I never found a class I belonged in and this time didn't sit and stay simply because I pass thru halls unnoticed. I became more solid each step I took in a different direction. There's over a hundred ways this dream could end; deeply I knew this but consciously I marched upstairs, around cases of books, past miles of familiar faces. My mind still and body wandering, for the most part, aimlessly. Saved from repeating similar situations by sensing over and over that each option was bothersome, played-out, and boring. I guess you could call this pattern of behavior soul searching. I didn't see it for what it was until I was outside the guidance counselor's office. No, before that routine I just felt restless and maybe bitter about nothing I could put my finger on. More awake after ignoring the stairs and scrambling down steps made only by enormous stack of paper I applied this new-found insight to the rest of my day. The realization that I'd been here before and the memories of all the the ways this day is idled away did panic me! Even as I slump at the base of the paperstack step to catch my breath, that "knowing thing" is growing and before any of my puzzled thoughts are followed to completion I FEEL what to do. Suddenly, I've got to get out of this place; if it's the last thing I ever do, I've got to get out of this place. There's no denying fear has taken the control from me, but while I'm stuck in their trap (Whose trap? I don't know! Oh, I do. It doesn't matter; I've got to get going.)
Fear is my best friend. It only seems new. Really, haha, nothing here is new; not by a long shot. I stride forward still feeling like I'm on auto; mostly I look straight down at the ground. Good thing, that! Moving consciously against or away from the tide of students consistently puts me at the edge of sudden drop off and shallow shadowed stairwells. Able to envelope and dismiss whole memories of seemingly countless stupid mistakes now, but self-pity fully realized gets digested even faster than the last gulp of water that killed me there that time...nevermind.
I've begun to feel like I'm flicking out my tongue to safety-test the lay of the land and what had felt like a deep rut moments before, maybe only seconds; have I been running? It's not a rut afterall, but but a well worn path. I flinch everytime I pass my shadow and change course. When height feels good and up seems like a good direction I've got a vague re-collection of how tricky it is to navigate on transparent floors, through random auto-locking and watchful doors, the closer I get to my goal the brighter it gets. So, up & down are out like a light; don't think you're any safer in either....blind is blind, the it'll be back to the ether.
Fed up with directionless cardinals I need a new plan. The idea felt so rewarding when first it rung, but to ask for help I have to wade, uncomfortably deep, almost drowning now that I know to see faces. Whatever has taken up residence inside my thoughts shrinks away and I go with it. Present only is my newfound innate ablity to taste the air for familial flavored experiences.
It's all that exists to link me to this porthole. I know this, so I endure. Fear is all I am; holed up in cockpit of a drone. Held up by awareness & awareness alone.
With each summon to the seat of this soul I grow bigger. I don't bother pulling up whole memories anymore; just pointing out the differences I see that for whatever reason (and I can tell you plenty) let me know that this is no place for me. You can imagine my surprise! Hard surfaces and a harsh reality armed with all manner of new alarms. Every sensory organ is maxxed out and over taxxed. With all these variables the need for my diligence is near constant.
Level grinding in the most dangerous dungeons will sharpen a steely resolve to a swift end with one point made.
That's how I can to be hangin out on the bleachers with the geeks, freaks, and left-overs from some matriarchal matriculation. It'd been a long while since I'd stretched my legs and even longer since I'd jumped. The experience was only slightly novel, but I tell you; that's enough! I followed the changing faces of my small herd of "friends" and my steady stride down brought to mind the days before safety was a concern.
The whole school was astir. My back hurt...pa-a-a-a-a-in? Oh, no! Not this again, not slow and low. Panic, panic, panic. Not even one muscle twitches to animate this weathered old corpse during my instantaneously nauseating realization that relying on doors was mayhap the only mistep I mistook for the fastest exit. May be this body hurts so damned bad from slamming into walls until they were doors, but my awareness didn't linger to keep that train of thought linking. That was me/here don't care how knowing that I can keep learning even tho that world fell awake as I became awake.
I stop stepping down the bleachers and some friends turn with what I'd take for concern on their ever-changing faces. More didn't notice the outbreak and kept going down; on and on. I probably asked what was going on that did so interrupt my mundane school day, but another matter pressed more firmly.
"Why the hell am I carrying this weight?!" directing my inquiry to the entire smattering of student bodies.
Don't pay attention to the fliker; you'll get lost there every time. Just know the slideshow shifted slightly and the stage reset to add what seemed like infinitum. Players came and went until the poll put a pin in itself and we had a respectable talley to ponder the matter.
At this point I'm not even shocked to find myself where I first found anything amiss atall. In that labyrinthine structure I had searched to know well, even when/if the bell is rung here was no school: just a hall. I stood facing a jovial fellow with a few faces. He scratched his head, rolled his eyes and was laughing as my baggage hit the floor with a thud.
I say, "well! that feels better!"
"I'll bet" , he leans forward for the retort, wild eyes dancing with mine.
"You KNOW!" and now I'm laughing too. It's just silly, so silly, so here we go again on or own.
"I want to just let it go, but I feel like it's part of me & as such it has it's place to find here, too."
