Dreamwalker Rises VOL 1. CHP 1. VERSE 1 (Draft 2)

Volume One: The Road Out

Chapter One

Verse One: Dreamwalker Rises

"We are that with which stories are made. And our little lives are added to the story when at last we sleep forever. And so we become part of the dreams that others dream when stories are told around a council fire."

The darkness wreathed the council fire as the flames spit sparks and pitch into the night sky. Dreamer stood, looming before the fire to best cast a shadow across the younger members of the tribe as they watched the storyteller in wide eyed wonder. Walker stepped from behind Dreamer and continued speaking where Dreamer had left off.

"These are the stories of the tribe. These are your stories. They belong to you, but more important- you belong to them. You will pass them to the unborn elders of tomorrow. You will keep the Demons and Heroes of the tribe alive by keeping those stories alive, for there is nowhere else where Demons and Gods may live but within the stories that we tell each other."

The children murmured to each other. Virtually every child had heard this before, but every child began to understand the weight of the words in their own time. Some children required many tellings of the story before the lesson took hold. Amidst the sound of murmured voices, Dreamer rose like an ambushing warrior behind the children- now outside the circle- and several of the younger children shrieked.

"And so we will tell you the stories of the First Mother and her companion: First Hero. We will tell you of the Witch Doctor and the Locust King. We will tell of deals First Mother made with the Elder known as Weaver and the pact made between First Hero and the Great Serpent Elder. We will tell you how the Witch Doctor found the ancient laws of the Great Phoenix, that mystery of Void and Fire. And will tell you of the Wendigo and the Hunger that drives them, the fearsome Men of Black and White- that Evil Wyrm known as Falsenight. And we will tell you of what lies behind their hunger and the fear that drives them."

From inside the overlapping Capes that Walker wore, the storyteller produced a grapefruit sized wooden egg carved with designs depicting two figures walking a winding road. The Storyteller grasped the wooden egg at both ends and twisted, and the egg split at the middle with a hollow popping sound. Inside lay another egg, this one carved with depictions of the tribe's history. Dreamer reached in and delicately plucked the smaller egg and then wrenched it open, launching a still smaller egg within high into the air. Walker reach up and snatched the egg on its descent, revealing it in the fire light to be marked with Wendigo faces, and popped it open and tipped the egg within to fall towards the dirt. Dreamer knelt and caught the falling egg with cupped hands and showed the children the vast city walls carved into the egg's surface. Dreamer then gently opened it to reveal an egg again. Dreamer picked the egg from its resting place and handed it to Walker. This egg was smaller than a quail's egg and, as Walker displayed it to the children, the children could see a great tower depicted upon the egg. Walker grasped the egg with both hands, leaving it momentarily invisible. Walker's hands unclasped and in the space where the egg had been lay a black cloth. Dreamer reached up and snatched the black cloth without standing and unfolded it with a flourish and an unexpected flash of light exploded into the air above the storyteller.

Walker stood behind the council fire, cape spread and arms wide.

"And now, the story begins again."

But before either storyteller could speak again, the night was banished by a blast of shimmering snow that roared like a winter lion across the landscape and scoured the darkness away leaving everyone blinking in the sudden washed out light and shivering from the bitter cold. Snarling withered figures with wild hair and hollow eyes appears from out of the whirling clouds of snow. The creatures almost looked like people, and in fact they had been people once. They snapped jaws full of broken bottle teeth and advanced upon the council fire.

"The Wendigo are here." Walker said, flinging the capes aside and drawing his Flanged Mace: Boneshaker.

"Worse will be coming. Children, get behind us." Dreamer added and drew the twin tomahawks: Victor and Edgar.

The corrupted Knights of the Locust King marched out of the freezing mists, the Knights of Unity and the Knights of Purity. Behind them, the monstrous Harvester and the legions of Truthtellers and Confessors stood ready and waiting.

