed it was as much of a victory as I was going to get, so I settled back into my chair and took another bite. Zesty.
I was happy with our seating arrangement. I'd helped Brie sit at a table, then taken a seat across from her, and she'd promptly stood up and sat down in the chair next to me. Was this what dating was like? Having a girl sit next to you all the time? Mom and Dad still sat next to each other, but it didn't seem to turn them inside out the way it did me.
"Where should we go after this?" asked Brie. "Assuming neither of us wakes up."
"I wonder what's playing in the movie theater," I said.
She shook her head. "If the movies are anything like the restaurants, it's not going to be anything we know."
"Maybe that's not such a bad thing. I'm not sure there are any movies in theaters I want to see right now."
We ate in quiet for a while--quiet except for the music playing through the Mall. I hadn't noticed it before, a blend of generic pop and saxophone-shmooze.
"You'd think we could dream up better mall music," I said.
"Some dreams are nightmares," said Brie.
"Changing the subject," I said, "what did you mean before about the real me?"
Brie looked at me. "That was abrupt."
"I couldn't think of a good transition."
She shrugged. "I guess that one worked. What do you want to know?"
I blinked. "I don't know. You're the one who said it."
"This is a little embarrassing," she said, looking down at her hot dog. "I've been watching you."
"I do sit in front of you in English."
She shook her head. "No, I mean I've been watching you since I moved here. I kind of got a crush on you." She glanced up at me and I gave her a cheesy smile. She rolled her eyes. "Anyway," she went on, "I saw how you acted around people. You didn't look happy most of the time, but sometimes...." She stopped.
"Sometimes what?"
"You know those cars that look black most of the time, but when you see them in the sunlight, they look green, or blue, or purple?"
I nodded. She raised her shoulders.
"You mean I was like that."
"Sometimes," she said.
"Can we go back to the part where you had a crush on me?"
"No," said Brie, taking another bite of her hot dog.
"Why didn't I notice you?" I wondered out loud.
"Duh," she said.
"Right. I didn't notice anyone." I looked down at my hot dog and dropped it onto my paper plate.
"You ever think about doing something about it all?" asked Brie.
"About how I feel? What would I do. It's not like I tried to do anything to get that way. Sometime along the line I just got broken. That's it. That's what it feels like."
"But don't they have medication for it? Counseling? You don't have to be crazy to see a psychiatrist."
I laughed, though it wasn't funny. "But I probably am crazy."
"No, you're not," said Brie, grabbing my hand and looking in my eyes. "You're just sad. It's okay to be sad."
"What do I have to be sad about? My life is fine. I'm fine. Good grades, nice family, it's not like I'm living in a project with gang violence happening on my doorstep. I'm lucky. Really lucky."
"So what?" asked Brie. "When you go to a doctor with a broken leg, he doesn't send you back out, saying that you've got another leg and two arms that are fine, so you should just deal with it."
"I think I get what you're saying," I said, "but I'm not sure."
Her eyes were strong, looking at mine. "It doesn't matter how many good things there are in your life, if you've got a problem then you've got a problem. And if you can FIX that problem, then won't all the other things be that much better?"
I was shaking my head. "But I shouldn't--"
"Shouldn't what?" she interrupted. "Be sick? Be sad? Be a boy? Be in the choir? You are a boy, you are in choir, you are sad, and you are sick. So you deal with it."
I looked down at the ruins of my hot dog again.
"I think you're right," I said.
"About what?"
"I don't like talking about serious things. Not when they're about me."
"We don't have to. I just wanted to help, if I could. You look so...trapped...during the day. I wish I could help you get free."
"I wish I knew what I was trying to get free from," I said. I looked around the food court. It was strange being in a mall completely empty of people. "Let's go do something fun."
"Like what?" said Brie, sliding her tray away from her.
"Try on coats, shop for silverware, something else. I don't know what."
"Okay," said Brie, leaning over to bump into my shoulder. "It's fine, Perry. We don't have to figure this out all at once."
"Right," I said. "Hey, did you really have a crush on me?"
Brie rolled her eyes and went to throw away her garbage.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
The City of Dreams -- Part 19
[This may be a reflection of how I feel when I have to go shopping. But probably not.]
I woke in time for dinner. It happened, then it was over. After I'd escaped back to my room, I couldn't remember what we'd had to eat, what we'd said, what we'd done at the table. I knew everyone had been there--Mom, Dad, my sisters--but the meal was a memory more like a dream than any of my time in the city made entirely from dreams.
I didn't know what to think about that.
I made a half-hearted attempt to plow through more of my book for English, but after a few more chapters of despair mixed with tragedy, I threw the book at my desk--school property, I know, bad me--and wandered into the bathroom to find my toothbrush.
Cindy was there ahead of me, brushing.
"So what's up with Brie?" she asked around bristles and toothpaste foam.
"She's nice," I said, running the water over my toothbrush.
"That it?"
"Why?" I asked. "Does it matter?"
"Of course it does. I have to tell my friend something."
"Ah, right. Your friend on the cross country team who thinks I'm 'cute.'"
Cindy rolled her eyes and spit. "You say that like it's a bad thing."
"Is she your age?"
"Yeah."
"It'd be like dating my kid sister."
"Lame," said Cindy. "Pick any girl from fifteen to twenty and it's like dating one of your sisters. Doesn't count as an excuse."
"Maybe I don't feel like dating."
"Anybody?"
"Sure."
"Even Brie?"
"How should I know?"
Cindy rinsed, spat, and looked at me in the mirror.
"You are messed up," she said, and pushed past me.
I brushed my teeth.
I fell asleep and found myself standing on a sidewalk. In front of me was the most bizarre parking lot I'd ever seen in my life. It stretched out as far as I could see to either side and, ahead, for what must have been half a mile.
That wasn't the strange part.
The entire space was filled with cars. No room to drive, to pull in or out, none of those narrow alleys with arrows pointing which way you should be driving. It was all cars all night, bumper to bumper, door to door, just enough room between them for the white lines painted on the blacktop. The air was filled with the strange, mechanical wheezing of sleeping automobiles.
"Crazy, huh?" said Brie.
I smiled at her. "What is there in the City that isn't crazy?"
"Me," she said. "I'm not crazy."
"That's good to know," I said. "But why do you hang out with me, then?"
She tilted her head to the side. "I guess I am a little bit crazy."
"Were you waiting for me?" I asked.
"I figured you'd turn up. I wanted you here."
"And things just work that way in the City of Dreams?"
"It did tonight." Brie settled her shoulder bag around behind her back and rearranged the hood of her hoodie under her hair. "You ready to go?" she asked.
"Go where?"
"The Mall."
"Where's the Mall?"
She put her hand out, straight ahead, her finger pointing across the parking lot. There, past the rows of sleeping steel, I could see a sprawling building, lit around the doors with neon and capitalism.
"You're kidding," I said.
"It's the only way to get to the Mall."
"But there's no room to walk."
"So we climb over the cars," she said, matter-of-factly.
"Are they friendly cars?”
"Not at all, from what I hear."
"What if they wake up?"
Brie looked me in the eye and smiled. Her eyebrows bobbed, up and down, and I felt a jolt down to my toes.
"What were you saying about crazy?" I asked.
"I'm just a little bit," she said, turning back to. "But you're REALLY crazy, because you're about to go with me. Try not to make noise."
"Wait!" I said, and a car near us rumbled in its sleep. I held my breath, and it settled back to a regular, mechanical rhythm. Brie looked at me and shook her head, mock disapproval on her face. I stuck my tongue out at her, and she smiled again. "Do people do this all the time?" I asked.
"Sure."
"What's at the Mall?"
"I have no idea."
"Why not?"
"People always GO to the Mall," said Brie, "but I've never heard of anyone actually MAKING it there."
Then she turned and, delicately, slid onto the hood of a station wagon.
I looked after her, helplessly, settled my own bag onto my back, and climbed onto a sedan.
Forty-five minutes later--give or take three years of my life and a bucket of sweat--and we had almost done the impossible. The Mall was tall in front of us, two stories and a multiplex theater that promised all the delights that money could buy--or at least a break from the nerve-wracking tension of climbing over rumbling, angry cars having angry dreams. Don't ask me how I knew they were angry dreams, or how cars made from dreams had dreams of their own, but I could tell. These weren't the nice kind of cars that you see in TV commercials, taking good care of newlyweds or a pee-wee baseball team. These were cars that resented every mile they'd ever had to drive, every bottom that ever sat on any one of their seats. Their doors were scarred, their bumpers pitted and marked.
These cars were a seething, sleeping mass of suppressed rage.
We'd slipped our way over them, hood to hood, windshield, cab top, bumper, stepping as gently as we could. One flimsy minivan hood had buckled under my foot, popping down with--to my tight nerves--the bang of a hammer popping the front of a TV (which is pretty loud, don't ask me how I know). Brie froze. I froze. The cars settled back into their troubled slumber.
Brie grinned at me, like an idiot I grinned back, and we continued our odyssey.
It didn't help at all that I knew, if anything went wrong, I'd just wake up. At least, I assumed I would. All the reason in my head couldn't beat back the rumble in the cars beneath me, or push away the memory of the streetlight head swooping down at me like a bird of prey. My shirt was wet under my armpits, and though I could hardly believe it, I was having fun.
And we had made it. Almost. Between us and the doors to the Mall were a mere five rows of cars. As tired as my arms and legs were, I still felt all the burn of adrenaline. We were going to do it. The last few rows, Brie had been looking back to smile at me every car we passed. Something about that smile made the trip worth it, even if we never made it to the Mall.
I immediately regretted even thinking that, as somewhere in the parking lot, a car alarm went off. Brie looked back at me, her eyes wide. Mine felt the same. The car alarm spread like a yawn, triggering alarm after alarm after alarm. We could see the cars in that direction shifting, thumping, crashing into each other.
"Run!" I shouted, and Brie scrambled ahead of me, leaping from hood to hood, almost without pausing to look where to put her feet. I picked a different path, hoping to avoid any cars she woke as she ran, but it didn't do any good. Car alarms sprang to angry, high-pitched life all around us. The car under my foot shifted and bucked, and I lost my footing, sliding across the hood to crash into the truck parked in the next slot over. I scrambled for a hand hold, but my legs slipped down into the gap between the cars, next to the truck's driver-side door. I knew that any moment I'd either be smashed into jelly between insane automobiles, or I'd wake up. I knew which I was voting for.
"Perry!" shouted Brie, off to my right. She was in the bed of the truck, reaching out to me. I grabbed her hand and scrambled half way onto the truck, just in time. Behind me the truck and its neighbor opened their doors at the same time, smashing together where I'd been seconds before. The back door on the car caught me a glancing blow before I managed to lever myself all the way into the bed of the truck, and I expected a bruise later (if you could really bruise in the City), but I was okay. And still asleep.
And three rows away from the Mall. Three rows of bucking, crashing, outraged automobiles.
"How do we do this?" I shouted to Brie as we crouched.
"I have no idea," she shouted back. The truck heaved under us, trying to throw us out, and the tailgate slammed down and up, snapping at us.
