Thread: Frank fiction

Previous Chapters

Spoiler for Previous Chapters:

PROLOGUE

Spoiler for Prologue:

He could smell the aroma in her thick black hair as she led him through the white hallways.

“You’ll see, Frank, you’ll get a lot of inspiration for your book in my lab.”

“No, Natasha, how many times must I tell you? I write history fiction, not sci-fi!”

Without warning, she stopped and his nose plunged below waves of black hair. She turned and held his head with both hands.

“Frank, you do not see. What we do here, it is not merely a revolution of science and human potential… We are simultaneously going to understand the source of religion, unlock the secret of the pyramids, and know why the past was full of mythology and impossible intelligence!”

An old man beside them applauded. Frank had a start. The man had only a few wisps of hair still standing sentinel on his scalp. His smile was warm.

“She is right. Mr. Dimeglio, have you ever heard of the astral? There are many references to it in the history of the Earth’s peoples: cities inhabited by higher beings, labyrinths of knowledgeable souls, the guides of hallucinatory experiences. It is through the astral that people acquired the knowledge… And the paranormal abilities necessary to build temples in the Andes that withstood earthquakes.”

Dimeglio rolled his eyes.

“Natasha, don’t worry, I will still love you if you believe in those fairy tales. Just don’t expect me to include any of this in my history fiction!”

She bit her lip as she often did.

“Okay, but please look at what we do here anyways!”

He followed her and the elderly man through the different labs. He politely listened to their extravagant explanations. Gravity, half-distance, the invisible source of vision, and full electromagnetism. Televisions. All he really paid attention to were her eyes which shimmered with excitement. Even if this was all BS, he didn’t mind that she did this with her life; it made her so happy… so sexy. But he didn’t like this old man’s excitement and he didn’t like that they spent so much time together in these solitary hallways. There was no chance that she was attracted to him… but his passion reflected hers and passion is stronger than looks. He frowned. And then, with open eyes, he opened his eyelids.

He was in his bed, at home. Natasha was gone. She had died years ago in a car crash. But he had seen her after, in a dream.

“Tell the world! Tell them about the fundamentals of dreaming… Tell them, Dimeglio. It is so important. I love you. Never stop telling them!” she had told him.

This old creepy man and she had been on to something in the Paranormal Astral Research Institute. But whatever it had been it had died with them, in a tragic car accident. He only remembered very little about what they had said. It had sounded so foolish. Equilibrium between waking and dreaming experience, growth, full-distance and physics. Televisions. The years had passed and he wrote a book about what he thought this all meant. It was controversial. But he did not write the book to be praised or to be disregarded as a lunatic. He wanted someone to correct him and send him in the right direction. He flooded the internets with the memories he had from the visit to the lab, only the theory.

Recently, he had been writing on a forum… Dreamviews. It was probably the place most likely to result in a discovery. So many intelligent people with experience in the dreamworld, in the half-distance. Some even claimed to have been in this place… the astral. And if someone could lead him there, maybe he would find Natasha…

He always sought the opinion of the administrators. Gab, Opheliablue. They were the bait. Having administrators in the discussion would attract the entire school of fish! All the community would stop what they were doing and would look at him. He would yell all he knew, and one of them would respond. One of them needed to know about this. These were the fundamentals, and they were revolutionary. Someone needed to know about this. Only a scientific approach would lead to the astral. If he strayed away from the physical approach and started to talk about the astral, all the lunatics who mislead themselves to believe they had been in the astral would come and give advice. And then, he would lose credit. His thread would not be about science, it would be about unfounded believes… That’s why he never answered any questions. He only needed Gab and Opheliablue, and then someone who knew what he was talking about, an expert, would come and solve the mystery.

Chapter 1 - Occipitalred

Spoiler for Chapter 1 - Occipitalred:

He sent another post on Dreamviews. Everyone was so immature. He wished he could block them all. Sageous… He was misleading himself, thinking he could find the truth in his posts. He didn’t need someone like Sageous trying to understand him. He needed someone who already knew. That’s why he didn’t answer him. Then, Snoop, Original Poster, Dthoughts, Dave36333, Sibyline, AstralMango, DeviantThinker, Descensus, DreamyBear, Cmind, Dutchraptor, GavinGill, Kadie, EbbTide000, Mismagius, Tiny, Spellbee2, Creation, Suvid, anderj101, acatalephobic, SearcherTMR and more... Some with the same delusions as Sageous, thinking they might solve the mystery, some were obviously mocking him. It was hard to accept. People were making the thread into a joke, and that had the same risk as astral believers joining the conversation. The thread was losing dignity, credit! Which expert would partake in such a conversation? He was fine with Gab and Opheliablue fooling around, they were the bait. But a Bingo card? Really? They made a bingo card of him! Turned him into a big joke, or a Saturday game played by women in their sixties! And Occipitalred, what a fool! He had sent him a friend request and a PM requesting a partnership to troll everyone! Who did he think he was? A troll? No, Dimeglio was no troll, he had a goal, a very serious goal. He made sure to write “This is very important!” before posting. He immediately edited the post to call out to any expert that would pass by. He closed his laptop and went to the kitchen. The coffee was done brewing. He poured himself a cup but the taste wasn’t bitter. It had a tinge of orange and tasted sweet like a fruit. Occipitalred. He could see a redpanda perched on a branch staring at his soul with its small black eyes. He drank another sip of the coffee. It was coffee again. He was waking up. That was good. As he finished his coffee, he skimmed through the newspaper.

