Beyond the Walls of Sleep

[csyphrett]

I have talked to a friend, and I'm starting a Dreamstream/Dream Lands Campaign. This will be the archive thread.

CES

[csyphrett]

Re: Beyond the Walls of Sleep

 

1

Shiori Hasakura found herself walking on a stream of flowing water, smoke as her clothing as she moved. All around her she saw water circle into placid pools that seemed to form images. They radiated emotions to her, anger, fear, love, puzzlement, and one of relief.

 

All she could see in that pool was a bridge.

 

Intuitively, she reached out for the bridge, her delicate-looking fingers brushing against the surface of the water...

 

Shiori found herself walking on the bridge, staring at a sky made of blue brush strokes. Clouds of white streaked under the wooden structure, hiding the ground. A light like the sun shone in her eyes ahead. Someone walked on the planks, eclipsing some of the sun.

 

Deciding that politeness was best, Shiori bowed in greeting to the silhouetted walker and said, "Sumimasen. May I please ask who you are?"

 

"I don't remember dreaming you." The figure stepped out of the sun to reveal an elderly lady, clad in a bathrobe of golden fishes swimming in a blue sea. "I didn't paint portraits. Maybe you're somebody I remembered from the real world."

 

Shiori took a single, graceful and quiet step forward, deeming the old woman no threat to her. "I do not know, yet I *am* a real person, oba-san." She made another small bow. "Hasakura Shiori desu." Then she looked around at her general surroundings for a moment. "If I may ask, what is this place, oba-san?"

 

"This is my dream." A fish jumped from the robe before falling back down in the liquid cloth. "I don't have long. I can feel my time is drawing to a close and when you die in your dreams, you die in the real world."

 

She looked down sadly for a moment before replying, "Perhaps there is something I can help you with during what time you have left, Oba-san?"

 

"I'm afraid that's not possible, dear." The lady smiled. "I'm on my last legs. The doctor should be arriving any minute to watch over my last few minutes. He was such a nice boy."

 

She nodded sadly. Although it was an honor for her to keep such and old and wise person company during her last living moments, Shiori still felt that she could...and *should*...do more. "Then perhaps you would like me give me some message from you to impart to those in the waking world? Or perhaps there is some wisdom that you would like to share?"

 

"I have had a good run." The old woman looked up. "It's just my time."

 

The edges of the bridge began to crumble as Shiori watched. The pieces hovered close together as more and more of the wood started cracking apart.

 

Shiori's eyes widened just a little. What would happen at the point of the old woman's death, she wondered? "Anou...is it safe for me to remain here, Oba-san?", she asked with a little touch of fear.

 

"Remember if you die in your sleep, you die for real." The old lady smiled. "It was so nice to meet you."

 

She turned to walk toward the light at the end of the bridge, fading in color and shape.

 

"Sayonara, Oba-san...and thank you for inviting me," she said sadly to figure as it faded into to light that it was heading towards. Why was it that there never seemed to be enough time for the *important* things? If she had only met her sooner...

 

But now wasn't the time to think about such things! Worried about being drawn in herself. Shiori turned away from the light and tried to *will* herself back into the waking world.

 

Shiori woke up in her bed. Day had not come yet, but she did hear a rooster crow. She knew that some ran wild in the alleys somewhere beneath her apartment. They seemed to have escaped from some pet store and decided to become feral.

 

Her first impulse was to look at her alarm clock and then, after getting up to go to the bathroom, Shiori decided to turn on the TV for a little while. Still a little confused by her *very* vivid dream, she knew instinctively that she needed something to ground her again in the waking world.

 

Channel 14 flicked on with the weather on the ones. The meteorologist analyzed the coming high-low pattern for the coming week. Rain marked the map and seemed to be heading into town in the next few days.

[lemming]

Re: Beyond the Walls of Sleep

 

She had hair like Jeannie Shipton back in 1965

She had legs that never ended

I was halfway paralyzed.

She was tall and cool and pretty and she dressed as black as coal

If she asked me to I'd murder, I would gladly lose my soul.

Whoops. That's Behind, not beyond...

[csyphrett]

Re: Beyond the Walls of Sleep

 

As she watched TV, the martial arts instructor tried her best to mental sort through what she had just experienced in her inner world of dreams. That it was a real experience she had no doubt somehow, yet...what did it all *mean*?

 

"This just in." The newscaster looked directly out of the screen. "Famed artist, Elma Wyatt, has died at Mercy General at 4 am. Mrs. Wyatt suffered from cancer and died from complications. We'll keep you informed when developments occur."

 

"Interesting...", the oriental woman murmured as she watched the news report. Suddenly *very* curious, the martial arts instructor fired up her laptop instead and googled "Elma Wyatt artist".

 

Thousands of links popped up under her search. A few were from the local papers, some were critical pages, more than one seemed to go back to online art pages.

 

Somehow, Shiori wasn't surprised. She printed out the pic and the name and then tried to see if she could find an address.

 

A search for the address revealed that it was unlisted. The funeral would be held after a wake for the general public at the Mayweather Funeral Home at Tangle Oaks.

 

Shiori undertook her day, working and training students, doing errands. Several times she felt an odd connection as if reading daydreams from people around her.

 

While a part of her wanted to try and reach out with her mind and try to perceive something more, her Japanese reserved nature made her forbear. It would, or course, be quite discourteous for her to pry into the minds of others.

 

She finished in the midafternoon with plenty of time to attend the wake.

 

Shiori donned her funeral kimono carefully and solemnly, out of great respect for Oba-san. Finally, with her traditional mourning apparel just so, the sensei left for the wake, planning to get there a *bit* early, but not so early as to be rude.

