Thread: Into the Dream World (Language)

This is a piece I wrote awhile ago; mainly as my retaliation towards being rejected by the University of Edinburgh. It is prequel part to a 5 part story I done called the "The Tale of Hennepin", however it doesn't particularly need the rest of it to particularly make sense. There is one lurid description, so I'm sorry if it offends anyone, but I hope this doesn't seem too obscure at least.

Prequel to Part I - Into the Dream World

The world was tearing itself apart; as was I, tearing myself apart. The blue and green fascists on the top layer have had enough with it. The brown murky communists hadn’t a clue what to do; which left me: the white cloud swirling over top in a repetitive swirl, that seemed almost like some form of hilarious image of my life – a constant swirling loop. I’m pessimistic, I always am. I rain on the blue and green fascists and they become enraged. The brown murky communists still don’t have a clue what to do: I feel like a king. I’m a king of this material world, way high up on the throne of heaven. When I decide to be like an almighty God, I strike the brown murky communists with lightning, and they retaliate with a red swirl of lava particles in the shapes of Che’s and Stalin’s; which in turn fall like feathers gracefully over the blue and green fascists; almost innocently; until they become inflamed by a horrible colour of pain, and a newly distorted feeling of fear. They start firing missiles all over the place at the Red, White and Blue. Then, in my devilish manner, I leave them to form anarchy and chaos in the world. I float higher, higher, higher... until I become lost in space; stars swift by, planets shine, mass sparks, energy turns into matter, matter becomes life and death. And now I’m God. I’m high in the skies, no longer a cloud. I am like a God, only smaller (what exactly is small?), but I’m not that small: my anger makes up for it. I start to strike everything; one two three, one two three, one two three. Three beats per strike of the bar. Three moments lost forever in the strike of a bar: four five six, four five six, four five six. The end of a movement: seven.

Continue the loop, back to square one. I now take the form of a human (am I a human?). I walk humbly through the scarred sepia coloured wasteland, which has been leftover by the blue/green fascists, the brown murky communists, and my previous white swirly cloud I had abandoned; in a state of exertion. What do I do now? Do I continue to walk down through the wasteland? It’s empty – just like me. Empty: a non distinct feeling; a feeling of non existence, at least in my own definition. I’m a nothing-ness; a thing no longer considered thing-ness. I make up a word; do you care? No, why should you? What is language at the end of the day? : A made up thing which allows us to communicate. The cavemen clubbed and fucked - they had it right. There was no tender emotion behind it. Why should we need it? Well as I feel emptiness - a feeling which isn’t particularly a feeling, I notice the four letters: “AAAB”. Fantastic, I thought. My life has been described by four letters, what next? My answer my brain gave me back was nothing. What to do, what to do. Aha! Panic - like you have never panicked before. In front of mein eyes are sepia landscapes; of sepia surroundings; of sepia life-forms, roaming about the place. Oh, and a cat in a cardboard box. Trapped, with no way to get out, it could only ever be alive or dead.
Maybe that’s what I am: trapped. I could be either alive or dead; the world being the cyanide vial, with a decaying particle which is so deadly that I would die in seconds. But I could only be dead or alive: not both. Could I defy logic then, and be both? Perhaps, but I am a God. As everyone knows, Gods don’t defy logic: they only defy relativity, and so I’m stuck with this pondering thought: why bother? But I don’t get an answer. Thus I disappear forever, without leaving a trace behind...

...However it seems that I don’t:
I now enter a world that could only defy both logic and illogical thought.
Thus my tale of Hennepin Street begins.



Part I: Hennepin Street

It was the 9th in Hennepin Street and the prostitutes had names like doughnuts. I could tell that they would undoubtedly become dark lechery creatures of the night, while their husbands would slave slave over the hot rusty nail of the hob, becoming intoxicated in the fierce fumes of the gas. The night growls high on adultery and moans of delight and ecstasy, while those of a more innocent calibre would shuffle their way towards the gloomy light of the subway, unsuspected and unaware of the death they were about to catch precisely one hour and a half away: since they all lived on the same street; since they all lived on the same planet; since they all lived on the same everything. Now it was the 10th in Hennepin Street. The world wasn’t hazy no more - no indeedy - it was a vibrant colourful joy to look at, and my senses were all at one now. I got up and headed to the near door-knob: turning, turning, turning... and running out into the stairway; thudding off the ugly murky steps, descending to the bottom in the most insincere of manners. Here I am, your humble host whose eyes will lead you – if ‘not’ far exceedingly, to a more real or surreal world. Jacque Bare’i I’m called. I’m French and very brooding, with the darkest of fine long hair and a moral capacity fit enough to lick the corrupt shoes of Lady Liberty herself. However well attached you become of me though, think nothing short of me as a pretentious character.

