When I woke up I stared at the gray pillow crushing my face, the gray blanket tangled in my hands and legs, my eyelashes, the amorphous frame of my nose, fighting each of these slowly solidifying masses in an attempt to hold the bitter tang of desire on my tongue. The dream. I was a Rembrandt, I was a Van Gogh, I was something beautiful and special.
…
I stopped the car before reaching the docks and set out on foot. The pier is a noisy place by day, but at night, all that remains are the peddlers of darkness.
The sky became solid, each star condensing into a radiant impasto globe. As I stepped on to the pier, the rocky, sparse terrain merged with the wood. Glossy ink extended from the rippling edge of the dock to the sky above, eliminating the horizon.
The pier turned abruptly to the right, and if I hadn’t been watching each oily stroke of a plank, I would have dropped into the dark. I could hear my breathing in the still, peaceful air, and watched translucent clouds rise before my eyes. It was not particularly cold, but it was enough to produce a redness in my cheeks.
The first stall was lit by a single yellow oil lamp hanging from a long wooden sign scratched beyond legibility. The rest of the stall built down from the indistinguishable sign, with navy blue posts framing it on either side, anchoring it to the dock. It stretched back, further back than possible, containing all sorts of shadowy memorabilia: a map, a compass, and all sorts of rusty old lanterns hanging about.
The man who ran the whole stand was resting in the middle of it, his back to me. He was fiddling with one of the objects, although what it was, I couldn’t make out. He had a peculiar floppy yellow cap and a starched, wild beard, which puffed out from his face like crystallized breath.
I wanted one of his lamps; he wanted to know which one. One with a dull patina on its handle, and a cylindrical light. He handed it over. I gave him some currency, tipped my hat, and continued on.
There was another person at the next stall, which was boarded up, but she was looking through it anyway. She was in the process of inspecting a book, though there was a large tank of water that appeared to be holding an octopus beside her. We chatted about nothing for a while. She then told me she needed to exchange a map she had purchased, so we returned to the first stall.
It was dimmer than before, a deep varnish diluting the gold. The man accepted her map and gave her another. After a smart nod, she walked away, her tall boots the last remaining image in the darkness.
After some thought, I returned the lantern. I didn’t have any use for it, after all.
…
After all. After all. After all that was all I could squeeze from my pen into the cheap Dollar Tree journal. Where was the beauty of it?
“It’s pretty,” Michael said delicately, passing the notebook back over the wood table. Coffee houses always have the cheapest tables and claim a bogus “industrial” aesthetic. Micheal clearly didn’t understand that the writing wasn’t pretty enough, that I wasn’t capturing the shimmering, iridescent, transcendent quality of the dream.
“Did you feel like you could see everything clearly?” I asked.
“Oh, sure,” he said. He was more interested in his cappuccino than me.
“That’s not what I want,” I tried to explain. “I don’t want anything to be clear. I want it to be misty, hard to remember. Like a dream.”
“Try again tonight, then,” he suggested.
…
Despite being eighty stories in the air, the bookshop only ever received a gentle nudge from the wind. The floor was constantly enveloped in a cloud, hiding the ground far below and sheltering the rooms in deep gray blankets.
There was nothing beyond the dark, swirling masses of a perpetual rainstorm outside. Occasionally, flashes of lightning would snap at the windows and rumbles of thunder would echo within the wood grain, but the building held firm.
The bookstore was only a small part of the eightieth or so floor, consisting of an average-sized room lined with shelves on all sides. The rest of the building was presumably a shopping complex, but it was difficult to tell, as the glass looking into the rest of the building was tinted and always reflected more than what it betrayed. Dim as it was, a few bar lights hung from the ceiling to warmly illuminate the place. An infinite number of corners guarding slouchy bean bags lurked about despite the floorplan appearing square.
The customers that came in often gravitated towards the shop because it seemed isolated and quiet, and the presence of the owner did nothing to change that impression. He was either discreetly reading behind the counter, or shelving something, all the time never making a sound. He seemed young, but it was difficult to tell his age because he vanished whenever one stared at him too long.