 

Shiori found herself surrounded by numerous people who only seemed to be attending the funeral because the guest of honor was famous. She spotted the mayor, several councilmen, and several local celebrities among the news crews and crowd control. She had secured a place in the back of the chapel before others were turned away by ushers at the door.

 

Japanese through and through, Shiori politely sat and silently paid her respects to obasan. She also, with lessened attention, paid attention to what was happening in the rest of the room.

 

The service went well, many people giving speeches about the nature of art and the goodwill of painters, and the deceased Elma in particular. Some of the younger kids zoned out from the long minutes of hot air blowing. Shiori knew this from the bubbles appearing over their heads as they drooped in their seats.

 

Some of the adults had the same effect.

 

She stared at the unexpected phenomena in fascinated delight. Is *this* what her life is going to be like now...actually *seeing* dreams as an actual physical manifestation. Just to make sure that she wasn't going *crazy*, she reached her mind experimentally towards one of the little balloons, trying to pick up some more details. Thinking that it would be less rude to do so, she chose to try to eavesdrop on the (hopefully) innocent dreams of one of the children in the room.

 

Shiori found herself standing in a crowd of legs reaching into the sky. Rumbling like distant thunder wondered by overhead. She stood near a child sitting in an oversized seat, trying to see everything around him.

 

"Please excuse me, little boy," she asked with her usual politeness. "May I help you in some way?"

 

"I don't know." The little boy stood in the chair. "I feel so small."

 

"I don't know." The little boy stood in the chair. "I feel so small."

 

She gave him a gentle smile. "But this is *your* dream, isn't it? I bet if you wish *very* hard, you could make yourself bigger."

 

"I can make myself bigger." The little boy glared. "How do I make myself bigger?"

 

"Just think it *really* hard," she said patiently to him. "This is a dream, so it can be possible here."

 

The little boy grew into a giant but he was still smaller than the adults looming into the clouds above them.

[csyphrett]

Re: Beyond the Walls of Sleep

 

3

The dream faded around Shiori as something juggled the landscape. Pieces of things slowly passed into nothingness. The boy appeared to be listening to something.

 

He must be waking out of his daydream.

 

She slipped out of his dissolving dream quietly and let her mind wander for a bit, looking for something or someone interesting to zero in on.

 

Shiori spotted several members of the local artist scene talking in the corner. That seemed interesting since none of them seemed to have spoken to the family yet.

 

Discreetly, Shiori got up and sat down close enough to them to (maybe) overhear some of their conversation, but in such a way that she would not be facing them as they spoke. She inwardly regretted resorting to such "stealth rudeness", but the group's behavior was, in her opinion, discourteous and unusual enough to warrant such a thing.

 

The guests were arguing over the dead woman's influence on the scene. One was vehemently glad that she had died.

 

The guests were arguing over the dead woman's influence on the scene. One was vehemently glad that she had died.

 

"Yurusanai...", Shiori murmured ominously under her breath. Such blatant discourtesy, from a Japanese person's point of view, was *indeed* unforgivable. She actually had to restrain herself from *hitting* the person as she walked up to him and said in a deceptively calm-sounding voice, "Perhaps you would consider *rephrasing* what you just said." Her eyes, cold and hard, betrayed just how angry she felt, as did her slowly balling fists. "Being rude to the dead is...*most* distasteful and I would suggest that you leave. *RIGHT* now."

 

"Don't tell me you're some kind of fan of this dream painting phony baloney." The guest made a dismissive wave. "Alma was soaking customers with the equivalent of tracing on Photoshop. There's no way she painted anything original. She could only copy others."

 

Her voice grew loud with anger. "I knew her as a *PERSON*, not an artist! Why did you even bother to *come* here if you're only going to INSULT her memory!" Shiori was on the verge of striking the man...an action they'd probably *both* regret. He had one last chance to avoid something violent as she shouted, "Get out of here BEFORE I *THROW* YOU OUT!"

 

"Whatever." He gave Shiori a dismissive wave. "Fans."

 

He started for the door. He whistled something cheerful and light.

 

"Baka...", she growled very quietly under her breath as the unforgivably rude man turned to go. She made it a *point* to watch him until he completely left the funeral parlor.

 

"That's Frank Fretta." One of the bystanders told her. He shook his head. "He was always jealous of Elma. Her dream pictures won her fame because of their realistic surreality."

 

Shiori watched his retreating back with a frown for another moment before asking in as polite of a tone of voice as she could manage given the circumstances, "So what was this Mr. Fretta's work like, if

you don't mind my asking?"

 

"He's an expressionist. All of his paintings are made of other things." He scratched his head for the correct term. "Like collages."

 

Shiori tried to soften her angry tone a little. It just wasn't like her to let herself get this upset. "Well, that's hardly an *unacceptable* art form, I suppose. Why do you think he would be so disrespectful to the dead, however?"

 

"Elma did so much better with her dream paintings." The bystander shrugged. "He never got over it."

 

Shiori looked towards the doorway through which the rude man had recently exited with a sigh. "That's actually a shame. He would have been much better off trying to *learn* from her instead of setting himself against her. Are there many people who feel that way about her work?"

 

"I don't think so." He looked around. "Art is something you do for yourself. Competition is for beginners."

 

Shiori smiled at that. "I am pleased that you feel that way. I have always believed that art should be a truly *subjective* thing, to be judged only in how a certain piece relates to one's self."

 

"That's what makes it art, and not science." The man smiled. "I have to be going. I suppose I will see you at the funeral."