Never Puke on a Princess

I had a dream last night. One about you.
We were in your room, but, as often happens in dreams, it was not really your room.
We were curled together on your bed, hesitantly re-uniting in the ashy aftermath of heartbreak. Your face was cold, my hands were shaking, and we were warming slowly to the thought of being vulnerable beside each other.
The first thing to go wrong, was your mother barging into the room, just as we were about to initiate some kind of intimacy. Why she was there, I don't know.
Not only was the moment ruined and both of us embarassed, but she left the door open. For whatever reason, I had my cat, Blue, in the room with us. Through the open door, three of your own cats came running in and a feline tussle for dominance ensued. I leapt up to disentangle my precious pet from the fray and the cats scattered, running out into the rest of the massive house. I don't remember if I actually dressed myself again or not, that detail was conveniently fuzzy, but I don't believe that I did before running out after Blue.
Now, let me take a moment to describe this house. Your room was on the north side, a single door set impossibly high up on a blank white wall. From your bedroom door a set of wooden steps (the length of which was a transient detail- sometimes only four steps, sometimes more than twenty) led down to a wooden walkway. On the east side of the walkway was the rest of the house. A door on the East wall at the bottom of the steps led to the entryway, or a closet- the room kept shifting to suit its purpose. At the end of the walkway was the kitchen, and through the kitchen, the rest of the house remained unseen.
Toward the west, the walkway branched into a huge, spiral, wooden staircase that hung from the ceiling by a series of chains. It was weak and creaking and utterly frightening. At the bottom was blackness. If you followed the steps down, merely two rotations of the spiral, you came to a warehouse-like room to the east, beneath the rest of the house. It stretched as far as you could see, with a wooden floor that was rotting in places and riddled with holes. Beneath it was emptiness. Inside it were old rusted barrels and bits of metal, small deteriorating structures that didn't make any sense. The ceiling leaked and puddles collected in places where the wood was still whole. The north wall was covered in boarded up windows, through which you could catch a glimpse of a cloudless sky. Faintly, if you chose to listen intently, you could hear the sound of the sea.
The whole house was constructed of dark cherry wood that was sturdy in some places and terribly weak in others. The walls were a dirty, eggshell stucco and at the edges it was stained with water damage. The kitchen had dark terra cotta tiles, and all of the equipment was black-plated and out of date. There was a sense of vast open space up above, and endless darkness down below. I never looked up nor down into either.
I chased the cats into the kitchen, and then back out into the hall. Blue scrambled down the swinging spiral staircase, hitting the far wall in her hurry to get away. I had not noticed the staircase when I first burst out of your room in my mad dash to catch my cat, and now found myself braced against the railing in abject terror. It swung from side to side, creaking and moaning, with wide gaps between its shaky stairs and nothing but inky darkness below. I could hear the faint echoes of banging metal as the cats fought mercilessly in the warehouse below.
I glanced upwards and realized that there were now other people in the house with me. Your mom had vanished somewhere, quite possibly to make food and drinks for her guests. There were several women standing on a platform at the top of the spiral staircase. Did I mention that? Perhaps I didn't. Possibly because it was not there until now. There was a platform that was level with your door. It hung from the ceiling with chains at each of its four corners. The women looked down at me with disgust and amusement. Behind me, several people entered from the closet/entryway, and still more from the kitchen.
Some of them were young men. Most of them were young women, and I knew that they were your previous lovers. I knew with a primal instinct, as if I could smell your scent reeking from between their smooth, sinuous legs. All of them were dressed in fine clothes and jewelry. I felt like a mangey mutt beside them. I hated them. And they hated me.
But I was desperate to please you. I knew you were, at that moment, lying in your room in miserable depression, mourning the idea that I was not everything you wanted. I wanted to be everything you wanted. I thought for sure, if these people were still your friends and acquaintances, then I should do my best to gain their favor. So I rallied, and set about introducing myself.
I had no concept of myself or how I looked, but obviously their first impression of me- semi-nude, chasing and yelling after a pack of cats- still lingered. They were cold and unreceptive. I grew angry and bitter. They seemed to anticipate something but they would give me no clue as to what it was.
