“We swim, day by day, on a river of delusions, and are effectively amused with houses and towns in the air, of which the men about us are dupes. But life is a sincerity.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Uses of Great Men” in Representative Men, 1850.
It’s All Greek To Me
On the Summer Solstice Ronnie turned thirty-two, and that night she dreamed the future.
Three things happen. A truck from ‘The Magnificent Mario’s Curio Shop’ drives down a highway. It scrapes against the dividing railing and the back doors spring open. A crate falls out and bursts. Jacks and marbles scatter across the asphalt.
The scene shifts. Her old college boyfriend Reggie climbs in a cab. He no longer has a beard and his hair is shorter, but otherwise he looks exactly the same. Reggie’s with a female companion; somehow Ronnie knows it’s his wife Jane. The cab driver, Jane and Reggie watch as highway employees in neon orange overalls scrub the road. Marbles roll this way and that, dodging the broom bristles. Glass bits glitter in the sunshine.
Lanes filled with cars, trucks, motorcycles and busses all wait for the cleanup to finish. Ronnie doesn’t sense horns honking in any dimension. The people stuck in traffic watching the bizarre sight taking place are too stunned. They laugh as they climb out of their vehicles to snap photos with their cell phones. Check it out! W8’ll u c this!
Jane leans over the seat. “Is there anything you can do?”
The taxi driver shakes his head, shrugs his shoulders. But he turns off the meter, acknowledging they’re all stuck. The cabbie won’t try to make an extra buck off the bizarre incident.
Yet another shift. A plane lifts off the runway, gains altitude – and plunges from the skies. Ronnie doesn’t see the actual crash but knows that everyone on board just died.
All at once she’s weirdly cognizant that this is a dream. The back of her brain deduces she must be half awake, swimming up towards consciousness. She sinks back into the dream but retains that awareness. Just as she wonders whether she’s dreaming or awake, with the growing sensation that something very strange is going on, Reggie looks away from the clean up. He turns his head. And he stares her right in the eyes.
The next thing Ronnie knew, she was in her bedroom and sitting up in bed. She shook her husband. “I just had the weirdest dream! Wake up!”
Hal grunted and turned over. She lay down and tried to go back to sleep, but the strange images stayed fresh. Colored marbles rolled around in her head and winked, vivid and insistent. Finally she fell asleep, wondering what had ever happened to Reggie.
***
Prepare to meet a hero with dangerous fantasies. A young woman trapped in a cult. A person who dreams other people’s futures. A man drinking glühwein at a Christmas Market as he waits for disaster. And Lynn, the connecting thread, taking a train trip with a seductive stranger. I’ll be posting the first pages to each chapter.
Committing my characters to an appearance on this blog makes them real. As of tonight, they exist beyond my imagination.
Here are the opening pages to my novel (Name being withheld until publication date). This third chapter is titled, Precognitious.
Copyright © 2014 Jadi Campbell. Look for this novel in book and eBook form on Amazon.com in December.