Upon the register rested a few mysterious curios, one of them being a human bust with a sleek raven’s head attached to it. Its eyes did not follow people: it remained stoic, settled. Occasionally the owner would move the raven head off the statue and return it to its large raven body, which was perched atop a shelf to the right. Despite these efforts, the head always ended up back on the human body.
There was a sole window in the entire place, directly behind the register from which no one ever bought anything. The window was circular with four panels, a glittering eye gazing into the storm outside. Wind screeched, rain beat, shelves shifted, but the window never moved. Sometimes the owner would stand in front of it and stare.
…
“Cozy,” Michael said. “A little bit of Poe with that raven. I think you’re trying too hard with the ephemerality.”
“It’s what I saw,” I said. He hadn’t given the notebook back and was absentmindedly running his nails over the words. “I don’t know how to describe it in less clunky language, man.”
“Do you seriously think you’re going to get anything workable out of this dream journal?” he asked bluntly.
“I’m in a rut. Okay? You know that. You know I’m struggling. These are the most imaginative parts of my life right now.” I was sick of the smell of coffee. Maybe I needed to see someplace new. My dingy, stale apartment. The coffee house. These were the two settings of my life right now.
Michael was reading my mind. All good editors can do that. “Go take a walk in the park, how ‘bout?”
…
It’s the tallest museum you’ve ever seen. Everything is made of fine marble. The exhibits that you aren’t standing in front of are shrouded in darkness, hiding the contents of the rectangular displays. Each display stands in front of a wall fifteen feet wide and as tall as the ceiling.
The one you stand in front of is a dinosaur. It stands on two legs and has a small head. Bright lights illuminate it from the ground, though the bones do not cast shadows. Decorative moss hangs behind the exhibit.
Someone stands next to you. A friend, or stranger? They observe the dinosaur as well. Are you seeing the same thing? You want to say something to them, to make an observation, but your fear that they don’t observe the dinosaur the same way stops you.
…
“Well. Is this it?”
“I couldn’t remember a lot.” A cluster of bees had gathered beneath me on the park bench and I wondered if any of them were going to sting my butt. “I was focusing on the theme.”
“The theme.” Michael was becoming more reluctant to return the notebook each time I gave it to him. As if keeping it out of my hands would make me give up this stupid project.
“You know, there’s two people, and they’re both looking at the same thing, but they’re seeing something different,” I said. “I went to—”
“Nope, I don’t want to know where you went,” Michael said abruptly, uncrossing his legs. “That would ruin it. Can you expand this?”
“I can try,” I said.
But I didn’t know how. I transferred the meager paragraphs from their physical tomb by retyping them, stared at my computer screen, got distracted, watched videos of candy-making and organization and video games for seven hours, realized what I’d done, cried, and went to bed at five in the morning.
…
The lodge is huge, its vaulted ceilings soaring high overhead like a cathedral. Everything is made out of warm wood and the reflection of fire gleams in every polished surface, like some ever-present inner glow. It must be snowing outside, though there are no windows.
An intersecting hallway connects two parallel corridors. At the end of the hallway is a large wooden door, at least ten feet tall. You peer inside and see that it is a bedroom, with a simple bed and nightstand lamp casting a yellow glow.
Down the parallel corridor, you discover a massive kitchen. Deer heads and tapestries hang from the walls, and a cooking cove extends like a courtyard into the right-hand side of the room. Stone ovens belch fire as people hurry around, preparing food. There is an island in the middle of the kitchen laden with meat. Someone you recognize takes a piece from the table, and you aren’t surprised to discover them here.
There is an adjacent corridor, and you follow it, turning right into a massive room that looks like a museum if museums looked like IKEA. Paintings the size of buildings occupy each display. One depicting a yellow and pink manatee arrests your attention. Suddenly a friend is by your side, pointing out small details in the picture.
