All Saints Eve is just shy of a couple weeks away, and aside from working "Monster Mash" and "Werewolves of London" into my guitar repertoire, I came up with a new short story that seems to go with the season.
I woke up in the middle of last night from a bad dream -- having thrashed about and punched enough to knock the lamp over on my beside table.
This is, more or less, the nightmare I had:
(deleted)
SPOILERS BELOW:
ReplyDeleteBrad said...
Okay, I figured out that the narrator wasn't human a few paragraphs into the story. Ess-gee is soylent green. Then, I knew what was in the tanks were human... but I haven't figured out what watches or cough drops have to do with it.
Lay off the anchovy pizza and piss water beer before bed and you won't have these nightmares.
That is a weird story. I have nothing further to offer ....
ReplyDeleteThe capcha, swear to God, is "alien," in swirly red letters....
Indeed, it may be one of the weirdest pieces I've ever done. What you get when you try and transcribe a nightmare ...
ReplyDeleteReminds me of a story I read in _Boy's Life_ magazine, about a young man who is kidnapped by invaders who come to his land in a strange ship --- he eventually is taken back to his land where he sees the invaders return and ponders the possibility of stealing their strange weapons and trying to fight them off, then resigns himself to going down to meet them.
ReplyDeleteWilliam
In the dream, were you the human or the hunter?
ReplyDeleteJ
Oh, in the dream, I was one of the hunters. Probably the one who got killed, only I woke up as the monster busted out, so I dunno for sure.
ReplyDeleteThat was good, How retarded am I that I didn't figure out what "Ess Gee" meant? I spent the last week resisting asking you, because I wanted to figure it out myself. I didn't, had to come to your comments section. I DID know that Elgin and Benrus were watches, so the others weren't hard to figure out.
ReplyDeleteThe ess-gee was a throwaway joke, and the only clue to it was that the cereal was blackish-green. Or greenish-black, I forget.
ReplyDeleteThe story was so-so, but I wanted to make use of the nightmare and doing so kept me from having to work on the book. The tomato-surprise ending is a cliche, but you speak to a passing parade and there are maybe some folks who haven't seen it fifty times.
I think I might have used a dream for a story basis once before, but it was long ago and far away and I can't remember which piece it was.
Almost nothing I write comes from dreams, otherwise all I'd write would be Asian cheerleader porn.
ReplyDeleteMostly I'm just walking along & I see something that annoys me or is at least passing a bit strange, and I think "Wouldn't it be funny if...?"
It usually goes from there. "The ribbon at the top of the clock" started that way, my next door neighbor's kid was actually setting his G.I. Joes on fire in the driveway. I was halfway imagining them screaming & begging him for mercy, & then for some reason, I imagined the whole house turning on him and punishing him for it when he came in.
45 minutes later, I had it committed to paper.