Dreambox

New Year’s Eve

Jenny Crimp — Mon, 04 May 2009 18:10:26 +0000

It was New Year’s but it was in June. Laura, Garett and I drove around Alki for a while looking for parking, but it was very crowded, of course, and so we had to park a few blocks away on the east side of Capitol Hill. Alki was on Whidbey Island, which was directly across the Sound from Seattle. I had to walk back to the car after a while when it became apparent that nothing was going to happen for a while. On the way there I stopped in a really nice house that was for sale. There was a fancy party going on inside, and I ran into my Dad. He told me that Laura and Garett and decided to buy the house, even though it cost twice what their current house cost. I was excited, and wondered if we would be moving into the new house or staying in the old one so we could fix up the new house and rent it out. I wasn’t supposed to be there, so I snuck out before the smiling hostess could ask me to serve drinks.
On the way down the street Alex rode past me on his bicycle and I yelled his name and he stopped, but we didn’t talk long because he had to be somewhere and because Jason Burns appeared across the street and and grabbed my hands and flung me around in arcs over his head for a while. When that was over I told him how Kris had used a computer program to train his bicycle to go get pizza for him, but it only went to the pizza shop, and he had to go there to retrieve it.

Tooth Fairy

Jenny Crimp — Fri, 01 May 2009 06:58:09 +0000

My dad is giving me a ride home, when Devin calls him on his cell phone. From eavesdropping on the conversation I learn that for the past six months my childhood friend has been working for my parents without my knowledge. I have been really out of touch.
Home is more like some dotted lines and implied walls over a bare patch of dirt. It shouldn’t be surprising that a stranger should find his way inside, but the mostly toothless, heavily-bearded and incredibly creepy truck driver scares the shit out of me when I turn around and he’s coming out from behind the curtains in the living room. I tell him to leave and he doesn’t move. My dad is still there, but he won’t pay attention to me. Creepy truck driver sits on the floor next to me as I pack my things (I’m moving out or traveling, maybe this is why my house no longer has walls). He reaches out and sneakily snatches some small item, like my hairbrush, and replaces it with a bag of plastic cup lids. I tell him I don’t want his lids, give me my brush back. He doesn’t want the lids back; it was a trade. I see that he’s hidden my brush in his shirt pocket, and I reach out and snatch it as I shove the lids into his hand. He caresses my hand as I pull it away. I yell, “I don’t want to trade!” and get up to shoo him out the door, but he’s already traded my toothbrush for something else of his, like an old air freshener, and I know I can’t just steal my toothbrush back because it was a trade, so I have to find a way to get the air freshener back on his person while simultaneously reclaiming my toothbrush. Again, he caresses my arm, I jump away and open the door, but he’s already claimed something else of mine, and hidden the thing he replaced it with. I have to hunt down his deposited items and finally just scream, “GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY HOUSE!” and shove him out the door. He makes sure to stand in the doorway long enough so that Gingermoss, my kitten, can escape, and then vanishes. I know he’s up to something malicious, and when I run after Gingermoss, I trip over something. It is my phone, which he had stolen, but cleverly deposited for me to find. I run down into my parents’ yard, and continue across the street. Just then I get a phone call from an unfamiliar number and answer.
He speaks over the phone, “Turn around.” I look back and see Gingermoss sprint from under the tree. He is concealed underneath.
“What did you do to her?!” I yell, “What did you do?”
He replies, “I just wanted some of her teeth.”
“How many did you take!?” I demand.

the evil genie who lives in my house

Kris Skotheim — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 22:22:52 +0000

I come home to find a giant crowd of people waiting outside of my house. Ariana runs up to me to say that we’re having a party here, and that I’m late! I hurry inside and try to find something to make for so many people, but I don’t think I have any food. People pour into the house and start mingling and exploring. Someone walks near the evil genie’s cave, and the genie throws a dart at him that sticks into his wrist. Aghast, he asks me what that was all about. I don’t really know, but I don’t particularly want the genie throwing any more darts at the guests, so I start to board up the room that leads to the genie’s cave, but the genie throws a dart into my arm! I demand him to explain himself. He says that we can either go to the hospital immediately and get our arms amputated or the poison will envelop us and our souls will be slaves to him for eternity.

