Once Upon a Dream

A/N: Hey guys! I\'m sorry it\'s been so long since I\'ve posted on this one. I\'d gotten a little bummed at the lack of response, either of hits or of reviews. I\'m kinda leaning toward pulling it down and finding another site to post this one. So (as I swallow my pride and beg), please review this chapter, at least. Let me know what you think--I promise constructive criticism won\'t piss me off for more than three minutes and twenty-seven seconds. Praise, of course, is always welcome. Whatever you think, thanks for checking it out.




Chapter Four: The Battle Zone

“Obviously, we don’t have time to see everything. Honestly, even I’m not sure exactly what and where everything is here. Your brain is rather extensive, as you might imagine,” Zig explained. “Today you’ll just get the highlights.” She led us into one of the skyscrapers and onto an elevator. It went up and up and up, and just the time I decided the moon must be the first stop on this grand tour, the elevator jolted to a halt. I was slightly disappointed—having been pressed against Cash in the enclosed space, I really felt no great desire to leave the cubicle—just for everyone else to. Except Cash, of course. I know, I know. One-track mind. There are serious problems with my head, and I’m thinking about sex! For shame, ‘Donia. For shame.

There was only one door outside of the elevator, an elaborately carved one of some dark, unidentifiable material. The carvings seemed amorphous; every time I looked at them, the figures shifted into something else. I could have stood there all day, watching those things, but Zig tapped my shoulder.

“That’s amazing,” I breathed.

“That’s just the tip of the iceberg, darling,” she corrected and opened the door.

Inside was an enormous machine, apparently stretching all the way to the ground floor, though I couldn’t see that far. Pipes and cogs and pulleys and everything you could imagine in every color under the sun, and a few that aren’t even there popped, whistled, crunched and growled an ever-changing tune. On thin, dangerous catwalks, some things were busy oiling, fixing, and maintaining the huge engine. Was that one orange? I peered closer.

“Is that an Oompa Loompa in my head?” I queried to no one in particular. “That’s really rather terrifying.”

“Welcome to your imagination,” Zig said grandly.

I took a moment, just to breath. I mean—wow, you know? That something this vast could be in my head—it was pretty incredible.

“Damn,” I finally breathed reverently. Then I returned to my normal suspicious self. “Okay, so—what’s the problem? It looks to me like everything is working just fine. No sirens blaring, no red flashing lights, no sprinkler system activated, nothing.”

“No,” Zig said hesitantly. “The machine itself is working just fine. In the mechanical sense, anyway, but, well...”

“She should see the Log,” Kathleen said imperiously.

Zig nodded her agreement. “Yes, I suppose that would be the best way to see the results, huh?” She blew a raspberry, and we were suddenly in a huge library.

I threw up a hand in a “halt” gesture.

“Now wait one bloody minute. How did you do that raspberry thing?”

“Oh, it’s easy. You just stick your tongue out a little bit, keep your lips firm, and go pbpbpbpft.” She demonstrated.

I gave her a look. The quelling one I call my “teacher look.” Parker laughed at me every time I used it, saying that I looked like I had just heard that ancient Professor Hawlins preferred tighty whities. Then again, she pretty much laughed at me no matter what I did. “No, no. That’s not what I mean. What I mean is, how did you make a raspberry get us from there to here?”

Zig shrugged. “It’s my name, you see. I zig zag. I make sharp, unexpected turns. It really is rather silly of you to try to understand.”

I blinked. Twice. “But isn’t this tour of my head supposed to help me understand? And, as part of my head, shouldn’t I understand you too, then?”

Cash snorted. “Yeah. You can understand your head like you can understand space.”

I looked to Tattoo and Kathleen for enlightenment. “What the hell is he talking about?”

Tattoo deigned to answer. “Well, it’s like this, hon: a scientist can study space for his entire life, right?”

“Right. Unless the scientist is a woman,” Kathleen interjected.