"Do we wait for them to calm down?" I asked.
She looked around at the sea of crashing metal and grabbed at the edge of the truck bed for balance. "I don't know if we'll make it that long," she shouted.
"You're more than a little crazy," I yelled.
"I like you, too," she yelled back. "Shall we go?"
She was laughing, and I was laughing, and it was something about being in the City that did it to me. No, not just being in the City. Being in the City with Brie. It was better than anything I could remember.
"Let's do it," I said.
Before I could think about it, I lurched to my feet as the truck bounced down, ran two steps at an angle, and leapt. Launched by the heave of the truck, I sailed through the air. The roof of a twelve-passenger van hurried up to meet me--or I hurried down to meet it--but I only hit the far edge, spinning off to land in the soft leather back seat of a convertible.
Disoriented by the flight, I struggled to my hands and knees. I looked up just in time to see Brie following my path. Somehow I threw myself onto the floor of the car, and Brie thumped onto the seat above me. Beneath us the convertible was clearly outraged, slamming its doors open and closed, motor growling.
"Go! Go-go!" I shouted, pushing Brie up and out. We scrambled over the short trunk and slid to the pavement, scampering away on hands and knees--and we were clear. No more cars. Just sidewalk, a small fountain, and a potted tree. Behind us was the roar and rumble and siren-chorus of the angriest parking lot ever dreamed.
Brie laughed. I laughed. Tears were leaking out of the corners of my eyes as I lay on the ground next to Brie. Somehow my hand found hers, squeezed, and stayed there. She squeezed back.
Eventually we stopped laughing, and the adrenaline started to wear off, and the cars had made no sign of ever quieting down. Ever.
"Go inside?" shouted Brie, questioning.
I nodded, the cement rough against my head through my hair. We helped each other up, making a mess of it, since neither of us quite had our balance back. Soon we were laughing again, and still holding hands, and close to each other, and I liked it. Staggering from sheer joy, we fumbled our way into the Mall.
I woke in time for dinner. It happened, then it was over. After I'd escaped back to my room, I couldn't remember what we'd had to eat, what we'd said, what we'd done at the table. I knew everyone had been there--Mom, Dad, my sisters--but the meal was a memory more like a dream than any of my time in the city made entirely from dreams.
I didn't know what to think about that.
I made a half-hearted attempt to plow through more of my book for English, but after a few more chapters of despair mixed with tragedy, I threw the book at my desk--school property, I know, bad me--and wandered into the bathroom to find my toothbrush.
Cindy was there ahead of me, brushing.
"So what's up with Brie?" she asked around bristles and toothpaste foam.
"She's nice," I said, running the water over my toothbrush.
"That it?"
"Why?" I asked. "Does it matter?"
"Of course it does. I have to tell my friend something."
"Ah, right. Your friend on the cross country team who thinks I'm 'cute.'"
Cindy rolled her eyes and spit. "You say that like it's a bad thing."
"Is she your age?"
"Yeah."
"It'd be like dating my kid sister."
"Lame," said Cindy. "Pick any girl from fifteen to twenty and it's like dating one of your sisters. Doesn't count as an excuse."
"Maybe I don't feel like dating."
"Anybody?"
"Sure."
"Even Brie?"
"How should I know?"
Cindy rinsed, spat, and looked at me in the mirror.
"You are messed up," she said, and pushed past me.
I brushed my teeth.
I fell asleep and found myself standing on a sidewalk. In front of me was the most bizarre parking lot I'd ever seen in my life. It stretched out as far as I could see to either side and, ahead, for what must have been half a mile.
That wasn't the strange part.
The entire space was filled with cars. No room to drive, to pull in or out, none of those narrow alleys with arrows pointing which way you should be driving. It was all cars all night, bumper to bumper, door to door, just enough room between them for the white lines painted on the blacktop. The air was filled with the strange, mechanical wheezing of sleeping automobiles.
"Crazy, huh?" said Brie.
I smiled at her. "What is there in the City that isn't crazy?"
"Me," she said. "I'm not crazy."
"That's good to know," I said. "But why do you hang out with me, then?"
She tilted her head to the side. "I guess I am a little bit crazy."
"Were you waiting for me?" I asked.
"I figured you'd turn up. I wanted you here."
"And things just work that way in the City of Dreams?"
"It did tonight." Brie settled her shoulder bag around behind her back and rearranged the hood of her hoodie under her hair. "You ready to go?" she asked.
"Go where?"
"The Mall."
"Where's the Mall?"
She put her hand out, straight ahead, her finger pointing across the parking lot. There, past the rows of sleeping steel, I could see a sprawling building, lit around the doors with neon and capitalism.
"You're kidding," I said.
"It's the only way to get to the Mall."
"But there's no room to walk."
"So we climb over the cars," she said, matter-of-factly.
"Are they friendly cars?”
"Not at all, from what I hear."
"What if they wake up?"
Brie looked me in the eye and smiled. Her eyebrows bobbed, up and down, and I felt a jolt down to my toes.
"What were you saying about crazy?" I asked.
"I'm just a little bit," she said, turning back to. "But you're REALLY crazy, because you're about to go with me. Try not to make noise."
"Wait!" I said, and a car near us rumbled in its sleep. I held my breath, and it settled back to a regular, mechanical rhythm. Brie looked at me and shook her head, mock disapproval on her face. I stuck my tongue out at her, and she smiled again. "Do people do this all the time?" I asked.
"Sure."
"What's at the Mall?"
"I have no idea."
"Why not?"
"People always GO to the Mall," said Brie, "but I've never heard of anyone actually MAKING it there."
Then she turned and, delicately, slid onto the hood of a station wagon.
I looked after her, helplessly, settled my own bag onto my back, and climbed onto a sedan.
Forty-five minutes later--give or take three years of my life and a bucket of sweat--and we had almost done the impossible. The Mall was tall in front of us, two stories and a multiplex theater that promised all the delights that money could buy--or at least a break from the nerve-wracking tension of climbing over rumbling, angry cars having angry dreams. Don't ask me how I knew they were angry dreams, or how cars made from dreams had dreams of their own, but I could tell. These weren't the nice kind of cars that you see in TV commercials, taking good care of newlyweds or a pee-wee baseball team. These were cars that resented every mile they'd ever had to drive, every bottom that ever sat on any one of their seats. Their doors were scarred, their bumpers pitted and marked.
These cars were a seething, sleeping mass of suppressed rage.
We'd slipped our way over them, hood to hood, windshield, cab top, bumper, stepping as gently as we could. One flimsy minivan hood had buckled under my foot, popping down with--to my tight nerves--the bang of a hammer popping the front of a TV (which is pretty loud, don't ask me how I know). Brie froze. I froze. The cars settled back into their troubled slumber.
Brie grinned at me, like an idiot I grinned back, and we continued our odyssey.
It didn't help at all that I knew, if anything went wrong, I'd just wake up. At least, I assumed I would. All the reason in my head couldn't beat back the rumble in the cars beneath me, or push away the memory of the streetlight head swooping down at me like a bird of prey. My shirt was wet under my armpits, and though I could hardly believe it, I was having fun.
And we had made it. Almost. Between us and the doors to the Mall were a mere five rows of cars. As tired as my arms and legs were, I still felt all the burn of adrenaline. We were going to do it. The last few rows, Brie had been looking back to smile at me every car we passed. Something about that smile made the trip worth it, even if we never made it to the Mall.
I immediately regretted even thinking that, as somewhere in the parking lot, a car alarm went off. Brie looked back at me, her eyes wide. Mine felt the same. The car alarm spread like a yawn, triggering alarm after alarm after alarm. We could see the cars in that direction shifting, thumping, crashing into each other.
"Run!" I shouted, and Brie scrambled ahead of me, leaping from hood to hood, almost without pausing to look where to put her feet. I picked a different path, hoping to avoid any cars she woke as she ran, but it didn't do any good. Car alarms sprang to angry, high-pitched life all around us. The car under my foot shifted and bucked, and I lost my footing, sliding across the hood to crash into the truck parked in the next slot over. I scrambled for a hand hold, but my legs slipped down into the gap between the cars, next to the truck's driver-side door. I knew that any moment I'd either be smashed into jelly between insane automobiles, or I'd wake up. I knew which I was voting for.
"Perry!" shouted Brie, off to my right. She was in the bed of the truck, reaching out to me. I grabbed her hand and scrambled half way onto the truck, just in time. Behind me the truck and its neighbor opened their doors at the same time, smashing together where I'd been seconds before. The back door on the car caught me a glancing blow before I managed to lever myself all the way into the bed of the truck, and I expected a bruise later (if you could really bruise in the City), but I was okay. And still asleep.
And three rows away from the Mall. Three rows of bucking, crashing, outraged automobiles.
"How do we do this?" I shouted to Brie as we crouched.
"I have no idea," she shouted back. The truck heaved under us, trying to throw us out, and the tailgate slammed down and up, snapping at us.
"Do we wait for them to calm down?" I asked.
She looked around at the sea of crashing metal and grabbed at the edge of the truck bed for balance. "I don't know if we'll make it that long," she shouted.
"You're more than a little crazy," I yelled.
"I like you, too," she yelled back. "Shall we go?"
She was laughing, and I was laughing, and it was something about being in the City that did it to me. No, not just being in the City. Being in the City with Brie. It was better than anything I could remember.
"Let's do it," I said.
Before I could think about it, I lurched to my feet as the truck bounced down, ran two steps at an angle, and leapt. Launched by the heave of the truck, I sailed through the air. The roof of a twelve-passenger van hurried up to meet me--or I hurried down to meet it--but I only hit the far edge, spinning off to land in the soft leather back seat of a convertible.
Disoriented by the flight, I struggled to my hands and knees. I looked up just in time to see Brie following my path. Somehow I threw myself onto the floor of the car, and Brie thumped onto the seat above me. Beneath us the convertible was clearly outraged, slamming its doors open and closed, motor growling.
"Go! Go-go!" I shouted, pushing Brie up and out. We scrambled over the short trunk and slid to the pavement, scampering away on hands and knees--and we were clear. No more cars. Just sidewalk, a small fountain, and a potted tree. Behind us was the roar and rumble and siren-chorus of the angriest parking lot ever dreamed.
Brie laughed. I laughed. Tears were leaking out of the corners of my eyes as I lay on the ground next to Brie. Somehow my hand found hers, squeezed, and stayed there. She squeezed back.
Eventually we stopped laughing, and the adrenaline started to wear off, and the cars had made no sign of ever quieting down. Ever.
"Go inside?" shouted Brie, questioning.
I nodded, the cement rough against my head through my hair. We helped each other up, making a mess of it, since neither of us quite had our balance back. Soon we were laughing again, and still holding hands, and close to each other, and I liked it. Staggering from sheer joy, we fumbled our way into the Mall.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
The City of Dreams -- Part 18
[Serious stuff here. Not convinced that I really understand the reality of what I'm writing about, but it's where the story went, so we push ahead and hope Mr. Punctilious is wiser than I am.]
“Paint your scenery?” I asked.