Not wasting any time, I run into the kitchen and grab a long, serrated bread knife. To the horror of those around me, I make two deep angled cuts into my arm around the dart hole such that a triangular prism of bloody, poisoned flesh falls off my arm into the sink. The wound doesn’t start to hurt until I’m done with the knife and I am covered in blood, as is the knife, sink, and floor. I pack a paper towel soaked in antiseptic into the hole and tape the wound closed. The other person wounded by a dart understands what is at stake, and takes the knife to set about cutting off his wrist. He wraps a string tightly around his finger to slow blood flow, and his arm becomes clear like it is made of plastic. I can see the veins and arteries and tendons inside. I wonder if the internet will know how to improvise an arterial clamp.

elephant seal

Cynthia Foley — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 17:30:11 +0000

Rosie gave birth to an elephant seal. A moose charged the angry father bull seal.

3:28

Kris Skotheim — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 08:53:32 +0000

I wake up with the feeling that something is missing from inside my mind. It seems to be my sense of time – I concentrate really hard, but still can’t tell what time it is at all. I look at my watch, and it is 3:28. That doesn’t make sense, I realize, because I’m not wearing a watch.

prophetic fragments

Kris Skotheim — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 01:56:20 +0000

I am being chased on my bike by a group of hunters in a camouflaged pickup truck. I can go faster than them if I sprint as fast as I possibly can manage, but I don’t think I can keep the pace up for long. My legs burst into flame. I’m not sure if this is a really good thing or a really bad thing.

A shadowy, many-legged form is hovering in front of me. It says something I don’t understand.

I am in a war, but I don’t know over what or between who. There is a rifle in my hand, and I am wearing a dark wool uniform. I can’t see far through the fog, and in every direction there is mud and the sound of gunfire. I start to walk towards the sound of a large explosion. The icy mud beneath my boots becomes a field of the innumerable decomposing faces of dead soldiers, and with each step their skulls crack and squish beneath my boots. The ground is so thick with blood and cerebrospinal fluid that my boots get sucked underground, and I have to proceed in bare feet. I light a cigarette, and moments later I realize that the fingers holding the cigarette are no longer attached to my hand, but are on the ground a few feet away. One of the faces in the ground tells me my feet smell like brains. I apologize, then lie down to smoke another cigarette with my remaining fingers.

this is not my dream

Jenny Crimp — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 05:09:01 +0000

it is actually my grandma’s dream.

she dreamt that i was small and i was sad and crying about something.

rebecca’s salt addiction and something from harry potter or that ridiculous vampire movie

Jenny Crimp — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 07:48:50 +0000

After class at the CMA I decide to walk through U Village and maybe get something to eat. On the west side there is a new building with a few stores and some medical offices. One of the stores looks interesting, so I go inside. It appears to be an antique/estate jewelry store; the floors are dark wood with fancy rugs. A man in a suit is waiting to greet me as I take a look into the cases recessed into the walls. In the case are various precious jeweled objects such as a Faberge egg, but what really catches my attention is a miniature bust with a blank face. Onto the face, a video of Lexi’s face is projected. She talks to me.

“You have to understand, I had no way to predict it, I went to see doctors and they had no idea, but I finally found out that it was some sort of imbalance in my brain. That’s why I needed salt, and I had to have it all the time.”

I tell her I’m very sorry about her medical condition, though I am silently perplexed as to why she feels she needs to explain this to me.

Now Rebecca chimes in- she is in the store with me now. “The same thing happened to me. It was terrible, I didn’t realize it was happening. It really began with that ice cream, the specific brand you get at QFC- creamy vanilla with the salty pecans.” (She actually meant salty caramel, I believe). “I couldn’t get enough of it and nearly went broke. I’m being treated now but sometimes I still struggle with it.”

I feel really bad for their affliction and say so, but also kind of weirded out and want to change the topic because I don’t know why the miniature bust brought it up with me to begin with.

Rebecca and I leave the store and run into Gavin. We decide to get something to eat, and as we walk down the sidewalk, Gavin recounts the story of when Rebecca unexpectedly jumped him as they were leaving her apartment to go have dinner with his girlfriend. Gavin thinks it’s funny, and I applaud Rebecca for taking action to get what she wanted, but then remember that I should scold her for being disrespectful of the fact that Gavin is totally off-limits and putting him and a really bad position if Emily ever found out.