After brief consternation my companion concurs. "Makes sense; let's go."
We come upon lockers, but not ours. Who to trust when we joust in a way at this sport of kicking us apart, down, and ultimately out? Neither of us asks the other to find a locked place wholly safe cuz wholly owned. We just wander the hall til we happen upon another set of like-minds.
No, they don't know us. Too many costume changes to keep up the charade. We're invited to join them, so we do. A quick talking, soft spoken soul seems to comprehend the gravity of finding safe place for my weight.
Now, we're in a dark tower. Being asked to play games, assaulted with false prophecies as comedic as the plaster of paris foot's fall onto my shoulder. I was just in the way of progress at play as I head, for a bit of the way, down the stairs.
When I exit the stairwell in one piece it's getting dark outside. I turn to share elation with my friends, but one is running away down the hall and the other hiding his face as he shoves a thin jacket and unzipped (probably, maybe empty?) backpack that I don't recognize as mine, but I don't know now what to think, so anyway I clutch it close to my body. Seems there's a racket I need to be heard through as I ask the shadow figure, "where do I go?"
Whatever he explains shoves experiences into gaps I hadn't realized were there. We were underground and I was completely unaware. I recall seeing purple painted walls and thinking it looked new. I remember trying to make out the message emblazoned on it in white and only know it's time for celebration; the thundering ruckus swelled and I went along with the underground crowd. When I showed up we were maybe five, but as we ran joyously I felt closer to freedom than ever before.
Doors burst open and our number grew. Then there were no doors for any poor soul to get through. The school wasn't wasting away in decay; just changing to accomidate our mass of followers. The walls we dragged our finger on dissolved, then the perpendicular divides, so at times we came upon lines of people and in other instances there was students sitting at desks clamoring away from their respective classrooms even as they marvel at the fact that 1,000 thoughts they thought to have were lies to waste more time.
I've no doubt that any one or thing that stood in the way of a soul first sensing freedom was abolished. Eventually in my peripheral view of the reality parallel so many eyes flew open so fast and so wide huge portions of their personal obstacle course ceased to keep them from their goal. Enormous effigies tumbled, crumbled; also pushed effortlessly aside.
But that had happened already. Without ever consciously going thru a door I was now standing oustide. The building I'd just been in curved out of sight and into a thick blanket of darkness. If not for the light from the right I'd have not seen the subtle twinkling of stars past the curbside for what they were. The reasoning comes to me here/now though. There I just stood in one place clutching my jacket and backpack as I waited for the late bus.
Late bus?!?! Hold up! I know this friggin scene thru & thru and yet I still almost stepped off and tripped up.
A-l-l-l-l-l-most. And with that thought, I looked up.
Buses pulling out & away, but I'm not here for a chase. I probably look pissed as a wet cat; I've yet to blink.
The numbers on each passing bus go away while I'm anxiously awaiting for my number to be up next. Then the color slides out of the frame and at the same time burns up like a thick plastic over-lay: fumes sting my eyes. Either I'm crying or it's raining...well, I'm crying thus it's raining. Anyway, my vision is obscured more and more and as I stare down the line of ghost faced vehicles I can't tell where one begins and another ends.
Now I blink, shake my head, look back at the ground. While I've tasked my mind with following contextual clues I realize it doesn't matter whether "I'm sposed ta" get on the long bus or the short one.
When I look up again it's only left & there's no light, no bus, and somehow I know without asking that there's no goin back into the school.
And right here in the story is where I first realized I was dreaming. And lucid gets livid in a heartbeat I have a heart beating. Now I can retrace my steps into all the worlds that ever brought a bright idea my way, which only serves to irritate and infuriate me on the spot. Now, ho ho, ah, ha HA shit; I know here/now why I'm stuck fast to a memory of running at full speed for a West bus cursing not only the strength of the zipper on my backpack, but the very invention of the things as well...and while I'm at it gravity brings my anger to a head & I don't give a shit about the bus anymore...from full run to dead stop. Now! Now I understand why I was pissed as the pavement and I had got real close up. Pissed at myself for catching the fall that may have just meant I get to fuckin wake up. The person who asked if I was okay almost didn't. I always knew why that was; in some time line I'm runnin right alongside that attention was all it took for you to have crossed me and you can't split the second I decide to end you.
Anyway, back to the dream. (ah ha ha HA~I know it's a dream) I made the rules in this realm. Momentum, this time 'round, won't be bringing me down. So, first grade, Bon Jour, been here an done a thousand times, or more!, before. So, what was wrong with the reflection then? Oh, yeah, the buses exited left when they are "sposed ta go" right and that dream ends in running and running in endless night. Which clears up a LOT of dreamscapes you can slap across the canvas in a vain attempt to get the hood back on me. Ever had a dream where you suddenly know you're dreaming cuz ya can't turn on or off the light?
