|
fiogf49gjkf0d I just wrote this for my High School science fiction class, I thought I'd share the possible awesome with y'all. It's pretty long, so it's perfect for reading on a very boring day. Thoughts?
Where Late the Sneeze Birds Sang
Written by Austin Aeschliman
Carl was a very normal man. When I say very normal, I of course mean boring. Carl was a very boring man. He endured and executed the same old boring routine every day for the past who knows how many years, easily over ten. Though it may have seemed to people who might have passed him on the street that he was content with his cripplingly boring lifestyle, Carl was in fact not.
He hated it, every second of every day dragged on and on, (like the career of a has-been ‘70s musician who still goes on tour and releases albums today but won’t acknowledge the fact that no body cares any more) he was miserable. His life seemed as monotonous as a Black Eyed Peas song, and he could hardly bare it. Every morning he’d get up at 8:10 sharp, regardless of whether or not he had to work. He’d brush his teeth, take a shower, comb his hair (which was really not that necessary as it was simply a way to keep himself in denial of his thinning hair line), grab a glass of ice cold coffee, and then if it was a week day go to work take the same stretch of road, always arriving at exactly the same time, or if it was the weekend he’d go grocery shopping.
These same activities wreaked their redundant havoc on Carl’s life for the past ten or so years. He knew that something had to change for so many years but he never attempted to change things, most likely for the same reason that he had four sets of silver wear and plates even though he hadn’t lived with a single soul for the past twenty years since his first and only wife had left him, he was in denial. It was his way of escaping.
On a cold January night some time last year Carl sat down to enjoy some random programming on his rather average sized television set after he had taken his usual 6:15 bathroom break. He turned on the set and immediately had to turn the volume down, he wondered for a second why it was at such a high volume, then he remembered his loud neighbors were being considerably louder than usual the previous night and he was forced to break his routine and turn the TV up passed the volume it usually was.
Normally he would change the channel right away to watch the news, but since the volume was so loud, his ears were forced to catch the documentary that was playing on this random network. As he was listening he overheard something that made him think.
“It has been shown, Dianna, that those who remember their dreams are often more intelligent then those who do not” said a man.
“Hmmm, so what your saying Dr. Proctor is that those who don’t remember their dreams, or perhaps any body who has ever forgotten a dream ever could theoretically be worthless, and should be ground up and fed to starving children in Africa?”.
“I suppose so, yes”.
“Well, I’ve got to get a hold of my mother in law; she forgets stuff all the time.”
Carl found it interesting. Reflecting back on his forty some years of life, he realized that he never had remembered a single dream he had. Not one rememberance of a strange story concocted by his brain to make sense of the random useless information left over from the day, he thought as he sat that the reasoning for this was obvious. Even as a child he had a distinct daily routine, it was obvious that he couldn’t remember his dreams because their was no extra information for his brain to interpret at the end of the day, it was all the same, day in and day out. Despite this logic, he became worried.
Carl was never a very confident man, so this jab at his intelligence by the television show really got him obsessing over whether or not he was smart. He decided that the next day he should go see a doctor about it. The next day came, it started with a sharp noice emitted from Carl's alarm clock at 8:10 as usual. He got in his rusty old, once cutting edge car, which probably would be worth a considerable amount if he were to clean it ever. He drove into the parking lot of the large group of buildings to see the state's most notable doctor. After several hours of waiting Carl waddled in nervously to a large room where the doctor was to come in eventually.
Once she came Carl told the woman his delema. The doctor looked at him for what seemed like an eternity, finally she said "Hmmm, that's strange, I don't think I've never heard of any one who honestly couldn't remember one night's dream," the doctor said, "especially at yout age."
"Hey!" Carl exclaimed.
"Sorry, it just seems very odd to me that you really can't remember any dream, I'm sorry to say that this is probably not a good thing".
"Oh, I knew it! It means I'm dumb doesn't it?"
"I'm afraid so, yes, I'm actually surprised you've gone five whole minutes without wetting yourself or starting a fire."
"Is there anything you can do?"
