Insomnia's Dreaming

imasmeasmecanbe

This is the first in a series of short stories I'm in the process of writing. The collection is called "To the Peoples of Dublin and the Children she Lost". loosely inspired by Joyce's Dubliners, they are the stories of the unsung heroes of Dublin. I understand it is an ambitious if not egotistical task but how n ever any critique is more than welcome.



I saw him first by Joyce's tower. He stood alone watching the waves crash and foam over the rocks. Now an then his gaze would lift, he looked back at the tower arching his neck – trying to see what great men had passed before him. Then in a swift roll of his neck he watched on forever at the fast disappearing horizon – concealed by fog.
That was long ago though. Now i see him as he is. Not the miraculous dreamer or struggling writer but as the shallow, shell of a man he is. A dreamer through and through. I wrote a story for him. Not about him as such but about all the dreamers in this world who drink and smoke their talent away. I find it easier to write from point of view, i feel like a spy. I get my rocks off below the radar where no one will care if i fail or fly.

Insomnia's Dreaming.

When i was younger i was far from normal, perhaps i am worse off now. The world has changed, is changing and will constantly change. The lies will flow and the Devil will tempt – such is the way. I do not fear the changes as some do. I know not when or how they may come about but i dream of them day in and day out. I dream of the places i may one day hold, the hands i may shake and the faces i most certainly will forget.
My world of dreams does not disappear when the cock crows and the suits scurry to the station, my world of dreams is not held captive in a sleeping cell. It can be found in dirty side-streets (if you care to look). It is the disbarred bordello and the teenage-mother's toothy smile. It may not be a pretty world to live in, but beauty can be found where ever seldom sought, the bottles and the brawls hold more to me than man. I worry about man. Nine to five, straight and narrow – The Suits. The suits serve only to hide the man and leave the rest of us on the back burner waiting for dole-day.
This harsh mechanized world of today has no place for the meek. “The meek shall inherit the world”, thats what they say isn't it? All the part-time preachers who cling to their faith like a mothers teat. They dream too. They dream of Heaven and Hell, long white robes and flowing beards, they dream of halos and puffy clouds soft enough to put a baby to sleep yet sturdy enough to hold humanity. But these are all dreams. Dreams based on a silvery sliver of hope shining through the clouds and making way for the birds and the bees, the men and women of God's own creation and the lovers enshrined in lust in the new and everlasting forever-night.
My dreams are not powerful, they will not inspire. They will not gather a following of billions. My dreams serve only to entertain, if no one but myself. I dream during the day. I dream of Joyce and Behan. I watch the night fade slowly to the day. I watch the moon rise and the stars fall, the ocean alight in a beauteous glow of hope. They say that the dreams of millions are what make the moon shine, the stars rise and the night what it is.
I dream for the millions, on the hour every hour. I dream of nights I'll never know and the places I'll never see.
They don't see me how i am – the suits that is. They see a madman, a lunatic. My dreams terrify and my dreams deceive. I made a conscious decision long ago to do as i please, dreams included. When i am not dreaming i read. I read Behan and Yeats, Joyce and O'Connor, Kerouac, Kafka, Poe and Vonnegut. Each time i read i am born anew. They spurn my dreams and burn the candle. I don the mask and i belong. I am the lonesome traveler, i am a spastic in time. I am everyman. They inspire me, they come to me when i am alone and hopeless and i take whatever piece i may read and i turn it upside, inside, downside out. Each time i am a different character, each time i act it out differently. Each time i am new. And then i am no longer the stranger to himself, i am no longer a mind warped by the paranoid tendencies of an insomniac. I am and shall always remain; a dreamer who dreams his life away.
After nights stacked high with sleepless-dreams the sun will come. It will banish the fairer moon and conceal the horizon once more. And just as the moon before her she will jolt my weary mind and shake my writing hand. The time for change is coming and i can feel it. The meek have had their chance now the dreamer must step to the plate. As of yet my circumstances are unchanging, i have neither the time nor the effort to break a rut but i dream. I dream of life's odd coincidences, the whistle of a train or a crisp clean shirt. I dream of these and those, this, that, then and there. I dream of keys clicking and toes tapping. I dream of the future and the lovers we have laid to rest. I dream to wake the moon. But most of all i dream for the sake of dreaming. I dream to escape reality.

deepriver

imasmeasmecanbe wrote: »

the whistle of a train or a crisp clean shirt

pretty interesting stuff, I really like this line, it introduces the reader to two totally random and opposing sensations in the one place, thats great, the stream of consciousness style is hard to pull off, but you seem to comfortable with it