DRAFT COPY - The New Book of CHAD, Prequel

Here is a draft copy of the first chapter of the book I am working on.  The rest of the book has a surreal, comic tone, so this is an odd way to set it up.  Hopefully it will make sense when the final comes out.  It could be a short story on its own.


It is still a rough draft which means it could be very different later (or cut entirely for all I know).

Prequel

I have always wondered the same things we all wonder.  In my case, I may have wondered too often;  distracted and pre-occupied by those really big questions and the answers they don't teach in school.  All of my musings and thoughts led to the eternal question; 'Why am I here?'  I was equally mesmerized by that eternal question's annoying siblings; “Where am I going?' and 'Where was I before?'

A part of this “wondering” led me to explore the dream-state; the “other” consciousness.  From electronic scans of sleeping brains to near-sleeping meditation methods, I was certain that at least some of the answers I sought were to be found in the subconscious and the unconscious.  In this searching process, I came upon  'lucid dreaming'; waking and controlling our actions and environments consciously while dreaming  

Lucid dreaming blurs the lines of reality. Nearly everyone says that they wish they could fly freely within their dreams.  Some say that they do – and they probably have. Flying is but one of the many abilities we may have in such an alternate experience. Although we may all stumble upon these dreams from time to time, few of us ever know what to truly do with the opportunity.

I see lucid dreaming as the type of consciousness we must have had while gestating in the womb.  At some point in the process of growing from a  zygote  to a fetus to a new-born child (and I'm not even going to touch when that is) a light goes on and we are conscious and aware.  At that moment we are present in the physical world.  As a developing fetus we can react to sounds outside and scratch at our noses.  We smile.  What are we thinking in those moments? 

I am now convinced that we are all born with the capacity to fly or do anything we wish in our dreams, but most of us are also born fearful of our dreams.  How sad it is, then, that as we age, we lose our ease of access to that changeable, malleable, plastic world beyond even our own imaginations. I no longer believe it to be a coincidence that - while we are born fearful of our dreams - we lose that access  in proportion with our so-called maturity.    For most of us, time chases away the monster-filled night-mares and boogie men .  If the dreams of our maturity don't lessen in intensity, at the very least we accept most of them without calling for our mommies.  Nightmares are dismissed as 'bad dreams' at our wine-tastings, if they are mentioned at all.   Except for a gifted few, most of us un-learn the ability to wake within a dream as we mature,.

For six years, I meditated and techniqued each day in my search to reclaim that gift.  Naturally, the question arose:

For all the times I had awoken from dreams, could I have simply slipped into one and never returned? 

If you have ever had one of these lucid dreams, then you know how so completely, believably real they can be. In a lucid dream, you live, love and feel every nuance that, in our waking life, we take for granted.  If anything, you feel more.  More thoughts, faster.  More feelings, amplified.  In comparison, my  wakeful consciousness feels like life with the brakes on.

I sometimes wondered if those little details and distinctions are the fingerprints of reality.  Can we actually see a stamp of authenticity to the world around us if we look hard enough?  Carlos Castaneda was the first to offer me insight on this, and he felt that we can see the world as it actually is and not the illusion we see.  Many others before him and since have claimed the same.

Douglas Adams thought  about the big questions which he broke down into the big three -'Life', 'The Universe' and 'Everything'.   Over the course of five books he chronicled the adventures of his main character who was - somewhat unknowingly – seeking big truths when Adams decided that the answer to life the universe and everything was “42”.  Absurd in its simplicity, “42” is an even number which even looks plausible in print.  Shrouded in the elegance of such simplicity, Adams was implying that all such questions may be  much simpler than we had thought and that we were making much adieu about nothing.  I don't think that Adams was mocking those like me who wanted real answers, and so I loved his solution. Seeking such answers is frustrating stuff.  How many tmes had I been tempted to just decide that “THE TRUTH” is something which is very hard to find and it may well be impossible to ever know, so we may as well accept this, call the answer anything we wish  – even 42 – and just move on with our lives.  The relief from such burdens is so very tempting yet it had always felt wrong to give up so easily.  Despite his writings, I'd be willing to bet that Adams never – ever - stopped pondering on any of  the big three.  He would never have written five books on the subject had it not been on his mind much of the time.

