Dream a Little Dream
Who the hell do I think I am.
Sitting here in this freezing hotel lobby, in the middle of nowhere,
pretending to be some big shot successful writer.
The soulless cocktail music
spilling out from the hotel bar echoing around the hollow marble
look-a-like foyer isn't helping me think straight either. How anyone in
their right mind could ever actually enjoy what these lounge pianists
perpetrate on what had previously been perfectly good songs will
forever have me baffled.
The bright bubbling notes spill out and flow
into the subconscious somehow instilling a sense of mindless
sameness. All the hotels and cocktail bars around the world seem to
have the same second rate frustrated concert pianist. He may look
different, not sure, who ever actually looks at them anyway? He may
be theoretically playing a different tune. But somehow it all comes
out the same, all meaningless unnecessary trills added where the
original composer wouldn't have dreamed of putting one, to the
point where the music is more trill than actual melody. No sense of
originality, no evidence of an actual individual spark of imagination
or initiative. The upbeat nature of the tune transforms into a dismal
dirge when combined with the feeling of total futility that seeps out
from them like a festering, oozing, puss filled gangrenous wound in
their psyche. Infecting the room with a forlorn feeling of abject
despair.
Sheesh! Back to the task at hand.
I've got enough problems of my own without thinking about this poor
hopeless wretch. Focus. It's so easy to lose focus in places like
this. The mind slowly being turned to mush by the relentless tedious
repetition.
Smile, nod, shake hands. 'No sorry, I don't read
submissions from fans at conventions, but do keep up the good work,
I'm sure you'll get published some day soon.'
I've got to make a
start on my next story. I haven’t written anything since Dream
Stealers. Okay, so it was one the most
successful SF short story series since the Robot series by Asimov,
but one freak hit doesn’t make a writer great. Ever since I wrote
it, I’ve been looking over my shoulder. Stealers gave me the
willies. I’ve been unable to stop since then, never staying in one
place long enough for anyone to recognize me. Moving on from hick
town to hick town, or worse yet, hick cities. Attending conventions
where everybody ‘knows me’ but nobody KNOWS ME.
So here I am. Sitting here in
this draughty hotel lobby in the god forsaken waste that is Canberra.
The drab colouring of the glossy floors melding into the grey
blustery day outside. Plastic pot plants intended to give a feeling
of life, but sadly only managing to make the whole scene even more
lifeless. Sterile, plastic, artificial. How any nation's capital city
can be this dismal is beyond me, but then they all seem to be. DC was
Dreadful, Berlin was Boring, Auckland was Awful, Moscow was... well
it was Moscow, and as for London... I just don't want to talk about
London, lets just say the English have taken drab to new heights, or
should that be depths?
Maybe it's because I never
actually get out to see the cities I visit. Never enough time. Too
many people more likely. Too many chances of being spotted by the
Stealers. Too many potential ambush sites. Every time I turn around
there seems to be somebody who’s just turned their head away from
having been staring at me. I feel as though my every move is being watched.
The Dream Stealers are watching, waiting. Ready to pounce at the
first sign of weakness. The first, and last, lapse in concentration.
This is ridiculous. The Dream
Stealers are a piece of fiction. MY fiction. Okay, so I felt as
though the story was writing me rather than the other way around, but
it was still my invention. So why was I so edgy about the whole
thing? They're not real. Are they? No of course they’re not! I
hope.
Grey. Cold. Lifeless. The
interminable music is the only thing separating this from a lunar
landscape. The music, so thoroughly devoid of life, it is it's own
barren world in and of itself. I can feel it pulling me into it.
Sucking the spark of life from me more effectively than if I was lost
in the vacuum of space. At least if I was in a vacuum, I couldn't
hear this music.
It's so frustrating. I would say
to the point of infuriation, but I can't seem to summon up enough
enthusiasm for actual infuriation, not even a mild anger. I knows
there's another story in me, I know it! I just can't get it out
from under all this numbness my life's been reduced to.
I can't feel anything any-more. I
can't remember the last time I did feel anything. For that matter I
can't remember anything before I wrote Stealers. I know, from an
intellectual point of view, where I went to school, I know where I
grew up and with whom I was friends etc... I just can't seem to pick
any specific memories of any of these things.
I can't feel any sort of
connection to my previous life. It's as though it all happened to
someone else and I'm only privy to the memories due to a sneak peak
at some old dusty photo albums. I can't seem to dredge up memories of
any old smells, all the memories are black and white too, no colour,
not even any sounds.
The only sound I can remember is
this god damned nameless bland unrecognisable piano tune. It seems as
though it had a name once, but lost it when the trills and frills
took over from the actual melody. Maybe if I could just filter out
the additions in my head, I'd be able to find a way back to myself
too.