"Well, actually now that you mention it, there was an experimental drug a few years ago that was supposed to help with this type of thing, but the government haulted production, maybe I could locate some"
"So this is some sort of IQ rasing medicine?"
"No, it's supposed to help with remembering dreams, if I find any I'll send it in the mail."
“Coudln’t you potentially get fired for that, I mean you said the governmnet stopped it from going on ther market”
“Dude, I’m the freakin’ queen around here, people with strong tenure look at my tenure and go, damn!”
So Carl left the building still feeling some what flabergasted that an adult would use the word ‘dude’. He returned home and awaited the possible medicine to correct the damage done to his ego, I mean intelligence. A few weeks passed by and Carl started to forget about the doctors visit entirely while continuing his boring lifestyle. A few more weeks passed and he got a package in the mail. When he opened his front door he almost had a heart attack to see a package blocking the way. Carl never got mail from any body, he was accustomed to recieving only bills. Excitedely he ran into the house with the box, thinking maybe it was from his former step son, or perhaps ex-wife. He opened it after a few seconds of sawing and saw the bottle. Suddenly he remembered what the purpose, slightly disapointed he took the item in his hands, not entirely surprised that Megan or her son had sent him anything.
Carl debated whether to take the medicine or not, then as he thought he remember the sense of insecurity he felt when carrying the notion of being unintelligent. He decided he would. He started reading the medicine label, it said to take two pills every three seconds for the rest of the day, until it was time to go to sleep, so that’s what Carl did. At night he went to bed, and had the foul after taste in his mouth as he drifted off.
He now realized he was asleep and dreaming, but he felt oddly conscious. He saw hazy images of an overpopulated land, there was hardly any room to breath, he kept trying to get away but there were people every where. Suddenly Carl woke up to a most unpleasant smell, the smell of body odor, and it smelled like there was a lot of it. He opened his eyes but quickly had to shut them due to his eye being unprepared to capture so much. After a few attempts Carl opened his eyes in shock. All around him were people, miles and miles of people, as far as his eyes could see. Carl panicked and starting frantically talking to a man that was as right next to him as he could be.
“Where am I, what’s going on?”
“Whadayou mean?” the man said
“WHERE AM I?!”
“Well, we’re just standing here, like always”
“Why are we standing here?”
“Oh, no another amnesia case, alright, sir, the world is entirely too overpopulated and now civilization has been forced to just stand around”
“Why? What happened?
“The Octo-Mom decided that eight babies wasn’t enough and she mass bred over eight billion”
Suddenly Carl realized this is what he had dreamt about, but no, it couldn’t be, he was completely awake, he convinced himself that this was merely just a lucid part of the earlier dream that he must still be in. He thought maybe if he went to sleep in this dream, he would wake up for real, so he attempted this, which wasn’t very simple when surrounded by the entire world that doesn’t have room to take showers. Eventually he succeeded.
But he didn’t wake up, or at least he thought there was no way he had. He woke up in a quiet room that he never been in before, but nonetheless his recognized it. Carl then knew what was happening. Through some sort of crazy science fiction plot device his dreams were coming alive, every dream he remembered turned into reality, even as he thought this he felt insane, but it was the only explanation, but what he knew was beyond the quiet room scared him even more for he remembered what horrible creature dwelled outside the room in his dream, he thought of the more logical and lesss life threatening option of just staying in the room and trying to fall asleep again, but that wouldn't be very intersting for readers, so he went over and placed his hand on the doorknob.
He reluctantly opened the door and saw just as he suspected. Except for him there were no more people in the world, just millions of clones of Keanu Reeves and Matthew McCaughnoheys just walking around. Carl was terrified, he knew that each clone must be of lesser and lesser quality but he still could not imagine a dumber version of these two people than the originals, but either way there they were. The Keanues were running around in circles drueling and over acting, and the Matthews were playing the same character for every movie even though there were no cameras around. Carl ran, he ran as fast as he could. He kept running into other terrible actors along the way that had been cloned, William Shatner, Miley Cyrus, Paris Hilton, and Orlando Bloom, they were all there! Suddenly Carl passed out from the horror of so much bad acting at once.