Behind Dreamer and Walker stood the children and the tribe. Between the Locust King's forces and the Tribe stood only these two Storytellers dressed in their crimson armor against a tide of white shrouded soldiers ready to do them harm. Slowly the ranks of Locust King begin marching forward, pikes and Gusarmes out and leveled at the two in blood red raiments. Troops with muskets and flintlocks march besides ones with Kalashnikov variations. The troops washed over and around the two warriors like an avalanche. The Tribe lands disappeared around the two, buried in snow and freezing mists. Tips of corn stalks poked out from the snow as they withered from the cold.

Dreamer and Walker stood back to back in the midst of the enemy, their weapons in constant motion. The army seemed disinterested in them, marching past to devastate the landscape and drown it in winter. Then, as though a signal had been given, the army parted like the red sea and a figure dressed in crimson war robes fringed with gold strode out from the army brandishing an enormous scythe: the Locust King.

Walker stood ready, a bulwark of defense with no gaps through which the enemy could enter. Dreamer shifted constantly, a puzzle no enemy could decipher. Dozens of Knight and Wendigo bodies lay in a gruesome circle around the two. The Locust King strode over the bodies and swung the great scythe one handed in an arc the cut the air in two as it went. The blade bit through Boneshaker without slowing and slit Walker's red armor cleanly, dropping the storyteller to the ground. Dreamer turned to face the Locust King, but the scythe kept swinging, completing a full circle and continuing around, slicing through Dreamer as though the storyteller were maybe of morning fog.

The Locust King stared down at the ruined forms of the storytellers, "What makes you all oppose me? I bring liberation. Through me you all are freed to tell your own stories. Why are you fools willing to die rather than embrace my offer?"

The army in white stormed across the landscape until the land lay like a blank canvas out to the horizon. The Locust Skin stood, leaning on his scythe, staring down at the bodies of Dreamer and Walker, three figures in red against a background painted white.

The wind whipped the Locust King's gilded robes like a scourge and tossed his twin feathered crests wildly.

"Why do you resist?"

And the wind replied, "A good story is like soil, it must be built up and nurtured. You nurture nothing. You get one harvest, and then the winter rains wash away the top soil and nothing grows for years after."

The Locust King turned, swinging his scythe wildly trying to find the source of the voice, "Where are you?"

"Here. We are of the story." The voice said, echoing as though it were two voices speaking as one.

"Who are you? I have defeated everything and everyone."

"Have you defeated the fear that drives you? What do you fear so much that you felt driven to burn and salt everything you love? What fear could drive you to this destruction?"

"I fear nothing! There is no fear!"

Before him, the broken pieces of the storyteller reassembled themselves into a single form, neither Dreamer nor Walker, but both.

"What are you?" The Locust King hissed.

"We are Dreamwalker. And we will test your claim. We are Dreamwalker and the Shadowlands of your mind and your dreams are open to us. We shall see if there is no fear within your story."

And Dreamwalker stepped forward and passed into the Locust King. And the Locust King shuddered as it happened.

The Shadowlands of the Locust King stretched far away, the horizon pulling up rather than down. Color was missing in these Shadowlands, everything was black or white and the contrast was jagged and painful when viewed too long. Dreamwalker stood in front of a great tower of crystal and steel, a door opened at the base of the tower. And Dreamwalker entered.

Inside the tower the floor was built of black and white squares in a chessboard pattern and a great staircase with no protective railing curled up to the top of the tower. Positioned like chessmen around the room, the Men of Black and White stood frozen in their black suits and black sunglasses, sharp against white shirts and white pocket squares. As one, the Men of Black and White turned to look at Dreamwalker. As one, the Men of Black and White raised their left hands to touch their left ears. As one, the Men of Black and White spoke.

"Target has arrived. Commencing operation. Target will be sanctioned."

Dreamwalker drew twin tomahawks and flanged mace and charged the Men of Black and White. The Men of Black and White moved between the blinking of Dreamwalker's eyes. They did not seem to move, but when Dreamwalker swung a weapon towards one of the men of black and white, that man was simply not in the same spot when the weapon arrived. Dreamwalker could not see them move, but that did not stop the storyteller from feeling the results of their movement. Fists like concrete cinder blocks struck from impossible angles, and gunshots rang out after Dreamwalker felt the exploding pain of bullets striking flesh.

