Music of choice to go with the story: Paisley Park
For reasons beyond his awareness, as a child He had nightmares about tigers and crocodiles and other wild animals waiting in the woods to kill him. He typically dreamt he was on his way through the city, going shopping for his mother or something, when a force inside him began pushing him towards the jungle which immediately bordered the outer streets of his neighbourhood. As much as He resisted and begged to be left in peace, he inevitably ended up where murder loomed and he didn’t need many of these experiences to reach the conclusion he couldn’t trust himself. Every night he went into the bush and always when after a maddening chase some wild beast was ready to grab him, he awoke in sweat and tears, hating that part inside him which he couldn’t control and which, come to think of it, couldn‘t be really him.
He got over it when he stopped thinking back to his dreams. He took the conscious decision to push back the imagery as soon as he opened his eyes, usually very early morning when everything was dark and silent, and soon enough he had no recollection any longer of his encounters with Earth‘s fauna. He had become a boy without dreams, and he believed he was fine with that because the shaming tears were gone. It was much safer to live in reality, where the dangers were never any bigger than fast cars and adult men and a vague notion of new clear war, all things easily ran away from.
When in his teens reality lost its shine for him and he felt the need to express himself against what music told him must be the deliberate machinations of a vile and repressive culture, he joined a loosely defined gang of stone throwing and arsoning youths, always on the lookout for an opportunity to damage the general interest, thinking he was honestly furthering the future of mankind. He honourably counted a flaming tram and a successful squat defence to his personal achievements. Regular police detention and a number of convictions would only invigorate his beliefs, so all through his early twenties he revelled in the cold hatred and red hot excitement which aroused him whenever he went into action or was scheming with friends in a bar. By now he was among the elders of his gang and fellow members looked up to his convictions, listened to his words, asked his advice.
It all ended in a horrible mistake.
While doing his time in prison He turned towards the arts. With him lost to the struggle and the struggle lost to the shopping society, he sought other ways of expression. He took up acting but soon found he had no talent for moulding his appearances. He tried painting and sculpting and though he wasn’t any bad for sure he knew his reach lacked the abundance needed to convince a wary public. His music making was equally not quite musically enough for anything but a respectable hobby. Having gone through the frustrations he inevitably ended up with the smart art of pen handling. He had so much to say, he had come to notice, and he guessed no other medium would equally allow for the impact of his message to balance absence of mastery.
The casually presented account of his adolescent adventures He wrote as an inquiry into his abilities, a publisher showed unexpected interest in. It gained him a handful of fame of the sort he was uncomfortable with - rebel turns writer! - and some short lived money he could have had much more of. He was out of prison now, running errands for a living, not sure if he had really become a writer. At nights he worked on the follow-up, choosing a more honest and personal style in trying to blend his words with beliefs which still screamed to be heard. Nobody would hear of it, of course. You’ve had your chance, one publisher at last was willing to give for an explanation.
Not naturally equipped to accept the consequence of his shortcomings He thought of a last opportunity way in. Couldn’t he somewhere grab that spark of brightness which sets alight the work of the world’s true talents? From a late night discussion in a bar he deduced there might be an answer in his dreamlessness. After a life long without dreams he perhaps had barren his mind from the readiness to see further than the eye. And with reality in shambles he needed just that, a wider take on matters.
He got into meditating and yoga and eating mushrooms every now and again, hoping to enter his world of fantasy while awake, sneak in through the backdoor style. He was quite happy with the result an soon became a regular fungusher, writing as much as he could during sessions and later see what he might make of it, mostly pretty straight stories of crazily behaving people. Nobody understood what he was doing and nobody seemed to care.
One early morning all of a sudden the doors to his mind opened again. He was back in that city, nature nowhere in sight this time. He met some people he vaguely knew or thought he did and he got to know new ones. He liked the atmosphere so much he thought about moving. Then he woke up and it was all gone, as far away as if it had never happened. He had more dreams. He met people he vaguely knew and he got to know new ones, and then he woke up and it was all gone. He wanted to write down these stories and he always remembered he had had the idea, but in the bright light of day the adventure itself would continue to elude him. Yes, it seemed wanting to write endangered a dream’s lifespan. He was getting desperate now on his writer status. As much as he enjoyed the hapless happenings of terribly interesting people vanishing in oblivion however he tried to stick to them, not for the first time in his life he felt he was unable to produce what he was up to.
He celebrated the idea by sinking into a year long drinking binge and he came out when he realised though his was a case for pity he didn’t necessarily feel that way. It was true his anger and his words had not been great enough to find following, but it was equally true that they to him had never been more than a means for expression and that what he most sincerely wanted was be of influence to people, have them do the things he himself would never do alone. He still might find other ways, is what He told himself.
Enjoying his easily forgotten dreams so much, He now became convinced his dreaming was the real state of affairs, his sunlit life not more than an often inaccurate reflexion - that in his dreams contact was made and that everything taken from there would logically brighten up this incomplete presence on Earth. In his dreams he possessed the powers to reach out and connect and convince his fellow humans of the existence of beauty, He believed.
He liked to see himself as an intermediary through meeting his townsmen in deep space as much as he could - advancing his still erratic and already again waning dreaming with meditational mushrooming. Every night by candle light and music he would allow his mind to wander off and enter an atmosphere where voices were friendly, where thoughts were at ease and where physical needs were of no concern, and he would use this state to meet as many people as he possibly could. His dreaming soon completely faded, but he couldn’t be bothered. For the first time in his life he felt genuinely happy with his role on Earth and whenever his neighbours (who had heard of his past) called him a respectable citizen he let go a smile.