It is just not in me to settle for 42, so I  googled and read all I could while still working and living.

I had always contemplated the true nature of the natural world, if you'll pardon the pun.  Seeing dreams as a separate reality, I had studied general relativity, special relativity; string theory and M theory.  Dreams, I was sure, were part of the puzzle that is our universe.  Then one night, and I will never forget that night, these heady theories came to life in a way I could have never dreamt.

It was a dream beyond any I had before.  It began as many other lucid dreams had.  This one was a recurrent vision I was familiar with of a roller-coaster in the middle of blue space.  I spent some time talking to the dream-people I dreamt – characters who seemed so truly genuine to me.  We stood in the line for the coaster, but I never made it on the ride.  I don't remember just how or why, but I do recall that at some point I went from mundane small-talk to finding off on a grand Kafkaesque experience – the end result of which was that I found myself in the hallway of an old hotel.  It was a Wild West-style hotel and this hallway was at the top of three flights of stairs which wound up an open-center stairwell.  I had never been here before and hadn't thought about such an environment.  At a seemingly-random point in my dream I had been pulled from one place and found myself standing in cowboy-land.  To my left was a three-story drop.  To my right were the evenly spaced hotel doors and an umbrella stand which looked like it had been stolen from the Palace of Versailles and placed there next to Room Seven's door. 

To this day I am not certain why I did what I did in that next instant.  I can't mean that more.  I can't explain why I seemed to instinctively seize the umbrella stand and hold onto it with a strength at the limits of not only my dream muscles, but my will.  After only a few seconds in my control, the umbrella stand changed its appearance and it's substance to that which I had inexplicably seen and known it to truly be at my first glimpse of it.  It was a “blue”.  I had read about these nasty, deadly predators which lie out there where the dreams are.  Blues are amorphous blue blobs which disguise themselves within our dreams, but seldom fit the context of the dream.  If something from the background of your dream catches your eye because it is brighter or does not fit the story, there is a good chance that it is a blue.  There are blues in everyone's dreams, but they present little danger to those oblivious to them.  When encountered and recognized though, the dreamer is meeting the blue on his level and that makes the dream-creature very uncomfortable.  Nefarious, deceptive and ill-tempered, Blues feel they must always be camoflaged.


I had recognized many disguised blues before, but never had I considered attacking one.  I had only recently become proficient in deliberately “seeing” them in their true form and not as whatever they were pretending to be.  I was pushing one of the final veils aside; peeking behind the curtains of my                            dreams   I was beyond my abilities, boldly - ignorantly - making a mistake which nearly cost me my life.  This blue wriggled and wretched in its attempt to escape my bear hug, using each moment to drain me of my energy – quite literally, the energy of my life.  We are all just energy, and in our dreams the line between our body form and our pure energy form is drawn in watercolors rather than oils.  Blues can take our energy from us and this is what makes them lethal.   I knew from all that I had read that I was being tested – by whom I can't yet say – and this test was very, very real.  If I had let go, I knew, I would never wake.  The papers would read that I 'died from natural causes' while I slept.  The truth would be that I was drained of my life while dreaming.

If  I could not squeeze him from my dream soon, he would drain me completely.  I held tightly as I willed my will over his.  Once you begin wrestling with a blue, you must simply outlast it. I was stealing from him as he stole from me.  I knew that my resources had to outlast his and struggled to squeeze his life from him just a little more rapidly.  At the defining moment, I could feel him succumb but I was only seconds from losing the battle myself. I persisted in squeezing nothingness long after the blue had simply dissolved to nothingness. After what seemed like (and may have been) an eternity, there was an instantaneous release.  From squeezing blue goo for my life, I suddenly was sitting bolt upright in my bed, struggling for air.  The hotel was gone and I was now in my bed.  Back safely awake, I gathered myself and simply stared at my blanketed feet.  Only when I looked at my sleeping girlfriend did I begin to realize that I was not awake at all.  She was hideous and in no way was she the girl I loved.  I screamed out my primal scream and denied that this was at all what I believed to be real with my soul.  Somewhere in that scream, the illusion of that world disappeared and I sat bolt upright once again, just as before, in my room.

