dreamscape
04-27-2009, 06:16 AM
Nocturne
It began in darkness, as all stories must, a deep dark in whose silence even the earth itself must be sleeping. But like all stories the peace could not last, and this particular peace was shattered by a buzzing, quiet at first as if testing the water, and growing ever louder, spiralling closer to sleeping ears until with grumbles and smacking gums whose teeth sat not two feet to the left in a tumbler the woman cracked open first her left eye and then her right. Seeing nothing (such was the shroud of darkness that existed in the room) she wondered what could possibly have drawn her from the dreamless sleep she so desperately craved each day when the rapid flickering images that raced through her mind’s eye from home invasions to princes charming to untimely bowel movements was shattered by the humming of the skeeto as it alighted upon the gnarled hairs sprouting crookedly from her right auditory canal.
Shaking herself in a series of violent convulsions, arms flailing and head springing first left then right, she tried to dislodge the skeeto and then waited for the covers to settle and the bed to still to see if it was still there. Her eyes bounced frantically left then right in the darkness, her ears pricked. There. Somewhere high above, still out of reach. It swirled about drunkenly, getting louder now before drawing away again, its discordant tune (a parody of ‘the Valkyries, perhaps) coming to a sudden halt as it landed on a wall or ceiling somewhere. The woman slowly and noiselessly peeled back the covers and rose to a crouch, her joints protesting in the loudest possible way with groans and cracks and cramps.
She waited patiently, leptotyphlopidically, waiting for a single movement so she could strike. The skeeto pushed itself off the far wall, the woman’s waning aural capacities made some readjustments and when she thought it was just above her she sprang, all four limbs off the bed for what would have looked an age (if anyone could penetrate the darkness) as she swung her left arm then her right hoping to end its flight. What goes up must come down, and she hit the bed with an almighty squeal and scrunch of springs, only to be pushed back airborne, then back down again, each time her limbs contorted into an original arrangement, until finally she came to rest, legs and arms akimbo, as the mattress’ final shudders ceased.
She let loose a heaving sigh that made her lips flap like a loose embouchure. She heard a buzz. Damn skeeto. Getting up she grabbed a pillow and stepped off the bed. She tried to track its flight round the room but it was too fast. She began swinging wildly to the left and to the right. She noticed the bedroom door was open. It was going to escape. She made a run for it, left arm extended out in front of her like a desperate lover grasping for her falling partner’s hand, but it was too late. He had escaped.
She craned her head out of the doorway, looking left then right, the moonlight poking holes in the darkness down the hallway. There it was, making its way down the hall. She charged. It must have seen her coming as it darted left into a long-deserted bedroom. She followed but it had tricked her. It zoomed back out into the hallway, leading her a merry chase from room to room. Her long wispy hair (which she had not deigned to have cut for over a decade now, for reasons long forgotten, eschewing the conventional image of the octogenarian with the curled short hair, with or without distasteful fluorescent colouring (orange, blue and purple seemingly the staples), and causing her to sneer in distaste when her travels took her past a ladies’ salon with the women incubating under the machines like battery hens, clucking inanely away to each other as they pored over magazines at least ten years old (which may go some way to explaining that generation’s incompatibility with and inability to keep pace with modern society and technology)) fluttering loosely behind her like a comet’s tail, her faded and tattered nightie flowing behind like a witch’s robe, as she raced from room to room chasing the skeeto that she could hear but not see.
She had run back out into the hall and now found it deserted. The silence was threatening. She stalked down the passage like an alley-cat. She brushed against a picture on the wall (depicting her and her husband (rest his soul) standing in front of the very same house, which they had built with their own hands) disturbing its perfect perpendicularity to the ceiling. She adjusted it to the left then to the right, in ever smaller increments so that it was pretty close to perfect (as far as she could see, and she had to admit her eyesight wasn’t so good no more but, she realised with a start, it was beginning to get pretty well accustomed to the dark now) when she heard a Tink from the kitchen. She blinked twice. Tink.