"We can't beat them. They are too many, too fast."

"Target is injured."

"This is the Shadowlands, we live or die as the story demands."

"Target is vulnerable."

"This is not the Shadowlands. This is his Shadowlands. How do you think his stories end?"

"Proceeding with sanctions."

"It ends in the throne room. It has to. We can make it."

Dreamwalker moved, leaping straight up to grasp the spiral staircase. Dreamwalker pulled up onto the stairs and charged up the staircase with the Men of Black and White in hot pursuit. Dreamwalker took the stairs five at a time, almost flying up the stairs. Below on the stairs, the marching cadence of the Men of Black and White echoed like a drumbeat of a military band. Another sound added to the chorus, the rich syrupy sound of something very large sliding across a wet surface, black oily liquid dripped from the edges of the stairs as Dreamwalker ran. Coiling down from above was a great monster serpent with a head like a crocodile and a body wide enough to swallow Volkswagen.

"Hello little morsel." The Serpent said, "I am Falsenight, and it is time for you to learn your place. You are not the hero of this tale."

The Enormous black monster rolled and swirled around the staircase, a liquid cable the width of a sedan, a oily black tsunami in the form of a serpentine leviathan.

"You must remember your role, teller of tales. The chosen one must face our hunger and choose. You may only guide the chosen one, but the choice is not yours to make. The hunger is not yours to face."

"How can we guide the chosen one if we do not know what drives your hunger? How can we teach the chosen one if we do not know the choice that must be made."

Falsenight chuckled, a sound not unlike shaking a bag of razor blades dipped in bear grease.

"That is your challenge. Don't you like a challenge?"

"The Dreamwalker is the storyteller and the mentor. Knowledge is their portfolio." A cold monotone voice whispered, a sound so quiet the breeze tore it apart. "The unknown terrifies them, they cannot quantify it or explain it or weave it into song."

"Who's there?" Dreamwalker called.

Falsenight chuckled, "You have awakened The Grey. He smells your fear. You who sought the fear that drives our little Locust now must face your own."

"Show yourself!"

"If you wish."

Before Dreamwalker a shape gradually faded into view. Human-like, but absurdly thin with long insect-like fingers and a grotesquely large head, smooth like a carapace with mandibles rather than a mouth and compound eyes. The being hung in the air, silent and monochrome, as though superimposed on the the space and not fully occupying it.

"We know your fear. We can take it away: take control, walk our path, and the uncertainty will vanish. We promise certainty, stability, safety. Walk our path. Tell our story."

Dreamwalker took a step back. Falsenight chuckled a third time as the Men of Black and White marched through the serpents great coils and blocked the path down the stairs.

"There is no way out. We offer an answer."

"No, you offer lies." Dreamwalker stepped back again, but this time there was no stairway beneath, and the storyteller tumbled backwards into the unknown.

* * * *

Marion Day awoke gasping for air, and sat upright in bed. He looked around at the disgraceful mess that was the bedroom of his bachelor suite. The bed was a simply mattress laying on plastic on the floor of the room. Movie posters were mounted on the wall with rubber cement, 'The Day the Earth Stood Still', 'The Last Man on Earth', 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and 'The Day of the Triffids. Books were left in piles around the room, clothing left piled on books. A laptop lay in the otherwise unused closet. An alarm clock sat on its side next to the bed.

Marion looked around the room again, "It was a dream. Damn. What time is it?"

He looked at the alarm clock, tilting his head.

"Why's it on its side? It's five past five! I start work at six. Did I not wake up when I shut the alarm off? Damn, I'll be late for work!"

Monday Meditations: Born of Clay

You create with clay, not with sky. Past the sky is the void of space. Why are you looking to the void to find your inspirations and your gods?

Remember your connection to clay that made you, the clay to which your ancestors returned. You are made from the grave dust of a thousand generations before yours. You are a short span of time that eats through life and then is in turn eaten.

A creature of earth, who are tied to the ground you live upon and supported by it. Fear for the future when you eat from the land of another without giving earth back to that land in thanks. This is unsustainable, the center does not hold.

