IB Tests

I sit in the corner of a cluttered school hallway with Matt, Andrew, and Anna. I start to make a commetn about how they must be relived, when Mr. Harrington sticks his head out of a doorway just behind me and says, "Alright, I can take one more for HL Art, and one for colonial Indonesia". As I hesitate in surprise, Anna jumps up for Art, and Andrew claims the Indonesia test. I laugh, only half joking when I tell Matt I wish I had spoken first, and then sadly realize that I know nothing about the subjects.

Fever 2

I am shopping in the department store on the HUB lawn. Coming out of a slight trance, I find myself pawing through racks of baby clothes and pull away, disgusted with myself. Then I change my mind, deciding I might find something cute for my cousins' kids. As I walk past one of the checkout counters, I hear a woman say, "Oh is it seven o' clock already? I'm sorry, I didn't realize you would be closing- have you already shut down the registers?"
The chashier responds that no, they haven't shut down the registers, they can still ring up purchases. This is good, I make my way forward with an armful of baby clothes, but then remember that I must have left my jacket in the bathroom. I throw the things down and rush to the bathroom, trying to get there before they close. I run to the last stall and there is my ratty black sweatshirt and sunglasses case, on the shelf above the toilet. I grab them and turn, about to run back out, but the sleeve of the sweatshirt dips in the toilet, and at that moment the automatic flush is activated. I pull on the sweatshirt as it is sucked into the toilet, hoping the arm with not rip off.

Fever 1

The new Harry Potter book came out with its movie simultaneously.
The movie is playing in my head and I am forced to watch, but in order to not ruin it completely, I am determined to read the book along with it.
I am also in the movie, or the world, I think, and all the characters slide around on vines draped between decaying green ruins. I find it difficult to keep up, both physically, and with my reading. I get frustrated when the events around me deviate from the events described in the book, and as I wail to Hermione about it, I almost get struck by a curse.
I lose my path through the vines cris-crossing up between the tall walls, and my vision begins to fail. I can no longer make out the words of the book and I have no idea what will happen next. I get the feeling that the words are rearranging themselves.

Waking Fever Dream

"They caught her off the coast of..." was all I got, but I understand that in this world women are born from the ocean, living and growing there happily. However, the beautiful ones are sought by men, and sometimes caught. They are taken to shore and trained, for the purpose of having no purpose.

Her destiny on land is to be beautiful, nothing else.

What is this

In my dream someone talked about vomitting and so I vomitted.

I tried to fix a chair that was coming loose from the ground but I couldn't until the front desk woke up for the morning. I pulled a wrench from my pocket and detached a borrowed wrench from it. Ariana stopped me.

Teacups and Marbles

Reunions have lost all novelty in my family. Every birthday, major, and minor holiday the clan collects in someone's hurriedly cleaned house to celebrate a bloodline that thins as the old men's hairlines grow sparse. The cousins sit in Auntie Loree's living room staring at a smattering of marbles on the floor. We grow bored and decide to play a game. To do this we shrink and take flight. Disneyland is fairly easy to locate because it has also shrunk and is currently located somewhere in the nap of my Auntie's rug. We scan the park and decide to head for the teacups. They are colorful and we strap ourselves in knowing very well that we may lose our appetites. It is a beautiful contraption, this teacup ride - no longer like the traditional one, it is four stories high and made of colorful balls. In addition to spinning around, one must hit the white balls and send them through a central funnel.

Eat the pill

Saturday sends discrete messages to the feet of swing dancers manque; my partner and I feel the fast beating of jive-love in our soles and souls even before we reach the door to Century Ballroom. We flounce through the entrance early only to discover that tonight is movie night at the swing club, the film is fittingly, Swing Kids. Zach and I never had a problem with disrupting proper behaviour with our swinging flare, and so we take mats off the ballroom wall with the intention of later kicking them aside to dance as "extras" in the movie. The ballroom, which now resembles a middle school gym, is becoming crowded with shapeless, gray, and sullen young people, they sit on their own mats as the room darkens for the film. Splayed out under and around the mats, our group grows quite tired and everyone falls asleep. The movie police do not appreciate this and wake us up with flashlights and angry grunts. Our rebellion began in the form of another treacherous nap. Because we had fallen asleep twice, Zach and I were kicked out. We performed a coquettish charleston until reaching the doorway to the hall where we subsequently burst out laughing with our lungs and with our feet. The movie police heard us and we ran into a hidden corner of the hallway by an abandoned room.