She strode into the kitchen past the briefly pleasant glow of the fire that was still sputtering away in the lounge and paused in its centre. Tink from the stove. She stepped closer. Tink. Closer again. Tink. She leaned over the stovetop, looking down, then up, left then right. Plip. She felt a squirming little presence on her nose. She drew back her head and crossed her eyes. Cheeky little piller had dropped on her nose. Tink. Tink. They were coming from the air vent.
She swept her hands left then right, trying to catch them, trying to strike them as they fell. It was no good. There were too many. They were crawling up her arms. She spun around, limbs flailing, swiping, face blowing to get rid of the pillers. Then it caught her eye. Bug repellent.
She grasped it like the holy grail, held it aloft like Excalibur drawn from the stone, turned to the stove and with a gleeful cackle turned on the juice. She sprayed until her index finger hurt (which wasn’t all that long given her arthritis, but why ruin a good dramatic moment) and when she let go the Tinks had ceased. To be replaced by a familiar buzzing.
She spun on her heel, just catching herself before she overbalanced, and stepped slowly into the lounge. There it was again. Now she could see and was armed, the tables had turned, Mr. Skeeto. But she realised it was all different. The tune had been harmonised by a second set of wings, and a third. She dived behind the couch, rolling to her back and pausing with limbs waving in the air like a tortoise turned on its shell as slowly her weight shifted and she rolled upright. She lifted her head slowly until just her eyes peeked over the back of the couch. The eyes slid left then right, searching for the source of the skeeto symphony. She spotted them. Padding around the left hand side of the couch she prowled into the middle of the room, tracking the creatures with her eyes and spray-can.
She let loose a short burst, then another, then another. A constant stream spurted forth from the can as she danced a wild jig around the room, turning left then right, leaping forward and back, reaching high and low, like a long-retired gymnast recapturing her freestyle floor and can routine, a wildness in her eyes that would have frightened an unwitting observer.
Stopping to catch her breath, her great sagging chest heaving with her shoulders, she thought all was silent. Until an insistent flapping drew her head to the left, no, the right. Mots! Laying piller eggs on her favourite curtains, fluttering about like it was some sort of tea party. Well, she had had enough of this nonsense. She stomped forward and sprayed them too. Looking around she picked up a tissue and scraped those piller eggs from the curtain, left then right, left then right, til there were no more.
And then a buzzing. The skeetos were back. Tink. This was outrageous. Flapping and buzzing and Tinking all around til she thought she would scream. Buzz. Tink. Dolp. She paused. Dolp? Now what? She held her breath and then felt scraping, scrabbling legs on her shoulder. Slowly her eyes curled round and her head soon followed and there was the biggest ugliest spidy she had ever seen, smiling up buck-toothed at her with mirth in its many eyes. She took a deep breath. And shrieked. She waved her arms furiously, slapping about and swiping, but she could not dislodge the tenacious spidy. In a last desperate move she tore the nightie over her head and threw it into the fire, dancing back and jumping about as if it could still be on her somewhere, her skin crawling and heart beating a double-time rhythm as the nightie flared and she swore she could hear tiny little wail of horror until a crisp little explosion filled the fireplace. And ruined her night-vision.
Tink. She shrieked again and ran into the kitchen, spraying all about. She raced from room to room spraying every surface and every corner, nook and cranny. This had to end tonight. When she had coated every room in foamy spray, the woman stumbled back into the lounge room and flopped down. The house was silent once more.
The woman lay slouched in her favourite chair by the window, naked and exhausted but content at the success of the early morning exertions, folds of greying wrinkled skin and flesh who no longer defied gravity hanging over the arms and cushions, her chest and stomach rising and falling in great heaves as her body and brain sucked in precious oxygen. The sun’s fresh early rays sliced through the Venetians to key light the slow ballet of the dust and ash as they swirled and settled in the now peaceful abode.
So as all stories must, this one ends with light holding back the dark, if only ephemerally, so that all is at peace with the world once more. Not even the birds had yet awoken to greet the day so that in that deep silence the stuttered buzzing of translucent wings cut straight through the falling veil of dreams, making the breath catch and body freeze. The woman’s left eye creaked slowly open.