Give thanks to the Earth. Give thanks to Ancestors. Pray to your descendants- to our unborn elders- for you will leave the world to them one day. Death is the return to earth, the becoming of earth that will nourish your descendants. Give yourself willingly to the soil and protect the soil and the health of the soil- for when you do, you protect both your ancestors: who are in the soil, and your descendants: who will be raised by the soil.

The soil is a fortune teller than tells us the future of those who live upon it. The soil is a records keeper that tells the history of those who lived upon it in days past. To take from the soil and not give back, to overwork the soil and not re-nourish it, these things are crimes against tomorrow's children.

Death is not the end of time on earth, not a cutting short. Death is a return to the earth so that you can do your part for the next generation. Death is an accounting for how you have treated the land you lived on. Do not die within a box, leave your nutrients to the earth. If you do this, the earth will feed your children and their children and on into generations unseen.

In the clay beneath your feet will you create your legacy. From the clay beneath your feet will you be judged by your descendants.

The Schedule

So as I plan this crazy idea, I know that I will need to keep a ridiculously strict writing schedule. Several people close to me have already doubted my ability to keep it up consistently. So I will clearly need a method of keeping track of how on schedule I am so that if I fall behind I now how much I need to do in order to catch up.

I feel as though I will need to plan this like a movie shooting script. I will have to know before each day, what is required of me to reach the next stage in the story.

I am going to keep a widget or gadget or something similar on top of the page to show what the current word count and where I should be based on how far into the year we are at any time.

The plan is to start with the New Year, like a resolution, only hopefully more successful.

FAQs ... or "What the Hell is Wrong with you?"

Why are you doing this?
Because I'm a mad fool with something to say, and daft enough to think I might pull this off.

Why does it need to be this long?
The length started as a mental challenge. How much would I write in a year, if I wrote every day? Then that musing prompted me to wonder if I had any idea that needed that much text to properly explain. When I found an idea I'd been struggling with for years that did require such length, and might even need more, I realized I owed it to myself to attempt the impossible.

Why the one year deadline?
Because I know myself well enough to know that if I don't set some stupid audacious goal, I won't be fired up enough to work at it. I may fail to make my deadline, but attempting will push me better than having no deadline.

This is an exercise in vanity.
It won't be art will it?
It is absolutely an exercise in bravado, and yes, probably vanity as well. Wouldn't you want to have an achievement by your name like 'wrote the world's longest novel'? And unlike an achievement such as 'spent the most time in the Amazon river on a pogo stick', this one might impress people. Does that mean it won't be art? It might, but I hope to achieve something truly artistic here. In fact, the novel itself will hopefully be a comment on the nature of story itself- but that will come done to how well I plan and how well I write.

Why release the novel into the Public Domain?
Two reasons: one noble one selfish. If the books is public domain, anyone can publish it without permission, and the Guinness Book of World Records only recognizes published (not self-published) works for inclusion. Second, since the novel I will writing is an mythopoeic exercise in story and culture, I want people to be able to play with it and build on it. In the public domain, I have literally given it to everyone, and nobody (including) myself can claim the final say on how its used or what it means. I want this novel to have a rejuvenating effect on our cultural mythology, and to be a set of building blocks and a tool chest that others can use. I can't very well do that if I horde control of the work to myself.

So is this just a first draft then?
Yes, but since I am publishing it. Then its also a published work and a finished product. Although I don't imagine that any myth is finished and I will like Stephen King and George Lucas, be rebuilding this product for quite some time. But the cool thing is, if you like this story in any version, is that it is already in the public domain and you may keep or distribute or work on or with any part of this story for any reason. You don't even have to give me credit or let me know, although both would be awesome and appreciated.

What if it sucks?
Then I tried. I will have learned a lot, improved a lot, and will do better next time.

Current Project: The Song of Seven

I am listing this as the current project. The future project would more accurately describe the project however. I have realized that writing 3781 words per day, a writer could write a novel of 1.38 million words in length in a single year. This would beat the current Guinness World Record of the the longest novel, currently held by Marcel Proust's 'À la recherche du temps perdu.'

