Dreambook (original) (raw)

I was sitting in a front yard with a small group of peers (four or five) or friends. Vego was there, talking on the phone. The girl who couldn't speak a known language was there. Someone else was there, and had two bows and arrows. These bows doubled as light sabers and had interchangeable weapons-- real arrows, shooting sabers, suction cup arrows, sticks with teeny tiny stuffed animals on the ends (those came in a strip and were shaped sort of like bullets, about bullet sized, but were soft and animals). It kept trying to shoot suction cup arrows at vego, who was pacing around on the cell phone, and the girl who couldn't speak, who was sitting at a picnic table in the front yard with her back to me. I was actually trying to shoot the arrows at the picnic table to get them to stick. Vego came suddenly out of the house where she was and was dressed in a black and white southern bell outfit. We all groaned and i shot an arrow at her, then told her she was sunburned. I mentioned something about worrying about my paraquins (?).

It began to sprinkle, and the overcast grey skies darkened drastically. I knew we had to leave. The feeling was that of an evacuation or desperate escape. The thunder ahead was unsettled and deep. We began moving, the group having grown now. We got to a highway. The guy who was with me, older than me, lean, and dark skinned, was directly behind me. He had dreadlocks that were a dark rust color, and I believe his name was Bane. Vego, who was no longer dressed in costume, had taken the back of the line to strengthen the group. For some reason, formation was important and we had to have someone we trusted back there who should be strong if something happened.

Getting on to this road, which was already high up, I looked down at the highways. They were like a mixmaster from hell. One, far below, was void of cars. The southbound direction was below that, instead of beside it, further down. The east-west highway was the furthest down, with cars looking like thembles. I stopped crawling, held on to the edges, and looked back at Bane.

"Will there be lightening?? They've cleared 35!" I got down, flattening out. We began a belly crawl on the soaking wet highway, because it was so high up. It was as narrow as our bodies, and with our elbows tucked up beside us, we could barely grasp the tiny edges to make sure we didn't fall. Just inside of the concrete edges were slick metal rails. Now it seemed more like a concrete roller coaster track.

Our entire group crawled along like this, soaking wet, and every time the road curved, the edge lessened to no more than a centimeter. The road steepened drastically, like a roller coaster track, and i began sliding down, gripping the metal bars to control my speed as best i could. Since it was so steep, i couldn't very well see ahead of me. I called back to the guy, "Whats ahead of me, Bane!!"
"A split! One of them goes-- into the water!" (The water was supposed to be avoided, as it was very very cold)
Now below us was a vast plain of water, rather than roads, and as I veered left, I began to try and pop up like i was on a surfboard. I knew where I was! This was one of Vego and lairs, but I spent more time in it than she did. I surfed down until just before i got to the water's surface, and lept over to the structure's deck. It was a small place, (imagine part of a wooden jungle gym with a lookout, but it had a roof, like a small treehouse), with a layer of small decks below, with a hole in them that went down to the water close below, as if to provide a place to fish. Back to my jump. As I leaped, in midair, my wallet flew out of my pocket and landed with an uneventful splash in the water just beyond the deck. It was very dark out, and hard to see, because of the storm and night nearing. It floated out of reach, under a piece of another deck, and I jumped into the water after it. I dove under the structure, looking up for the floating black shape, feeling the cool (but not freezing) water surround me. I reached up for the wallet, and it floated away too quickly, but I eventually caught it and swam up through the hole in the small deck under my lair. I climbed out onto the deck, noticing how high the water was for the first time. It skirted the edge of one of the shelves on the deck, lapping at everything that lay out. I pushed some half floating things out of the way, searching for something. I found a bunch of coins, just barely under the water's surface, on the deck, and I grabbed a tin box and scooped them into it. I snapped it shut and put it into my pocket, and, being already wet, jumped back into the water.They all had veered right at the split and reached land, as if they knew I was there on purpose, looking for something. The water below me was clear and only about five feet deep, and I remembered the white sand below.

I reached the edge of the body of water, a deck, and heaved myself up onto it by my group. It was now a dark night time, and string lights lit the area, crowded with other groups, all with a sense of recent arrival and excitement, but relief. I stood with my group. "I got my paraquins." i mentioned to vego, patting my pocket. I noticed that she didn't understand me completely, and I clarified. "They're sort of.. non-american coins." they were more than that, but i didn't know how to explain. She laughed, "I thought they were some type of machine."

I smiled. We were all sort of facing a counter of sorts, and I realized Bane had already gone up to sign us in. This was a headcount-- this was a pirate roll call. I went up there, too. We were both captains, after all, and there was no way i was letting him alone speak for us. When i got up there and stood beside him, he turned and held out a water bottle filled with an opaque white liquid. He had grabbed it for me, something that you were given when you signed in. "Milk?" I asked, thinking i needed water more than milk.

He smirked. "Rum."

I took it, and sipped. I felt as if i had hit the jackpot. This is the best substance I've ever tasted! I pulled the bottle back and looked at it. It was crystal clear and amber, now, but lighter. The spices remained on my tongue and mingled together like some sort of liquid, smooth spice cake. Faint roasted flavours brought it a rich roundness. It had no obnoxious kick, it had nothing but a slightly warm flavor of the most amazing spices i'd ever had! Bane was gone. I had to have more of this, so I leaned on the counter. Behind the counter was busy and dirty, with broken wooden tables housing paper and bottles.

A different guy walked up, a very tall guy in black clothing and a cloak. "I've never had something this good! I don't like Captain Morgan much and this is FAR better!" i told him.

"Hey!" he exclaimed. I had offended him, and he gestured at his attire. Oh, he was a young, fresh faced captain morgan. Someone held a bottle out for him and he tasted it, keeping eye contact with me, and sucking the bottle dry. I was annoyed and hoped this wasn't some sorry attempt to impress.

"Well, what is it?" I asked.
"I think its marianos," he explained, pointing to an aluminum bottle on the corner of the table, with teal, victorian decorations on its silver surface and a fancy label. I asked the counter guy (who wore goggles) for the bottle, and he yelled back through a hole in the wall behind the counter.

The scene cut, as if in a movie, to a small man wearing an rubber blue elephant trunk on his face, in the small and dimly lit room, pushing some kind of peddles with his feet.

"Sitting bear, what do you think..." he asked in a nasally voice. The scene cut to a man above him on some kind of scaffolding, 'creating' a huge bear's face somehow. The man tugged on the not yet in tact lip of the bear, pulled it up to where it should be, and suddenly, without eyes or a head or anything behind it, the giant head began to move, blinking, sniffing, squinting, moving its lips. He dropped the lip and it returned to its inanimate state. "I don't know, sitting duck."

The scene cut back to the peddling guy, who now had a duck bill on.

It went back to my point of view as i grabbed a bottle for V, thinking 'what the hell was that about?!'

As I turned, I realized something. I had left my wallet behind at my lair, thinking so intensely about the paraquins.

I handed both bottles to Vego and leaped into the water behind the group.