Far away, an opening in the wall with a banner overhead marked ‘TRADE’ hints at an exotic-looking room, brimming with statues, glimmering gold, people passing back and forth purple cloths and talking with each other.
You glance at your friend. Perhaps you will go there after the gallery, or you will look at the manatee longer.
…
“I think you should go back and expand the story about the museum,” Michael said. “It has promise.”
“I can’t, Michael, I can’t,” I said. “I tried. I swear I did. I mean, this is basically the same thing. Pointing out the details. Right?”
“Please stop trying to justify this,” he said, holding up the flimsy, cheap notebook. “Look, I think it’s an interesting idea. I really do! But you need to put this on the back burner and focus on something that you can send out ASAP. I’m worried about you, man. Write genre if you have to. Just get something done, okay?”
I was sleep deprived and I cried into his blue waffle shirt. Because he had a point, but how was I supposed to explain to him what I wanted to do? How was I supposed to explain that I couldn’t distract myself, couldn’t make myself do anything else, when I had this monstrous manifesto of aesthetic purpose driving my life? He was taken aback by my emotional outburst and said that I should get some rest and take it easy.
…
It’s a lovely day and the amusement park is dismal. There are three rides and a tavern in the middle, all with an aura of gray about them. Everyone is having fun, though. It’s not crowded, but the rides are always full.
Everything is over concrete, except the entrance to the ride on the far right. There is a tree standing next to the entry arc, its branches spreading thickly overhead and providing cover. The ride itself has a central pole with bars supporting tires dangling from chains. People climb into the tires and are spun around, swinging higher and higher off the ground.
The tree is the only spot of shade in the entire place aside from the porch of the tavern. Glowing orange lights visible through the misty windows of the place align with raucous laughter coming from inside. Outside, it resembles a saloon.
There are two people standing in front of the entrance to the tavern. One is consoling the other. You’re leaning against the tree talking with a friend when you realize you recognize the person being consoled. You walk over to see what’s the matter.
Your friend offers them a fist bump, which they return lamely with a dark look. Clearly they are troubled. In an effort to cheer them up, you give them a genuine smile, and it feels so real and so bright that suddenly you’re wondering if all the other smiles you’ve made in your life have been fake because they are hollow to this one. They smile back.
…
I woke up with that smile on my face. The person I recognized was Michael.
I read and reread what I’d written over and over and over and traced my lips with the pads of my fingers, felt words bubbling out of them like ink, and realized the dark liquid on my fingers was blood from biting my tongue.
I rewrote it, reworked it, reshaped it, and by the end it was nothing like what it had been originally. But it still ended with that smile so genuine it made all the other ones in my life feel hollow. I titled it “Dreaming in Color” and sent it off to Michael, who was very pleased with it and said I should send it off as fast as I could because it was ready for publication.
I sat alone in my apartment, staring at the piece, and downed a bottle of wine. I didn’t like it any more. The smile at the end was a mean, biting smirk. I didn’t send it off. In fact, I deleted the whole thing. Then I went to bed and hoped to choke on my own vomit and die.
…
A clear day, and it’s off to the fair. The only clouds in the sky are thin strips of cirrus floating high in the atmosphere. The grass glitters like jewels recently bathed in morning dew. Winding along the smooth black road, tall development houses pass by on either side, intermittently spread out in their happy haven. The calm air sighs through the car windows.
You’re coming to pick him up. Or to visit him? The house has a large window in the back and you can see through it, directly into a clean, geometric living room. A rug with triangles rests below two couches, some armchairs, and a few floor lamps. Everything is gold and blue, the glimmer dulled by the reflections in the glass.
He’s sitting on one of the couches and spots you. You think he waves, but you can’t be sure. You park the car and enter through a side door into the living room. An additional overhead light in the shape of a giant, polygonal mass hovers above you. It is also gold.
You exchange a few words, or perhaps a few gestures, and then suddenly you’re off, already arrived. There are others you meet at the fair, perhaps siblings or friends, and you find them sticking to your company. This is somewhat irritating, as you didn’t want anyone else around, but you don’t know what to do about it.
