09.15.08
Sidetracked. I once again have time...
I once again
have time to write and work on artwork, webpages and furniture…
in theory – in practice I need to put back together
my studio and woodshop in their new locations. I’ve
bought a lot of peanut butter and bunkered down with my computer
to help carry me though these times of upheaval.
This is an early draft (Three)
of a prose/poem for text on one of my vessels. I Don’t
usually show anyone my writing at this early point because
the concepts are not fully realized, the writing is more of
a catalog of unedited ideas and concepts in need of a lot
of organization, but I thought it would be interesting (at
least for me) to try something different. At my editors suggestion
I excerpted part of the piece with a theme that didn’t
quite fit in here, but might be part of a much larger series
of stories about all my different fictional Davids.
For the time being I will
call this piece, I. I fell out of Bed. At this point in the
writing process I usually set the story aside for eight to
ten months (like a cheap bottle of red wine) and after that
period of reflection – rumination, will return to rearrange
and re-write the story… or let it die, but I’m
trying to change that…
I. I fell out of bed
Let’s get this right…
was how the story started. Five years later -- after several
false starts and discarded outlines – that’s where
the story remains. My main character David suspended in a
literary dream state. Get what right? he wonders. What was
I suppose to get right?
A few nights ago, I fell out
of my bed. I thought it happened at 4:35 am, but Allison,
who lives in the apartment below mine, says it was at six.
Upon reflection I realized the image of my digital clock burned
into my consciousness was from repeatedly waking in the early
morning and opening my eyes to see a clock reading 4:35. Though
I can’t be sure if this happened more than once and
all the rest of the times I dreamed it, in this case I’ll
go with Allison’s recollection; I do want to get it
right.
Dreams play more active role
in my life than I care to admit. I like to think of dreams
as one’s active imagination -- interesting, but not
to be dwelt on too long, with meanings that are always illusive.
It’s not that I think dreams have no significance, it’s
that their significance is incalculable… always subjective
in their interpretation and therefore irrelevant in practical
terms. Scientific research has more concrete data about the
dreaming mechanisms and processes, but they are not as interesting
as some of the theories. I particularly like the theory that
dreams are a way our brains expunge the mental trash of our
daily lives… but then I also like all the theories because
they are subjective and easy to discard.
Before I fell out of bed,
I was dreaming.
I am lying in my bed. In a
bed next to mine sleep my two bodyguards. The door to my room
is open and I’m looking across the hall, which is actually
the face of another building. Scanning the windows I search
for the barrel of an assassin’s rifle. I have been on
the run from an assassin for some time now. I am a bit paranoid.
Suddenly a cop lies down next to me in bed and whispers, “Quick!
roll out of the bed.” I did.
I don’t remember a lot
of dreams, but when you wake suddenly it is not difficult.
Later in the evening I ran into Allison, who told me she heard
a large crash and asked if I had fallen out of bed. “Yes,
I did.” I said, for the first time that day realizing
why my shoulder hurt and why I had a bump on my head. She
said, “I’m glad you didn’t die.” Also
for the first time in a while I thought of David, or I should
say, my Let’s get it right David, I have a lot of Davids
in my writings. In fact, besides the name, Bud, in one story
I can’t recall calling my main character by any other
name… Wait, I have also used Brad and Bradley, but my
point is that I have a lot of Davids out there. Some are in
finished scripts, poems and short stories, but most are in
unfinished or ‘unrealized’ pieces.
Let’s Get this Right,
was the story of a man with REM Behavior Disorder, a fairly
rare ailment, where the body’s sleep paralysis, normally
found in REM sleep, is interrupted by leg, arm or head movements.
It is often associated with a concurrent dream, which is seldomly
remembered, unless it causes the individual to awaken.
The inspiration for Let’s
Get This Right, came one night while asleep. My body jerked
so hard I almost put my foot through a bedside window. In
my story, David, does. And the tenant below is awakened by
the tinkling of glass shards raining on her air conditioning
unit. David doesn’t awaken. She calls 911 and paramedics
find David in his bed, almost bleeding to death from a severed
artery in his foot. And thus the story started… it was
a story about trying to get history right near or when it
was actually happening, to get past the prison of ones perspective
and the personal bias’ we all have. It was both a story
about the futility of seeking the truth, and the disastrous
consequences of not trying anyway.
David’s best friend
Anne, a video documentarian, comes into town to film the story
of a Lebanese crime family and a series of bombings that occurred
in the early 1980’s. Anne’s roommate in college
was the daughter of one of the reputed crime bosses who was
executed in a car bomb explosion. She had arranged interviews
with her former roommate’s family and also the man convicted
and serving a life sentence for the car bombings. While in
town she stays with David, who is hobbled and unable to work
his normal job in construction because of his sleeping accident.
David volunteers to be her sound man. And the two attempt
to discover and understand, accuracy and honestly in two stories
simultaneously. The story of a mob war and their own.
David and Anne used to date.
One night while they slept together, David broke her jaw.
He had no memory of this, but when she awakened him and asked
him to take her to the hospital, he took her word for it.
They haven’t dated since, but have remained friends.
David, for that matter, hasn’t slept with anyone since
that incident four years before.
Over time, my character --
the Let’s Get This Right, David -- got lost in a mound
of false starts and unfinished outlines. I think the problem
was I had no ending to the story and I wasn’t particularly
eager to come up with one. David’s fate was too closely
tied to my fate.
I was stuck. I had a character
who faced adversity but with no destination, which is typical
in life, but doesn’t work well in fiction. As I began
new projects, with new Davids, I’d occasionally return
to Let’s Get This Right. After one morning awakening
to find my toe was broken, and recalling a dream of hard-driving
soccer ball kick apparently into my bed’s footboard,
I was prompted to work on it for a few days and another time
when I awoke and found a broken night lamp next to my bed,
picking up the pieces of broken glass I had a brief bout of
inspiration, but for the most part, that David is now a distant
lonely figure on some beach. A man walking to no place in
particular, having no place, no direction, and a limp. Waves
wash up on the shore, washing his tracks away, and washing
the tracks of the other Davids away, but they continue to
make more. Sleep ends. Dreams end. But stories will linger
until you find an end. You have to allow it. Accept it. I’m
still trying to get it right -- to figure it out. I have a
bruise on my head and my shoulder hurts. The other Day I fell
out of bed.
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