Later, I am on Bainbridge, and must get back to Seattle in a hurry. Intending to fly, I jump out the window of the old mansion I am sneaking away from, but don’t have enough momentum to get up into the air, so I have to grab a power line as I glide to the ground in the cobblestone courtyard, and hop a few times like a crow before I can get back into the air. It’s not easy; I fly in arcs by hopping and then concentrating on defying gravity to get higher, but eventually gliding back to the ground. I do this through the busy semi-residential area of town, checking my back every once in a while to make sure I haven’t been followed. My powers must remain secret from the public, but I am not worried about being seen, because I remain invisible unless someone thinks to look specifically for a flying girl. This has never been a problem before because no one would ever think a person could fly unaided, but eventually I feel eyes on me- not the people who should be following me, but this is an ordinary person who received a tip and wants to expose me. He jumps on his bicycle and races through the streets as I jump over rooftops. I try my best to lose him and finally reach the water’s edge, where I must jump from Bainbridge to Seattle. Trying to be more inconspicuous I seek out the tallest tree around, and fly to it low-to the ground. Then I begin to half-fly, half climb up the trunk. The branches get thicker and the climbing harder as I approach the top. Suddenly I look up and there are feet on the branches above me and two sets of hands grabbing me- I have been set up. I point my hand at one attacker’s stomach and attempt to stun him with my magic powers, but there is just a green spark- it failed. I watch in horror as the other attacker points his hand at me and prepares to shock me. But it doesn’t work, I struggle some more, trying to blast my opponents with no success. Somehow I break free and desperately try to jump from the tree and fly to Seattle, but I have no more power over gravity and fall though the branches to the ground. Miraculously, as I approach the ground my fall slows and I don’t die. I jump into the air again and fly to my accomplice’s hideout nearby.
Hiding in the store with the doors locked and lights out, I ask my friends how we were followed and what could have happened in the tree. One rather kooky old woman I have never met before informs me that the tree is the oldest one around, and probably just absorbs all powers.

There are zombies.

Elizabeth Dameron — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 09:08:43 +0000

I’m out of bullets and I don’t know how to get more into the gun. It folds in half and I am nervous about shooting my own feet.
This is what it feels like:

There are also empty wine bottles on the ground everywhere and this becomes more frightening than the zombies. Jason shoots a zombie in the head and all the blood goes into the bottles. It is satisfying.

I’m basically James Bond

Jenny Crimp — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 04:59:43 +0000

My family, Kris, and probably Alex and Rebecca managed to get tickets to the 2010 winter olympics in Vancouver. We are in an indoor arena that looks remarkably like Sylvester Middle School’s gym. There is no real seating because the bleachers are all folded up, and we must back up against the wall so as not to get hit by the athletes warming up. We are going to watch several events at once, which probably includes figure skating ,curling, and basketball. The whole thing is very disorganized, just asking for disaster.
I decide to go get some snacks from a vendor, and when I go to pay, I realize that I only have Canadian currency- but wait, that’s actually good because we’re in Canada! The change I get though, is not Canadian, it is in my own currency, (I am from a tiny remote country in Asia that no one knows about.) To give me five dollars in change, the vendor ripped off a quarter of a twenty dollar bill, which is totally legit.
As I make my way back to my family I realize that I’ve been discovered, since I’m a spy and no one is supposed to know where I am from. I am supposed to be keeping an eye on the assassins stationed throughout the arena, but the vendor has just given me away.
Now the high speed foot chase begins, at least ten armed assailants come out of the crowd after me, and I must run away because for some reason I’m completely unarmed. I manage to lose most of them in the crowd, and knock one or two unconscious with a karate kick to the head, and when another comes after me with an iron pipe in the parking garage I manage to steal it from him and run away (I didn’t feel like really injuring him, I suppose). I throw the pipe out the window as I climb out and up the fire escape. There is only one attacker left, the boss, and I know he’s not far behind.
My head is spinning from the never-ending chase and attacks, I just want to go home to my family. I duck in and out of rooms in the hotel attached to the parking garage, until finally I lose the boss and find my husband and two year old son in one of the rooms. My son thinks of me as “daddy” and my husband as “mommy”, because, even though we’re both secret agents, my husband is much more maternal than I am. We are so tired, so we all change into pajamas and climb into bed. It’s so nice to fall asleep with my family, but of course I sense the enemy approaching, and must leap out of bed before he finds us, and lure him back to the parking garage for the final battle. We begin a violent fight that I know could go on forever, because neither of us will ever run out of energy because I’m really just asleep.