Outside the stairway are multi-coloured steps each in the colour of black, white and yellow. One for each individual race killed on that spot, their names forgotten and their pasts now unknown. The children would skip, skip down them like it were a hopscotch game. “Whom-ever steppest on the Yellow step must jump into heck”, I once remembered a bunch of children say as they made some imaginary game up. I would follow the Yellow ones as they would lead me to my drug dealer, and my drug dealer would follow them back if he were in the hazy world of corruption and needed some moolah off me. And off I followed the Yellow steps to acquire my hit.

It was now the 11th in Hennepin Street, and my hazy world had returned. I sat in the bar with Leon Orlean: dealer, extortionate and friend, and we looked at the bartender. She had a tattooed tear under her eye: one for each year her man was away and one for each year he would never return. Eventually she would turn to us for advice. Turn to us for someone to consult with. However, we never understood her. In our states, we never could. We snorted coke through the dusty cobwebs of the counter and fell further into our own individual abyss. We just were there, living the moment in a fantasy world in the realm of our minds. The memories would disappear and I would forget that I once had a future ready for me, but was stupid enough to be engulfed by my darker nature: a nature that all mankind is capable of.

During the 12th in Hennepin Street, I managed in the blusterous winds and rain to convince a female prostitute to commit adultery on her husband. It was a sweet little affair that I began to enjoy in the comfort of her house, and it became more and more intoxicating with every passing second. The sweat started to trickle down and into openings that I wasn’t even aware existed, and she began to scream in delight. The window was open across from the bed and right outside was the moon: rising higher, higher, higher... and shrouding Minnesota in perpetual darkness. I fell asleep. Awakening, I had a very startled and confused look on my face, my dear friend. She was lying very still - very still indeed. Covered in blood. Blood... which seemed to just paint the whole bed in its awakening. I... had killed a prostitute. Forever I would have the conscience of the corrupt. Forever...

By the 13th day in Hennepin Street I was beginning to come out of the haze once more, and needed to acquire another hit. I hurried out the stairway and headed towards the bank to acquire enough moolah to tread the Yellow steps once more. As I reached the bank, the giggles hit me hard and good. Standing directly at the reception ahead of me was a very odd Caucasian man. He turned around and began to look right into my eyes as if he were examining my soul. Through his red watery eyes was a burning hatred; a hatred for me. He knew who I was; that fiend, that monster, that treacherous vile thing that murdered his wife. The rage began to build up in his body, taking over his mind and turning him into his true Hyde. This was enough to drive a man to corruption; and corrupt he became, my friend. I had noticed why he was at the bank, and what his original intentions had been. He would change his plans just for me. He would shoot me straight out of existence. My name would be forever forgotten in Hennepin Street.

I know...
I’ve seen it all through the dimly lit yellow paned windows of the train passing by.
...I know.

*

Part II: The Tale of an Officer

Hideous death awaited him. This he had known since he took on the case, but it did not change his attitude towards how he would proceed. It was a very lurid report he had to examine, however this never bothered him one bit. He was very accustomed to this. He had to be. There were times where disgusting cases just had to be accepted. Times where he willingly took them to try and do penance for past sins. Heck, it didn’t matter any longer. Nothing seemed to ever matter, or ever faze him or make him question the matter in the first place. The matter was just the moment in the job; the moment in the job was the matter of his sins. It was the 24th in Hennepin Street. Nearly two weeks since he had discovered the body of the prostitute. The body he had recognised straight away. A past link to his relationship, now lost forever, forever lost in forever-ness. Stairways of ugly murk, murky ugly stairways were the guide to the door of the apartment. The apartment was low budget apparently, from the looks of things. There were drawings of multicoloured steps and children playing hopscotch on them. Under it was a description, a description of utter nonsense and gibberish. They represent a different race killed on the spot it said. Races had been almost killed on every inch of Hennepin, when it wasn’t even called Hennepin in its glorious past.