Waking for the second time in thirty seconds I was suspicious now.  I checked my girlfriend at once and saw that it was her lovely, smiling, sleeping face nested into her pillow as I had always known.  My heart and my jaw relaxed in unison at this.  With no idea of what to expect in this game, I checked for anything out of place.  Anything.  As I'm sure you know already, something was not right and at last I found the incongruity. Rather than displaying any sort of time on its bright red digits, the alarm clock simply indicated, “AWAY”.  With this recognition, I flashed away from this false bedroom and another false girlfriend.  Once again, I sat bolt upright in my bed.

It didn't take long to see that this time there was an umbrella stand at the foot of the bed.  I sat bolt upright yet again.

I was now genuinely afraid that I would never awake to my own reality again.  If I was fooled well enough and accepted what I saw as fact, I could be marooned in a false, but very real existence.  At first, all seemed at peace and my dream almost got me this time.  It took me so long to find the difference that I was beginning to believe I was safe.  The bedspread was wrong.  The bedspread was, in every detail, an actual bedspread I owned, but not the one I had gone to sleep beneath that night.  I knew that this spread was folded neatly in the closet in my reality.  The bed cover I saw here was a lighter, summer covering.  In the midst of winter, it should have been the overstuffed chocolate-brown  blanket I had used for many years.  Once recognized, I sat bolt upright yet again.  I looked for some clue for what seemed like hours. Nervously, I scanned the room – examining every identifiable feature and comparing them with my memory.  I was too weak to get out of bed.  I only decided to wake my sleeping beauty when I was reasonably sure that I was truly awake and “home”.  Even then, with all sense of where I might actually be harshly torn into strips like a seventh grader's papier macher project, I feared what I may be waking.

Slowly, reluctantly I tapped her shoulder lightly with my fingertip.  She did not wake at first, so I proceeded to run my fingers through her hair and massage her scalp.   As she stirred, I started to incoherently tell her how I had awakened four times to false rooms.  How I felt inexplicably drained of all my energy.  How it was all that I could do to muster the energy to tell her this.  How scared I had been.

I did not get out of bed the next day at all.  Life has a feeling.  Living is a vibration.  I never really understood that until all but the very last of it had been drained from me.  I felt almost nothing.  I sensed the lack of life's vibrations which I had never noticed until they were no longer there. I was gaunt and felt near death beyond any figurative speech.  To open my eyes took concentration and the spending of precious life-force.  I would not allow myself to sleep, but I did rest.  On the second day I visited the bathroom with great difficulty and went immediately back to bed.  On the third day, I ate.

I passed the time wondering about my encounter and questioning whether or not I had passed the test.  If I had passed it, what was the test measuring?   Was it the test I had read about, or was I simply being taught a lesson.  Most of all I wondered who was testing me or teaching this lesson.

That night shattered what I thought I knew and showed me just how little I actually could conceive.  No mere dream can drain the essence of my life from me, yet this is what happened so I can only believe that it was not merely a dream at all, but more of a wandering, hapless  excursion into the realm where dreams exist and I did not belong.  I was not sick with  flu.  I had not been simply tired to the point of exhaustion by the activities of the previous day. To move an arm was something I would rest an hour to do.  I had no doubts about what had happened.  Even today, I am still looking for the discrepancy.  Am I really here?  If so, where is that, really?

I know how this all must sound to you. I get it.  I can see your eyes rolling and that's fine.  Whatever you might think, it doesn't change the fact that it is true.  The truth, you see, doesn't care what you or I think, feel or believe.  The facts continue to be despite our crazy ideas.  I learned more about the nature of our existence in that one night than I...you get the point. There are stars-in-the-sky numbers of places we can go through the use of the portal we call dreams.  If I can tell you nothing else in this life, I hope you will hear me when I say that there is more to our lives than what we see in our waking hours.  It is just as real and far more complex.  I don't claim to have all the answers, but I'm looking – and I'm finding a few.

Anyway, I didn't mean to go on about it like this, it's just that I think I had another one of those dreams last night.

Lost Things - a short story

Here is 'LOST THINGS....Living Beyond the Bubble' which is almost certainly the most bizarre short story I have ever completed.  If you think this is strange, you should see the stuff I never finished.  Even I have no idea why I write these things, sometimes. 

I had to put it on two separate pages, so you can use the tabs above to read it.

