[RiddleRose]: 298.Gold Dust - NaNoWriMo '07.Chapter seventeen

Chapter seventeen.

The real world noises that had woken him turned out to be Neil, who was singing loudly to himself, and clattering around in Wren's food area, trying to find something. He was also lazily smoking a cigarette, and he had a shot glass in one hand.

“Neil,” Wren groaned, “you woke me from the most tense dream I've ever had, aside from the one with Janis Joplin and the Martian. But that was actually more disturbing than tense, so it was the tensest dream ever,” he rubbed his eyes and nearly split his head in half with a huge jaw cracking yawn, then said, “And put that disgusting thing out. You know I get headaches.”

Neil grinned, “Yes mother. By the way, I got my pants back while you were asleep. Livia is here. She's out getting lots of delicious food, so that she can feel useful. Excellent girl, that one. Smart. Resourceful. Did you know she's a dancer?”

Wren groaned again, and flopped back onto his pillow, “She's here? You told her how to get to my apartment? I hate smart girls,” he made an unintelligible noise, “Anyway, I dreamed about Lessa. She was escaping through a secret panel with Nash, because some guy named Wolf was trying to kidnap her. You woke me up before I could find out where they were, and whether they were okay.”

Neil choked on his whiskey. Coughing, he said, “WHAT! But, that's impossible! You can't know that!”

Wren was confused, “What do you mean?”

Neil looked a little harried, he glanced around the apartment, then went to the door and locked it, and made sure that the windows were closed. “This is ridiculous. Look, you remember how I thought I was insane? Because I was seeing Lessa, and Katrina, and Jamie? Well I see a lot more. I see... well, you don't know them. Never mind. But there's maybe... fifty or sixty of them. Some of them I don't see a lot anymore, some of them, like Lessa, I see all the time. Point is, they aren't exactly hallucinations. They're characters. MY characters. I created them, I wrote them. I see them all, because I wrote them, I know them. They all recognize me. They know me. I thought I was going crazy when I first saw Katrina. She appeared in my apartment and started predicting her future.

“I guess it's the Gold Dust. I'm saturated in it. I've started to sweat slightly gold and shiny, isn't that weird? Cool, but weird. Anyway, point is, I think the more you are on it and around it, the more characters you see. I mean, you see two, and you said you saw Nash and Wolf in a dream. I saw Katrina and the others in dreams before I saw them in the world...” Neil looked around uncomfortably again, “And I got really freaked when you described that scene. I wrote it last night. There's no way you could have seen it. People on Dust must be dreaming my stories without knowing all the time! Ugh. That's almost like someone reading them!”

Neil blushed. Wren stared. He was a little shocked. Lessa was Neil's creation? Neil must be a really REALLY good writer. She had a life, a history... she had a personality! Jamie too. “Neil, if you wrote those, you're damn good. Why don't you publish? I mean, that scene last night left me wanting more! It was like a good book, you know, when you get left with a cliffhanger, and you want more? Like that. You must be damn good. Lessa... she's like... a little sister, or a little daughter. I'm serious Neil, you should publish!”

Neil blushed even redder, and turned away, muttering something incoherent, and shaking his head. He threw his cigarette in the sink, and ducked his head, hunching his shoulders a little. “Neil,” Wren said slowly, disbelief in his voice, “Are you embarrassed to show anyone your writing?”

Neil hunched lower, and said, his tone slightly belligerent, “It's my writing. I'll do what I like with it.”

“Well yeah. Obviously. But don't you want people to know that you're a good writer?”

“NO!” Neil practically yelled into Wren's face, then sat back, cheeks flaming, and breathing hard, “sorry. But no. Because I know my writing is good. I don't want anyone to tell me that, I get way too embarrassed. I used to hate English class you know, because I always got straight A's. And I hated them. I never worked, you know? I didn't feel like I deserved them. I would dash those essays off in about half an hour you know. The longest I ever spent on one was forty five minutes. I know because I timed myself. I hate being told I'm smart. I'm no smarter than anyone else, I'm just a good writer! Yechh.” Neil made an incoherent sound of disgust.

Wren thought about this for a minute, a little surprised. Neil was usually a sort of devil may care kind of person. That he was actually shy about something was nigh on unbelievable. Suddenly he realized that someone was banging on the door, and had been doing so for an undetermined amount of time. He sighed. It was probably Livia. Dammit.

He made Neil get the door, even though he was still blushing a bit. Sure enough, Livia walked in, in high dudgeon for having to stand on the landing for twenty minutes. Wren turned his ears off so that he couldn't hear her, and went to the bathroom, to take a very long shower.

When he came out, eventually, he ate the food that Livia had made, noticing absently that it was quite good, before telling Neil that he was off to do a couple deals, and leaving with relief. He went outside and found that it was warmer than he had expected. He took off his jacket and slung it over his arm. He was pleased. His black eye was turning an absolutely gorgeous shade of purple, with green highlights, and it didn't hurt nearly as much anymore. The sun was shining, the breeze was light, and he was no longer with Livia.