The resulting novel's word count would also be 1/1000th the age of the known universe in years. To do this, a novelist would need to write roughly 4000 words per day. Anthony Trollope wrote 3000 per day, and did so consistently through his whole life. Many writers of the Victorian era, such as Charles Dickens, wrote enormous masterpieces such as 'Bleak House' in a serialized fashion in Newspapers. This serialized method forced the authors to write the story in real time, leaving them unable to go back and edit or rework.

To perform such a feat in a serial fashion, the author would need to plan out their plot and their structure well in advance. The following is especially true if the author plans (as I do) to use multiple interweaving plots to tell a story that transcends any one plot.

So that is my plan. I will write a novel that will break the Guinness World Record for the longest novel (somebody other than the author must also have published the work, but that can be addressed later).  I will write this novel in 2000 word installments, twice per day. I will post the progress as I write it, serializing it as Charles Dickens serialized 'Bleak House'. I also release the whole work into the public domain.

I am planning my project now. I am not ready to begin writing. I do not know whether I can do this. But whether I succeed or fail, the attempt should prove magnificent.
 

Monday Meditations: What is the fear that drives domesticated man?

What is the fear that drives domesticated man? Where does his terror lie? What drives him to lock his dead away from their nurturing mother in the final sleep? What drives him to coat the comfortable ground with stone and steel until the earth sleeps so far below that it cannot be felt? What drives him to insulate himself within buildings so much larger than are needed? What drives him to interact with the world and with other domesticated humans through ever more convoluted intermediaries?

(domesticate man can safely be referred to as male- for his politics explicitly marginalize the female as well as the minority and the servant and the slave)

Let us examine the words in common across differing views. Lets us look for the assumptions not questioned, but held by all.

"That he may have dominion over . . . every creature." 

Genesis 1:26

"There is not, within the wide range of philosophical inquiry, a subject more intensely interesting to all who thirst for knowledge, than the precise nature of that important mental superiority which elevates the human being above the brute, and enables man alone to assume the sway wheresoever he plants his dwelling; and to induce changes in the constitution and adaptions (sic) of other species, which have no parallel where his interference is unknown."

by Edward Blyth 

(The Magazine of Natural History   Vol. 10. 1837)

"If it can be shown possible for man to have descended or ascended from the lower animals, it will require enormous additional evidence to show that such descent is probable; and still much more to make it certain. "

by Rev William A. William 

(The Evolution of Man Scientifically Disproven in 50 Arguments, 1925)

"Homo heidelbergensis was developing a complex mind - once this boundary had been reached, there was no turning back."

The First Europeans, British Broadcast Corporation 2010

"The more disciplined behavior (behavior determined by intellect) displayed by the individual, the more human he becomes. The less disciplined behavior (behavior in response to instinct) displayed by an individual, the more he becomes like the lower order animals that are lacking in intellect and are driven by their instincts. "

The Evolution of the Human, www.onelife.com

The assumptions should be clear.

Domesticated man does not consider himself an animal. Or, if forced to admit that indeed he is an animal in the technical sense, then domesticated man maintains that he is so different- so above- other animals so as to render the argument moot. 

I would like to use a different quote to draw attention to the second assumption in the above quotations.

"It is an important and popular fact that things are not always what they seem. For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much - the wheel, New York, wars and so on - whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man - for precisely the same reasons."

Douglas Adams

Why is domesticated man afraid of being an animal? Why is domesticated man so driven to enforce his conception of order upon an already perfectly functioning and ordered world? What does this have to do with domesticated man's need to hide from the world he is seeking to re-order in his own image?

So many questions. So much fear.

From Fakelore to Makelore (Fixing a Stolen Term)

Fakelore refers to invent folklore, but in a way that presumes that inventing folklore is somehow unusual or spurious. Makelore is the same idea, but understands that all folklore is invented and serves a social cultural purpose and created.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fakelore 

Makelore is incredibly important to memory and story and we should build our own personal and shared makelore in order to remember the stories that tell us who we are and who we want to be.