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Animals and humans, row upon row
I dreamed I was raising a boy who was a fox.
He had been rescued from a laboratory, but I was never sure why he had defaulted to me. Other people dropped by occasionally, who knew much more about his past and his physiology than I did, but he paid even less attention to them than he did to me. (When very small, he had curled up against my arm as I read. Half-grown, he roamed around the apartment, inspecting pieces of the household that I could not query him about: the silverware drawer, the peeling radiator in the bathroom, the cords on the Venetian blinds. It was like watching a mythological hero, adolescent by three months, adult in six. Even in the dream, I had no idea if this was normal for a fox.) He behaved like none of the stereotypes: direct, serious, unimpressed. Sandy-haired, small and deep-chested. Everyone wanted him to go into science or espionage; he was interested in forestry and the army. The quickness and openness of his smile was a consistent surprise.
There was also a girl who was a rat. They had been taken from the lab together, but no one would tell me what had become of her after that. We found her in a museum, a slender black rat with a long, whisking tail, a sheen on her fur like a cormorant's; behind glass in some lit-up, driftwoody exhibit, habitats of the world. I don't know how they spoke, but he told me she was conducting an experiment. There was some kind of argument between them, but I never learned what it was about. It's possible neither of them (even if they had cared to) would have been able to explain it to me.
There was rainforest, too, but I can't remember where it fit in. With the occasional visitors, I think, who are vaguer shapes in my memory than in the dream, where they all had names and quirks and day jobs; not officials, but they weren't laypeople, either. Something about France. He was good at mathematics. I thought, in the dream, this half-world, unaffectionate, self-contained child was the only kind I would ever be suitable to raise.
He had been rescued from a laboratory, but I was never sure why he had defaulted to me. Other people dropped by occasionally, who knew much more about his past and his physiology than I did, but he paid even less attention to them than he did to me. (When very small, he had curled up against my arm as I read. Half-grown, he roamed around the apartment, inspecting pieces of the household that I could not query him about: the silverware drawer, the peeling radiator in the bathroom, the cords on the Venetian blinds. It was like watching a mythological hero, adolescent by three months, adult in six. Even in the dream, I had no idea if this was normal for a fox.) He behaved like none of the stereotypes: direct, serious, unimpressed. Sandy-haired, small and deep-chested. Everyone wanted him to go into science or espionage; he was interested in forestry and the army. The quickness and openness of his smile was a consistent surprise.
There was also a girl who was a rat. They had been taken from the lab together, but no one would tell me what had become of her after that. We found her in a museum, a slender black rat with a long, whisking tail, a sheen on her fur like a cormorant's; behind glass in some lit-up, driftwoody exhibit, habitats of the world. I don't know how they spoke, but he told me she was conducting an experiment. There was some kind of argument between them, but I never learned what it was about. It's possible neither of them (even if they had cared to) would have been able to explain it to me.
There was rainforest, too, but I can't remember where it fit in. With the occasional visitors, I think, who are vaguer shapes in my memory than in the dream, where they all had names and quirks and day jobs; not officials, but they weren't laypeople, either. Something about France. He was good at mathematics. I thought, in the dream, this half-world, unaffectionate, self-contained child was the only kind I would ever be suitable to raise.
no subject
Thank you.
Would it be frustrating to read a book of these fragments? I don't know. Like others, I'd happily read more of this, but what you sketch out here doesn't feel incomplete.
A collection of dreams I've written down? Seriously?
[edit] Is this something you think people would be interested in? Because I know who I would bounce it off, if so. I just have no idea if this is a kind of massively narcissistic endeavor.
no subject
For what it's worth, I think folk would be interested in it. I would be, at least. The bits of dream you share here have a fascinating vividness to them. They often strike me as sounding like bits of some reality that you've half-glimpsed, as if there were some larger whole stood behind them, as if they're truly scenes from other selves' lives.
no subject
I'm no judge of other people, and my favourite writing tends not to be commercially successful (ask