"Exactly," said Mr. Punctilious. "This next play I'm putting together needs scenery, and I find myself decidedly short on dreams. Do you have one or two you could spare? A bit of color makes all the difference in a production of this sort."
"You're short on dreams?" I said. "I heard you were here all the time."
"Once again, you have understood the situation with exactness, young man. Now come up here and pull out your bag of dreams--that is, if you're willing to help. No one should be forced to give up any dreams, even the small ones, though I would be much obliged. What a masterpiece of dramatic staging we'll create together, you and I! The great artists of the world will wonder at our vivid blues, shed a tear at the pale of our most delicate yellows, and shout at the vibrancy of our greens like children on a playground."
I was confused on several levels, but I found myself walking toward the stage, laughing. "Do children on playgrounds shout at colors?"
"Always, Perry. A child's world is entirely made of colors. It's only when we are grown that we bleed the color out of our universe. Now get up here and help me make a waterfall."
I hopped up the steps to the stage and looked around for Not. I couldn't see him, and I didn't know what that meant, but I assumed he was hiding just out of sight, at the corner of my eye, and he'd show up again before I knew it. It seemed that he always did.
Mr. Punctilious had stood. "You haven't told me yet if you're willing, but I am assuming from your smile that your not opposed to giving up one of your smaller dreams in the interest of artistic genius?"
"Something like that," I said. "How do I help?"
"Pull open that bag--South American, is it? Very nice--and find us a dream of water."
I looked down at my shoulder bag and hesitated. "Last time I pulled something out of here it was embarrassing. Don't water dreams mean something?"
"In this case," said Mr. Punctilious, "it means that it was a dream about water, which is what we need to transform this sheet of silk into a graceful sheet of falling life. Start looking, Perry. Any moment someone might be shaking you out of your daytime repose and I'll be forced to wait until night to convince some other dreamer to share from his plenty."
I opened my bag and put my hand in--then hesitated again. "How do I find a water dream? I don't remember having one."
"You have over a decade of dreaming at your fingertips, young man. I can guarantee you have what we need close at hand. Just feel around until you find a dream that seems wet."
I shrugged and put my hand in, feeling around. One dream came into my hand, cold and...custard flavored? Not that one. I felt around for another, skipping past a gravel dream, a black-and-white TV dream, and a spelling test nightmare. Finally my fingers closed around a dream that seemed to flow through and around my fingers, blue and clear like a mountain lake--not that I'd ever been at a mountain lake, at least as far as I knew. Maybe mountain lakes were actually muddy, but there it was: a water dream.
"Will this do?" I asked, pulling it out.
Mr. Punctilious leaned forward, his hands behind his back, and peered at the dream. "Marvelous," he said, smiling. "You certain you don't mind giving it up? It is for a good cause, but you never can tell when you might need a dream, even one that you thought you'd put aside."
"I don't mind," I said. "I can always dream another, right?"
The round man's smile drooped a hair toward sadness. "Yes, Perry, you can. I'll just take this, then, shall I?"
I dropped the dream into his outstretched hand and he turned with flair toward the blank white sheet.
"Is that actually silk?" I asked.
"I needed something that would shiver and flow," said Mr. Punctilious, "so I traded a fashion designer for one of his many dreams of cloth. Now, with your help, we'll make this cloth into something special." Mr. Punctilious looked from the cloth to my dream in his hand, then back to the cloth. "I've forgotten my brush," he said. "I was prepared to strike a dramatic pose and show you a wonder, but now I have to wander off to find the right tool for the job. How often am I the cause of my own foolishness. Back in a moment." He strolled off toward a corner of the backstage, and Not hovered into my view.
"He seems nice," said Not.
I smiled. "Don't you think we're all nicer in our dreams?" I asked.
"I wouldn't know," said Not. "I've never been awake."
I squinted after Mr. Punctilious, thinking. "He's here all the time, right?"
"Every time I've come looking," said the dream.
WHY? I wondered to myself. As he came back out of the shadows, broad paintbrush in hand, I decided to ask the only person I knew who could answer the question.
"Mr. Punctilious?"
"Yes, Perry."
"Can I ask a question?"
"Clearly, you can, and yes, before you try to correct the phrasing of your question, you also MAY ask me a question. From your preface, may I presume that it is a somewhat awkward question?"
I nodded.
"Then," said Mr. Punctilious, "let me reassure you that, as long as you don't intend to include any intentionally hateful racial slurs, there is little you could do to offend me. Does that help at all?"
"A bit," I said. "I was--I heard that you're here a lot."
"Always," said Mr. Punctilious. "I'm guessing that you heard that I'm here always. Is that correct?"
"Yeah."
"And you're wondering why?"
"Is...something wrong?" I asked.
"Well, isn't that quite the question," said Mr. Punctilious, looking down at the dream and paintbrush in his hands. He took a deep breath and looked up at me. "I don't know, not for sure." He smiled at me, a strained smile. "I haven't been awake to find out. What I can tell you is that I have been sick for quite some time. I was doing better for a year or two, but I must conclude, from my continuous presence in the City, that several months ago things must have taken a turn for the worse."
"You're in a coma," I said. The words came out of my mouth before I could pull them back, a shock from between my lips.
He nodded. "I believe so."
"On life support?"
"Perhaps."
"That's really..." I said, then ran out of words.
"Yes," said Mr. Punctilious, smiling. "It is, isn't it."
"What do you do about it?" I felt like there had to be some way to fix it, not that I was sure what 'it' was. "Can't you tell someone about it? I mean, I could try to find your family, and I could do...something."
"That's very nice of you, Perry, but no. Someone comes to my family and tells them that their father and husband is trapped in a dream world? What would they do? If I am in a coma, it means they're doing their best medically, and it's not enough. We knew this was coming, Perry, my family and I. We prepared for it, spent time together, said all the words we could. I even went fishing with my grown-up son, something he'd never been able to convince me to do before. I'm not ecstatic about it, but I've come to accept that my waking life is over. This is the life I have now, and I intend to fill my sleeping world with all the wide-awake wonder that I can before my time here is up as well."
I looked at him, and Mr. Punctilious looked at me. I was empty of words. I had the weird feeling that I was talking to a dead man, but anyone who had seen this round, energetic man on the stage could only think of him as very much alive.
"Is there a Mrs. Punctilious?" I asked.
"There is, though I must confess, 'Punctilious' is a stage name. My real name is much more prosaic."
"Couldn't I at least take her a message?"
"Oh, Perry. After thirty years of marriage, if she doesn't already know how much I love her, it's far, far too late for me to tell her. You can let it go. It's all right. I have enough here to fill whatever days remain to me." He turned and raised his arms to take in the entirety of his theater. "Consider, Perry. What chance would I have had in the waking world to preside over a company of this sort? I was a law librarian with an enthusiasm for literature, not a stage performer. Just to be on this stage is a dream come true. And I have a chance to meet with so many pleasant people. Brie and you, for example. Would we ever have found each other in the waking world? Perhaps." He looked at me. "But we found each other here. I'm not a man with enough time left to turn my nose up at any chances that come my way."
I looked away. I was full of mixed colors and emotions. I'd grown up with death in the news every day--war, disease, murders from every city across the entire country. It was all piped into my house with the press of a button, but I'd never seen death up close. I didn't know what to say when I knew it was there, just around the corner, for a person I barely knew, but liked. It shook me like a Boggle game, and all the letters in my mind were tumbled out of order, and I couldn’t make any words out of them.
"I'm sorry," I said finally. I looked up to see Mr. Punctilious smiling at me gently.
"It's not something you need to be sorry about, Perry. Life is full of opportunities that are all twisted together with tragedy. The secret is remember the one while caught up in the other." He took an expansive breath and turned back to the waiting sheet. "But now is not the time to worry about these things. Now is the time to paint a waterfall. Are you ready to see the magic of the stage?"
"Sure."
"'Sure,'" repeated Mr. Punctilious. "I find that your response lacks enthusiasm."
"Yes," I said, more firmly. "I want to see the magic of the stage."
"Much better. Here goes."
He held out one hand, my dream cupped in his palm, and in a high, dramatic arc, swung the paintbrush in a wide sweep that ended by dipping it into the dream. Then, with a quick flick of his hand, he snapped the brush out toward the white silk.
The air flowed with water--not quite water. It was there, but it wasn't, like I could put my hand into the stream and scatter drops across the stage, but my hand would still be dry when I was done. The arc of blue sparkled, shimmered, and touched the hanging cloth, flowing into it, filling it from top to bottom, like a glass filled upside down. Then the water was gone from the air and, where before had been silk, there was the translucent curtain of a waterfall.
"It looks like it's actually falling," I said.
"You picked a good dream," said Mr. Punctilious.
I watched it in silence, how the water streamed down and then was gone as it reached the floor. "It's beautiful," I said.
"Life so often is," said the dying man.
“Paint your scenery?” I asked.
"Exactly," said Mr. Punctilious. "This next play I'm putting together needs scenery, and I find myself decidedly short on dreams. Do you have one or two you could spare? A bit of color makes all the difference in a production of this sort."
"You're short on dreams?" I said. "I heard you were here all the time."
"Once again, you have understood the situation with exactness, young man. Now come up here and pull out your bag of dreams--that is, if you're willing to help. No one should be forced to give up any dreams, even the small ones, though I would be much obliged. What a masterpiece of dramatic staging we'll create together, you and I! The great artists of the world will wonder at our vivid blues, shed a tear at the pale of our most delicate yellows, and shout at the vibrancy of our greens like children on a playground."
I was confused on several levels, but I found myself walking toward the stage, laughing. "Do children on playgrounds shout at colors?"
"Always, Perry. A child's world is entirely made of colors. It's only when we are grown that we bleed the color out of our universe. Now get up here and help me make a waterfall."
I hopped up the steps to the stage and looked around for Not. I couldn't see him, and I didn't know what that meant, but I assumed he was hiding just out of sight, at the corner of my eye, and he'd show up again before I knew it. It seemed that he always did.
Mr. Punctilious had stood. "You haven't told me yet if you're willing, but I am assuming from your smile that your not opposed to giving up one of your smaller dreams in the interest of artistic genius?"
"Something like that," I said. "How do I help?"
"Pull open that bag--South American, is it? Very nice--and find us a dream of water."
I looked down at my shoulder bag and hesitated. "Last time I pulled something out of here it was embarrassing. Don't water dreams mean something?"
"In this case," said Mr. Punctilious, "it means that it was a dream about water, which is what we need to transform this sheet of silk into a graceful sheet of falling life. Start looking, Perry. Any moment someone might be shaking you out of your daytime repose and I'll be forced to wait until night to convince some other dreamer to share from his plenty."
I opened my bag and put my hand in--then hesitated again. "How do I find a water dream? I don't remember having one."
"You have over a decade of dreaming at your fingertips, young man. I can guarantee you have what we need close at hand. Just feel around until you find a dream that seems wet."