Seriously here/now! Back to the dream. All I know is that I saved myself a hell of a lot of trouble by hesitating. Standing in a dark drizzle a light in the school comes on and my friend comes back in the nick of time, keeps me from stepping off the curb at the same momentous occassion I realize the black is water. Here/now, I think ruts run deep and dark enough to trick you into jumping, feet first, into puddles. He has his bag over his head (or it that the same one balled up with the backpack?) When I question, reality seeks to please and it is the same bag, then it's the same jacket, so I have and don't have a few things to juggle as he takes my shoulder, then my hand.
He shares that he wanted to belong to the misfit kids and he has to stay and role-play now. "Role-play" bowls me over with knowing and I ache as a gondola type water craft looms out of the dark into on the spot lit torchlight's reach, toward me. My last friend in the world exits stage left.
Alone with just my mind nothing ever stands still. Stage props are just rocks for me to climb over on my way to the final gate.
I stop a bus as the stone turns to street and ask if it's mine; I don't know because the number peeled off like a disposable calender date. A lady tells me my bus is up ahead adn I don't question how she'd know who I am or where I'm going. I think I even tahnked her as I moved along the path, but I did look back and last I saw she was both a smiling skeletal goblin and a lady fat and black.
Supplied, after prying, with the street name, Pflumn, I asked the next bus I could trot up to, where was it going? This person lady thing's reply unraveled the realm beyond decent explanation. All I can really share with you is that I heard mumbling except for the word, "Pflumn" and thus chose that bus.
As it pulled out of the school's mostly empty lot I foudn myself sitting behind someone I don't know on a motocycle of sorts with a pole that either made holding onto the driver very inconveinant or staying atop the vehicle very conveinant. On and off I realized I was wet and had the option of putting on that very thin jacket that I just realized was still balled up next to the flopping open backpack, pressed against me sometimes tightly, other times so not I'd fret for a second about losing one or the other or both before realizing that I need neither.
Now/here I have been typing since I awoke at 4-ish this evening and it's nigh on 8pm now-ish. So, either I'm tired or the way that dreams fall away is in full effect int he soty. See, there's a freaky carnival geek with me in a box-car like set up with a window. He's operating levers and knobs and it's not just the 2 of us there. When the geek is distracted with, well money I spose, my new companion urges me to take hold of his small freakish baby arm. And when I do the skin rolls up a bit and I make a show of peelin it slow up the rest of the shaft to entertain my pal there. When it comes off the last finger and is free from the geek, we see that that bit of loose skin was all that kept him connected to the boxcar, my friend, and me.
Alone in a boxcar barreling down the track we turn to each other and laugh.
The boxcar becomes an almost normal 30's to 80's ish, I'd say here/now, living type room, decorated nice, and we're squeezed together on a couch opposite a high counter manned by a menacing clown. I'm quite sure he had all manner of accoutrements to be quite menacing, but the attention we paid him was pure interest. Then it got silly as he thought he'd be run down by an old old scrawny lady pedaling herself perhaps to death on a simple silver stationary bicycle just a few feet from his counter.
Well that scared ole fool did some such thing to set into motion a series of events that ended up flingin a tattered brown squirrel onto the left shoulder of that ole lady. We, my friend and I, upon witnessing this series of events were in audience.
But, as it turns out, not long for this world. We pointed at the sight we shared, our whole bodies shakin' with rioutous laughter. The both of us slappin and ticklin the other in betwixt belting out, "did you just SEE thatt?!" and "I DON't beieve it!!" never caring to wait for an answer we, each of us, both knew. Pausing barely to breathe our laughter quaked the house, the room all around includeing our seat us began quiver. And -CRA_C_CC_K- went the wall as the squireel looked left. You turned left then too, to look wide-eyed at that wall, so you didn't see the reason I fell silent too.
Nope. As it turns out I was the only one to see. That squirell aged, outgrew his bones til hunkered there, on the shoulder of the helpless old lady pedaling nowhere, sat a grinning grey devil if ever I saw one. Kinck-knack paddy whack, i got a handle if you got a hack. Smackin its lips it throws me into a tizzy with one sharp glance, but this dog don't need no bone & you're too clutched by fear to hold me, so I threw you the obvious. Knowin even as I made the transition to swap ur conscious mind for mine, you'd drop the ball and let the situation hit critical every blessed time. Naw, you were too busy screamin ur head off, too mad to take note of the fact that I still had mine. When we carreend, couch now on a metal track screechin and throwin sparks, about to thrown into another wall to end it all with a big bangin together of our brain matter...some part of me that knew better simply said, "what ever?"
To you I tried to convey "tuck and roll" as I took hold of the reel and prepped set to coast beside you, for awhile, in yet another role. All it took was quick thinking to get out of the frying pan but still be on fire. Fuse lit, we amount to little more than two shits hittin the fan, hands down boy, to the wire there's only one way I still know of to get out of this mad cow, dis-ease eatin', rat race trap box floating next to countless others within the parameters of an experience, limited and that's to twist the knob, tune into nothing to become all the media.
So, the last thing I saw in today's dream, under cover of real life white noise, was me and myself getting sucked into a black hole for fearing oblivion. My mindful eye just watched it happen again, has seen it BE FOUR...one, two, three, four, I declare and thumb war
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