Police officer and friends look at each other confused. Or at least, the officer pretends to be confused – confusion never existed, only pure truth. It seemed like this was all the officer could ever think of or know of. People would shuffle down, around, there, here and everywhere in the city to get to the subway. The subway became a virus: the rapists being the infection to the victims. It was full of them. If it wasn’t that then it was the prostitutes called: Wendy, Double Duncan, Mindy, Pixy and Goddess. The truth could be obtained in the subway apparently: light, darkness, cold, damp and prostitutes with their patients. It was on the file report that described this place. This place was the Darkness, and the rapists and prostitutes fed off of people to obtain the light of way. The light of way never existed however; it never did.

It was death: death being the account of the prostitute, of course. Death was also the account of the person who had done it. He had been in the bank: the bank was his coffin; the coffin was a big bank. It nicely fitted Jacque. The officer never understood this but. Something went wrong in his mind, creating a huge strain on his being. Thump thump went his heart. Faster, faster, faster; he felt like he could be that painting by Van Gogh: The Scream. Why could he not have figured it out sooner? His brain was literally screaming at his heart. He tried to tear away his strait-jacket, but he couldn’t. This was the END: he fell into cardiac arrest. The Lynch Asylum hadn’t a clue until the next again morning; they thought he was bizarre for believing himself an officer. As he lay there covered in his own blood and vomit, there was an indication that the end of time for him, had now... begun.

I don’t understand...
I still stare through the dimly lit yellow paned windows of the train passing by.
...I don’t understand what these dreams mean anymore.

*

Part III: The End of Hennepin

Dreams and reality confused by the midpoint. I called it the point in-between the dream and the reality. I was stuck in my ever thinking conscience, unaware of the death which was about to take part precisely one hour and a half away, since I did live on the same street and the same planet and same everything, as everyone else had done. It was either the limbo of my conscience, or a coma: the coma being the easiest answer to my dilemma currently, the conscience being the harder answer to explain. It could be the harder answer to explain, because it’s some form of factual evidence that I might still have a soul. It was the last year of the last month of the last day of the last minute in Hennepin Street now. There I was, a weird man of 19 staring directly through the window of the yellow paned window of a train passing through Hennepin. Suit, tie and a briefcase were on my persons. Sunglasses placed over the rim of my nose to keep away any received eye contact, as if to hide the truth from the public. The truth was that I stood in cold ground as a serial killer. The lie was that I brushed everything aside, became unaware of emotions, and hid in my inner shell, while my conscience probed at me to tell the truth and hand myself in. The sudden bang and clash of the thunder from the southern pacific was travelling across the brain to the medulla oblongata, taken its bitter time for the right moment to be made aware of, and shut down everything and anything left. The train came to a steady halt, grinding off the rails still at a rapid speed. Complete stillness.

The doors opened up and I headed out into the dampening moist of the mist shrouding Minnesota. Everything just seemed to be like repetition in my mind. When describing anything, things became the same, the same words and ideas constantly being irritated and reused. Déjà vu was shrouding, shrouding Minnesota in its perpetual-ness, perpetual being always there. Off I hopped, into the rain and out towards and down to the subway and into the lair of my humble home. First, I carefully analyzed everything and anything I could see. Second was to observe: Slim, thin and nicely looking things at 12, 9 and 3 o’clock. Last and next was the luring part. Attractiveness, charm and wit were needed for this. When finally successful, I would guide them back to my apartment in Hennepin. If this all went to plan, then the last part was to tick all off the boxes in the list. What happened next, my friends, I leave to you.

...Life is very short
...For I am Dead.
...Life is an endless Ocean
...For I defy logic.

