Pieces of a long and incoherent dream.
Jan. 1st, 2013 11:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snarpIn a sprawling, damp underground city, there is a charismatic preacher who does not realize that his charisma comes entirely from his telepathic control of his congregation. He is shy and easily frightened. However, anything he says is believed by everyone who hears it, so he believes that he must be important and wise. Fortunately he is too afraid ever to go anywhere but his house and the church, so he does not cause too many problems.
There is not much light in the city, and his powers work best in the dark. Their effects fade when people go out into the light. Most of those who live here are not human. They're small creatures with large eyes and ears and narrow double-jointed limbs, and they can see in the dark - but in a strange way. When there is no light, they can discern color and movement, but not shape and size. An red apple rolling down the lightless road, for example, might appear to be a red car moving erratically.
Three little boys, two human and one not, live in a cave system a short ways above the preacher, and each one has his own set of psychic powers. The one who is not human, who is about eight years old, always dresses in t-shirts with yellow and black stripes that fall to his knobby knees. He likes to play jokes and sneak into places where he shouldn't be. He goes into the preacher's house one day and terrifies him. The preacher runs outside and wails incoherently, "A bee! A bee! - bzzzz!" (He has trouble communicating simple ideas when he gets excited. No one but the three psychic boys ever notice this, of course.)
The boy scrambles away through the caverns to escape the torrent of people trying to kill the bee that upset the preacher. If he can find a place with good light, they will be able to see him for what he is, and the preacher's power will wear off. He can tell who heard the preacher shout and who is safe because the ones who heard him repeat the last thing he said endlessly: "Bzzzz, bzzzz, bzzzz."
Later, for unrelated reasons that make no sense, the three boys are dead, and are waiting in a long line in the afterlife to be processed. To be processed is to have a sort of totem object held up by a person in the world of the living, and to have an image summarizing of your life somehow spoken. (It is an image, not a word or sound, but it is spoken nonetheless.) When the image has been spoken, your death is final, and you are gone forever.
The line is in the world of the dead, but it is somehow accessible to the living through a place that resembles a large silver-and-white kitchen. The dead mostly do not think to get out of the line. The three boys are special, though, and know that it is possible to get out of line and go back into the world. They also know that time is flexible here, and that to walk towards the back of the line takes you back in time, and forwards takes you forward. They like causing problems for authority figures, and feel that throwing death into disarray will be even more fun than scaring the preacher.
They may be able to see the way out of death because of their powers. Or it may be because one of the boys' father is doing some sort of work in the kitchen, in what looks like a small photography studio he has set up there. He is all white as if someone painted him, except for his gray eyes, and he looks angry and frightened all the time. When his son excitedly tells him that they are going to make a mess of death, he furiously tells him to get back in line, seeming afraid that someone will see him and cause problems for himself and the children. His son is worried by this, but is not willing to wait for himself to cease to exist. He returns to his friends, and they prepare to return to the world of the living. They walk back in time.
For some reason, if you go back in time the entrance to the world of the dead is in the Opry Mills mall in Nashville. Huh.
There is not much light in the city, and his powers work best in the dark. Their effects fade when people go out into the light. Most of those who live here are not human. They're small creatures with large eyes and ears and narrow double-jointed limbs, and they can see in the dark - but in a strange way. When there is no light, they can discern color and movement, but not shape and size. An red apple rolling down the lightless road, for example, might appear to be a red car moving erratically.
Three little boys, two human and one not, live in a cave system a short ways above the preacher, and each one has his own set of psychic powers. The one who is not human, who is about eight years old, always dresses in t-shirts with yellow and black stripes that fall to his knobby knees. He likes to play jokes and sneak into places where he shouldn't be. He goes into the preacher's house one day and terrifies him. The preacher runs outside and wails incoherently, "A bee! A bee! - bzzzz!" (He has trouble communicating simple ideas when he gets excited. No one but the three psychic boys ever notice this, of course.)
The boy scrambles away through the caverns to escape the torrent of people trying to kill the bee that upset the preacher. If he can find a place with good light, they will be able to see him for what he is, and the preacher's power will wear off. He can tell who heard the preacher shout and who is safe because the ones who heard him repeat the last thing he said endlessly: "Bzzzz, bzzzz, bzzzz."
Later, for unrelated reasons that make no sense, the three boys are dead, and are waiting in a long line in the afterlife to be processed. To be processed is to have a sort of totem object held up by a person in the world of the living, and to have an image summarizing of your life somehow spoken. (It is an image, not a word or sound, but it is spoken nonetheless.) When the image has been spoken, your death is final, and you are gone forever.
The line is in the world of the dead, but it is somehow accessible to the living through a place that resembles a large silver-and-white kitchen. The dead mostly do not think to get out of the line. The three boys are special, though, and know that it is possible to get out of line and go back into the world. They also know that time is flexible here, and that to walk towards the back of the line takes you back in time, and forwards takes you forward. They like causing problems for authority figures, and feel that throwing death into disarray will be even more fun than scaring the preacher.
They may be able to see the way out of death because of their powers. Or it may be because one of the boys' father is doing some sort of work in the kitchen, in what looks like a small photography studio he has set up there. He is all white as if someone painted him, except for his gray eyes, and he looks angry and frightened all the time. When his son excitedly tells him that they are going to make a mess of death, he furiously tells him to get back in line, seeming afraid that someone will see him and cause problems for himself and the children. His son is worried by this, but is not willing to wait for himself to cease to exist. He returns to his friends, and they prepare to return to the world of the living. They walk back in time.
For some reason, if you go back in time the entrance to the world of the dead is in the Opry Mills mall in Nashville. Huh.