Luckily in his next dream he dreamt about dreaming so not much happened when he woke up, but then he fell asleep again.
When awoke again he knew that he could no longer go on with these adventures, there was a reason he lived a boring routine life before, it was because he was not suit for adventure, all this activity was making him want to vomit. For the first time he sat down and thought about why all this was happening, something probably should’ve came sooner in the plot, he realized that it must be him, there was something about him that had changed that caused him to turn dreams into reality. Then he remembered the pills the doctor had given him, it was the pills. Remembering his dreams wasn’t making him stupid, it was keeping him from turning his life into an episode of Sliders. He tried for hours and hours to remember when the pill bottle said the effects of the drug would wear off. His heart sank as he recalled that they lasted for two weeks, he had at least one day to go.
Suddenly a tremor shook the ground he sat on. He immediately got up and ran to the noise as he thought perhaps there was civilization some where that had made it.
Soon enough he ran into a scarcely populated city where many people were acting like nothing had happened even as the shaking of the ground continued.
“What is this?” asked Carl
“What’s what?” said a girl carrying a box into a nearby store.
“Don’t you hear, don’t you feel that? The ground is shaking?”
“Oh! That! I hardly even notice any more”
“What is it”
“Oh, it’s just Pamicwit, he does that”
“Who’s Pamicwit?”
“He’s the king of all the lands, eight feet tall he stands, he has gigantic hands, he’s the king of all man, if Christmas is coming up he wants some one to send him ham, sorry he makes all of us say that if any body asks that question”
“Oh… so why is he causing all these tremors?”
“He sneezes, the mightiest sneeze in all the land, and it causes the earth to shake, and it’s allergy season right now”
“And you can stand this?
“Like I said, I hardly even notice it any more”
Carl was shocked; he didn’t remember this part of a dream that must be the effects of the pill slightly wearing off. He stood around for a while and decided he couldn’t stand the tremors any longer. He wondered closer and closer to the source of the shaking until he happened upon a two story castle that was shaking more than a low rider with the bitchinest hydraulics. He opened the door a little bit nervous that the building would collapse in on itself at any moment, but nonetheless he entered. He noticed right away that the room was almost completely covered in snot.
“Who dares enter the castle of Pamicwit!” bellowed a deep voice that was inferred to be the king himself.
“Um… it’s Carl, uh, I was wondering if maybe I could get you an allergy pill”
“What? Are you insulting me Sir Carl? Do you DARE!”
“Well, um, king sir, your sneezing is kinda annoying”
“Annoying? Do my ears truly hear this insolence? Do I really hear this----“
The king stopped suddenly and started inhaling quickly, Carl knew what was to happen and ran quickly to exit the room (but if this was a movie it would be all in slow motion and stuff). He didn’t make it. The king sneezed with such incredible power that the room not only was now fully covered in slimy goo, but the tremor that the sneeze caused would not cease. Carl opened the door ran out of the room, well at least he tried to run while stepping in an out of the goo like it was quick sand. As he walked out he saw people staring and laughing.
“Ha, ha, you caught the 8:15 mega-sneeze, didn’t you wonder why no one else was in there when you did, you think a king would be alone ever?” said the girl who he had been talking to before.
Carl tried to speak but the snot was getting in his mouth as he tried. He wiped it away as he moaned in disgust.
“Why the hell would you not tell me that was going to happen?”
“Are you kidding, the best part of the day is getting some dumb tourist to get slimed during 8:15. “
“Gee, thanks”
All Carl wanted to do was go to sleep and get away from all this but he knew he couldn’t, his heart was beating so fast and he was so uncomfortable that he knew he could never relax enough to do so.
Suddenly the land at which he was standing on, the sky and the sun he had been seeing dissolved and he found himself back in the real world, the pills had worn off, he then realized that he was naked in the middle of the street covered in urine, at least he was home.
“Get off the road, ya naked freak” said a driver.
Carl wished he was asleep.
|