Chapter One - the Chronicler's Tale

Chapter One

Walking.

The very act is the meaning and spirit of willingly stepping into the next instant whatever it may

be. Each fearless footprint stands as a noble, defiant declaration that we accept the

decisions of the fates.

For man, as an art form, walking is nowadays in decline. Nearly every animal on dry

land ‘round the earth possesses an innate understanding of, and propensity toward

walking. Snakes and worms crawl, yet that is still very nearly walking in an earthbound,

terra-centric sense. Even birds, gifted creatures who can fly any time they wish, engage

in walking at least some of the time. They stroll for their own reasons, yet it is hard to

know if they are aware of the innate compulsion to renew their connection with the earth

every now and then. Most, but very pointedly, not all, fly. Some swim. Certain particularly

clever birds employ all three ambulations. Walking , nearly shuffling, alone down a

remote, overgrown road, there is little to do but curse the birds. Not that the birds had

actually done anything all that wrong, but there is simply so little to do, and no one else

to curse at. Besides, they are flying and that – to him - seems better than plodding down

yet another dusty trail.

The laughing monkey-face of the banana-colored sun beats down hard, drying the

once-muddy road into a cracked, rock-like slab stretching continuously before him as well

as behind. When for a short time, there are no birds present in the surrounding trees or the

skies above, he begins to curse the sun. Knowing that the Egyptians once worshipped the

sun as Ra – their supreme god - he toys with the notion that maybe the sun could actually

hear his expletives and derogatory comments aspersed to its mother. He hopes so. The

Egyptians were a clever bunch. Surely they had good reason for the whole sun-worship

business.

He has not passed a fellow traveler moving in either direction in three days. This, in itself,

does not surprise him. He is coming from a place that no one wants to go, and heading to a

place that no one wants to leave – or so they say. The reason this road exists at all has long

since passed from the collective local memory. Indeed, even the ‘collective’ has long since

passed. The road is seldom traveled nowadays, but remains usably intact due to its

long-forgotten standing as a major trade corridor. With the trade came heavy use and,

therefore, solid construction. When trade disappears, though, trade corridors disappear

soon after.

His steps are slow and shuffling. The shoes he wears are nearly worn through to the toes

from dragging the tips along these many miles. His stag-skin leather trousers are nearly

covered by a tattered cloak – from the top of which his long, strangely-mangled hair

sprouts to greet the oppressive sun and birds above.

He carries with him a large, leather-bound journal. Its covers are thick like slabs of wood,

heavy like slabs of wood and dark like slabs of wood. Countless thick pages are protected

within - though the rough, exposed edges between the slabs of wood betray the yellowing

of their age and the unstoppable creeping of the elements.

As the sun, which has been sitting delicately above the horizon, now dips just enough to

touch it, a rustling arises in the brush just ahead of him and to the left. Out from the

brush, a tall man with dark, shoulder-length hair attempts to pop out in surprise. Rather

than popping out, however, he stumbles as he struggles to free himself from the tangle

of branches and vines clawing at his feet. He falls onto the trail, crashing down hard on

his left elbow and dropping his sword in the process – the blade tumbling and clanking

to the far side of the trail. “Halt!” he commands the old traveler as he sits up and massages

his damaged arm. “Choose now, sir. Your money or your life?” Still untangling his feet from

the vines, he motions menacingly toward the sword that lies several feet away to indicate

his intention to retrieve it very directly.

Still several normal-length strides (or a few giant, hopping strides) from the unfortunate

highwayman, the old man stands above the younger one and thinks about the question

for some time. “Are you referring to this choice hypothetically?” asks the old man.

Brushing the dust from his linen clothing, the tall burglar regards his victim’s inquiry as

a further annoyance in an already-aggravating encounter. “I mean to say, my good man,

that I am asking you to choose to give me your money, which you may hand over to me –

thereby sparing your life – or give me your life - which I will certainly, if not reluctantly,

take. In this case I will, of course, then take your money anyway. Giving me your money

is really your best course of action.”

Again the old man pauses, confused by what he is seeing and hearing. “Well, then, that is

not a proper question at all! Whether or not you kill me, you still get my money. Am I correct?”

“Well, yes…yes you are. Either way, I shall have your money. The question is, do I have to kill

you for it?” replies the tall man.

