Dome

Sometimes dreams can be so real that you can forget their impossibilities, and wake with a stronger memory of them than of the day before. This was one such dream.

I can’t remember if I was cold or not, but I assume I was. The sky was crinkled by thorny grey clouds and the water beneath had lost all its blue. How I ended up in the water or how long I was there will never come back to me, but my sense of escape was as clear and striking as a thunderbolt. In contradiction to my understanding of the universe I remember being upside down, with my head clear of the seething ocean and my body trapped and battered by the waves. Like I had this remarkable sensation of a reverse in gravity, as if the force holding me to the water and the water to the world was somehow overpowering the pull in the direction I believe to be down. 

It was at some point during this crisis of relativity that I struck the edge of the dome. Struck is perhaps an inappropriate term, I was propelled onto its curved surface and washed clear of the water by the waves. My crisis was set straight and physics returned to its old reliable self, but sense did not. Beneath my wrinkled fingers I felt the rough, unpolished texture of concrete, and not far beyond the edge of the dome floated another. No, not floated as they did not bob with the waves and the water but rather sat remarkably immobile, like a couple of well-anchored islands. I could tell you that they were eleven point seven four metres across the base, and that both of them had perfectly flat bottoms no more than a metre beneath the surface, but I couldn’t tell you how I know that. 

For a moment or two, truthfully I don’t know how long, I crawled around on the rim of the dome before realizing I wasn’t alone. On the far side of the dome stood a man, facing out to sea. He wore an elegant coat that seemed out of place in these settings and was completely dry. The waist buckle on his coat was loose and flapped about behind him in the breeze, but he was otherwise still. And yet… he knew I was there. I just knew it. He’d known I was there the whole time, and I knew who he was. He was an important man, a dangerous man, cold and calculated. 

I remember thinking that I’d be better off dead than where I was, and so I pretended to be. I let myself go limp and lolled at the edge of the waves, letting them gently tug me to-and-fro. I dared not face his way and let my head slip beneath the surface, but on the other side the water was as clear as the air above, filling my lungs with oxygen instead of suffocating me as I so wished. I was caught up in the improbability of it all until a hand landed on my shoulder and shattered my awe into oblivion. It was the warming touch of a well-crafted hand, a mentor of life and death and nostalgia. Looking up through the swirling water I recognized the coat and the smile, and as if the whole world fell a few inches I was raised from the water to face him.

                “It worked, Mister Boyle,” he said. “Thank you. Let’s go get some beers.” 

Author's Note

A dream written up as close to how I experienced it as I could. Perhaps it gets a little confusing, so just imagine you;re alseep.

Reviews

[Andrew Uphoff]

I rather enjoyed this. It really captures the chaos of a dream, but gives the perspective of a lucid dream. I identify with this a lot since this feels like a description of how I dream. Good work!

[Spoon]

I find it amazing that even the strangest thing can make total sense in a dream, and I tried to use that mentality when writing this. I'm glad to see it worked!
I was worried it'd be too incoherent.

Thank you :)