What happens next is the comma. Into my room of the apartment she entered. She would exit the room too, and that never should happen once the room is entered. When you enter, you sign your own death wish.
The storm hit the medulla oblongata putting me into Cardiac arrest and making her safe. The body would shake violently; shake, shake, shake goes the body. The brain was closing down; the ambulance sirens were ululating and piercing through the sound barriers established in the background. Vroom, vroom! Police cars halting at a fast yet steady speed around the distant corner of the flat: stretchers out, reports out, quarantine signs out, all on the ready. I was rushed away to my coffin in the hospital, the bed being my coffin.
The coma was what I fell into, my conscience still being there. The ability to wake up just wasn’t available. Forever I would be stuck with my conscience. Forever...

...Forever being a lie. My conscience was a nightmare. The gruesome terrors of the darkness swept through it like birds gliding to the window pane of a near window, and smacking bang centre in the middle of it. Now I realised that these weren’t dreams: these were the truth. The truth just seemed so horribly bad that they would undoubtedly turn into nightmares. My torture would end but. Uncle Phil would administrate pills to ease the pain away.

I know...
My tale had to come to an end.
... The end was finally here.

*

...And then I awakened from the world of illogical and logical thought, and realised that I wasn’t some form of God, or that I wasn’t some form of malevolent being. I was human, and I was very afraid of both fantasy and reality. My dreams had become a link to what I could only describe as my own version of the fourth dimension, and every time I entered a dream, I became the same man but in a different profession. Sometimes I would become Jacque as a serial killer, this happened twice. Other times, I would become Jacque as a police officer, a fireman, a school teacher, an Oxford rowdy boy - you name it. But I can tell you two things that are true about all of these dreams being interlinked, and somehow connected with each other: I died in every one of them, and it was always in Hennepin Street. I mentioned before that I was a pessimistic when it came to life. I was almost nihilistic, but I realised that I had to be woken from these dreams: I couldn’t keep living in a horrible nightmare all my life. I write this for you, the one who means more to me then I could have ever imagined. Every time I died in this Fourth Dimension, I always came back to life in another dream, thanks to the guidance of you. When I realised in the end what these dreams meant, I finally awoke back into reality. I snapped back into place; joining and mending together on the spot into some form of human being that I could recognise as only myself. I am not Jacque Bare’i; I am a symbol of the first man on Earth. Are you confused by this story? You shouldn’t be: these stories are but mere words to try and figure out my own being. They are also stories to intrigue your darker side of nature; lurking within you, like a tarp thrown through bitter blue runes and rain. Let it unleash itself, and only then will this story truly make sense – if there ever was sense to begin with.


Finis:

Life, Death and Time;
The Three sisters of judgement.
The Luminiferous Glow, of a Cigarette
Seen in the still-water Chambers
Now becomes a symbol: Death.

Energy, Matter, and Space
In which everything has a start:
Confusion, delusion, illusions
They all have the same in common:
Life, Death and Time.

This is very obscure but I think I grasp where you are going. It's quite contemplative anyway. Not being sure, I wouldn't dare comment on anything specifically, but I will say I like your use of colors. I'm a big fan of color descriptions in literature. I would ask does this serve your purpose? Are you being vague and obscure here to intrigue us? To create some overarching theme that will be expounded later? I suppose we will see in part 1 .

I'd definitely like to read the other parts based on this prequel, I liked the use of colours too. I preferred the first part as it seemed more coherent in themes, perhaps the second rambled a bit and went off on tangents, but I suppose it would be good to read the rest of it and hopefully things will tie together. As criticism, you need to cut your use of the word "swirl"; swirling is definitely a good way to describe the tone of this piece, so I don't think that you need to use the word itself. "the white cloud swirling over top in a repetitive swirl" certainly needs to go.

There are a couple of other occasions where you use words that don't need to be there, such as the repetition of "tearing myself apart" in the first line. Without these the passage would be a lot tighter. I always use this advice when I go through my work, I think George Orwell said it: "if you can cut a word out, cut it out". Very interesting stuff though

I will note that for obvious reasons there are catchment quotes or rather inverted quotes from Tom Waits song 9th in Hennepin and it's parsh-ly a reference, going in it's own direction (for plagiarism reasons I will note some of my influence for this).

Sorry, not to do as a double post, merely used as an implication that all parts are now up and in it's entirety it makes sense. I was unsure if to post this all - it's personal to me on a few levels plus, but non-the-less, here it is.