The Price of Dreams

Posted over in the Pit last night a little one shot I’ve been fiddling with while I wait for the rest of Complications to come to me.

Here’s an excerpt:

Hope, hate, haunt—they jumble up in my head. Dim room, desk here, chair here. Reality solid and unyielding—no, unforgiving—beneath my feet. So many years, but forgiveness comes slower still. I’m confused, distorted.

On my desk is a dream.

One, two, three, ten, fifteen of them along the walls. These you can touch. You can walk up to them, confront them, breathe in the heady odor of paint and pastels. If you wanted you could smudge your fingers in them. Mine are coated with the dust of my dreams. In the right light, it even glitters.

There are books full of them, a stack on the floor nearby, a grotesque little face peering (leering) out where one page came loose from the rest. In my imagination it winks at me, sly and sketchy. There’s a couple of sketchbooks on the floor near the bed, last night’s dream still lying open where I dropped it, exposed. Glimpse of charcoal chiseled features, white chalk fluff of hair.

There are other dreams from other years, the first few doodled in notebooks. Etchings of memory, things you don’t want to forget. Later, they grew larger, scribed in pencil and ink and paint. Some sold, gone to those who collect such things. Some hang in other people’s homes, turpentine reminders that reality isn’t always far from fantasy. Some wait still in galleries, waiting, wishing.

Still, they are mine. My memory. My imagination. My nighttime wanderings in a labyrinthine landscape I will never quite escape. Some things are true: I doubt I will ever quite find my way out again. I don’t think I want to.

I leave the dream on the desk and turn away.

Read the rest here: The Price of Dreams
The story was inspired by artist Pika-la-Cynique, over on DeviantArt. She does some spectacular fan art based on Labyrinth, and had posted a challenge (long ago) for people to write fics based on some of them. I really loved this image, and eventually it spun itself a story: Here’s the Day

Looking at the drawing, I loved all the other little clues in it to Sarah’s personality. The eraser, the sketches taped to the wall, it all said “artist” to me. I’ll also admit to some strong inspiration pulled from ScatteredLogic’s story “The Enticement.” But I also loved how the painting was almost from Sarah’s POV. We don’t see her in the painting, only her reflection. (There’s a good bit woven into the story about reflections, and seeing things indirectly, too, if you want to take the time to hunt for them.) It was mostly that which inspired me to write it in the first person, present tense. Normally, I hate that sort of narration, but for this it really seemed to work. It gave it a dreamy kind of edge, and a sort of stream of consciousness feeling, like we’re experiencing it along with her. It also gives you a rather interesting glimpse into her mind, which is still full of fantasy. I’ll confess to reading some of Vladimir Nabokov’s work to get me in the right frame of mind, too. His imagery is really sensual, and the synethesia-like descriptions in this story were important to me. Poetic prose can be really difficult, but I’m please with this. Also: all the alliteration.

Got a question or comment about the story? Ask away, little Goblins.