As we were hiding, a lithe, tanned boy came out from the main hallway. Startled and amused, we watched as he did a strange little dance. He threw a bottle to me and asked, "Will you rub this on me?" I thought this rather forward but I did it anyways. The lotion was unremarkable and produced white lather as any other skin product would, it even had the ubiquitous "microbeads" that acne treatments advertise - but the boy's back reformed itself under the foam into what could only be described as a full eight pack.

I woke up in an abandoned factory to see many children clustered around an old yearbook. The boy is among the crowd and shows me his photos - he looks considerably different - now neatly proportioned, Japanese, and pale, he bears no resemblance to the previous boy except for his smiling manner, which I note is a rarity amidst all the children. Akira is his name and he is the brightest and most genetically modified of all the children.

Children are produced here in the name of science, they do not have feelings but instead learn to imitate them with the help of the assistant director of education, an earnest but haunted looking man. He allows me to watch the children's imitation session. He puts a hand on Akira's shoulder and smiles. He draws the name of a feeling out of a hat. I suddenly understand that the assistant director of education is ethically opposed to the operations of the factory and has in the past offered Akira the chance to kill himself. Akira could not comprehend the magnitude of this act, ate the pill offered and threw it up in a retching cough.

Despair is the feeling, and the children do their best to communicate it. Much of it is overwrought. To a person used to the quiet melancholia of existential angst, it appears too disruptive for honest despairing, but the act is remarkable if not believable. Akira stands alone on top of a yellow ball holding a yellow glazed sun. He does not make any noise for despair; the assistant director talks to him, hands him a yellow pill, and walks away as the boy eats it. I wake up for the last time as he falls off his yellow orb.

Impressions

Is this a graduation party? Wow, it's in a pool. Everyone crowd onto this boat, it's time to go.

Enter: green, murky, shallow swamp. What's this, a wagon train of canoes? Where are we going? Oh look, a snake. How cute. No, don't get out to catch it. Oh well, at least the water's not that deep. Holy shit, get back in the boat! THAT one's humongous! Look!... wow ... look how it swims in a spiral... I'm pretty sure snakes that big don't grow well in water this shallow.

Ah, back at port. Hey, look, another group of people. Wait - that's - that's us! No, no, stay back. Look, they're going in the buiding. We can watch them from this overhang here. Damn, we're trapped in some sort of time flux. How do we get out? No, we can't ask our past selves! That'd completely screw up the space-time continuum! What are you thinking?



Wow, this place is really kind of dark. But look at all these fish and reptiles and such! No, sorry, I don't work here. Hey, Kevin, nice store. Boy, it sure is dank.



Maybe if... if I angle my way across the lawn here they won't notice I'm gone... no, they're telling me to get back in line. Dang, college campuses are too open. These people seem nice enough, but I can tell they've got something nasty planned for us.

What? I'm a finalist in some stupid talent competition? Fine. I don't know about the rest of you, but my goal is to not win. Oh? My turn? Well, I was already up here. I can't really turn back now.
What is a ball to a puppy?
Is this some sort of analogy test? No, wait. That's simple... a toy. That's right, I'm supposed to be trying to win. Now maybe if I kneel down amidst these small children and look introspective I can gain get some of the audience to like me. Let me study this book. Here.

Well, now that that's over with I can- wait, what? we have to go to kyra's musical? Dang it, I thought I was finally free to do what I wanted. What, we're ALL in it? Um, okay. Let's get in this capsule-shaped thing and drive there.