“Then why did you not ask me that question in the first place?”

The highwayman pauses, grasping at his short goatee hanging dread-locked from his chin.

“I’ve always said, ‘You’re money or your life.’ It was how my father made his living as did

his father before him,” the tall man steps across the width of the road to regain his sword,

“It is but an expression. Tradition, really. My family and I have worked on this road since

it was built and I have never had need of any other question.”

“Well then, if that is the question you have always asked, I would say that you have had

need for the proper question for quite some time. As did your father and his father before

him.”

“Enough of this!” commands the villain, recalling that, as a professional highwayman,

his first order of business is to assume and maintain control over any situation. “I have

asked you a question – two, actually – and I demand your reply.”

“Has anyone ever chosen to offer their life?”

“Well, no. No one has ever actually offered one, no. Some have chosen to struggle, but I

assure you that I dispatched them with ease. One of the secrets to success in my vocation

is to choose your prey carefully.”

“And do you expect me to offer my life or to struggle with you now?”

“I should hope not. You seem like a decent fellow. You also seem to have grown old which

indicates to me that you are wise enough to avoid- shall we say - unfortunate circumstances.”

“Your assessment of me is most kind. I have indeed lived many years and learned along the

way how to avoid those things which may shorten my time here on earth. Learning lessons is

what my life is about. I should think that you would agree that if we were to stop learning,

then we should all but die at that moment, would you not?”

“I will agree with you, old man. Now, if I may have your money, I will be on my way. I do not

mean to be presumptive, but I do trust that this will be your choice.”

“Certainly, that is what I should choose. However, if I am to surrender my belongings, then

should I not at least receive a proper burglary? I am certain that your past clients received

no less.”

“Of course, of course,” the highwayman concedes. “There is little doubt that this has not

been my finest moment, professionally. A man in my vocation does rely a fair bit on his

reputation. What would you have me do to make amends?”

“I would suggest to you that I should move back several steps, as you conceal yourself once

again in the bushes over there. We will re-stage the conditions of our first encounter with

due accuracy. As I approach, you should pop out once again whilst brandishing your sword.”

“How do I know that you will not run away as I hide myself?”

“My dear boy, I have not run anywhere in a very long time. I doubt that I still know how.

I merely walk, and have little mastery of that.”

“Then a properly conducted burglary, you shall receive! I suppose I owe you that much.

You will tell anyone you may meet that William of Umber was a formidable and competent

practitioner of his art, I trust?”

“Of course.” agrees the old man.

The old man turns to move slowly back along the trail approximately twenty steps. A small

finch, bird-brained as it may be, flies above the old man, covering the length of the old man’s

trek in far less time than the aged biped is able. May your next worm devour you from inside

wishes the weary one of the finch.

With little regard for the innate aerobatic prowess of the small fowl performing impossible

variations in flight, William watches the old man closely until he turns once again to face

toward him down the path. With this, William takes his cover in the brush – careful to maintain

visual contact with his mark. As promised, the old man calls out that he is proceeding toward

his impending, deserved and skillfully-conducted robbery, and walks slowly forward – very

careful to retrace the very same steps as he had taken before.

As the old man nears, William once again springs from the brush. Although not without

entanglements, this time he appears on the trail with far less stumbling and completely

fails to fall. Not his best work, but passable.

Pointing his sword at the old man, William asks, “Your money or your life?” The old man

glares disappointedly. “Dreadfully sorry, good sir. Old habits…you understand” offers the

thief as he stares to the ground in shame – the tip of his blade following suit. Renewing his

efforts, William once more raises his sword with calm authority. “Will you give me your

money now, sir, or need I kill you for it?” William smiles broadly with these words. His

tongue rolls them along as a dung beetle rolls its prize. It is a comfortable phrasing of the

question that seems to endow him with a certain, natural command of the situation. Like

a prideful student getting his first “A” on a test, his eyes look to the old man’s for approval.

That same old man catches the glint in his assailant’s eyes and he nods the requested

approvation. “That was very well done, I must say. I certainly felt much more threatened

this time. Now - and I really don’t mean to be a bother here or to impose awkward

complications - as to your question, I am afraid that I must offer my life in payment.”