At some point, Prince Harry, his fiancee, and a gaggle of beautifully dressed women, strode out of the closet. I was shepparded forward by one of the lady servants to the Princess-to-be, and introduced. I began to speak a few simple pleasantries, but the Lady interrupted me with a wrinkled nose and a wave of her hand. Turning to her maid she remarked,
"Oh but isn't her voice just disgusting?"
I stared at her a moment, embarassed, enraged and disgusted. Here stood this woman of rank, immoral, ingracious upper class snobbery who dared to judge me based on a few meaningless words? On command, I summoned up the necessary bile, and- for lack of a better term- puked my guts out on her face.
It was then I decided that I must be drunk. Obviously someone fed me a sherry or two, and I must have been intoxicated. The world became even more tilted, and my conception of myself became one of a disgraceful, shameless, lush. The reaction of the other guests to my noxious treatment of the Prince's fair fiancee was zealous and aggressive. They raged against me and ran about in panic. I decided it would be best for me to collect my things, discover the whereabouts of my cat, and leave.
All this time you had remained in your room. At some point in the commotion, a woman had snuck past my careful gaurding (as of course, I kept an eye on your door, to prevent the entry of some wanton past lover) and was now lounging semi-naked in your bed. You were laying on the floor, appearing completely comatose. The prince was whispering in your ear of my misdeeds, and condemming me as a harlot and a tramp. I felt no need to defend myself, though his words seemed to send you further into misery.
I gathered my clothes, told the other woman to keep her heart to herself, and slipped out the door. I could not help you anymore. It was time to find my cat.
I made my way through the enraged party guests who were still fawning over the helplessly sputtering Princess. I felt justified in my actions, and took small comfort in her unhappiness. The spiral, hanging staircase loomed ahead of me. At the top of the steps, Blue sat undisturbed. She saw me heading toward her, and set off down the stairs to elude me. I held my breath. I would have to descend.
I made my way shakily down the steps, which swung from side to side with each shift of my weight from one foot to the other. The darkness rose slowly over the walls, threatening to meet somewhere over my head and engulf me. I could hear the empty, dripping echo of water.
I reached the end of the stairs and stepped out onto the wooden floor of the warehouse. It was overwhelming, decrepit and lonely. Something rattled as a cat, or possibly a rodent, disturbed the stillness. Dusty, gray light filtered in through the gaps in the boards that covered the windows. They glittered softly with pollutants that made the air dingy and unbreathable. The sound of water was ceaseless and maddening.
Blue threaded her way between obstacles, always a step in front of me. I followed her in a manner that was unthreatening and slow, hoping that she would not take off into this wasteland and lead me into danger. She stopped in front of an abandoned garbage can, the monstrous kind that you see outside of restaurants and public buildings. The garbage can was resting and rusting in the midst of a rancid looking puddle. Sludge floated in the mires of its murky waters, and its depth was immeasurable.
Inexplicably, my cat lowered herself into it, and began to roll around as if she were a bird enjoying the clean waters of a bird bath.
Furious and frightened for her health, I grabbed her by the scruff and pressed her to my chest, thereby covering myself in muddy water and filth, and ran up the stairs with the cat clutched in my arms. A few sympathetic woman saw my tears and, surmising what had happened, warned me against letting the mess stay on me or the cat for too long. It was poisonous, and it would harm us both. They offered me towels, and gently swept the sludge from both the cat and I. Where the mud had been the thickest, my little black cat was now bleached a pearly white.
I ran back into your room, crying and unhappy, to show you the damage that had been done to my baby. You laid there, dead or unimpressed. The harlot in your bed, smoked a cigarette. The Prince continued to whisper lies.
Then, with my cat pressed fatally against my chest, I ran. I remember clean air, the smell of the sea, and then I was awake.

 

Author's Note

I'm interested in the way this reads. How well could you picture what I felt and saw? What details should I add, or remove? And yes, I filled in here and there, but for the most part this is exactly what i dreamed. I love pulling stuff from my dream journals haha.

Reviews

[nostal]

Good job, masterfully written.

[deeps]

I liek the part about the cat in teh bird bath.
I like this. I think it's full of imagery and details.
I wouldn't take out anything, it woul donly take away
from the imagery. I think it reads well...nice job on this.