chasing after the dream girl (drabble set)
(bit of explanation: this is a set of drabbles that will be made into a novella [hopefully] and will be less confusing.)
1. phoenix
The streets are winding and cool, ashen. The city is a burnt out husk, a dying decay clad with orange curtains, the only source of light in the fading sun. She is no longer wearing her hat, and her lips are curled in anticipation.
It is her duty, she knows and she raises the oil aerosol can, and sprays it, before dropping a lighter with a tiny flame, a dying flame that turns into an inferno in seconds. Fire is bright and she stands alone, a shade in all white and black.
She almost misses him, standing next to her.
2. rules
She becomes his teacher in this burnt out world of theirs. There are five rules only. Sell only after they hand over the money, guns are in the dresser and knives are in the desk. Do not harm the client. Wonderland is in the tiny vial that must not be dropped. Stay safe and don’t die.
She breaks the rules once for him, and the result is red. Blood is another beautiful color, she thinks and as blood trickles down from her skirt. He grits his teeth, and thinks of bring her back home.
He breaks the third rule tomorrow.
3. forbidden
It is forbidden to taste Wonderland yourself.
Wonderland is a drug, a drug to induce lucid dreams, but while on the job, less for safety precautions more for money, one is not allowed to indulge oneself upon its sweet embrace.
She smirks, her smile sweet and uncorks the vial. His expression is awed, surprised and she gives him her usual flighty smile with too much lipstick.
“We should fall, someday.” She whispers, downing the potion and pressing her lips against his. His lips does not taste of anything, but perhaps it is the drug at work.
They go to sleep.
4. good
“I want to be a good person.” He remarks once to her while sitting by the water’s edge, sipping fizzy soda and eating cake.
“Hn?” she asks, the ghost of powder sugar on her cheek. She is playing coy, and he knows it.
His expression is wistful. “I don’t want to screw up anymore. I want to be a good person.” He says the last two words with force.
“You can always leave.” She says gently, but her eyes are wary, guarded, and she stands up, lips brushing cheeks, and goes.
He turns up to follow, but she is gone.
5. Sunday
Sundays are not important in their world. Sunday has never been important anymore, after the disappearance of religion and of hope. This world is no longer beautiful, all cold cities and icy, too-far-away skyscrapers where millions of denizens clad in business suits rush down from their block.
It is Sunday today, and nobody could miss the attractive couple, the girl with her hair in ringlets hand in hand with a man in brown jacket, blue, trusting eyes standing out above everything else.
They are dancing with an almost ease, fingers intertwined as the whole world watches them go.
They laugh.
6. eighteen
The sell, sleep, fuck, it settles into routine.
Lines appear on his face, lines that were never there before, but is pushes him on, restless and vacillating. “I want to be a good person,” becomes a mantra in his life, a fear of hers, that one day he will disappear.
She does not understand how only he can dream, dreams that are in technicolor of a life away from the city, away from Wonderland. She can adore, cherish, but those things mean little.
“How old are you?” he asks, one night.
“Eighteen.”
He kisses her on the forehead, and disappears.
7. history
He remembers little of how he first met her, but maybe that was the way things went. The action happened first.
He only remembers saving her, from what? He remembers giving her a lecture, about what? He remembers her laughter at something that he had said, what was so funny? He does not remember much, but only the fact that the first time he saw her, a divine angel clad in white, with scarlet spots of blood on her outfit. She told him that he was going to be okay, that he saved her. From what? He does not remember.
8. dreams
He followed her throughout the mass of warrens. He followed her across winding streets, getting lost in its labyrinthine hallways. He followed her shade everywhere she went. They were partners, and somehow he follows her even into her own Wonderland.
In her Wonderland the mirrors are placed facing each other, and he is kissing her with too much tongue, too much force, and she is pushing him against a mirror, her hair in her eyes, and tears are falling down her eyes as she watches their reflections magnified into infinity.
“You’re a dream of mine.” She whispers.
He nods sadly.
9. London
He had a very vivid dream last night.
He wakes that day in a strange new city, and wonders for the millionth time if she is even real. He is awake now, and looks around at the normalcy of this.
People are striding carelessly off subways, there are small, quaint shops tucked away, and the cool air and incessant rain is almost refreshing to him.
He orders a coffee to wake himself up, a black coffee too strong for his tastes and much too bigger but he savors the burnt aftertaste of good coffee.
This is all real, he knows.
10. offing
Jordon dies.
The White Queen looked livid as she heard the news, Jordon was a simple boy, a bit slow who was one of the White Pawns. He died of an overdose and the Queen had fumed for days. Her. Fault. Alice’s eyes carefully trained towards the body before taking a lighter to it, and torching it. Fire is clean, and fire is bright, she thinks, although she does not remember the reference.
The fire reminds her of something distant, and she can almost feel his presence next to her. I want to be a good person, she thinks sadly.
11. longing
It has been three years since she has seen him, and she is tired.
Her dress is no longer white, her eyes are now dark, her hair in tangles while she searches for him. She wonders if he is in the uppermost tower, and laughs to herself.
She does not dream anymore, and wanders deeper and deeper into the recess of the city.
Here the wind does not ever stop blowing, in this world it is always November, with dirty pavement and the only beauty is oil spills.
She moves on and on, never lingering in one place for long.
12. pyrrhia
She finally finds him in the uppermost skyscraper.
He looks as befuddled the first time she had laid eyes upon him, in the burnt out husk of the city, and he regards her as a stranger.
“You’re not real.” He whispers. “You’re not real, and you were never real.” He says. “This is a dream, and I missed you so much, but you’re not real.”
She nods. “But will you stay?” she asks, “Will you stay in this dream with me?”
He does not know how to respond, and kisses her gently. He remembers her.
“No,” he says.
He wakes.
13. Morning
It is early morning, the alarm clock beeps.
He sees the red and white of her dress, he sees the orange curtains, he sees the burnt cities behind them. He tastes the sweet acidic taste of Wonderland, and feels the rush of blood and the softness of her kiss.
She’s not real, he tries to remind himself, but it does not work. He wants her to be real, because he has tasted the dream girl, and reality is not good enough for him anymore.
“Will you stay in this dream with me?”
Wordlessly, he turns off the lights.
“I will.”
---
Confused? Highlight from here the main character, who's the guy dreamt the girl up, along with an entire world. There is confusing symbolism, and yeah, reality is Capitalized and dream is lowercased. to here