It began in darkness, as all stories must, a deep dark in whose silence even the earth itself must be sleeping. But like all stories the peace could not last, and this particular peace was shattered by a buzzing, quiet at first as if testing the water, and growing ever louder, spiralling closer to sleeping ears until with grumbles and smacking gums whose teeth sat not two feet to the left in a tumbler the woman cracked open first her left eye and then her right. Seeing nothing (such was the shroud of darkness that existed in the room) she wondered what could possibly have drawn her from the dreamless sleep she so desperately craved each day when the rapid flickering images that raced through her mind’s eye from home invasions to princes charming to untimely bowel movements was shattered by the humming of the skeeto as it alighted upon the gnarled hairs sprouting crookedly from her right auditory canal.
Shaking herself in a series of violent convulsions, arms flailing and head springing first left then right, she tried to dislodge the skeeto and then waited for the covers to settle and the bed to still to see if it was still there. Her eyes bounced frantically left then right in the darkness, her ears pricked. There. Somewhere high above, still out of reach. It swirled about drunkenly, getting louder now before drawing away again, its discordant tune (a parody of ‘the Valkyries, perhaps) coming to a sudden halt as it landed on a wall or ceiling somewhere. The woman slowly and noiselessly peeled back the covers and rose to a crouch, her joints protesting in the loudest possible way with groans and cracks and cramps.
She waited patiently, leptotyphlopidically, waiting for a single movement so she could strike. The skeeto pushed itself off the far wall, the woman’s waning aural capacities made some readjustments and when she thought it was just above her she sprang, all four limbs off the bed for what would have looked an age (if anyone could penetrate the darkness) as she swung her left arm then her right hoping to end its flight. What goes up must come down, and she hit the bed with an almighty squeal and scrunch of springs, only to be pushed back airborne, then back down again, each time her limbs contorted into an original arrangement, until finally she came to rest, legs and arms akimbo, as the mattress’ final shudders ceased.
She let loose a heaving sigh that made her lips flap like a loose embouchure. She heard a buzz. Damn skeeto. Getting up she grabbed a pillow and stepped off the bed. She tried to track its flight round the room but it was too fast. She began swinging wildly to the left and to the right. She noticed the bedroom door was open. It was going to escape. She made a run for it, left arm extended out in front of her like a desperate lover grasping for her falling partner’s hand, but it was too late. He had escaped.
She craned her head out of the doorway, looking left then right, the moonlight poking holes in the darkness down the hallway. There it was, making its way down the hall. She charged. It must have seen her coming as it darted left into a long-deserted bedroom. She followed but it had tricked her. It zoomed back out into the hallway, leading her a merry chase from room to room. Her long wispy hair (which she had not deigned to have cut for over a decade now, for reasons long forgotten, eschewing the conventional image of the octogenarian with the curled short hair, with or without distasteful fluorescent colouring (orange, blue and purple seemingly the staples), and causing her to sneer in distaste when her travels took her past a ladies’ salon with the women incubating under the machines like battery hens, clucking inanely away to each other as they pored over magazines at least ten years old (which may go some way to explaining that generation’s incompatibility with and inability to keep pace with modern society and technology)) fluttering loosely behind her like a comet’s tail, her faded and tattered nightie flowing behind like a witch’s robe, as she raced from room to room chasing the skeeto that she could hear but not see.
She had run back out into the hall and now found it deserted. The silence was threatening. She stalked down the passage like an alley-cat. She brushed against a picture on the wall (depicting her and her husband (rest his soul) standing in front of the very same house, which they had built with their own hands) disturbing its perfect perpendicularity to the ceiling. She adjusted it to the left then to the right, in ever smaller increments so that it was pretty close to perfect (as far as she could see, and she had to admit her eyesight wasn’t so good no more but, she realised with a start, it was beginning to get pretty well accustomed to the dark now) when she heard a Tink from the kitchen. She blinked twice. Tink.
