Parties and Dreamscapes

I snapped out of my trance in time to notice that each and every member of the new household had adjourned, and ventured into the dining room. This is where a spread was laid out for a party. I heard, it seemed, one of them-- though I could not tell who it was through the muffling of the walls, remarking that it seemed like I was entranced by the dollhouse. That I enjoyed it very much. Isn’t is strange, I thought right then, that a person can know people so well, and yet if they are in another room and their sound waves come echoing around and through walls, they seem so distant, and so much unlike the very same people. The words that I heard spoken, as I stood up slowly, and gathered myself-- almost unable to turn my head away from the dollhouse-- seemed not like words but more like mere syllables dropping from those oh so distant mouths. Just sound without word: the mere mirror of meaning.

I made my way into the dining room and found it stocked with all the finest liquors, a stack of pizzas, and various candies. I must confess that though I had reached many years past my age of majority, I still feasted much more like a twelve year old child than perhaps was advisable. For as long as I could remember, especially after repeated viewings of the film (always skipping past the boring parts at the beginning), I had wanted very much to be Willy Wonka. That desire, I supposed, had not died at the time I moved into that mansion.

Roman picked up a bottle of Coca-Cola, and poured a Whiskey-Coke for himself, then began to pour the same for the rest of us. All except for Robert, who claimed that he did not drink, but had been known in the city to sneak off every fortnight or so and avail himself of spirits at some bar or another. Usually he hooked up with girls at this time, though it must be said that almost all of them had the strange, down to earth, almost tomboyish quality of Miss Gilda. One time, though I barely dare relate it here, I was called to retrieve him from a dominatrix’s clutches, where he had been tricked into a rather compromising condition. I must say that some of what I saw within that rather small basement excited me, but my image as a toymaker prevented me, at that time, from pursuing any of the things that so drew my attention.

“We must have a toast to the house and to the birthday,” Robert said, as Roman finished pouring the drinks. “I’ll toast with water, as I do not drink, but let us all congratulate our benefactor for making yet another trip around the sun.”

“Here, here,” said all present. Both my wife and my mistress kissed me, each on the cheek. Then, I pulled Florez into a kiss. This should have been passionate, but somehow it seemed more wooden, more calculated, more by the numbers than it ever had before.

“You’re not a doll,” I said, “liven up!” But this was mostly ignored, and our party went on, as we drank and drank until far after the next day’s sun up. It must have been two days total of non-stop drinking, feasting, and barely exploring that new house. It was only at dawn of the third day, when we became suddenly, it seemed, cognizant. We seemed to all at once realized the lucidity of our situation as we found ourselves all sitting on the roof, having found some large ladder and climbed to the top, watching as the sun slowly painted the sky various red and orange colours, displacing all the blues and purples that touch the end of night.

“This house is so special,” I thought I said. But it turned out, when I turned to hear the source of the sound, expecting to see my own mouth somehow moving, as if I had suddenly removed myself from my body to view my experience, that Miss Gilda was indeed the one speaking.

“So special,” Miss Gilda continued, “it seems like Tara, something from the movies.”

“I hate that movie,” said Florez.

“I have to agree,” I added. “Something makes me so mad when I see it-- it’s like the story could be good, but-- but--”

“But it’s two movies in one, and should have better ended with Scarlett shaking her fist up at the sky.”

“I’ve always thought so too,” Roman broke in.

“Yeah,” said Robert, “but you usually just agree with everything he says. He pointed to me. “Don’t you ever think for yourself?”

“I just didn’t like the movie, is all,” said Roman, pouting a little.

“Well, I think you’re all wrong,” said Miss Gilda. “But what I meant was there is something about this how. It already feels old, but it also feels like a place. A place that needs a name.”

On this point, we all did agree. And, in our still-**** state, we set down from the rooftop to investigate. Robert, I think, had postulated that a place like our new lodgings must necessarily have already had a name-- possibly scratched into the foundation somewhere. But, though we took over an hour in our search, we found nothing in the house to indicate any previous naming. That’s when I remembered the small grove, the one that seemed to allow a person to disappear. I set off from the others and made my way between that large circle of trees.

It seemed permanently night, that time, as I stepped between the trees. I found it very dark, and almost could not feel my way to the bench that I remember from my previous exploration of the house and grounds. Still ****, I curled up on the bench, only meaning to pass a few moments in a very light nap before continuing the search for something to give the place it’s name. But I fell into a deeper sleep than usual for someone in such an **** soaked state.

This is where the strangeness began to become know to me, for I had the first, and perhaps most prophetic of dreams. It began with a simple flame-- not even a flame, but the ember of a long burnt out fire. In that fire, I saw, or thought I saw, a reflection of myself. I was both myself and some child dressed in the guise of a devil, maybe for trick or treating. But I-- that is the devil version of myself-- split into more beings, down a long fractal line, until my whole vision was full of my own reflection. It seemed to me me like I was looking into a large autostereogram. I squinted my eyes, it seemed, and suddenly, a raven flew out from the image, swooped across the sea which was at once too large for anyone to ever cross it and somehow seemed miniature, and landed right before an open grave.

As I looked into the grave, my perspective shifted. I was looking out from inside the grave and knew not who I was. But I saw the body that I recognized as myself shoveling dirt into the grave. I seemed to be crying, but I could not tell. Were these the real tears of a mourner? SOmething within me told me they were not: they were tears of relief, tears of joy that some long dark night had passed once again into the realm of light. As the last bit of dirt fell upon my disembodied face, I tried to claw up into the world once more. I struggled desperately as all life passed away from me and all was blackness and dark and then-- only the nothing of abyss that occurs between waking and sleep.

I woke up to find a bird staring at me. As if life had become some dark drama, the bird was no simple crow. This was a raven, with eyes beady and staring like the very abyss from which I had reclaimed my consciousness. I thought I heard it say my name, but when I dared to ask it to say any more, it simply flew away.

A few scant lines from Poe ran through my head, then. It was all I could do stop myself from singing out:

“But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door —

Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door —

Perched, and sat, and nothing more”.

And so, with a strange dream in my mind, and an old poem on my lips, I ran to find the others. This is where I discovered that I had been gone in that grove so long that my housemates had even called the police to begin a search. Normally, of course, the police would not have begun that search until later, but my importance as an industrialist of some note did require action. The new factory I planned to build in the nearest town would employ so many locals that overnight I had become an important resource for the local economy. Thus, when my friends feared I was missing, the police dispatched almost immediately.