I shrugged and put my hand in, feeling around. One dream came into my hand, cold and...custard flavored? Not that one. I felt around for another, skipping past a gravel dream, a black-and-white TV dream, and a spelling test nightmare. Finally my fingers closed around a dream that seemed to flow through and around my fingers, blue and clear like a mountain lake--not that I'd ever been at a mountain lake, at least as far as I knew. Maybe mountain lakes were actually muddy, but there it was: a water dream.
"Will this do?" I asked, pulling it out.
Mr. Punctilious leaned forward, his hands behind his back, and peered at the dream. "Marvelous," he said, smiling. "You certain you don't mind giving it up? It is for a good cause, but you never can tell when you might need a dream, even one that you thought you'd put aside."
"I don't mind," I said. "I can always dream another, right?"
The round man's smile drooped a hair toward sadness. "Yes, Perry, you can. I'll just take this, then, shall I?"
I dropped the dream into his outstretched hand and he turned with flair toward the blank white sheet.
"Is that actually silk?" I asked.
"I needed something that would shiver and flow," said Mr. Punctilious, "so I traded a fashion designer for one of his many dreams of cloth. Now, with your help, we'll make this cloth into something special." Mr. Punctilious looked from the cloth to my dream in his hand, then back to the cloth. "I've forgotten my brush," he said. "I was prepared to strike a dramatic pose and show you a wonder, but now I have to wander off to find the right tool for the job. How often am I the cause of my own foolishness. Back in a moment." He strolled off toward a corner of the backstage, and Not hovered into my view.
"He seems nice," said Not.
I smiled. "Don't you think we're all nicer in our dreams?" I asked.
"I wouldn't know," said Not. "I've never been awake."
I squinted after Mr. Punctilious, thinking. "He's here all the time, right?"
"Every time I've come looking," said the dream.
WHY? I wondered to myself. As he came back out of the shadows, broad paintbrush in hand, I decided to ask the only person I knew who could answer the question.
"Mr. Punctilious?"
"Yes, Perry."
"Can I ask a question?"
"Clearly, you can, and yes, before you try to correct the phrasing of your question, you also MAY ask me a question. From your preface, may I presume that it is a somewhat awkward question?"
I nodded.
"Then," said Mr. Punctilious, "let me reassure you that, as long as you don't intend to include any intentionally hateful racial slurs, there is little you could do to offend me. Does that help at all?"
"A bit," I said. "I was--I heard that you're here a lot."
"Always," said Mr. Punctilious. "I'm guessing that you heard that I'm here always. Is that correct?"
"Yeah."
"And you're wondering why?"
"Is...something wrong?" I asked.
"Well, isn't that quite the question," said Mr. Punctilious, looking down at the dream and paintbrush in his hands. He took a deep breath and looked up at me. "I don't know, not for sure." He smiled at me, a strained smile. "I haven't been awake to find out. What I can tell you is that I have been sick for quite some time. I was doing better for a year or two, but I must conclude, from my continuous presence in the City, that several months ago things must have taken a turn for the worse."
"You're in a coma," I said. The words came out of my mouth before I could pull them back, a shock from between my lips.
He nodded. "I believe so."
"On life support?"
"Perhaps."
"That's really..." I said, then ran out of words.
"Yes," said Mr. Punctilious, smiling. "It is, isn't it."
"What do you do about it?" I felt like there had to be some way to fix it, not that I was sure what 'it' was. "Can't you tell someone about it? I mean, I could try to find your family, and I could do...something."
"That's very nice of you, Perry, but no. Someone comes to my family and tells them that their father and husband is trapped in a dream world? What would they do? If I am in a coma, it means they're doing their best medically, and it's not enough. We knew this was coming, Perry, my family and I. We prepared for it, spent time together, said all the words we could. I even went fishing with my grown-up son, something he'd never been able to convince me to do before. I'm not ecstatic about it, but I've come to accept that my waking life is over. This is the life I have now, and I intend to fill my sleeping world with all the wide-awake wonder that I can before my time here is up as well."
I looked at him, and Mr. Punctilious looked at me. I was empty of words. I had the weird feeling that I was talking to a dead man, but anyone who had seen this round, energetic man on the stage could only think of him as very much alive.
"Is there a Mrs. Punctilious?" I asked.
"There is, though I must confess, 'Punctilious' is a stage name. My real name is much more prosaic."
"Couldn't I at least take her a message?"
"Oh, Perry. After thirty years of marriage, if she doesn't already know how much I love her, it's far, far too late for me to tell her. You can let it go. It's all right. I have enough here to fill whatever days remain to me." He turned and raised his arms to take in the entirety of his theater. "Consider, Perry. What chance would I have had in the waking world to preside over a company of this sort? I was a law librarian with an enthusiasm for literature, not a stage performer. Just to be on this stage is a dream come true. And I have a chance to meet with so many pleasant people. Brie and you, for example. Would we ever have found each other in the waking world? Perhaps." He looked at me. "But we found each other here. I'm not a man with enough time left to turn my nose up at any chances that come my way."
I looked away. I was full of mixed colors and emotions. I'd grown up with death in the news every day--war, disease, murders from every city across the entire country. It was all piped into my house with the press of a button, but I'd never seen death up close. I didn't know what to say when I knew it was there, just around the corner, for a person I barely knew, but liked. It shook me like a Boggle game, and all the letters in my mind were tumbled out of order, and I couldn’t make any words out of them.
"I'm sorry," I said finally. I looked up to see Mr. Punctilious smiling at me gently.
"It's not something you need to be sorry about, Perry. Life is full of opportunities that are all twisted together with tragedy. The secret is remember the one while caught up in the other." He took an expansive breath and turned back to the waiting sheet. "But now is not the time to worry about these things. Now is the time to paint a waterfall. Are you ready to see the magic of the stage?"
"Sure."
"'Sure,'" repeated Mr. Punctilious. "I find that your response lacks enthusiasm."
"Yes," I said, more firmly. "I want to see the magic of the stage."
"Much better. Here goes."
He held out one hand, my dream cupped in his palm, and in a high, dramatic arc, swung the paintbrush in a wide sweep that ended by dipping it into the dream. Then, with a quick flick of his hand, he snapped the brush out toward the white silk.
The air flowed with water--not quite water. It was there, but it wasn't, like I could put my hand into the stream and scatter drops across the stage, but my hand would still be dry when I was done. The arc of blue sparkled, shimmered, and touched the hanging cloth, flowing into it, filling it from top to bottom, like a glass filled upside down. Then the water was gone from the air and, where before had been silk, there was the translucent curtain of a waterfall.
"It looks like it's actually falling," I said.
"You picked a good dream," said Mr. Punctilious.
I watched it in silence, how the water streamed down and then was gone as it reached the floor. "It's beautiful," I said.
"Life so often is," said the dying man.
Monday, March 22, 2010
Pain, Suffering, and a Synopsis
I confess: I wrote more last night. Yes, I have over 1,000 words waiting for another thousand to finish out the section so I can post it for you all to read. Yes, all six of you.
However, another agent asked for a partial manuscript for Fat Tony. And for a synopsis. Yes, you heard right: a synopsis. Through the miracle of TV magic, I shrank Fat Tony down into a nine page summary, finished editing the first fifty pages of the manuscript, and sent it off. Over 2,300 words of creative writing, and none of it advanced the plot of City of Dreams. So sorry.
Now, tomorrow will be dedicated to finishing up all the changes I'm making to Fat Tony, in anticipation of being asked for the full manuscript soon. (If you're an agent reading this who has my query letter in hand, then ignore what I just wrote. The entire manuscript is 100% complete. And perfect. And filled with puppies and rainbows and everything else that's nice. You'll love it, and I'm not scrambling to get things tidied up at all.)
So I'll try for more City of Dreams tomorrow. But no promises. I hear pillows are good for catching tears, so I'd go there if you need to cry.
However, another agent asked for a partial manuscript for Fat Tony. And for a synopsis. Yes, you heard right: a synopsis. Through the miracle of TV magic, I shrank Fat Tony down into a nine page summary, finished editing the first fifty pages of the manuscript, and sent it off. Over 2,300 words of creative writing, and none of it advanced the plot of City of Dreams. So sorry.
Now, tomorrow will be dedicated to finishing up all the changes I'm making to Fat Tony, in anticipation of being asked for the full manuscript soon. (If you're an agent reading this who has my query letter in hand, then ignore what I just wrote. The entire manuscript is 100% complete. And perfect. And filled with puppies and rainbows and everything else that's nice. You'll love it, and I'm not scrambling to get things tidied up at all.)
So I'll try for more City of Dreams tomorrow. But no promises. I hear pillows are good for catching tears, so I'd go there if you need to cry.
Friday, March 19, 2010
The City of Dreams -- Part 17
[Only 1016 words to this section, but I thought it was better to post than not. Or Not. Either way, there's no guarantee you'll get any more out of me today, so I thought I should put this up to let you all know I haven't died.
[I feel a bit like Lydia Bennet. "There were several worse words I could have used, so I thought I might as well write it as not. I'll pull it all to pieces when I get home and make it up nicer." Something like that.]
Aparently Not has a better sense of direction than I do, because it wasn't long before I could see Big Ben's clock rising over the shorter buildings ahead of us.
"Does the City stay the same every night?" I asked.
"It does," said Not. "Not."
"I should have seen that coming," I said.
"It stays the same and it doesn't," explained the dream.
"That makes things much clearer," I said.
"I'm glad I could help."
We walked around the last corner and into the Market. One man sat in his booth, his feet up, snoring--how does a person sleep when he's already asleep?--but other than that, the massive square was empty of people. Big Ben looked down at me, immense and peaceful, and his clock face blinked at me. Or winked at me. If you only have one eye, is blinking the same as winking? Either way, it seemed like he knew something I didn't know.
"I'm going to ask him a question," I said.
"Ask who?"
"Big Ben."
"Does he talk?" asked Not. "I don't think he talks."
"Have you ever tried talking to him?"
"No."
"Then how would you know?"
"I think SOMEONE would have tried to talk to him. And then he would have answered, or he wouldn't, and we'd hear about it."
"Have you ever asked anyone about it?"
"Why would I?" asked Not. "He doesn't talk."
I smiled. "I think I've managed to confuse YOU. This is a first, Not."
"I'm not confused," he said. "But I don't think he talks."
I nodded and kept walking through the booths, weaving my way towards the immense clock.
"How good do you think his hearing is?" I asked. "Should I get closer, or do you think this is good?"
"I'm not sure he can hear," said Not.
I ignored him. "If I get any closer then I'll get a crick in my neck trying to look up at him. I think I'll stop here and shout."
"This is crazy," said the dream. "It's like asking a question to a statue of the Buddha, and expecting him to answer."
"How do you know about Buddha?" I asked.
"I have no idea," said Not. "I'm nervous. And excited."
I wasn't entirely sure why, but so was I. I could only imagine what Big Ben had seen. The wisdom pouring off of him was so thick I felt like I could reach out and touch it. Crazy, I know, to think of a clock as wise, but it did make sense in a strange, metaphorical way. Clocks always look to the future, always move ahead, never let the past slow them down. Assuming they have good batteries, or have been wound properly. But that's not the point. The point was that I was going to ask Big Ben a question.