She strode into the kitchen past the briefly pleasant glow of the fire that was still sputtering away in the lounge and paused in its centre. Tink from the stove. She stepped closer. Tink. Closer again. Tink. She leaned over the stovetop, looking down, then up, left then right. Plip. She felt a squirming little presence on her nose. She drew back her head and crossed her eyes. Cheeky little piller had dropped on her nose. Tink. Tink. They were coming from the air vent.
She swept her hands left then right, trying to catch them, trying to strike them as they fell. It was no good. There were too many. They were crawling up her arms. She spun around, limbs flailing, swiping, face blowing to get rid of the pillers. Then it caught her eye. Bug repellent.
She grasped it like the holy grail, held it aloft like Excalibur drawn from the stone, turned to the stove and with a gleeful cackle turned on the juice. She sprayed until her index finger hurt (which wasn’t all that long given her arthritis, but why ruin a good dramatic moment) and when she let go the Tinks had ceased. To be replaced by a familiar buzzing.
She spun on her heel, just catching herself before she overbalanced, and stepped slowly into the lounge. There it was again. Now she could see and was armed, the tables had turned, Mr. Skeeto. But she realised it was all different. The tune had been harmonised by a second set of wings, and a third. She dived behind the couch, rolling to her back and pausing with limbs waving in the air like a tortoise turned on its shell as slowly her weight shifted and she rolled upright. She lifted her head slowly until just her eyes peeked over the back of the couch. The eyes slid left then right, searching for the source of the skeeto symphony. She spotted them. Padding around the left hand side of the couch she prowled into the middle of the room, tracking the creatures with her eyes and spray-can.
She let loose a short burst, then another, then another. A constant stream spurted forth from the can as she danced a wild jig around the room, turning left then right, leaping forward and back, reaching high and low, like a long-retired gymnast recapturing her freestyle floor and can routine, a wildness in her eyes that would have frightened an unwitting observer.
Stopping to catch her breath, her great sagging chest heaving with her shoulders, she thought all was silent. Until an insistent flapping drew her head to the left, no, the right. Mots! Laying piller eggs on her favourite curtains, fluttering about like it was some sort of tea party. Well, she had had enough of this nonsense. She stomped forward and sprayed them too. Looking around she picked up a tissue and scraped those piller eggs from the curtain, left then right, left then right, til there were no more.
And then a buzzing. The skeetos were back. Tink. This was outrageous. Flapping and buzzing and Tinking all around til she thought she would scream. Buzz. Tink. Dolp. She paused. Dolp? Now what? She held her breath and then felt scraping, scrabbling legs on her shoulder. Slowly her eyes curled round and her head soon followed and there was the biggest ugliest spidy she had ever seen, smiling up buck-toothed at her with mirth in its many eyes. She took a deep breath. And shrieked. She waved her arms furiously, slapping about and swiping, but she could not dislodge the tenacious spidy. In a last desperate move she tore the nightie over her head and threw it into the fire, dancing back and jumping about as if it could still be on her somewhere, her skin crawling and heart beating a double-time rhythm as the nightie flared and she swore she could hear tiny little wail of horror until a crisp little explosion filled the fireplace. And ruined her night-vision.
Tink. She shrieked again and ran into the kitchen, spraying all about. She raced from room to room spraying every surface and every corner, nook and cranny. This had to end tonight. When she had coated every room in foamy spray, the woman stumbled back into the lounge room and flopped down. The house was silent once more.
The woman lay slouched in her favourite chair by the window, naked and exhausted but content at the success of the early morning exertions, folds of greying wrinkled skin and flesh who no longer defied gravity hanging over the arms and cushions, her chest and stomach rising and falling in great heaves as her body and brain sucked in precious oxygen. The sun’s fresh early rays sliced through the Venetians to key light the slow ballet of the dust and ash as they swirled and settled in the now peaceful abode.
So as all stories must, this one ends with light holding back the dark, if only ephemerally, so that all is at peace with the world once more. Not even the birds had yet awoken to greet the day so that in that deep silence the stuttered buzzing of translucent wings cut straight through the falling veil of dreams, making the breath catch and body freeze. The woman’s left eye creaked slowly open.