True, his hand still hurt, but overall, life was good. He wandered through the park, and saw a group of teenagers in matching shirts swinging on the swing set. They were all wearing glasses or goggles in one case, and they were laughing and talking about something with great enthusiasm.

There was one girl who was trying to balance on one end of a seesaw, while a friend was on the other. They managed to move around until they were completely level. They shouted in glee, and the rest all clapped.

Wren saw the girl with the camera walking around, subtly taking pictures of them. She wasn't even holding the camera, it was hanging around her neck, but her hand was resting on it, and Wren saw her advancing the film, and every now and then, when she moved, she put it up to her eye briefly, presumably to adjust the focus. He wondered if she got good pictures that way. She must, or she wouldn't keep doing it he supposed.

She looked at him, and gave a little grin, like maybe she recognized him. He wondered how many pictures of him she had gotten the other day with Lisa. He wondered what they were of. She looked a little amused. He tipped his hat to her, eliciting a chuckle, and then he grinned and stuck his hands in his pockets, walking on.

He was almost certain that she followed him, but he didn't look around. If she wanted to take pictures of him, that was perfectly okay. He hoped she got some good ones. They ought to be, he was quite the specimen after all. He wondered if that was really why she liked taking pictures of him, because she was some sort of stalker, and she would go home and develop her prints, and drool over his classic jawline. Or something like that.

A piece of paper blew against his leg, and he picked it up absently. It was double sided, printed on computer paper. Wren read it curiously, then read it again. He sat down on a bench, wondering what had prompted someone to write this. The paper was a sort of poem, or maybe a story. Here is what it said.

“Who am I? I am many things. I am myself, and I am also my image. I am what others see in me, and I am the potential I see in myself. I am my face, and my body. I am my tissues and organs, my hair, brain, and eyes. I am my spirit, my mind, my soul, and my beliefs. All of thee are me, and all of them are part of me.

“I am the essential bit of me that was me before I came into the world. I am the little spark of life that was conceived seventeen years, eight months, and about five days ago. I am the soul that saw that spark and inhabited it, making it grow and thrive. I am that soul as it changed and was changed by the spark of life.

“I am my parents, my mother and father. I am my sister, though I did not grow up with her, and I am my brother. I am my grandmothers, whose names I carry on. I am all of my relatives, the ones I know, and the ones I don't know. I am Italian, and Scottish, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, English, and Polish. 

“I am myself. I am quirky, smart, a writer, a reader, and a student. I am sixteen-wants-to-be-seventeen. I am happy, I am tall, I am thin. I am a dancer, a girl, a woman, and a sister. I am a daughter, a someday-mother, and a friend. I am my girls, my lads, my friends. I am outdated turns of phrase.

“I am a traveller. I am British spellings, fish and chips, and many languages. I am a human. I am a watcher, a listener, and a recorder. I am good ideas, and laziness. I am procrastination. I am every place I have been, and the memories of those places. I am the longing for elsewhere. I am a spelling and grammar freak.

“I am long hair in two braids, comfortable clothes, and healthy food. I am a lover of books, and I am every book I have ever read. I am the memories of all of those books, and the worlds they took place in. I am the words printed on the page, and I am someone else's memory. I am a figment of someone's imagination. I am a bookworm, and a lover of knowledge.

“I am quotations and philosophy that no one else knows, inside jokes, and late nights. I am a night owl. I am parties, songs, and dances. I am a mezzo-soprano. I am big hazel eyes, a little girl's button nose, and pierced ears. I am no hips and long limbs. I am flexible. I am hugs, and warmth, and dim golden light. I am a flirty fan, a bodice, and an actor. I am batted eyelashes, and pouted lips.

“I am autumn colours, earth, and air. I am burgundy, claret, forest green, and tie-dye. I am a sudden burst of sunlight. I am the wind on the edge of a cliff, and the river churning below. I am waving grass in the plains, and forest noises on a mountain. I am the storm, raging through mountains, trees, and towns. I am icebergs, and avalanches. I am the ship storm-tossed on the sea, and the sailor battling the wind.

“I am the longing for far away, the pull to the ocean, and the briny smell of salt, fish, and seaweed. I am a small island in the Atlantic, and the bell that tolls in the chapel there. I am the ancient rooms in the hotel, the waves on the breakwater, and the uneven floors. I am Gosport Harbour, East Rock, and Betty Moody's Cave. I am a star fallen to earth.

“I am a belief that is unnameable, a god created by myself, and a clear seer. I am Unitarian and Jewish. I am my own religious system. I am a nomad, a wanderer, and a vagabond. I am a rebel. I am a conformist. I am a nonconformist. I am confused, and stable, and understood, and misunderstood, and underestimated. I am a contradiction in terms.

“I am impossible to describe. I am easily found, and impossible to see. I am laughter, and joy. I am fleeting anger, short-lived grudges, and honest. I am judgmental, and open to new ideas. I am liberal, green, and economically stable. I am environmentally conscious. I am a wannabe jazz singer, flapper, Victorian lady, and famous writer. I am spring, and fall. I am wise, and foolish all at once.

“Who am I? I am.”