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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.
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He behaved like none of the stereotypes: direct, serious, unimpressed.
Somehow I'm not completely surprised by this. Foxes strike me as being rather efficient at how they go about their lives. I know they can be playful, but it seems as if I'm always seeing them crossing roads with a great sense of purpose about themselves.
I can't help but wonder if both he and the rat girl were conducting experiments. Perhaps their argument had something to do with departmental politics or differing theoretical approaches?
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Nine
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nice
fox boys, rat girls
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You're welcome. Every now and then my dreams come through.
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I would, too, is the problem! I am so much worse at plot when I'm awake!
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See above!
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Thank you, although I never feel I can take credit for the things I dream. It's what my head does when I'm not paying attention to it.
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People in my dreams are very often other things at the same time: animals, myths, historical figures; I have been keeping a record of my dreams since January 2007 and as far as I can tell, this is a constant theme. Or I dream people who have been in my life since forever, but who do not really exist. The architecture is usually better in my dreams, too. And the stories have more plot.
I want more of it. I'd read stories about it!
I need to get my subconscious to turn into a novelist . . .
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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.
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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.
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(Did I tell you about the dream where a young Rudyard Kipling went back in time to rescue Jane Austen from herself, only of course she didn't need rescuing, and somehow they ended up crashing and/or hiding out for the night in the house of a young-and-solipsistically-exuberant Winston Churchill and his calmer-and-saner wife? I'm not sure where magic fit into this, though I think Kipling had training in it and Churchill at least knew about it and if Austen hadn't it was only because magic in this world had a particularly metropolitan, international-person-of-mystery-and-formal-education spin to it that she would have been less likely to cross paths with. (This may have been part of why Kipling mistakenly thought she needed rescuing from her life.) And the Titanic was involved somehow.)
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You did not! Why haven't you written it?
And the Titanic was involved somehow.
. . . of course it was.
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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.
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You've practically got the synopsis of a novel right there. And, in a post-Jasper fforde/post-Pride, Prejudice and Zombies world, I suspect it could be a most successful novel.
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I'm no judge of other people, and my favourite writing tends not to be commercially successful (ask
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If you are already including time travel, magic, and the Titanic, I think you will find you can make the history fit.