Tattoo dismissed her with a wave of his hand. “I’m using the genderless ‘he’. Now. This genderless scientist can study space for all of his life, but he can never fully understand it, see? It’s just too big. There’s just too much to know, and not enough light to elucidate everything.”

“Uh-huh. Whatever. Then what’s the point of this tour thing?”

“Um, how about another metaphor?” Cash sneered sexily. “Space suddenly has a huge black hole that is going to suck up earth. Would you want to stop it from happening?”

“Oh.”

“The Log,” Zig reminded impatiently.

“Right, right. The Log. What’s the Log?” I asked.

“The Log is where we record every idea you have. We use it to monitor your, ahem, stability,” she explained.

“So you’re telling me I really am going mad?” I demanded.

“Well, not necessarily. Though these dreams are kind of pushing it. You can be sane and still have certain mental imbalances.”

“Like what? ‘Imbalances’ sounds a lot like ‘crazy’ to me.”

“Like depression, anxiety, intense phobias, delusions, whatever.”

“Sounds like I need a therapist more than I need a tour.”

“Yeah. Pretty much,” Cash agreed.

“But you’re only here because you want to be,” Kathleen interjected. “Because you won’t go to a therapist.”

I huffed. “Okay. Fine. I get it. I’m a stubborn jackass. Now let’s get back to the damn tour.” I didn’t really like it that these people knew me better than I knew myself. And, they were extensions of myself, in a way. So shouldn’t I have access to all the knowledge they possess? And why didn’t I understand them at all?

Marian from “The Music Man”—before she got all hot and bothered and loosened up--brought us a massive tome. It was old—the leather was crackled, and pages were yellowed. Inside, the title page read, “Adonia, Age Eight.”

A few pages later, the entries began.

“April 8, 12:04 a.m.: When I blow out the candles, I’m going to wish for a Clydesdale with big hooves and red ribbons in his hair, just the beer horses.”

April 8, 9:18 a.m.: Maybe when Grandma comes, she’ll bring me two presents.

April 8, 10:43 a.m.: Mommy doesn’t want me to run down the stairs like an elephant because the loud noise will make the cake fall.

April 8, 12:31 p.m.: My brother is a mean toad, and he smells like old socks.”

I flipped to a page from a few months later.

“July 4, 7:19 p.m.: Are the stars God’s sparklers?

July 4, 7:20 p.m.: What is He celebrating?”

I flipped through the book, reading ideas that caught my eye. One described a story I had planned on writing about Puss in Boots’ girlfriend, Puss in Pumps. Lots of them were about exactly what my Barbies were doing tat day. A particularly strange dream about tuna casserole coming alive again in my stomach, coagulating into its former fishy shape, and trying to swim out my ears had me a little disturbed. I remembered that one. It had been scary. I looked suspiciously to Cash at another entry:

“November 23, 8:51 p.m.: I think maybe my head holds all of outer space in it.”

He shrugged.

“Nothing I say is my own. Not really. It’s your head. You’re bound to think the same thing, with variations, of course, sometimes anyway.”

I decided to accept this without comment and returned to the entries. After another few minutes of this, I hefted the book closed, casting an expectant look at my strange and sexy companions. The latter adjective, of course, only applied to Cash. I really didn’t understand what Kathleen saw in Tattoo. Then again, maybe aging Hell’s Angels with a surprising vocabulary really appealed to bossy naked inked women. I wouldn’t know.

“Yeah, but look at this.” Zig offered another book, this one much slimmer and newer. It was bound in cheap canvas. Apparently, someone had been going through it a lot. Some of the pages had been flagged. I took the book from Zig and opened it: “Adonia, Age Twenty.”

“Hey, this is this year’s,” I said, surprised. “How come it’s so skinny?”

“You don’t use your imagination much anymore,” Cash explained. I promptly opened the book so I could hide behind it.

“April 8, 12:14 a.m.: Birthdays blow.

April 8, 4:39 p.m.: I can’t wait until I’m old and everyone forgets my birthday.”