Now you’re in a basement, looking through items for sale. They must be antiques, and there are many baskets. There’s something you think he might like and you pick it up with the intention of buying it before a sudden wonder hits you and you can’t move. Now you’re questioning your intentions and why you’re here in the first place. You turn around and he’s still there, back turned, oblivious. You can’t figure out what to do next. You don’t even know what you want.
You must be some sort of bellhop because you’re delivering breakfast to a rich and condescending-looking old woman in a tall, old hotel. Everything appears to be made out of wood, a polished dark brown that exudes the scent of nineteenth-century wealth. She’s staring at herself in a mirror when you arrive, so you politely alert her and leave the tray, exiting the room.
Then you head up to the roof and there are red curtains in the sky. Golden tassels swirl around a giant full moon, taking up the entirety of the black sky. And a fat crescent half of that moon is a gently smiling man. The man in the moon sleeps quietly on the morning stage.
He’s there too, staring at the moon. You can’t tell what he’s thinking and something draws you to him but
…
But what? I threw the pencil across the room, then I threw the notebook across the room, then I threw myself across the room and pounded my head against the wall and screamed. Melody knocked on my door and asked if everything was okay. “Yes, I’m fine!” I yelled, a little loudly. So I added, in a softer voice, “Sorry!”
I’m usually a good apartment neighbor because it’s just me quietly stewing in my house. I don’t have guests, I don’t play music, I don’t even have a dog. I don’t talk to my neighbors. The only reason I knew Melody was because she was next door to me and I’d see her bringing paper bags of organic food and big bundles of adult diapers into her apartment. She couldn’t have been older than thirty.
I looked around my room and thought about what she’d think if I opened the door for her. I found it perfectly satisfactory. The place was a hellish mess. My sheets were torn from the bed, rumpled and ragged. Drawers hung limp from my chest, clothes flopping out like drowning victims bidding one last leap for survival. I’d broken the blinds, somehow, and now they sat lopsided and useless. The overhead light was unlit. I was the perfect recluse, the perfect tortured writer. Too bad I wasn’t getting any fucking writing done.
I met with Michael at the park again. I purposely didn’t check my reflection before leaving and allowed myself to be surprised with him as he pointed out the red in my eyes, the bruise on my forehead, and the uncharacteristic shadow on my chin. “If this isn’t working out for you, we can find you another job,” he offered. “Start small. I think the coffee house is hiring.”
I wanted to explode that I would never work for the ugly industrialist, gentrified coffee shop. “I’m so close,” I said. “I’ve been working on the dream journal more. Just give it a chance.”
Michael looked so concerned for me it turned me on. “Did you send off ‘Dreaming in Color?’” he asked.
“I realized I didn’t like it,” I said. “It’s not what I wanted to say at all.”
“My God.” He took a deep breath and placed his face in his hand. “You’re steering yourself into disaster. You know that.”
“Please. Stick with me. I’m almost there.”
“A normal editor wouldn’t do this,” he said. “I’m not your life coach. But I’m really, really worried about you, man.”
It was all I wanted to hear. “I can feel that this is going to be big. All great art is made through pain. Trust me. Trust me and I’ll have it finished by next week.”
He looked truly sad. Miserable, even. “I don’t care when you have it done by. I just want to see you better.”
“I’ll be better when I’m done. Trust me.”
…
An azure coast with waves, rolling and frothing, rising high as three stories before sloshing down with hardly a fight. The sun shines in a crisp sky and the summer air is humid and gentle. It’s an excursion to somewhere, off into the giant waves that caress the islands, but where specifically is not quite clear.
The boat is almost full. Passengers stand idly, scattered about and observing the green palms or the magnificent waves. There are no seats on the great gray boat but the railings stand sturdy and firm.
It’s almost full. The sun lights the sky, making it difficult to look up. Yet I still do. I have reached the top of the ladder, the final metal rung under my hand. I am the last passenger to board and worry that there will not be space.
