The rocket must have been the length of a football field. It took off for the stars with such force that I could do little but keep my head pressed against the hull and hold on tight. The thrust was intense. It was dangerous, this thing I was doing, riding on the outside of a rocket. I grasped for dear life onto a thin, metal semicircular handle, and I peeked under my armpit.
The guy below me held on to our rocket as though it were a mechanical bull. He was exhilarated. “This is great,” he said. Nodding but not agreeing in the slightest, I looked up the mile-long tube we were traveling through, much like the launch bay the vipers used in Battlestar Galactica, except vertical. I could see the white light of day at the end of the tunnel.
The guy laughed. “I hear we’re going all the way up.”
There were others on this ride, all of them fearfully gripping the superstructure as the rocket put distance between us and the ground. Way down there, I could just see a subsatellite connected by steel cords to the butt of the vessel. There were many “cars,” actually, along this line. Altogether, we made something of a train, the rocket being the engine. The boxcars of this train were, in fact, white-picket-fenced houses. Real Leave it to Beaver-like, man.
The higher the rocket got, the more the subsatellite followed. I could see it included an entire neighborhood street. The houses waited in layers of Astroturf, a banner about to fly. The rocket flew. The houses raised one by one from the folds, a coil of rope unraveling into the sky. Before long, the last house left the ground, and we were a string of residences flying higher and higher. I was the stem.
The rocket ran out of steam.
Now several of us were standing in one of the houses, no longer linked to the rocket. The rocket had dumped its cargo at 30,000 feet. I assumed that everyone who'd come on this journey had found houses to stand in. Everything inside my house of choice looked normal. Just another lazy afternoon at home. I might have taken a seat in front of the TV if an unexpected weightlessness hadn’t nipped at my belly. The house wobbled slightly, and suddenly all of us were falling, the whole neighborhood, on a string.
I felt queasy-sick. The guy who’d ridden beneath me on the rocket seemed to be having the time of his life before horrible, crashing death. Archie Bunker of All in the Family fame had accompanied us here. But he sided with me. This wasn’t a fun ride. “Oh jeez,” he said. He started complaining. I got the impression this was just another injustice to him. He certainly wasn’t screaming bloody murder. Neither was I…not on the outside, anyway.
Seconds…minutes?…remained in this life of Jeffrey Frederick Haines, Unfulfilled Person. I knew Karie, my girlfriend, was sitting in the other room on the couch. I thought how much I’d always wanted to kiss her, as if I’d never kissed her before. But that voice appeared in my head. It said, “No. That would be cheating.” I certainly didn’t want to spend these last precious seconds cheating on my girlfriend with my girlfriend. (Go figure.) So I chose not to step past Archie Bunker’s sour moue and through the swinging door, painted wan-yellow. I didn’t have time to do much of anything before The End.
I began thinking up ways I could die in the least painful way. If I remained standing, I’d get a horrible, cracking ankle-burn when the house hit Earth. Many times while growing up, I'd jumped off too-tall fences. That brand of pain is yucky. It spreads into your kneecaps. No way did I want that kind of pain as my final sensation.
Though it was hard to balance with the house in a state of free-fall, I bent at the knees and found the floor. I nestled my ear into the carpet. Hopefully, I'd get K.O.'d in the first round. But even this ploy wasn’t perfect. I imagined the pain of impact so close to my noggin and recalled the jolt and sting of a snowball striking the side of my face. Another childhood memory. And I remembered once being blindsided by a bully who thought I deserved a good beating. That kind of pain is startling. I didn’t want to be startled before I died. I’d rather have simply gone to sleep and never woke up. But the terror made nodding off difficult. You understand.
How many seconds did I have before I ceased living? Let me count the ways. Five sheep, four sheep, three sheep, two sheep, one sheep…
I woke up with a gasp! I sat frozen, the blanket in my arms. What a lame way to end a story: it was all a dream.
But I was so relieved that it was all a dream, I tell you! I felt jittery there, sitting up in bed blinking. I still couldn’t believe it. I was alive.
I have lots of dreams like this. And upon waking, I get the urge to write each one down, as I’m doing now. Dreams never seem as glamorous after I’ve reduced them to words and grammar, but there is something settling about the process. It’s both a comfort and a sadness, sadness because I’ve lost the essence of the dream by committing it to reality. I've just brought this particular dream down to Earth, wouldn't you say? I feel better now.
I mention all of this because dreams are a great way to jumpstart your fingers. Although this has nothing to do with LABN, I’ve not until this moment thought about that fictitious thing Writer’s Block. That's worth something. Dreaming got me writing again.
See?
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Writer's Block Solution 4: Wake and Relate
So, you know, if you want...don't do it for me...you can write your dreams in this thread. Dreams are wonderful things, although sometimes disturbing. They can also give you story ideas. (I'm thinking of Taylor Hanson as we speak.) I suggest, if you don't do it her, writing your dreams down somewhere as soon as you wake up. If you don't--trust me!--you will forget.
Waking, but not Relating
Well, you wanted dreams - here's a nice odd one for you. I mentioned it in the other thread, so figured I may as well tell it before someone accuses me of making it up.
