Saturday, April 10, 2010

PSYCHOPOMP - CHAPTER SEVEN (Twitter Novel / Keitai Shousetsu)


To start at Chapter One, click here


Selected Entries from KG’s Dream Journals


June 11th

I’m in the City. I’m at an outdoor café, and it’s daytime. I meet a man there. There is something wrong with his eyes. We talk for awhile (don’t know about what) and although he smiles the entire time, I’m pretty sure he wants to hurt me. I wake up upset, like the dream was somehow scarier or sadder than it was.


February 18th

I go to see Mom in the hospital. She’s really pleasant, acting happy, but we both know she’s going to die. Her nurse comes in, blonde, very beautiful, but I think she is retarded. She keeps spilling things, knocking Mom’s tray over. I ask Mom if she wants a new nurse and she just shakes her head and smiles. The nurse replaces her IV, and although it goes into the tube okay by the time it reaches her arm it is gray and polluted. Mom starts shaking, seizing up, her eyes roll back. I scream at the nurse to stop it, I get up and try to pull it out of Mom’s arm but it won’t come. The nurse just giggles. I wake up crying.


April 24th

A party in some attic. Dave and the rest of the band are there, and things are good between all of us. There aren’t many people, but the girls whose house this is are pretty and nice. For some reason, someone goes to the window and says the ride is here to go to the other party. I look out the window and the guy waiting by the car we’re supposed to take is all black with weird white tattoos all over. I don’t want to go with him. The rest of the band leaves and so do the girls. I’m left alone in the attic and I start walking through the house, which is huge with really narrow corridors. I find a girl there and she seems scared and upset that I’m still in the house. I apologize and try to leave. I can’t find a way out.


November 28th

I’m in the industrial part of the City, outside of a bad house (Joe’s house?). I want to go in but I’m afraid to, but I still want to know what’s in there. I walk up to the front, but there’s no windows to look in. I try the door; it’s locked. I start feeling really exposed, start walking away quickly. I hear some people behind the house, and I turn back. They come from around the corner, pointing at me. I start running down the street toward the factories. They chase me. I wake up.


October 19th

I’m at Emerson. It’s a party outside the Student Center. Elliot is there, and he’s talking to that black-haired hippie bitch that cock-blocked me at the last Tent Party. They are pointing at me and laughing. I can’t find anyone I know and when I do they’re not interested or don’t remember me. I think it’s the Menage a Trois party because some people are wearing costumes and I am too, but mine doesn’t fit. This guy and his girlfriend (I don’t remember either of them from Emerson) come up and tell me there’s a better place we can go. I’m so lonely and uptight that I go with them. There’s something wrong with the guy’s eyes. We walk over to their car and the driver gets out. He’s black and gray and has these weird tattoos all over. I get scared and go back to the party; they yell after me. When I come back around the corner the party’s over, but there’s a movie playing outside on the wall back by the Music building (what movie?).


March 27th

I’m hanging out with Mark at a record store (high school?) in the City. It’s not the Record Mine, it’s a lot bigger, but its got the same kind of posters (Blondie, Rundgren) on the walls and the ceiling. I find all the old Funkadelic records, great condition, but I don’t have any money. Mark buys this Electric Prunes record, a double album of “Mass in F Minor, Second Movement” (doesn’t exist). We go back to his mom’s house to play it and there aren’t any records in the jacket. It’s too late to go back, the record store’s closed.



Go to Chapter Eight

5 comments:

tipota said...

hi jason, this is intense. the bad house is back.
how animated the dreams seem. maybe because the words on the page have a shape and rhythm, and then there is the place where they are introduced as coming from, KG's dream journal i keep thinking 'man you have to be pretty sharp to write down a dream like that'. The clarity he has, doesn't match his 'diagnosis' i guess, and that is peculiarly scary when it comes down to it. great, love it!

Tracey said...

This is (of course) wonderful stuff Jason - by 'stuff' I mean your words, the rhythm they beat and your vision. You never fail to keep me wanting more and greedy for the next installment...

I loved the Dream Journal entries in particular... :)

Cocoyea said...

I agree with Tipota, this is really intense and you get to see another side of KG's character. Very complex and 3D. Thanks.

Paul said...

Another terrific tale in the making. Who is this guy and what is he up to?

Jason Gusmann said...

tipota - thanks for yr attention to detail, as usual. i'm pleased you like it, i've been wrestling with the different "formats" i've been including in p-pomp, but they seem to be working.

tracey - thanks for yr visit, you always bring a real note of positivity to the proceedings! as i told tipota, above, i'm pleased that you like the dream journal format.

cocoyea - thank you, milady. for you to refer to the work as intense is very well-received.

paul - it's great to see you, my friend. just knowing yr out there makes me wanna write better stuff just to impress you.