William looks at the frail old man quizzically. “Surely, he is not going to fight to keep

his money,” he thinks to himself. “Why do you offer me your life? Give me your money

and I shall leaveyou in peace.” Then, resuming a more professional tone, he threatens,

“Fail, and I shall leave you in pieces.”

“I am afraid I must fail you.”

“Look here my good man! I am holding a very real sword here! It has tasted flesh

before. Give me your money and spare me the trouble of killing you,” pleads William.

“I can not do that.”

“Give me just a few dinari. You don’t have to give me all that you have. Provide me

with enough to venture into the village some night soon and enjoy libation and women.

After such a poor performance earlier, I see no need to be dogmatic with you, although I

have never allowed a client to retain his valuables before.”

“I’m afraid I have only my life to offer, as finances are not to be counted amongst

my possessions.”

“You have nothing?”

“Not a sheckle. No dinari. Not a quince nor a pence – nor anything which might

be sold for such.”

“Have you been robbed already? Is there someone else working in the forests of William

of Umber? If so, I shall hunt him down and take all of his possessions - including

yours - from him.”

“No, no,” the old man chuckles. “I have not been robbed by anyone but the fates. No

one can steal from me that which I do not own.”

With this news, the great highwayman William of Umber takes a seat on a fallen log at

the road’s edge. “You own nothing of value, then?” he ponders. “So what business have

you if you have no trade to conduct.”

“My own,” comes the response.

“Well you know my name, now, yet I do not know yours. Who are you, old man?”

William is considering the slow state of his finances of late. Robbery is his trade,

but there is obviously no trade to conduct with this fragile figure standing before him.

“I no longer know my name. Whatever it once may have been is unlikely to be an

apt moniker nowadays in any case, ” replies the traveler, “but many have addressed

me by title. They say that I am The Chronicler.”

“I have never heard of you,” William retorted.

“I should think not. Any man passing his life in these forlorn forests would encounter

only the most rare of traveler. I would think that news would arrive very slowly here.”

“So I should have heard of you, then?” asks William with a pawl of wariness.

“With a more active calendar, you might have heard of me, yes. Many have.”

“You say that this is your title. What do you chronicle, then?”

“I record the lives and stories of those I meet.”

“And will you be recording mine, then?”

“Of course, this is no passing encounter. ”

“What if I do not want to tell you my stories?”

“Everyone wants to tell their stories. That’s why you have them. Besides, I already

know that you come from a long line of highwaymen. Your name is William and you

are from Umber. You have been most forthcoming thus far.”

“So…that book you are carrying… if there are many who have heard of you and

your work, then that book you carry must be of some value.”

“This book is valuable beyond your wildest imaginings.”

“But you told me that you have nothing of value!”

“I have nothing of value to you. But, I admit, this book does have value.”

“If it has value, then why does it not apply to me?”

“Because the value of this book can not be assessed in terms of how many drinks or

women it may finance. The value of this book lies in the value that it has for man

in the collective sense.”

William stares deeply into the eyes of the wizened traveler, looking for some sign

of an infirm mind. Staring into the tired, old pupils – maybe through them – William

sees twin images merge into a single view of himself lying unconscious in a cold

stream. His view of this surreal scene is interrupted as slowly, deliberately - foreboding

in tone - this lonely recorder of the deeds of man speaks to William. “I will be there

when you do this.”

Not Gone

Not Gone

Through fields of dreams and misty haze, my thoughts would graze; in distant days
I’ve loved my life so many ways and there were days I’d have to praise

For all the many things I'd do; all done for you. But that you knew.

If only it were for you, too. The words you choose are not all true.

Just what you want me to believe, your perfect practice to deceive

My promise is a word that’s kept. While drama swept, my mind’s eye wept

In your life I carefully stepped and sometimes crept, yet so inept

Why would I follow down that hole? I knew your role; you played the mole.

At no time did I lose control. Despite the toll I have my soul

What you take is mine to choose but what you want is mine to lose

I only have my spoken word, with meanings blurred, beyond absurd

Think back to all that has occurred, then by the herd the truth was stirred,

So here and now in open air I proudly swear – I boldly dare
I walk from you and so declare, my heart I spare; no longer share.

My conscience still sleeps well at night, my heart still soars, my dreams take flight