Nice and odd. It's open for debate whether at was at my Grandmother's house or a classroom, as the bathroom in her house had been replaced with a full-sized classroom. There was some course being taught there, likely having something to do with Logic. There's one of my old Profs who I had TA'ed for, and he's just assigned this god-awful probability problem to us.
Then the fire alarm goes off. Everyone starts to evacuate into the classroom hall, and out the door. Except me and my prof. He was still standing there, and asked if I was leaving. At which point I replied, "Nah, I've had enough experiences with fire alarms in this building to know it's a false alarm."
He goes off and vanishes down the hall. The moment I step through the door, it becomes Grandma's house + classroom. Fire alarm stops, and then I'm sitting down doing the problem - which did involve some obscure application of Bayes' Theorum and lots of number crunching - then I look back outside. There's the classroom. My prof and the department chair are there; my prof is chatting with grandma about something, and the department chair is trying to find out where HIS students evacuated to.
Last thing before I wake up is chatting with my prof again. I mentioned something to him about this stuff being depressing, and trying to work through it. At which point he said okay, and vanished into the classroom (which, by the way, has still shifted from the school to grandma's house). He starts picking up his stuff, I finish the problem and hand it in.
Then tell grandma I'm not hungry before waking up.
Writer's Block Solution 4: Wake and Relate
Weird, dreamy events. I'm curious about how you were feeling during the dream. You mentioned the word "depressing." Is that how you felt throughout the dream, depressed?
I think emotions in dreams are more telltale than the events themselves. They tell you what you want, what you really-really want. :lol:
Writer's Block Solution 4: Wake and Relate
I have multiple LABN dreams.
I remember one with Lou where we were at summer camp and she was organizing a coup against the camp counselors.
I remember one with Greg, Dave, Heather, and Amanda. We were being stalked by the Wendigo. Creepy.
I had another one recently, but I didn't write it down, so I forgot. I think Heather was in it in the form of Tash. :roll:
Writer's Block Solution 4: Wake and Relate
I only remember having one LABN dream, it was pretty early on and I remember Tash was there, and Jade and Victor as well as Kate who was me (of course)
I don't remember exactly what happened only that we were all making a film called (yes you guessed it) L.A By Night. The only thing I can recall right now was that Tash's motorbike featured heavily in it.
Writer's Block Solution 4: Wake and Relate
I have also had an LABN dream that involved an evil from the game kidnapping Heather and I (the real us) and our characters having to rescue us.
Writer's Block Solution 4: Wake and Relate
Okay I had this dream last night and it officially weirded me out. And since I freaked Adam out by telling him I thought I'd do the same for the rest of you...
The gist of the dream was me giving birth in a hospital. As you can imagine I was in an excrusiating amount of pain and I was all alone apart from the doctor/midwife man who was attending to things of a southern direction.
So I kept pushing and pushing and nothing was happening except I was in so much pain I wanted to cry. So the doctor pops his head up and says that everyone is using frogs to aleviate the pain in child birth because they swim around in the womb and help the baby to come out.
So the doctor takes these small, slimy frogs out of a jar and begins to put them inside of me :? :? :? And the feeling of them is really vivid and a little disturbing. I start crying as the doctor keeps putting these frogs inside of me, partly because it hurts and partly because it feels wrong and I can feel the frogs moving around inside of me.
Then the doctor leaves me alone and I'm waiting for my husband to come in and wait with me. Then I realise that I'm totally naked just laying on this bed all trussed up to give birth and I'm really cold. So I pull this blanket up over me - then I feel a little better, even though I can still feel these frogs swimming around inside.
Then I start to think "it's okay because the frogs are amphibians and they can swim underwater, but what if my baby comes out and it's half frog?" Then this man comes into the room and holds my hand and I'm still crying.
Then I wake up. Tell me doctor Freud, what does this mean?? :? :? :?
Writer's Block Solution 4: Wake and Relate
I don't find that strange. It's just a dream. I do find it strange that you remembered it, since you've stated that you don't remember your dreams. if you keep writing your dreams down, you'll remember more. Keep it up, Frog-girl.
Writer's Block Solution 4: Wake and Relate
Thank you Sensai :D
Ribbit
Writer's Block Solution 4: Wake and Relate
I did have a LABN drenm one time, but it was back when I played Ebony and I think I only dreamed it because I was SOOOO pissed off with Nick at the time that anger and LABN were all that were going round my head. I had a really cool dream this morening/afternoon (couldn't wake up after nu yarr partaying.) but now I can't remember it. I used to do dream recollection. It can be very interesting and very disurbing also. TRY IT!
Writer's Block Solution 4: Wake and Relate
Learn the science Dream Recall -
http://www.spellsandmagic.com/dreams.html
Writer's Block Solution 4: Wake and Relate
is that puzuzu's site? looking... yes it is! tht was the site I was using to dream recall.... well if that just don't put the dink in co-inkydink!
Writer's Block Solution 4: Wake and Relate
Synchronicities are everwhere, if you look hard enough. :)
Writer's Block Solution 4: Wake and Relate
I've used Puzuzu's spell site for quite a while now, it's pretty good for picking up bits of spells and stuff (that I use in LABN) occassionally I find a gem there, but not often, it's more fun than serious hard core magic. And turn the volume down, that music is the worst!! :D
Blessed Be :D