I just had to figure out which question.
"What do I ask?" I said.
"You were the one with the idea," said Not.
"Help me out here. I'm stuck."
Next to me, Not took a deep breath. Don't ask me how, because I'm not sure how, but he did, and then he shouted, "Am I Perry's dream?"
The minute hand on Big Ben's face shifted one notch with a clank of gears that sounded clearly through the quiet marketplace. Not and I looked at each other.
"Was that a yes or a no?" I asked.
"Either way, it looks like you can ask him a question once every minute. That's great!"
"Let's go find Mr. Punctilious," I said.
"Sounds good. The Four-Season Tree is that way."
Walking through the empty market was calming. Of course, walking near Big Ben was probably always calming, but there was something satisfying about being alone in a place that normally held so many people. It could have been lonely, I suppose, but knowing that the market would be full soon, I felt like I was doing something special. Like walking in an empty stadium, or standing on stage in front of an empty theater. I was part of a performance waiting to happen.
"I like this place," I said.
"They have good food here," said Not.
"Do you eat?" I asked.
"No."
"Huh. But I don't like this place because of the food."
"Why do you like it, then?"
"It's full of possibilities."
"Life is full of possibilities," said Not.
"It doesn't always feel like it," I said. "Not when I'm awake."
"How sad," said Not.
I shrugged. "Forget it. I'm here right now, and here is good."
The doors to the barn were open, the sign for MR. PUNCTILIOUS' FABULOUS AND OFTEN EXCITING TRAVELING TROUPE AND GARAGE SALE looking down at me--not literally. It's not like there were big eyes on the sign, watching us. That would have been creepy. I jumped up the stairs and peered into the dim interior.
"Sunglasses," said Not.
"Right," I said, taking them off and hanging them from the neck of my shirt. "That's better."
The garage sale portion of the barn was as filled as ever, but the chaos I remembered from the night time was still except for the occasional rustle. The chairs in front of the stage were empty and Mr. Punctilious sat on the stage, his back to us, looking at a blank, white cloth that hung from the rafters of the stage, or whatever it's all called.
"He's always asleep?" I asked Not, quietly.
"Always. I think he's the only person who's here all the time."
"Does he ever see you?"
"He hasn't yet. Maybe he's too busy looking at his own dreams."
"Is that what he's doing now?" I asked.
"No," said Not, slowly. "He's looking at a white cloth."
"Of course," I said.
I walked further into the room but stopped at the outermost row of seats. Something in the way Mr. Punctilious sat seemed to speak privacy. After a while he shook his head, sighed, and turned around.
He caught sight of me. "Perry!" he called, genuinely happy. "You're here early, aren't you? Come in! You can help me paint my scenery.”
[I feel a bit like Lydia Bennet. "There were several worse words I could have used, so I thought I might as well write it as not. I'll pull it all to pieces when I get home and make it up nicer." Something like that.]
Aparently Not has a better sense of direction than I do, because it wasn't long before I could see Big Ben's clock rising over the shorter buildings ahead of us.
"Does the City stay the same every night?" I asked.
"It does," said Not. "Not."
"I should have seen that coming," I said.
"It stays the same and it doesn't," explained the dream.
"That makes things much clearer," I said.
"I'm glad I could help."
We walked around the last corner and into the Market. One man sat in his booth, his feet up, snoring--how does a person sleep when he's already asleep?--but other than that, the massive square was empty of people. Big Ben looked down at me, immense and peaceful, and his clock face blinked at me. Or winked at me. If you only have one eye, is blinking the same as winking? Either way, it seemed like he knew something I didn't know.
"I'm going to ask him a question," I said.
"Ask who?"
"Big Ben."
"Does he talk?" asked Not. "I don't think he talks."
"Have you ever tried talking to him?"
"No."
"Then how would you know?"
"I think SOMEONE would have tried to talk to him. And then he would have answered, or he wouldn't, and we'd hear about it."
"Have you ever asked anyone about it?"
"Why would I?" asked Not. "He doesn't talk."
I smiled. "I think I've managed to confuse YOU. This is a first, Not."
"I'm not confused," he said. "But I don't think he talks."
I nodded and kept walking through the booths, weaving my way towards the immense clock.
"How good do you think his hearing is?" I asked. "Should I get closer, or do you think this is good?"
"I'm not sure he can hear," said Not.
I ignored him. "If I get any closer then I'll get a crick in my neck trying to look up at him. I think I'll stop here and shout."
"This is crazy," said the dream. "It's like asking a question to a statue of the Buddha, and expecting him to answer."
"How do you know about Buddha?" I asked.
"I have no idea," said Not. "I'm nervous. And excited."
I wasn't entirely sure why, but so was I. I could only imagine what Big Ben had seen. The wisdom pouring off of him was so thick I felt like I could reach out and touch it. Crazy, I know, to think of a clock as wise, but it did make sense in a strange, metaphorical way. Clocks always look to the future, always move ahead, never let the past slow them down. Assuming they have good batteries, or have been wound properly. But that's not the point. The point was that I was going to ask Big Ben a question.
I just had to figure out which question.
"What do I ask?" I said.
"You were the one with the idea," said Not.
"Help me out here. I'm stuck."
Next to me, Not took a deep breath. Don't ask me how, because I'm not sure how, but he did, and then he shouted, "Am I Perry's dream?"
The minute hand on Big Ben's face shifted one notch with a clank of gears that sounded clearly through the quiet marketplace. Not and I looked at each other.
"Was that a yes or a no?" I asked.
"Either way, it looks like you can ask him a question once every minute. That's great!"
"Let's go find Mr. Punctilious," I said.
"Sounds good. The Four-Season Tree is that way."
Walking through the empty market was calming. Of course, walking near Big Ben was probably always calming, but there was something satisfying about being alone in a place that normally held so many people. It could have been lonely, I suppose, but knowing that the market would be full soon, I felt like I was doing something special. Like walking in an empty stadium, or standing on stage in front of an empty theater. I was part of a performance waiting to happen.
"I like this place," I said.
"They have good food here," said Not.
"Do you eat?" I asked.
"No."
"Huh. But I don't like this place because of the food."
"Why do you like it, then?"
"It's full of possibilities."
"Life is full of possibilities," said Not.
"It doesn't always feel like it," I said. "Not when I'm awake."
"How sad," said Not.
I shrugged. "Forget it. I'm here right now, and here is good."
The doors to the barn were open, the sign for MR. PUNCTILIOUS' FABULOUS AND OFTEN EXCITING TRAVELING TROUPE AND GARAGE SALE looking down at me--not literally. It's not like there were big eyes on the sign, watching us. That would have been creepy. I jumped up the stairs and peered into the dim interior.
"Sunglasses," said Not.
"Right," I said, taking them off and hanging them from the neck of my shirt. "That's better."
The garage sale portion of the barn was as filled as ever, but the chaos I remembered from the night time was still except for the occasional rustle. The chairs in front of the stage were empty and Mr. Punctilious sat on the stage, his back to us, looking at a blank, white cloth that hung from the rafters of the stage, or whatever it's all called.
"He's always asleep?" I asked Not, quietly.
"Always. I think he's the only person who's here all the time."
"Does he ever see you?"
"He hasn't yet. Maybe he's too busy looking at his own dreams."
"Is that what he's doing now?" I asked.
"No," said Not, slowly. "He's looking at a white cloth."
"Of course," I said.
I walked further into the room but stopped at the outermost row of seats. Something in the way Mr. Punctilious sat seemed to speak privacy. After a while he shook his head, sighed, and turned around.
He caught sight of me. "Perry!" he called, genuinely happy. "You're here early, aren't you? Come in! You can help me paint my scenery.”
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Fat Tony: Tech Support Wizard
The time has come to start sending out query letters for Fat Tony. Since I already got one request for a partial (yay!), I figured I should make sure I have it as put together as I can.
Also, I need to finally write that epilogue.
So we'll be hearing from Doug in the next day or two, and I'll post a revised version of Fat Tony for your reading pleasure. However, as soon as I get a request for a full manuscript--which I'm SURE I will soon--it'll all be going away.
Wish me luck. And more City of Dreams in a day or two.
Also, I need to finally write that epilogue.
So we'll be hearing from Doug in the next day or two, and I'll post a revised version of Fat Tony for your reading pleasure. However, as soon as I get a request for a full manuscript--which I'm SURE I will soon--it'll all be going away.
Wish me luck. And more City of Dreams in a day or two.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
The City of Dreams -- Part 16
[A slightly shorter section, and a few days late, but now that I'm writing again I need to get selling Fat Tony. It's time. He's close enough to sell-able that I should be getting query letters out there. So don't try to stop me, Smee. Smee, I said don't try to stop me. Smee!
[Sigh. Off I go to relearn how to query.]
I wasn't surly during English, but I was close. Close enough that Mike wold have called me surly, so I just kept my mouth shut. You might be surprised at how often that works: I feel like taking a foam bat and hitting anyone on the head that tries to talk to me, but I don't show it because I keep my mouth shut. That way people don't know that I'm nuts; they just think I'm in a bad mood.
Brie ate lunch with us again. It was fine, in a fine sort of way. Not too good, not too bad, just fine. Brie and I sat sort of close to each other, and she talked with Sook and Mike, and I wondered where all my funny went. I made a mental note to go home and look around for it. My mom might have cleaned my room and put my funny away someplace that I didn't usually keep it. Yeah, that was definitely it.
Sook was happy enough about something that she didn't bother waiting for me to say anything on the way to biology, so I slipped through the rest of the day without having to say anything coherent to anyone else. (The biology teacher did ask me a question, and I answered it, but honestly, what high school teacher really expects a coherent answer from a student after lunch? Whatever I said, it passed for then.)
Cindy and Tamara made the ride home another place where I could shut up and listen, and I found out that there is significantly more drama on a cross country team than I would have thought. It seemed slightly like a soap opera, except that I've never actually seen a soap opera, and no one on the cross country team had lost their memory in a freak accident. Except for that, though, I was pretty sure it was exactly alike.
At home I hid in my room. I didn't eat anything, just slipped straight up the stairs. It was slightly discouraging to think that my moods were so predictable that my sisters didn't even try to invite me to do anything. I couldn't blame them, since I'd consistently turned down any invitation for anything for the last three months, but I didn't like what that said about me. Where was I going with my life?
To bed, apparently. I lay on my back and stared at the ceiling. Why didn't I have any posters up there? In fact, I didn't have any posters anywhere. No paintings, no crayon drawings. I used to have maps from three major fantasy novels--the made up kind of map, that may or may not realistically show the made up world, and that has more consonants and apostrophes than can fit in one mouth--but I'd taken those down during the summer and hadn't replaced them. I'd had some vague idea of getting real pictures, but I'd never figured out what, and then I'd stopped thinking about it.
My life was a mess.
I woke up in the city, the sun bright and immense overhead making it hard to squint at the circle of sky that was settling its way towards the west. I was sitting on a bench again and the street was quiet around me, though I couldn't get a good view of it. The world under the heavy sun was too much, overexposed like an artsy film, everything too white and too bright.