But you are there, extending a hand, your eyes a perfect match to the sky behind you. I smile and take your hand and together we climb aboard the boat.
…
I kept sleeping. More and more hours of my day became scheduled naps. Each time I woke up I’d write down what I remembered. But at some point I hit a wall. I wasn’t having the rich dreams anymore, the Rembrandt dreams, the Van Gogh dreams. I couldn’t even trace a theme anymore. All I dreamed about was Michael. I dreamed about him sailing a boat. I dreamed about him breaking my nose. I dreamed about him falling off of a crane and hitting me on the sidewalk. But most often I dreamed about him telling me how worried he was for me, how he wanted to see me better. And I’d wake up determined to get better, to throw away the whole project for him, but then I’d realize that if I did he wouldn’t care about me anymore and I couldn’t, I wouldn’t let him stop caring about me.
Michael called me on Friday and asked if I was interested in going to a housewarming party for another client of his. At first I said no, and was satisfied in imagining how concerned this made him. But imagining it wasn’t good enough, so I called back and meekly asked if I could come. This seemed like a good sign to him.
I arrived at the party drunk. I’m a polite drunk. I’m respectful and inobtrusive, and get more pliant the more I have to drink. I clung to Michael like a sloth to its mother. His other client was a woman about whom I gushed poetry regarding her hair, her makeup, her snakeskin bag that probably wasn’t Dior, and her decor, which was that ugly neutral shit. We all got wasted. I tripped and almost broke my elbow. Everyone laughed it off because I downplayed the pain, but Michael was concerned. So I got in a fight with someone, and they bloodied me a little, a regular Gatsby party. We were yelling and groping for each other through smoke and blurred vision, and I ended up with Michael on the couch.
“Your nose is broken,” he said, alarmed.
“I’ll say your name whenever I want to,” I muttered.
“What?”
“Michael,” I said, “Michael, aren’t you worried for me?”
“I think we’ve all had a bit too much.”
“Aren’t you worried for me?” I repeated. “I’m going to be hit by a car next!”
“What?”
I kissed him so hard my broken nose squished and squelched and leaked all over his face. He stood and called the party quits at that. Then he walked me to my apartment and I kept pointing at the cars and saying, “Michael, Michael, they’re going to hit me with your car!”
…
Peeling plaster curled from the walls like flayed skin. The room was empty aside from its stench.
It was on the top floor, above the giant bells that rang every Sunday. The popular myth was that the wind made them sway, but everyone knew that wasn’t true.
A single orange streetlamp glowed on the pavement below. It was visible through one of two windows in the room. One overlooked the street; the other, nothing but inky darkness. The latter had bars covering it.
Neither window was open. The air was stagnant, tasting of wasting sweat and yellowing paper. Nothing moved, but everything creaked.
Dust bunched in the corners on the floor. Mice might have hidden among it, or the squeaking may have come from the loose window panes. A draft appeared to be shifting everything slightly without any wind inside the room.
It was decorated, a little bit. A chandelier of infant heads on chain rope adorned the ceiling.
…
My dad called on Saturday. Five times. I had to call him back because I didn’t wake up until mid-afternoon.
“Hey.” My face swelled like it was infected.
“You’re alive!” He paused. “You okay over there? We haven’t heard from you in weeks.”
“Yeah. Yeah. I know.” I brushed my eyes and felt dried blood crumble off my face. “I’m fine. How are you?”
“I’m good. Your mother’s good. Everything’s been pretty quiet over here.”
“Same here.”
“The groundhog out back had babies. I’ll send you some pictures when I see them again.”
“That’s very cute.” I thought of baby groundhogs dangling from a chandelier and whimpered.
“You sure everything’s okay? You sound like you have a cold.”
“I’m just a little sick. That’s why I couldn’t answer earlier. Sorry.” I glanced around the room and realized I had no idea how I’d gotten there. “I’ll call you back sometime. Send me those groundhogs.”
“Okay. Love you.”