June 1, 5:00 p.m.: Well, maybe next year I’ll win the lottery. That way I can have plastic surgery and have a date that isn’t offered strictly out of pity. God, my life sucks.

June 17, 8:47 p.m.: God. I think that Jell-o went right to my thighs without changing at all. Instead of a thin layer of fat beneath my skin, I’ve got two bowls full of orange Jigglers. I don’t think a guy would find that cool even if it was still orange-flavored. God. Maybe it will soak through, and my legs will be orange, too. God, I’m so disgusting.

August 1, 3:21 p.m.: If I wear long, dangly earrings, will it make my neck look longer? I think I’ll have a double chin in a week. I hope turtlenecks are in this fall.

September 14, 2:53 p.m.: Maybe if I weren’t so stupid and completely uninteresting, maybe guys would talk to me at parties.\"

And, to my surprise, one from yesterday:

\"October 3, 11:56 a.m.: I think I\'ll stay home tonight. That way I won\'t have to show this Mt. Everest of a zit in public.\"

I cringed behind the book. Did I really think that poorly of myself? Yes, I admitted.

“Well, you really don’t have great skills at parties, and men aren’t exactly attracted to nose hair,” said a tiny voice near my ear. I whipped my head around to see a miniaturized version of myself hovering at eye-level.

Did I really look like that? I wondered desperately. Is that how people see me? My hair looked like a dead brown octopus had suctioned itself to my head. If it had inked my face—well, that would have been an improvement. I had beady little eyes and a nose on par with George Washington’s—the one on the monument in South Dakota I had seen once. God—why couldn’t I remember the name of that monument? I was so stupid! God—it was even visible, there in my low unibrow, like I was a Cro-Magnon woman, and there, in my slack jaw. I looked like an uncool version of Napoleon Dynamite. From my chin up, I mean. Napoleon was tall and skinny, and I’m short and fat. My chin kind of slid down into my throat—not a double chin yet, but rather the chin/neck version of a cankle. You know what I mean. You can’t exactly be sure where one ends and the other begins. My shoulders slumped forward, my boobs were weird, my waist didn’t indent as much as it should, my hips were wide, I hade a bubble butt, my Jell-o thighs made me want to puke, my knees were knobby, and I needed to shave my toes again.

I didn’t even want to think about how awful that all must be, seen at one hundred percent, like all my friends had to. Between my social awkwardness, my dog-face, rhinoceros body, and utter idiocy, it was a wonder they’d even be seen speaking to me—or even want to speak to me, for that matter. I wondered again how much liposuction would cost. I’d tried becoming an anorexic, once, but I liked eating too much, so that had just ended in a binge on orange-flavored gelatin product. I would have tried bulimia, too, but the idea of having to see that damn orange Jell-o again totally triggered my impressive gag reflex. Which would have been useful, if I could have made myself do it.

The disgusting little me in front of myself (wow—that sounds so postmodern) was not the source of the comment, however. That came from my sister, miniaturized to look like a pretty little doll and hovering beside my ugly little self, as if to emphasize the contrast.

“Look, you know I’m just trying to help,” she said. “I told you I’d buy you a trimmer, didn’t I?”

“Yeah,” I sighed. She was right. I really did need to take better care of myself. Still, I was so embarrassed that she would mention that in front of my friends.

“C-can I go home now? I mean—outside, or whatever?” I hated myself for the chapped lip that quivered pathetically. I tried not to look at Cash, but I apparently have a morbid fascination for self-humiliation. He wasn’t looking at me but rather at his fingernails, his mouth tightened a little at the corners, as if he had just put pure cocoa powder in his mouth. Like he had been expecting something sweet and rich, and gotten nothing but bitterness. At least there wasn’t pity in his eyes. I would have happily shot myself right then if there had been pity in his eyes.

When I slid my glance quickly away, my gaze locked with Zig’s. And there was the pity that I had never wanted.

“Fuck you!” I shouted suddenly, and they disappeared.