I had to do something about it, but I wasn't sure how someone found a hat in the City. Maybe if Big Ben's market were close, but with EVERYTHING backlit by the sun, it was impossible to tell if one of the buildings rising into the sky around me were actually a clock tower.
"You're asleep early," said Not. "Are you sick?"
"Probably," I said, "though I don't have a cold or anything. My waking life is a disaster."
"That's too bad," said the abandoned dream. "I'm glad you're here, though. I wanted to talk."
"Can't you talk with other people?"
"Other people don't always see me."
"Father Thomas saw you."
"I think he's used to looking for abandoned dreams."
I thought about that. It seemed reasonable, so I just shrugged. "I'm fine with talking, but I need to find some shade, or a hat, or an umbrella, or something. That sun is killing me."
"What about those sunglasses?"
"Which?" I asked.
"The ones hanging on your shirt."
I lifted my hand to my chest and my fingers bumped into glasses. I looked down.
"What do you know," I said.
"Was that a question?" asked Not.
"I don't think so," I said. "The City is a very strange place." My hand jumped up to my face. "I'm not wearing glasses!"
"Do you usually wear glasses?"
"All the time. Otherwise I can't tell the time from across the room, and taking notes in class would be impossible."
"Is taking notes important?" asked Not.
I thought about that one. "Not really," I said.
"Then why do you need glasses?"
"There are other things worth seeing in the world."
"Like what?"
"Lots of things. But I'm putting on these glasses and then we're talking about whatever it is you want to talk about." I put on the sunglasses and hoped Not wouldn't press me too hard on what was worth seeing when I was awake. All I could think of was things I wanted to see when I was asleep--the strange dome of the sky, the plants and light posts that acted more like animals, the people all a little bit odd. I realized that I liked this place. The City was becoming comfortable, and if Not really wanted to know what was worth putting on my glasses for in the waking world, I wasn't sure I had a good answer.
The sunglasses were a welcome relief, cutting the light of the too-close sun down to manageable levels, leaving an amber-colored world in place of the silvered world of nighttime in the City.
"Should we talk here?" I asked, "Or do you mind walking?"
"I don't mind," said Not.
"Let's go then. I want to see more of the City during the day."
I stood up, looked around, and didn't see anything I recognized, even with the shade for my eyes that the sunglasses provided.
"Which way?" asked Not.
I closed my eyes, turned myself around a couple times, and pointed straight ahead.
"That way," I said.
"That's going to be a short walk," said my companion.
I opened my eyes, looked at the blank wall that was fit in between the doors and windows of sleeping buildings. I closed my eyes and spun again. "I meant that way." I opened my eyes and saw open road ahead of me. "Yep. That way."
We started walking. At least I started walking. I couldn't tell if Not walked, or hovered, or coalesced, and after a few seconds trying to get a good look at him I gave up. Again.
"I can never look at you straight," I said.
"That's funny," said Not. "I can't look at me either. I wonder if it's some kind of medical condition."
"You don't know about glasses, but you know about medical conditions?"
"Maybe whoever dreamed me wanted to be a doctor."
"Not an eye doctor, I'm guessing."
"Probably not," agreed Not.
We strolled down the street, empty of people but with the occasional parked and snoring car, sedate street light, and imobile cluster of flowers-in-a-planter. The City was quiet, but surprisingly cool, even with the sun so massive overhead. Warm, but not burning away like an apocalyptic movie.
"What did you want to talk about?" I asked.
"I've been trying to figure out what I am," said the dream.
"Besides the obvious?"
"Besides that. I know I'm an abandoned dream, but I don't know whose, or what I'm supposed to be."
"Any guesses?" I asked.
"I wondered if I might be your dream," said Not.
"What?"
"Consider," he said, seriously. "Finding you is easy, where I can only guess where other people are when they come to the City. You can see me, while it's hit or miss whether other dreamers even notice I exist. And it seems like you've lost a dream."
"I have not," I said. Had I? Not didn't say anything, so I was left to think. Certainly not as painful an experience as when I was awake, but not something I necessarily had in my top five list of things to do in the City.
Could Not be my abandoned dream? We certainly were together a lot, but I didn't know if that meant anything--who knew what anything 'meant' in this crazy place? Add to that, I'd only come here a few times, but it seemed like Not had been coming for a while before I ever arrived. Did that make it less likely he was my abandoned dream, or more likely?
"If you were my dream," I asked, "how would we tell? I mean, really, how would we figure it out?"
"I have no idea," said Not. "Maybe you could tell me what kind of person you want to be, or what things you want to do, and I could tell you if I'm that kind of dream. If I fill in the blank parts of your life, then I'm your dream."
"But I don't know what the blank parts are! I don't know what I want to be. I don't know what I want to do. If I knew that, I probably wouldn't be coming to the City."
"That's a tuffy," said Not.
I turned a corner at random and walked down another sleeping street. "What's a tuffy?" I asked.
"How do you look for something when you don't know what's missing?"
"Exactly," I said. "And when I'm here in the City, it doesn't feel like anything's missing."
"That's because I'm here," said Not. "You've found your dream!"
"But what are you?" I asked.
"I don't know," he answered.
"So why does it help that I've found you?"
"Still don't know," he said.
I started laughing and shook my head. "Maybe you really are my dream. I'm just as bad at figuring things out with you as I am without you."
"Maybe we should ask someone," said Not.
"Who? No one is asleep at this time of day."
"Mr. Punctilious is."
"Really? How do you know?"
"Mr. Punctilious is always asleep."
I blinked. I didn't know what to make of that.
"Let's go," said Not. "I think he's this way."
[Sigh. Off I go to relearn how to query.]
I wasn't surly during English, but I was close. Close enough that Mike wold have called me surly, so I just kept my mouth shut. You might be surprised at how often that works: I feel like taking a foam bat and hitting anyone on the head that tries to talk to me, but I don't show it because I keep my mouth shut. That way people don't know that I'm nuts; they just think I'm in a bad mood.
Brie ate lunch with us again. It was fine, in a fine sort of way. Not too good, not too bad, just fine. Brie and I sat sort of close to each other, and she talked with Sook and Mike, and I wondered where all my funny went. I made a mental note to go home and look around for it. My mom might have cleaned my room and put my funny away someplace that I didn't usually keep it. Yeah, that was definitely it.
Sook was happy enough about something that she didn't bother waiting for me to say anything on the way to biology, so I slipped through the rest of the day without having to say anything coherent to anyone else. (The biology teacher did ask me a question, and I answered it, but honestly, what high school teacher really expects a coherent answer from a student after lunch? Whatever I said, it passed for then.)
Cindy and Tamara made the ride home another place where I could shut up and listen, and I found out that there is significantly more drama on a cross country team than I would have thought. It seemed slightly like a soap opera, except that I've never actually seen a soap opera, and no one on the cross country team had lost their memory in a freak accident. Except for that, though, I was pretty sure it was exactly alike.
At home I hid in my room. I didn't eat anything, just slipped straight up the stairs. It was slightly discouraging to think that my moods were so predictable that my sisters didn't even try to invite me to do anything. I couldn't blame them, since I'd consistently turned down any invitation for anything for the last three months, but I didn't like what that said about me. Where was I going with my life?
To bed, apparently. I lay on my back and stared at the ceiling. Why didn't I have any posters up there? In fact, I didn't have any posters anywhere. No paintings, no crayon drawings. I used to have maps from three major fantasy novels--the made up kind of map, that may or may not realistically show the made up world, and that has more consonants and apostrophes than can fit in one mouth--but I'd taken those down during the summer and hadn't replaced them. I'd had some vague idea of getting real pictures, but I'd never figured out what, and then I'd stopped thinking about it.
My life was a mess.
I woke up in the city, the sun bright and immense overhead making it hard to squint at the circle of sky that was settling its way towards the west. I was sitting on a bench again and the street was quiet around me, though I couldn't get a good view of it. The world under the heavy sun was too much, overexposed like an artsy film, everything too white and too bright.
I had to do something about it, but I wasn't sure how someone found a hat in the City. Maybe if Big Ben's market were close, but with EVERYTHING backlit by the sun, it was impossible to tell if one of the buildings rising into the sky around me were actually a clock tower.
"You're asleep early," said Not. "Are you sick?"
"Probably," I said, "though I don't have a cold or anything. My waking life is a disaster."
"That's too bad," said the abandoned dream. "I'm glad you're here, though. I wanted to talk."
"Can't you talk with other people?"
"Other people don't always see me."
"Father Thomas saw you."
"I think he's used to looking for abandoned dreams."
I thought about that. It seemed reasonable, so I just shrugged. "I'm fine with talking, but I need to find some shade, or a hat, or an umbrella, or something. That sun is killing me."
"What about those sunglasses?"
"Which?" I asked.
"The ones hanging on your shirt."
I lifted my hand to my chest and my fingers bumped into glasses. I looked down.
"What do you know," I said.
"Was that a question?" asked Not.
"I don't think so," I said. "The City is a very strange place." My hand jumped up to my face. "I'm not wearing glasses!"
"Do you usually wear glasses?"
"All the time. Otherwise I can't tell the time from across the room, and taking notes in class would be impossible."
"Is taking notes important?" asked Not.
I thought about that one. "Not really," I said.
"Then why do you need glasses?"
"There are other things worth seeing in the world."
"Like what?"
"Lots of things. But I'm putting on these glasses and then we're talking about whatever it is you want to talk about." I put on the sunglasses and hoped Not wouldn't press me too hard on what was worth seeing when I was awake. All I could think of was things I wanted to see when I was asleep--the strange dome of the sky, the plants and light posts that acted more like animals, the people all a little bit odd. I realized that I liked this place. The City was becoming comfortable, and if Not really wanted to know what was worth putting on my glasses for in the waking world, I wasn't sure I had a good answer.
The sunglasses were a welcome relief, cutting the light of the too-close sun down to manageable levels, leaving an amber-colored world in place of the silvered world of nighttime in the City.
"Should we talk here?" I asked, "Or do you mind walking?"
"I don't mind," said Not.
"Let's go then. I want to see more of the City during the day."
I stood up, looked around, and didn't see anything I recognized, even with the shade for my eyes that the sunglasses provided.
"Which way?" asked Not.
I closed my eyes, turned myself around a couple times, and pointed straight ahead.
"That way," I said.
"That's going to be a short walk," said my companion.
I opened my eyes, looked at the blank wall that was fit in between the doors and windows of sleeping buildings. I closed my eyes and spun again. "I meant that way." I opened my eyes and saw open road ahead of me. "Yep. That way."
We started walking. At least I started walking. I couldn't tell if Not walked, or hovered, or coalesced, and after a few seconds trying to get a good look at him I gave up. Again.
"I can never look at you straight," I said.
"That's funny," said Not. "I can't look at me either. I wonder if it's some kind of medical condition."
"You don't know about glasses, but you know about medical conditions?"
"Maybe whoever dreamed me wanted to be a doctor."
"Not an eye doctor, I'm guessing."
