gement | Strange Dreams - Japanese Fairy Tale edition

This one's long, and actually has a coherent plot! It segued from a much shorter dream with pretty obvious symbolism about disasters while whitewater rafting. That dream did have a very sensurroud kiss from

mortalcity in it, though. Yum.

No, I don't know why it was a Japanese fairy tale, but I was absolutely clear on that point, that I was in a retelling of a very old story. Everything had a precise, ritualized feel to it, like we've performed this play before. And, of course, all of the people and sets were at least vaguely Japanese.

At the beginning of the story, the parents (I was briefly the parents) took their two children to the big city to see the sights. They met a crowd of other children, laughing, dancing, screaming, and chanting something over and over: Puppet show, puppet show!

There was going to be a puppet show, and everyone was invited! The children ran along happily, sweeping up the newest two members of the crowd. The parents couldn't keep up; they were out of shape and out of breath. They called to their children, but the children pretended not to hear, because they did not want to be left behind, waiting for their slow parents to catch up.

[From this point on in the dream I was the sister.]

We ran along laughing, even though I knew the bad children were separating us from our parents on purpose. Brother could run faster than I. They were separating us, too. I tried to keep up, but I couldn't, and I was too out of breath to make myself heard over a hundred high laughing voices. He didn't know I was left behind; he just wanted to see the puppet show.

We went into the show-house, through a wide hallway, me trailing behind the crowd, following their path. It was a big, beautiful public building, like a hotel, with many spacious hallways and courtyards, beautiful art, and shining cherrywood trim.

Eventually they gained enough ground to be out of sight. There was no way of knowing which of several hallways they'd taken. The path was cold. I chose to go up the stairs, and looked carefully so I could find my way back.

At the top of the stairs, a young boy lay sleeping in the middle of the room, obviously a sentry. I heard his breath, and paused. If I had snuck past him right then, I might have made it, but I waited, and soon he sat up, formally looked in all directions for intruders, and started telling no one at all a long story about his past, some adventure.

He was bewitched, some kind of magical Animatronic. He had no interest or inflection in his story, and as I stood on the stairs, holding my breath and hiding behind the banister, I saw a plaque on a stand, like a museum exhibit, explaining that the story this man tells is from a 14th century text. The plaque was actually more interesting than listening to him talk.

I waited until his performance was over and he went back to sleep. I looked at all the options on the second floor, and chose again to go up the stairs, looking behind me so I could find my way back.

At this point, the villain, a sorceror, a tall, well-dressed (business suit) man who was seated in luxury on the top floor, became afraid. (This man was interesting. He selected emotions and reactions like words to a haiku. Everything he did was precise and concise to the point of poetic.)

We knew each other, yin and yang. We could sense each others' presence. I was too close; he could not withstand a direct confrontation. He sent a servant with my brother, who had been spelled or drugged senseless. The deputy crept out to me, begging me to take my brother and go, secretly, before his master found out he had given away the boy.

I knew better. I had seen the sorceror's heart, and he had given Brother back to me on purpose. It might be to slow me down enough that he could catch me. That thought frightened me, but this was my brother and I would not leave him behind. I draped his arm over my shoulder and started carrying him back down the stairs as fast as I could.

At first I was afraid I would lose my way, but I had paid attention on my way in and the path was clear. I ran like I had never run. My brother's sleeping weight didn't slow me. My breath never faltered.

There were henchmen making a half-hearted attempt to catch me, under strict orders not to succeed. As I ran, in the room on the top floor, the deputy pleaded with the sorceror to let it go at this: I was running away, I would not try to come back and bother him again. The sorceror said nothing.

The deputy tried again, begging the sorceror not to overreach himself: I was not a force to be trifled with, and whatever he might gain if he beat me, how much might he lose if he were defeated?

Finally I was almost out of the house, and the sorceror spoke. No, he said. I will not let it go. How can I? I am the fox... and she is the wolf. A paper screen door slid shut in my face. As I reached to tear it, a magical lock was already covering it, a fine grid of little wooden slats turning it into a cell door.

I tried to reach through faster, but the slats mangled my fingers, unearthly strong. It hurt, but I didn't take my hands out. One finger had made a slat stand up a little from the grid. I ripped at the wood with my teeth, and tore it off. Now there was a little hole where my finger could reach through.

I tugged and ripped at more slats with my teeth until there was space for my hand to find purchase. The door howled as I ripped open a large enough hole to drag my brother out to safety.

The house was quiet in my wake, as I found my way out onto the busy street of the modern city.

The deputy tried reasoning with the sorceror. Our visit to the house, and whatever power he'd taken from my brother, had given him enough power to spin an entire world of illusion. The thought held no savor for him now. It paled in the face of the true power I could give him, power over the world outside the house.

He sent a creature to meet me in the street as I carried my brother home. It looked human, but it was a bug. A giant vermin. It threatened me, and threatened to hurt my family. I tried to walk past and ignore it, but it grabbed my hand with its own -- its hand was horrible, the texture of disease and old scabs.

A beetle fell off and crawled away. I knew I couldn't afford to let even a single beetle follow me home, or there would be another chapter to this story. That was so frightening it woke me up.

My comments:
I can't decide if I'm reminded more of Spirited Away (the anime) or Restless (the Buffy dream finale). I am the wolf? This is weird. I know my own symbolism and that's all turned on its head. I was okay with him being the tricksy fox until I heard the other choice.

The fox is the small, the quiet, the clever, the feminine trickster. The wolf is the primal, the savage, the brutal thief, and, given the choices, the villain.

I don't think there were any characters but me in that dream. Usually there are at least shadows of other people. I treasure how I felt as Sister, though. Anything that needed to be done, I could do it. I had the drive for it. I felt like a Slayer. I never get to feel that way in real life.

I guess wolf is right.