"COUGHING UP YOUR DREAMS" is a little lighter fare than the past couple of fast fictions. Yesterday I aimed for a deranged William Burroughs style but today I'm shooting for something more along the lines of... Richard Bach on acid. Weird but harmless.
Once again this short-short story is based on an image sent to me by Antonio Jorge Goncalves. His project of sketching people on ten different subways around the world is a great gift to the world. Check out his ultra-rad site which organizes his 300 sketches with a subway map.
Enjoy...
Pam Small's gentle sleep was often interrupted by her coughing up an item from her dreams. Childhood marbles, erasers from elementary school, peas that she'd spent her life refusing to eat and crumpled up love notes from the man of her dreams were some of the nocturnal offerings that had come up at various hours of the night. Pam decided to store everything beneath her bed in sealed bags - except the peas of course which she'd buried with great shame in her back yard. Sealed away in the plastic bags these items looked like evidence that could be someday used to solve the strangeness of her condition.
She had never told anyone however about the dreams that came from her head or mouth.
One morning Pam awoke to a hideous coughing fit that produced a lovely bouquet of flowers. She stared at them in shock. They had come from a dream of her own funeral. There were few people in attendence but the floral arrangement was divine.
I have never produced anything so beautiful, she quite literally said to herself. (After ten years of living along she was in the habit of keeping herself company with her own voice.)
I think they will accompany me to work, she said with a tear covering one eye. They will brighten up the subway a little.
They will perhaps attract acquaintances like bees, she thought to herself.
Finally.
Once again this short-short story is based on an image sent to me by Antonio Jorge Goncalves. His project of sketching people on ten different subways around the world is a great gift to the world. Check out his ultra-rad site which organizes his 300 sketches with a subway map.
Enjoy...
COUGHING UP YOUR DREAMS
Pam Small's gentle sleep was often interrupted by her coughing up an item from her dreams. Childhood marbles, erasers from elementary school, peas that she'd spent her life refusing to eat and crumpled up love notes from the man of her dreams were some of the nocturnal offerings that had come up at various hours of the night. Pam decided to store everything beneath her bed in sealed bags - except the peas of course which she'd buried with great shame in her back yard. Sealed away in the plastic bags these items looked like evidence that could be someday used to solve the strangeness of her condition.
She had never told anyone however about the dreams that came from her head or mouth.
One morning Pam awoke to a hideous coughing fit that produced a lovely bouquet of flowers. She stared at them in shock. They had come from a dream of her own funeral. There were few people in attendence but the floral arrangement was divine.
I have never produced anything so beautiful, she quite literally said to herself. (After ten years of living along she was in the habit of keeping herself company with her own voice.)
I think they will accompany me to work, she said with a tear covering one eye. They will brighten up the subway a little.
They will perhaps attract acquaintances like bees, she thought to herself.
Finally.
posted by kevin spenst at 8:33 AM
1 Comments:
Kevin, this bit: "Pam Small's gentle sleep was often interrupted by her coughing up an item from her dreams. Childhood marbles, erasers from elementary school, peas that she'd spent her life refusing to eat and crumpled up love notes from the man of her dreams were some of the nocturnal offerings that had come up at various hours of the night," is both startling and lovely.
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