"Probably not," agreed Not.
We strolled down the street, empty of people but with the occasional parked and snoring car, sedate street light, and imobile cluster of flowers-in-a-planter. The City was quiet, but surprisingly cool, even with the sun so massive overhead. Warm, but not burning away like an apocalyptic movie.
"What did you want to talk about?" I asked.
"I've been trying to figure out what I am," said the dream.
"Besides the obvious?"
"Besides that. I know I'm an abandoned dream, but I don't know whose, or what I'm supposed to be."
"Any guesses?" I asked.
"I wondered if I might be your dream," said Not.
"What?"
"Consider," he said, seriously. "Finding you is easy, where I can only guess where other people are when they come to the City. You can see me, while it's hit or miss whether other dreamers even notice I exist. And it seems like you've lost a dream."
"I have not," I said. Had I? Not didn't say anything, so I was left to think. Certainly not as painful an experience as when I was awake, but not something I necessarily had in my top five list of things to do in the City.
Could Not be my abandoned dream? We certainly were together a lot, but I didn't know if that meant anything--who knew what anything 'meant' in this crazy place? Add to that, I'd only come here a few times, but it seemed like Not had been coming for a while before I ever arrived. Did that make it less likely he was my abandoned dream, or more likely?
"If you were my dream," I asked, "how would we tell? I mean, really, how would we figure it out?"
"I have no idea," said Not. "Maybe you could tell me what kind of person you want to be, or what things you want to do, and I could tell you if I'm that kind of dream. If I fill in the blank parts of your life, then I'm your dream."
"But I don't know what the blank parts are! I don't know what I want to be. I don't know what I want to do. If I knew that, I probably wouldn't be coming to the City."
"That's a tuffy," said Not.
I turned a corner at random and walked down another sleeping street. "What's a tuffy?" I asked.
"How do you look for something when you don't know what's missing?"
"Exactly," I said. "And when I'm here in the City, it doesn't feel like anything's missing."
"That's because I'm here," said Not. "You've found your dream!"
"But what are you?" I asked.
"I don't know," he answered.
"So why does it help that I've found you?"
"Still don't know," he said.
I started laughing and shook my head. "Maybe you really are my dream. I'm just as bad at figuring things out with you as I am without you."
"Maybe we should ask someone," said Not.
"Who? No one is asleep at this time of day."
"Mr. Punctilious is."
"Really? How do you know?"
"Mr. Punctilious is always asleep."
I blinked. I didn't know what to make of that.
"Let's go," said Not. "I think he's this way."
Saturday, March 6, 2010
The City of Dreams -- Part 15
[I just discovered that I've been unintentionally cheating in my word counts in Write or Die. Turns out that the program counts double spaces as extra words. The result is, where I thought I'd typed 2500 words in the last 50 minutes, it was actually only 1900.
[The good news? I still typed 1900 words, and you get another section. So here it is. Also, you may have noticed that some words have been creeping into the story in capitol letters. Or capital letters. I'm not sure which. Write or Die doesn't do italics, so I've started throwing them in capitolized/capitalized--aha! The spell checker just informed me that letters are capitalized, so they must be capital letters. Which is beside the point. The point is that capital = italics. Said and done.]
When I woke up the next day, I felt horrible. Terrible. I tried to not feel too bad about it, especially after such an amazing night, but for some reason I was angry. I couldn't pin down anything in specific to be angry about, but I was. Mad. Furious. Everything was wrong with the world, and I felt like shouting about it. Or, at the very least, not getting out of bed. Or, if I had to get out of bed, at least I wasn't going to be happy about it. At all.
"Who's Brie?" asked my mom at breakfast.
I glared at Tamara.
"Yes, I told her, Mr. Rain Cloud," said my sister. "Go glare at someone else who cares."
"Come on, Perry," said Mom. "Can't I want to know about a girl my son is interested in? I only have one son, you know. That makes you special. Unique. Like a parsley plant in a bed of flowers."
I blinked at her. "Was that a compliment?"
"Of course," said Mom, not quite smiling.
"She's just a girl," I said.
"No girl is 'just a girl,'" she replied. "Every girl is special."
"Like parsley," I said.
"Exactly."
"That you don't eat, but just leave sitting on a plate after all the good stuff is gone."
"My, you are grumpy this morning, aren't you."
"Have a bad dream about Brie?" asked Cindy, sitting down to join us.
"Shut up," I said.
"Manners," warned my father from the kitchen.
"Sorry," I muttered. I actually did feel bad. I didn't want to be angry, or unhappy, or rude. I never did. I've never understood the phrase 'misery loves company.' I didn't want company. I wanted to be alone. Or alseep. Asleep actually sounded very good.
"Here they are," said Dad, bringing in a plate of waffles. "Fresh out of the waffle iron--at least the ones on the top are. I'm afraid those on the bottom are getting a bit soggy, so let's pray quickly and get eating."
Cindy said the prayer over our food, which meant it was short, and we three teenage hands lunged for the top of the pile. Unfortunately, Dad beat us to it and snagged the warmest, crispest waffle for Mom. It was fair, I guess--she did give birth to us, so she deserves something--but when the dust had settled, I'd ended up with a somewhat floppy specimen from a few down the stack. Great. Something else to be mad about.
"Pass the syrup please," I said. I looked over to see Cindy looking at me apologetically as the last drops dribbled from an empty bottle. "Great," I muttered.
"I didn't realize it was so empty," she said. "And I run cross country."
"What does that have to do with anything?"
"I need a high calorie diet?"
"Forget it," I said, standing up.
"Aren't you going to eat?" asked Mom. "I can guarantee that girls prefer guys who don't die from starvation."
"Who cares?" I said, heading for the stairs and my room.
"I'm leaving in ten," Tamara shouted after me. "I'm not waiting for you!"
"Who cares?!" I shouted back, taking the steps up to my room two at a time. I didn't bother to close my door behind me, but just crashed face-first onto my pillow. "Ow," I said, rolled onto my side enough to take off my glasses, then flopped back onto my face.
I knew I wouldn't go back to sleep, though I wanted to. I knew I'd roll back over, walk down the stairs, pick up my backpack and go to school. It was inevitable, like the tide, although I only really had a vague idea what the tide was like. I guess I imagined that the water level just went up magically, then went down again. It would be better for my feelings if it were more violent, though, rushing at the shore with a wave of force, smashing routines and regularity into oblivion. THAT would be a satisfying tide. Going to school like that would be worth it.
Someone sat on the bed next to my legs. From the hand on my calf, I figured it was Mom.
"I'm sorry," I said, muffled by my pillow.
"It's okay, Perry."
"I don't mean to be like that. I just feel terrible today."
She laughed quietly, shaking the bed. "Seems to me you feel terrible pretty much every day."
That was true enough, though I didn't bother answering.
"What's up?" she asked after a few seconds.
"Nothing in particular. School's fine."
"Is it something about Brie?"
I shook my head slightly. "Brie's cool. You'd like her."
"Ah," said Mom. "Does that mean I get to meet her?"
"Sure," I said, "just as long as I don't have to be there when you do."
"Embarrassed about our parents, are we?"
"Embarrassed about me," I muttered.
Mom rubbed my calf. "You don't have anything to be embarrassed about, kiddo. You're a funny, smart kid. What is there not to like?"
"You didn't say 'good looking,' Mom."
"I don't want you to get a swelled head."
We sat for a minute--well, Mom sat while I lay on my face--and I started to think I should get up. Tamara really would leave me. I know, because she'd done it before.
"Perry," said Mom.
"Yeah?"
"Is there anything we can do? Your father and I. We'd like to help."
"I just don't feel good today. It comes and goes." MOSTLY COMES, I thought.
"If you don't want to talk to us, there are people you can talk to," said Mom. "There's a counselor that we've been talking to that specializes in depression. He has some good things to say. Your dad says it's been helpful."
I rolled over and looked at Mom. "Helpful for whom?"
"For your dad."
"Dad's not depressed."
Mom smiled at me. "He's your father, Perry. You two are more alike than you may think. Both of you think you have to change the world."
"I don't need to change the world," I said.
"Exactly," said Mom. She patted my knee. "I think I hear Tamara heading for the door. Better get going, Mr. Rain Cloud."
"You look terrible," said Mike during calculus.
"Haven't we had this conversation before?" I asked.
"Probably. Have you looked terrible recently?" asked Mike.
"You look terrible every day," I said. "It's the hair."
"We already settled this," he said. "Sook likes my hair."
"But she might like it better if you did it differently. Don't be afraid to change, Mike. Change is the gateway to a brighter future. With different hair."
"Nope," he said. "I looked in the mirror this morning, put the gel in, combed it all out, and could only think about what a handsome devil I am. I put the 'good' in 'good morning.'"
"Is that even an expression?" I asked.
"I just made it up. Cool, huh?"
"Why do you even hang out with me?"
Mike blinked, his eyebrows up. "That's a random question."
"I'm serious, Mike. Why do you even hang out with me?"
"Did you get breakfast?" he asked.
"What?"
"Did you eat anything?"
"Why does that matter?"
"You're always grumpier when your stomach is empty. Most people are. Food fuels optimism."
"See?" I said. "That's exactly what I mean. You have optimism running out your nose, but you hang out with me. Why bother?"
"Opposites attract," said Mike. "Besides, I need someone around to remind me that life isn't all roses and Sook."
I squinted at him. "For some reason that phrase sounded bad. Like 'Sook' was a euphemism for something else."
"Yeah," he agreed, "I don't think I'll say that again. So, to change the subject completely, are you asking Brie to the dance?"
"Probably not," I said.
"What? Why not?"
"I just don't think I will."
"Does Brie know you're not going to?"
"She probably already got asked out by someone else."
"No she didn't," said Mike.
"How do you know that?"
"Sook found out."
"Why did Sook find out?"
"To see if you could ask Brie. She figured you wouldn't have the connections, and you wouldn't ask Brie about it directly, so now you know she's not going with anyone, and you can ask her."
I shook my head. "I don't think we're that kind of friends."
"What kind? The kind that does fun things together?"
"We do stuff. Just not the dance kind of stuff."
"What, you make out all the time? You can do that at dances, too."
"Ew," I said. "I hate it when people make out at dances. It's creepy."
"Then stop making out long enough to go to the dance," said Mike. "What's the problem?"
"We don't make out. We just don't do dance kinds of things."
"Then explain to me more clearly. What kind of things DO you do?"
"It's hard to explain."
"I'm a good listener," said Mike. "Sook tells me so."
"You just like to look at her hair."
"There are perks of being a good listener. I won't try to hide it. Do you listen to Brie?"
I thought about it. "I don't think I'm a good listener."
"Admitting you have a problem is the first step towards change."
"Then why won't you admit you have a problem with your hair?"
"I don't have a problem."
"Denial," I said.
"I can change my hair any time I want to," said Mike. "I just don't want to. And you changed the subject."
"I didn't realize we even really had a subject we were talking about."