“Love you. Bye.”
“Bye.”
I hung up.
I’d forgotten about my parents. I definitely hadn’t thought about either of my siblings in over a month. They hadn’t texted and I hadn’t called. Hopefully they thought I was doing fine.
Sunlight crept nervously through the broken blinds. The room was a filthy, disconsolate disaster. I didn’t want to look at it so I tried closing them. The whole apparatus fell off the window and on my foot.
I found the dream journal helplessly caught in my covers and flipped through it. A bunch of useless words. The pages ripped at the inside corner when I flipped them. I tossed it on the floor and called Michael.
“You good?” he asked. The question brought me no pleasure. I wasn’t good. Could he come over? I couldn’t say why. I sat there for a whole minute while the blinking fuzz of the line was punctuated with “Hello? Are you still there?”
“Am I a writer?” I asked.
“I’m your editor,” he said. “Yes?”
“Okay.” I hung up.
…
The damp evening has led everyone to gather here. Some in the back soundlessly hold torches, hardly daring to raise them above their heads. The cobblestone under your feet is rain soaked, but doesn’t reflect the torches behind you. Instead, it glows with the reflection of streetlamps from far away, as if they were directly above.
You step forward. Before you sits a decomposing church, weathered with time and covered in streaks of grime and bioluminescent sludge just beginning to glow in the gathering darkness. The roof is indistinct in the haze of gathering fog sweeping the sky.
A dead patch of something bristles in front of the church. It appears to have been a garden, now a decayed tangle of dark leafy green and blackening vines cast in deep tenebrism. It’s impossible to tell what plants used to grow in the plot.
Did a fire travel through this place? When you tilt your head, the place appears gutted, and the overgrown patch burnt. Faint, charred remnants of something or someone litter the walkway to the church. When you tilt your head again, the image is gone, and it is as before.
You now step directly into the deadened patch. The vines tremble and curl away, allowing you to step unhindered into the black garden. There are no fruits or flowers, only curly stems and twisted, spiky thorns. Your thick boots protect against any that don’t move away fast enough.
Glancing down, you discover your hands are marred by sketchy chiaroscuro. So are your boots. All of you is the same color of gray, unlike the muted sepia tones that surround you, far away. All that exists in this garden is gray.
A bulging shape rising from the ground in the middle of the plot stops your progress. One vine snaps away, then another. Spikes and stems fall off, one by one, revealing first a wooden roof, then a door, then a window. A broken carriage slowly emerges from the thick undergrowth. The wheels are shattered, scattered around the patch. Rotting wood prevents you from making out the circular inscription on the door.
It’s definitely brown, with gilded edges, chipped and slashed. It is the only thing in the patch that holds any color.
You grasp the handle, and pull open the door. It is silent, without a creak. The inside of the carriage is stuffed with thorns, blocking all points of entry. There is no driver’s seat; it seems to have fallen off with the rest of the carriage.
Rustling from inside the carriage greets the heavy air. Quietly, without disturbing the vines that ensnare it, the corpse leans out. It is hideous, covered in sores, with no hair on its mottled skull. Something human lingers about the withered eyes that may or may not be there.
It does not poke his head out the door. Instead, it merely leans forward, so its face is in view. You bow, dropping so the tip of your hat brushes the loose, dry dirt below.
The corpse speaks. Its voice is so low, the wind stops to hear what it has to say. It is an ancient, whispery sound, with the demonic jaggedness that pervades all forms of custom on these nights.
“Don’t you wish to join me?”
A man in the crowd far behind you pulls a harmonica out of his vest and begins to play. Softly at first, then, as the others join in, swelling in magnitude. The melancholy sound of the chorus leads you to stand sentinel at the side of the carriage. A solitary figure is making its way toward the carriage.
The person climbs into the thorns, and the door closes. You make your way back to the green fields without looking back. Is there guilt in your breast? The sounds of harmonicas follow you for a distance, mixing with the groaning of the grave sinking into its burial place one last time.