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- 06/21/2016
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Names, places, characters, events, and incidents are based on the authors' lives and experiences and may be changed to protect personal information. Any resemblances to actual persons (living or dead), organizations, companies, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.
Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you.
Dream Spores - 1. Wasps, Closing Time, Tower
We followed the trail of the two racing horses through the muddy path in this park, around a bend on a grassy hill with a white house, and from there they went on up another gentle slope into the small forest. We stopped there at the bend and looked up at the people who came down the broad gravel path towards us. A pensionist was the main part of them, a man in his sixties with mean humour in his face. We wanted to continue following the riders, but it was unwise to move quickly now, because the wasp nests sticking to two of the trees looming over the path were very busy. There were five of them in all, four on the tree closest to the house, and a single one on the other. The wasps were of different races or they weren't all wasps, but they certainly weren't afraid of us. In fact, they became more numerous and frisky, and I wasn't sure whether I should move at all, watching the four nests, when we heard a slight commotion coming from the single nest on the other tree and the half-old man made a sound and started running. I wondered if he had damaged the nest on purpose, but only vaguely, because I was mainly grateful that he pulled all the wasps from us and we could move again.
The supermarket is busy almost until closing time. Everybody hurries out and stands around in the dark parking lot and waits for the last handful of customers to come out, because they all know that if they don't make it outside before closing time, they will be locked inside and we don't know what will happen then. I use the restroom before I leave and when I float out onto the nightly plane of parking spaces in my thickcollared, grey bundle of cloak I see a small group of young men standing there. They are nervous and the one in the middle, facing me, stares at me with round, terrified eyes. I give him a dreamy, mildly curious, questioning glance as I hover towards them and he tells me that he has forgotten his glasses in the restroom. I turn back and hover towards the supermarket's glass doors and hear him call out that it is already too late. There are less than forty seconds left until closing time. That is enough, my shredded thoughts tell me, and I open the door and hover inside, push open the white restroom door, through the small white-tiled anteroom, the next white door, there are sinks but no glasses, the next white door, there are stalls and sinks and no glasses ... I turn and turn and see them sitting on a sink. Relieved, I take the glasses and open the white door, float hastily through the sink room, open the next white door, and I can tell, this is a different room than before, I might be trapped and there is so little time, I yank open the next white door, hurry to the next, hurry through the next, there is another, and grim and harried I finally step out of the restroom and push open the glass door to the parking lot. I hover to the astonished young man and hand his glasses over. He is very impressed. I turn back and watch the supermarket close.
The tower was newly built, it had wallpaper in fresh colours and comfortable rooms, large windows facing the sea, and it was really all new. The storeys of this tower were a little offset. We didn't know how much, but the ground floor was one or two storeys above ground, so when we entered it on ground level we ended up at least one or two levels above ground, without taking stairs or being lifted up in any way. So there was something more below us, and we were curious to see what that was. There were levels below us and maybe even below ground, who knew, so we took the circular staircase and looked forward to exploring the lower part of the tower. As we descended, rhythmic rumbling began to waft up to us and at first that only peaked my curiosity, but after only a few seconds I realised what it must be. I turned around and ushered my companion up again urgently, and even as I did that the rumbling and drumming became louder. We ran up the stairs as fast and as far as possible and went up into the top level of the tower, hoping the orc horde would pour out of the tower exit and ignore the higher storeys. Up there a friend of mine had furnished the highest room for me to use and to live in. I would have to rearrange some of the stuff but it was nice, and I thought that it meant that we were going to be stuck up here for a while now.
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Names, places, characters, events, and incidents are based on the authors' lives and experiences and may be changed to protect personal information. Any resemblances to actual persons (living or dead), organizations, companies, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.
Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you.
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