"Brie!" said Mike. "How can you not want to talk about Brie? Every guy likes talking about the girl he likes. When we're with them, we talk to them, and when we're not, we talk about them. But we do it in a manly way, with grunts and stuff, so we don't seem like we're girly."
"I think we are kind of girly-men," I said. "I mean, we did watch a Jane Austen movie last month. I think it's hard to still be a man after something like that."
"Whatever," said Mike. "Watching movies about extremely rich men is totally manly. Just because these rich men didn't get that way by crashing into other rich men while wearing football helmets doesn't make them any less rich. Besides, I'd like to see a football player wear a suit as cool as those Regency Period suits."
"See?" I said. "We even know what the TIME PERIOD was called. We are no longer men. We are honorary girls."
Mike shrugged. "Would that be such a bad thing? Look at how cute the people are that we get to hang out with as honorary girls. I admit, Brie isn't as cute as Sook, but she's pretty close. Brie is joining us for lunch, right?"
"I don't know."
"You don't know?"
"You'll have to ask her."
"Why don't you ask her?"
"Whatever," I said.
"What does 'whatever' mean?" asked Mike.
"It means I don't want to talk about it."
"You are so lucky I'm a nice guy, Perry. Otherwise I'd completely ignore you on days like this and let you wallow in your self inflicted misery. Let's go to English."
"Did the bell ring?" I asked.
"Didn't you hear it?"
I shook my head. "I was just thinking."
"About what?" asked Mike.
THE DANCE, I thought. "Nothing," I said.
[The good news? I still typed 1900 words, and you get another section. So here it is. Also, you may have noticed that some words have been creeping into the story in capitol letters. Or capital letters. I'm not sure which. Write or Die doesn't do italics, so I've started throwing them in capitolized/capitalized--aha! The spell checker just informed me that letters are capitalized, so they must be capital letters. Which is beside the point. The point is that capital = italics. Said and done.]
When I woke up the next day, I felt horrible. Terrible. I tried to not feel too bad about it, especially after such an amazing night, but for some reason I was angry. I couldn't pin down anything in specific to be angry about, but I was. Mad. Furious. Everything was wrong with the world, and I felt like shouting about it. Or, at the very least, not getting out of bed. Or, if I had to get out of bed, at least I wasn't going to be happy about it. At all.
"Who's Brie?" asked my mom at breakfast.
I glared at Tamara.
"Yes, I told her, Mr. Rain Cloud," said my sister. "Go glare at someone else who cares."
"Come on, Perry," said Mom. "Can't I want to know about a girl my son is interested in? I only have one son, you know. That makes you special. Unique. Like a parsley plant in a bed of flowers."
I blinked at her. "Was that a compliment?"
"Of course," said Mom, not quite smiling.
"She's just a girl," I said.
"No girl is 'just a girl,'" she replied. "Every girl is special."
"Like parsley," I said.
"Exactly."
"That you don't eat, but just leave sitting on a plate after all the good stuff is gone."
"My, you are grumpy this morning, aren't you."
"Have a bad dream about Brie?" asked Cindy, sitting down to join us.
"Shut up," I said.
"Manners," warned my father from the kitchen.
"Sorry," I muttered. I actually did feel bad. I didn't want to be angry, or unhappy, or rude. I never did. I've never understood the phrase 'misery loves company.' I didn't want company. I wanted to be alone. Or alseep. Asleep actually sounded very good.
"Here they are," said Dad, bringing in a plate of waffles. "Fresh out of the waffle iron--at least the ones on the top are. I'm afraid those on the bottom are getting a bit soggy, so let's pray quickly and get eating."
Cindy said the prayer over our food, which meant it was short, and we three teenage hands lunged for the top of the pile. Unfortunately, Dad beat us to it and snagged the warmest, crispest waffle for Mom. It was fair, I guess--she did give birth to us, so she deserves something--but when the dust had settled, I'd ended up with a somewhat floppy specimen from a few down the stack. Great. Something else to be mad about.
"Pass the syrup please," I said. I looked over to see Cindy looking at me apologetically as the last drops dribbled from an empty bottle. "Great," I muttered.
"I didn't realize it was so empty," she said. "And I run cross country."
"What does that have to do with anything?"
"I need a high calorie diet?"
"Forget it," I said, standing up.
"Aren't you going to eat?" asked Mom. "I can guarantee that girls prefer guys who don't die from starvation."
"Who cares?" I said, heading for the stairs and my room.
"I'm leaving in ten," Tamara shouted after me. "I'm not waiting for you!"
"Who cares?!" I shouted back, taking the steps up to my room two at a time. I didn't bother to close my door behind me, but just crashed face-first onto my pillow. "Ow," I said, rolled onto my side enough to take off my glasses, then flopped back onto my face.
I knew I wouldn't go back to sleep, though I wanted to. I knew I'd roll back over, walk down the stairs, pick up my backpack and go to school. It was inevitable, like the tide, although I only really had a vague idea what the tide was like. I guess I imagined that the water level just went up magically, then went down again. It would be better for my feelings if it were more violent, though, rushing at the shore with a wave of force, smashing routines and regularity into oblivion. THAT would be a satisfying tide. Going to school like that would be worth it.
Someone sat on the bed next to my legs. From the hand on my calf, I figured it was Mom.
"I'm sorry," I said, muffled by my pillow.
"It's okay, Perry."
"I don't mean to be like that. I just feel terrible today."
She laughed quietly, shaking the bed. "Seems to me you feel terrible pretty much every day."
That was true enough, though I didn't bother answering.
"What's up?" she asked after a few seconds.
"Nothing in particular. School's fine."
"Is it something about Brie?"
I shook my head slightly. "Brie's cool. You'd like her."
"Ah," said Mom. "Does that mean I get to meet her?"
"Sure," I said, "just as long as I don't have to be there when you do."
"Embarrassed about our parents, are we?"
"Embarrassed about me," I muttered.
Mom rubbed my calf. "You don't have anything to be embarrassed about, kiddo. You're a funny, smart kid. What is there not to like?"
"You didn't say 'good looking,' Mom."
"I don't want you to get a swelled head."
We sat for a minute--well, Mom sat while I lay on my face--and I started to think I should get up. Tamara really would leave me. I know, because she'd done it before.
"Perry," said Mom.
"Yeah?"
"Is there anything we can do? Your father and I. We'd like to help."
"I just don't feel good today. It comes and goes." MOSTLY COMES, I thought.
"If you don't want to talk to us, there are people you can talk to," said Mom. "There's a counselor that we've been talking to that specializes in depression. He has some good things to say. Your dad says it's been helpful."
I rolled over and looked at Mom. "Helpful for whom?"
"For your dad."
"Dad's not depressed."
Mom smiled at me. "He's your father, Perry. You two are more alike than you may think. Both of you think you have to change the world."
"I don't need to change the world," I said.
"Exactly," said Mom. She patted my knee. "I think I hear Tamara heading for the door. Better get going, Mr. Rain Cloud."
"You look terrible," said Mike during calculus.
"Haven't we had this conversation before?" I asked.
"Probably. Have you looked terrible recently?" asked Mike.
"You look terrible every day," I said. "It's the hair."
"We already settled this," he said. "Sook likes my hair."
"But she might like it better if you did it differently. Don't be afraid to change, Mike. Change is the gateway to a brighter future. With different hair."
"Nope," he said. "I looked in the mirror this morning, put the gel in, combed it all out, and could only think about what a handsome devil I am. I put the 'good' in 'good morning.'"
"Is that even an expression?" I asked.
"I just made it up. Cool, huh?"
"Why do you even hang out with me?"
Mike blinked, his eyebrows up. "That's a random question."
"I'm serious, Mike. Why do you even hang out with me?"
"Did you get breakfast?" he asked.
"What?"
"Did you eat anything?"
"Why does that matter?"
"You're always grumpier when your stomach is empty. Most people are. Food fuels optimism."
"See?" I said. "That's exactly what I mean. You have optimism running out your nose, but you hang out with me. Why bother?"
"Opposites attract," said Mike. "Besides, I need someone around to remind me that life isn't all roses and Sook."
I squinted at him. "For some reason that phrase sounded bad. Like 'Sook' was a euphemism for something else."
"Yeah," he agreed, "I don't think I'll say that again. So, to change the subject completely, are you asking Brie to the dance?"
"Probably not," I said.
"What? Why not?"
"I just don't think I will."
"Does Brie know you're not going to?"
"She probably already got asked out by someone else."
"No she didn't," said Mike.
"How do you know that?"
"Sook found out."
"Why did Sook find out?"
"To see if you could ask Brie. She figured you wouldn't have the connections, and you wouldn't ask Brie about it directly, so now you know she's not going with anyone, and you can ask her."
I shook my head. "I don't think we're that kind of friends."
"What kind? The kind that does fun things together?"
"We do stuff. Just not the dance kind of stuff."
"What, you make out all the time? You can do that at dances, too."
"Ew," I said. "I hate it when people make out at dances. It's creepy."
"Then stop making out long enough to go to the dance," said Mike. "What's the problem?"
"We don't make out. We just don't do dance kinds of things."
"Then explain to me more clearly. What kind of things DO you do?"
"It's hard to explain."
"I'm a good listener," said Mike. "Sook tells me so."
"You just like to look at her hair."
"There are perks of being a good listener. I won't try to hide it. Do you listen to Brie?"
I thought about it. "I don't think I'm a good listener."
"Admitting you have a problem is the first step towards change."
"Then why won't you admit you have a problem with your hair?"
"I don't have a problem."
"Denial," I said.
"I can change my hair any time I want to," said Mike. "I just don't want to. And you changed the subject."
"I didn't realize we even really had a subject we were talking about."
"Brie!" said Mike. "How can you not want to talk about Brie? Every guy likes talking about the girl he likes. When we're with them, we talk to them, and when we're not, we talk about them. But we do it in a manly way, with grunts and stuff, so we don't seem like we're girly."
"I think we are kind of girly-men," I said. "I mean, we did watch a Jane Austen movie last month. I think it's hard to still be a man after something like that."
"Whatever," said Mike. "Watching movies about extremely rich men is totally manly. Just because these rich men didn't get that way by crashing into other rich men while wearing football helmets doesn't make them any less rich. Besides, I'd like to see a football player wear a suit as cool as those Regency Period suits."
"See?" I said. "We even know what the TIME PERIOD was called. We are no longer men. We are honorary girls."
Mike shrugged. "Would that be such a bad thing? Look at how cute the people are that we get to hang out with as honorary girls. I admit, Brie isn't as cute as Sook, but she's pretty close. Brie is joining us for lunch, right?"
"I don't know."
"You don't know?"
"You'll have to ask her."
"Why don't you ask her?"
"Whatever," I said.
"What does 'whatever' mean?" asked Mike.
"It means I don't want to talk about it."
"You are so lucky I'm a nice guy, Perry. Otherwise I'd completely ignore you on days like this and let you wallow in your self inflicted misery. Let's go to English."
"Did the bell ring?" I asked.
"Didn't you hear it?"
I shook my head. "I was just thinking."
"About what?" asked Mike.
THE DANCE, I thought. "Nothing," I said.
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