Okay, I guess I'll get in costume and pretend I know what I'm doing. I hope Mrs. L.H. isn't mad at me for not coming to any rehearsals. Kellen seems to have a decent idea of what's going on, I'll follow her. Whew. This is ridiculous, but it's not that bad.







I like this house. Some of you should stay outside.

It's got to be here, it absolutely has to be here... I'm sure I left it here in the other dimension... quick, the wind is picking up, we have to find it before the universe collapses. Try turning on and off all the lights and here, hold this. Shit. Electricity's gone out.
No, no, I know it was here... goddamnit!
I know this is where I left it!
I know, I know, it's time to go,
running out of time
but
I know it's here

Three Words:

nesting blue cassowaries.

Isn't It Time You Were Brainwashed?

After a graduation ceremony, all the people I know filter out of the large room and fade away into the verdant forest. I meet up with Andrew and Aaron, they look ridiculous in their caps and gowns. We clamber off the road, across a large log and onto a small mountain trail.

I am in the van with my family. We are in a hurry. I look out the window and see that much of the other people and cars are beginning to film over with a strange white substance, like they are covered in a chalky mold. When they are fully covered in the substance, they become zombies. Our van is becoming slower to respond, I can tell we are being converted, but we are nearly out of the city.
Pulling past a stoplight, we do a u-turn into a park. There is a grassy area surrounded by hills. Another family has sought refuge there and are playing frisbee, relieved. We ask if we can join them, they agree. As we begin to settle in for the night, though, the cold sets in, and we realize that we have no blankets, nor provisions. Nervously, we decide to split up. Mom journeys over the hills in search of food, while Dad and I head back to town to get blankets and sleeping bags.



Our control center is infiltrated. The lights go out. A small beam of sunlight from a crack in the ceiling illuminates the now-prolific dust motes. THe building is suddenly ancient and full of grace. As moss crawls over the stools and display panels, several phosphorescent beings flow in under the crack of the doors. Their glow illuminates the entire room. They have the appearance of land-dwelling jellyfish, without tentacles. It seems they can take any form they like. They circle the edge of the room, and as they come to rest, a small lightform presents itself in the center of the room, in the beam of sunlight. It stretches upwards, un the sunlight is refracted through it into each of the other strange beings. This signals the beginning of an intricate dance, which proves to be sometimes hesitantly mournful, sometimes blindingly violent, but always brimming with light and colors.
They finish. We are convinced they have bestowed special abilities upon us.

I encounter a blonde boy of about thirteen. He is exceedingly rude to me, but I let him continue on his way.
A little farther into the building, I literally run into the same blonde boy. He apologizes profusely. I realize that the strange beings have brought special powers to the world, but in balance - there is good, and evil - hence the two blonde boys. They appear to be the same, but have dramatically different personalities. I must bring the two of them to the room where it all began - the control room. However, it is by now an ancient ruin and getting to the center will be difficult.

Dragging the boys by their arms to my car, I am stopped by a Hispanic-looking man. He seems to think I will do the boys harm. I insist that I have magical powers and that I am on an important mission. I try to barge my way past him, but his compatriot appears. I grow Exceedingly frustrated. I try to demonstrate my powers on the car, but nothing happens. As they continue to smirk and block my way, I concentrate with all my might on my magic. I finally succeed in making the locks on the doors wriggle violently, but my aggressors do not notice. They drag the boys away from me and towards the city.
All is lost.

Again

This time my grandma comes over to our house for our birthday party (they are two days apart; we always celebrated together). She is still able to walk, although with some difficulty; the Parkinson's has begun to progress.
Again, I feel guilty for thinking she had been dead. Really, she has been alive this whole time and I haven't seen her since last April because I was too busy. This has made her very sad, and I feel so terrible, and horribly confused.

Not Again

My grandma, the one I thought had been dead since least April is sitting in front of me. She gives me important advice, which I cannot grasp. I keep shaking my head and saying, "I'm sorry, I thought you died. I'm so sorry, they told me you were dead." She assures me that she is alive and well, and she recovered from Parkinson's as well.