Another flurry of activity from
the main doors as the smokers come in from the cold. Bringing with
them the smell of stale tobacco mingled with diesel fumes from the
main road. The wind swirls around flapping the paper of my note book
mocking me with a false show of activity. Activity I've not been able
to provide it for over a year now. Head down, pen poised, pretend to
be busy, maybe they'll pass by and not intrude on my private hell.
Pen and paper, HA! I'm an
anachronism. A Sci Fi writer who still uses pen and paper. But then,
my computer isn't portable, and I can't afford a laptop given that
I've not actually produced anything for over a year. Pen and paper
suit me just fine. At least I can work anywhere with them, in theory
anyway.
Who’s that looking at me
strangely from across the lobby? Did I see them following me in
Berlin? No, nobody there, my imagination again. Hang on, who’s that
behind the pot plant? I'm sure I saw her in Auckland. Gone. Over on
the other side of the lobby, I'm sure I've seen him before, was it
London? There’s been no one there the whole time. My nerves are
shot to hell. Every shadow, every movement, every corner of the room
holds a threat.
I’ve got to give up the
caffeine and get some sleep. I’ve slept one to two hours a day on
average since that damn book. That can’t be good. My dreams, well
nightmares, must be overlapping into reality.
Reality, what is reality? I used
to think a person was the sum total of their experiences, their
memories. What does that make me? A frankensteinian amalgam of
patchwork mismatching incomplete recollections. Is that a heart
beating away in there, or a metronome, keeping time for the pianist
of my, for want of a better word, soul.
There’s the chime for fifteen
minutes to go till the next session. Thank god, thank all the gods
that ever where or ever will be. I can loose myself in the crowd
again. Laughing, joking, pretending to enjoy the company of my fans
and fans of my fellow attending authors. At least when I'm on my feet
“pressing the meat” as the politicians call it, I have an excuse
not to be writing.
Never know, there could be a TV
or movie deal behind one of these nondescript faces. This over
perfumed over dressed matron of mindlessness could be the editor in
chief of a major publishing house. That perfectly manicured, self
important drone without a hair out of place on his perfect head with
his perfect teeth could be the owner of a TV network. Maybe the guy
in the torn jeans loose fitting shirt and a three day growth and
dishevelled, thinning, hair could be a movie producer. Never know.
Suck it up and get on in there.
Sometimes I need to treat myself
as a recalcitrant teenager, goad myself into action. Odd thing is I
do it, in a truculent sort of way, I actually do go ahead and go
through the motions. When I mentally cattle-prod myself sufficiently.
I'm just having to turn the voltage up pretty high to feel it these
days.
Smiling, nodding, shaking
hands... again. Grey woollen suits, grey faces, grey skirts and or
pants. A sea of grey. Oh good, they've piped the grey music in here
too. Or is it coming from within me now? Vibrating through the marrow
of my bones, rattling around in the cavities of my skull, ready to
burst out of every orifice. Maybe I've absorbed all this sameness to
the point of saturation. It's getting harder for me to tell where I
end and all this grey begins now. I exchange grey words with the grey
people in this grey auditorium, all the while waiting for the grey
speaker to make his grey speech. The same speech I've heard made
innumerable times. Then we writers come up and make our grey little
speeches, all the same as each other, all the same as before. Grey.
How I get away with being in the
company of some of these real writers has me stumped. I’ve only got
one major hit of a story behind me. I average about as many stories
per year as some of them churn out in a week. Time I faced up to it.
I’m a hack. A has-been who never was. Maybe I should just give in
on my dream and get a 'real job'. Stop pretending to be what I don’t
have the talent to do.
Wait a MINUTE. I never used to
think like that. Not till DREAM STEALERS. Are they trying to steal my
dream? Would it be so bad to be a humdrum work-a-day schlub with no
aspirations, no imagination? Maybe the world would be a better place
if I'd never tried to tell my tales. They can’t! They don’t
exist!
There’s no one watching me from
the table over by the door. There IS. He’s coming over, pulling
something out of his jacket. Someone’s behind me too. The girl from
behind the pot plant. She’s got something in her hand as well. Here
comes the man from across the lobby. I’m surrounded.
* * *
Sitting at the bar of my
favourite drinking spot, that I’ve never been to in my life. I
don’t even drink. Asking Joe, the bar keeper who I’ve never met
before but have known since high school, 'how’s the wife?'. 'Fine
Charley' (my name’s not Charley... or I thought it wasn't) 'how’s
Maggie and the Kid?' 'They’re just great thanks Joe, got another on
the way.' Who’s Maggie? I don’t have a kid or any on the way. I
don’t think I do.
* * *
Well, back to the Piano. These
old favourites wont play themselves. I just need to add a few extra
trills somehow, somewhere to this next piece, it never seems bright
and bubbly enough without a few extra trills.
Singing... 'Stars shining up
above me...'
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