Last night I dreamed about blogging. I dreamed that I had plenty to say, no difficulty saying it, and time enough to post it.
I dreamed I had some thoughts that were so compelling I had to stop what I was doing and post them.
If only I could recall what they were.
Dim torpedo shapes glide
at the murky edges of perception
in ceaseless motion, seeking
food and oxygen
to fuel the cold fires of flesh
their mouths bristle
with triple-pointed teeth they shed
lightly as the night sky drops stars
into the ocean
Tonight I want to be the shark
drawn by vibrations of ideas in the darker deep
nostrils filled with their essence, I rend form
and structure, brilliant words
tumble from my mouth easily
as shark teeth
as stars
grace the sand
A child stands in a room on the ground floor of a grand old house. The room is wood-paneled, with high ceilings, a fireplace, and cases full of books built into the walls. It is furnished with wing-backed chairs in reddish-brown leather and small tables with reading lamps. Over the fireplace hangs a large copy of the painting “The Spirit of ’76.”
In the rooms overhead, the child hears heavy footsteps. She looks at the ceiling fearfully; those are the footfalls of her grandfather, who has been transformed into a monster. She is hiding from him here in the study. The room is still except for the movements of the monster and the quiet crackling of the fire.
Somewhere in the room a frog begins to croak, something between the high trill of a spring peeper and the deep boom of a bullfrog. The child is loathe to move for fear of making some noise that might attract the monster, but she is curious about the frog. She listens carefully; the sound seems to be coming from the area near the fireplace. She creeps toward that part of the room with painful caution, pausing frequently to listen for the monster, which can still be heard roaming upstairs.
The croaking sound is clearly coming from the immediate vicinity of the fireplace, not from the bookshelves on either side. But the hearth is wide and clear, offering no place for the frog to hide. The child ventures into the open area before the fireplace, trying to make sense of what her senses are telling her. She stares at the licking flames and glowing coals, feels their heat scorch her face. In a flash of horror she realizes that the croaking sound is coming from within the firebox.
Overwhelmed by the enormity of this paradox, she shifts uneasily, unconsciously. The ancient wood floor creaks loudly. She freezes, eyes and ears on the ceiling. The monster has also stopped. After a long moment it begins moving deliberately in the direction of the staircase. It has heard her.
A woman notices an enormous spider in the house. It is easily as large as her hand, though it has a body type unusual for such a large spider: huge abdomen, small cephalothorax, and long, delicate legs. Its racquetball-sized abdomen is a ghostly grey, the color of certain dusty-hued pearls. Its legs and cephalothorax are dark, either black or brown.
The woman’s children, who have been taught from infancy to admire and respect spiders, are careful of the creature and not in any way afraid of it. There are other people in the house, however, and she is concerned for the spider’s safety. She decides to find it and remove it to the relative security of outdoors.
She searches carefully through the house, finally spies the spider slipping through a door that has been left ajar. She follows and finds a densely foliated shrub with large leaves. On further investigation, she is amazed to discover that the shrub houses a whole colony of enormous spiders of a different type from the one that led her there.
These spiders are built like tarantulas, with short, thick legs and abdomens in proportion to the rest of their bodies. Unlike tarantulas, however, they are not covered with fine hairs but are smooth with small raised bumps like the exterior of a starfish or a cucumber. Each spider is a single, vivid shade of green, orange, pink, yellow, or red. They remind the woman of huge tropical flowers as they crawl about the shrub. Filled with wonder and delight, she calls her children to come see what she has found.
A woman sits in a throne room, on cushions to one side of the throne with the rest of the king’s harem. Like the others, she is wearing beautiful clothing made of costly and exquisite fabrics. Unlike the others, she has concealed on her person a small but deadly weapon. She is a trained assassin, placed in the harem as part of a plot to kill the king. She is the failsafe, the guarantee that the plot will succeed.
She is in place on this day, as on so many days before, wholly unsuspected. A delegation of merchants from a certain city is announced, and she knows that today is the day. The members of the delegation are also assassins; she is to kill the king if their plan does not succeed.
She was raised to think the king a cruel tyrant, but her time in the harem has shown her that he is a just ruler and a wise man. Although her entire life has been dedicated to the fulfillment of this mission, she finds herself questioning the righteousness of her cause. A squabble breaks out among the merchants as they approach the throne. All eyes are drawn to the growing commotion; the moment is at hand. She leaps for the throne, weapon in hand.
“It’s a plot to kill the king!” she cries, assuming a defensive stance between the king and the would-be assassins. Once the guards have neutralized the threat, she turns, drops to one knee, and lays her weapon at the king’s feet. “I know because I was part of it,” she adds with bowed head. She did not expect to survive this day in any case. It is enough to know she has acted with integrity.
Instead of ordering her to be executed, the king asks her to be his personal bodyguard. Amazed and overjoyed, she agrees. She realizes that she has truly found her life’s purpose.
A woman stands, poised to run, several strong cords secured about her waist. They trail behind her, each terminating in a stout bar that serves as a handhold for those who will accompany her. In a few moments she will run full tilt toward a large screen and dive headlong into it. In doing so she will plunge into Hell, pulling with her anyone brave or foolish enough to take up the tow ropes. This is not her first foray into Hell; she goes again and again to battle demons. She doesn’t know why the others go with her, only that this peculiar ability is her lot, her gift and burden.
The Daily Compost 