“Thanks for the book.”
“oh, yeah, glad you like it.”

Then we have a discussion on personal education philosophy and practices.
Sometimes, lately, I’m not sure if I had a conversation with a friend or if all happened in a dream.

“Didn’t we go to their house last week and play cards or something…?”
“No, it’s been a while.”

Optimistically, at least I remember having good times.

Now, I lie there thinking about innanities, filling out forms, paying bills, the state of the economy, work, work and more work. All these worries and obsessions, so human, are so restrictive.

I just can’t find it in me at the moment to become creative about beurocracy. This makes it difficult to sleep.

I used to start dreaming to fall asleep, starting with something abstract and twisting it until it was even more difficult to articulate. Soon, all would be a haze of dream and random thought stream.

I need this again.

“We need to get to a Costco!” I tell my friends.

“OK, but first we need to stop at someone’s house.”

“Who? Why?”

“She’s a neurologist; she’ll know what to do.”

“…OK.”

On our way to her house, we stop at a school to pick up someone’s kid. In one of the classrooms, textbooks are flying through the air, having grown large teeth, attempting to bite the children.
“This isn’t just a zombie infection! This is some sort of magic.”
“That’s great news!” Says one of my cohorts, “It’s not a disease! We just need to find a magician.”

One of the men traveling with us knows where to find a magician and he takes us to his house. Surprisingly, this magician doesn’t know anything about the zombie attack. He believes us anyway and takes us into the ocean. “There,” he says, “we will meet another magician who can help you.”

In the depths of the sea, we find many new life-forms that we have never heard of before.

A cube shaped fish with bioluminescent saturn-like rings around it swims by. It’s gathering energy kenetically from other fish and creatures swimming in the water. It floats into a school of fish who twirl around the cube frantically. The cube gets brighter. A shark comes, pushing energy into the water as it feasts upon the swirl of fish. The cube and it’s rings get brighter and more energetic.

“It’s like an alien.” I say.

“How do you know it’s not?” The magician replies.

————-
OK, this dream really does go on forever so I’m going to leave it at that. To remind myself of the rest:

* Cubic alien beast becomes a flying carpet under the sea.
* Old lady magician under the sea, threatens attack but recognizes the traveling magician as a former lover.
* Infiltrating the military and fighting the attack.
* Vines growing out of the ground to consume the army.
* An unused field with chained up trees, under attack of consumption. To rebuild or let die?
* Pretending to be a woman and using the restroom at a closed down supermarket.
* The creepy janitors
* The Costco is closed
————-

Let’s sum it up with a Common Craft Zombie Guide:

“It doesn’t have to be good.” I tell my wife. It just has to be complete. I need the whole story out on paper.

Somehow it’s just pouring out of me. I’m not even reading what I write so I’m sure it’s mostly garbage. I’ll have a hell of a time trudging through it later and marking down relevant sections–if there are any. I get this bad feeling that it’s all just dreamtext, phrases that sound fantastic when you are sleepwriting but which, upon conscious reading, turn out to be complete drivel. But, again, I am washed with a sense accomplishment. Crap or not, I’m writing a novel.

“Ah, good, that part there is a little fast but it’s good that way.”

Many years later, I am an old man. I see the composer in a coffee shop, looking not a day older than when I was a child. It is apparent that he must die. He is the enemy, an agent from another faction. But I am old. What can I do? I befriend him. We discuss the changing scene of classical composition in modern times. He invites me over to his yacht where we drink and laugh about the past.

My family is with me now. We are all old. This is our vacation in some undisclosed European country.

“If he’s here, we need to run.” My wife suggests.

“We could catch a plane tonight. Grab only the items that are already packed.” I tell them. “I am going to see if I can finish this first.”

I head out to the yacht, uncertain of what I will do. Upon arrival, I see a figure leap from the mast and fall into a mesh of chain and rope in the front of the ship. It is the old man. He has hung himself on the bow. My arms fly into the air in a victorious flail of triumph. He is dead and I didn’t even have to kill him!

Interpol comes racing in, surrounding the scene. I scream at them. “He’s dead!” I laugh. “I didn’t do it but he’s dead. He’s finally dead.” I follow them over to the body and one of the agents grabs ahold of the man hanging from the chain.

“He isn’t dead yet. There’s breathing.”

My heart sinks into despair.