Politics. The Canadian dollar was dropping.
Science. A new treatment for occipital neuralgia.
Local. A fire burns two houses down during the night.
There was a spark on the black and white images, and the ruined house disappeared below warm red flames. They danced before him. He felt a pulsation at the back of his head. Occipital neuralgia? He threw the newspaper away and walked to the television. He turned it on.

China. Red flag. Pandas chewing on bamboo. Giant pandas. Not red pandas. But still, he could see a red panda balancing on a bamboo grass and eating its way down. And then the eyes met. He turned the television off.

“You’re not going crazy Dimeglio. It’s only your intuition speaking. Listen to it.”

There was something, something with this Occipitalred that might be the key to the mystery. He went back to his laptop. He opened it and looked at Occipital’s profile. He went back to his oldest post and started reading each and every one of his posts. Two hours had passed. He closed his laptop.

“Hmm… I wonder just why I have been obsessing over Occipitalred, I have yet to find any hint to the astral in his posts.”

He left the house and climbed the hill where he had the habit to preach at the top of his lungs. His only audience were crickets and all they ever did was giving him criticizing chirps. They bothered him but the hill was sacred. It was where he had dreamed of Natasha after her death, and it was where he had started to become an expert lucid dreamer. He laid his head in the grass, closed his eyes and before the first cricket chirped the dream had formed.

He was in the Medieval Ages, in the dark ages of Europe. Tall brick walls stood on his left. Peasants walked along the dirt road busy with their daily tasks.

A weak man put a necklace with an amber stone before his nose. Dimeglio went to grab it but the vendor quickly hid it behind his back.

“You need to pay for it!”

The vendor’s eyes widened in surprise and he turned around. A red panda was sitting in the dirt, chewing at the amber stone.

“It tastes like a clover cake” he said with a boy’s voice.

Outraged the vendor called out to a guard. The guard grabbed the panda under his arm as if it had been a football and ran with it.

Dimeglio wondered what he could do with his lucid dream. But suddenly, he decided he wanted to catch up with the red panda. Maybe he could find out why he had been obsessing over Occipitalred all day. He rose from the ground and flew at the speed of light, he flew above the peasants. They threw themselves to the ground, grabbed onto their heads, perhaps afraid that they would fall off, and yelled the devil’s name. Dimeglio rapidly saw the guard holding the panda, its little paws held up, still chewing at the amber stone.

The guard climbed on a stage where a gibbet stood. A crowd of peasants and noblemen gathered up to witness the hanging.

“For thievery!”

The noose was wrapped around the little red panda’s neck. The guard tightened it and took a step back letting the body go.

Dimeglio held his breath and flew as fast as he could to the poor animal’s rescue. But the panda didn’t fall, its neck didn’t crack. The panda was floating. And before Dimeglio grabbed it in his hands, the rope burned to ashes. The panda grinned. Dimeglio held it like a baby, cradling its head. They landed in a royal garden.

“Thank you” the red panda said. “Could you be… my dream guide? You are the first dream character to ever fly in any of my dreams. You must be my dream guide.”

“What do you mean? This is my dream! I am Author Frank Martin Dimeglio and I am sleeping on the hill behind my house!”

“Dimeglio…? I am Occipitalred.” For an instant, the panda was a 21 year old lad. Then, he was a red panda again.

“Occipitalred… That cannot be. We are sharing a dream!”

Flaming arrows landed in the garden. Green became red. Red became black. Black became blue. He was staring at the sky, awake.

Dimeglio ran inside and opened his laptop. For the first time, he replied to one of Occipitalred’s private messages.

He waited and waited. There was a reply.

“Author Dimeglio, I had the same dream. -Occipitalred”

A tear rolled down Dimeglio’s cheek. He shared a dream. He must be close to uncovering the secrets of the astral. He must, he must. To celebrate, he ran back to the hill, filled his lungs with air and preached for another hour. Even the crickets knew something special had happened because they didn’t chirp. They listened.

Chapter 2 - Gab Part 1

Spoiler for Chapter 2 - Gab Part 2:

The elevator door opened. He stepped above the gap. The gap. It was so small, yet it made him feel so vulnerable. He felt drawn by this infinitely small space. His fingers wanted to crawl into them. He made a disgusted face at the thought of getting stuck in that gap. Gap. Gab. Gab, the administrator. He smiled. He walked along the white hall looking at the numbers on the doors. 223. 225. 227. 229. A gap, a hallway. A cat jumping from a fence to the moon. 231. 233. He slowed his pace. 225. Dr. Rawin. He knocked at the door.

Why had he waited so long before trying this? Since Natasha and the old man that worked with her in the Paranormal Astral Research Institute had died, he had never come back. He had written a book and vandalized the interwebs with Natasha’s explanations of the astral, making sure not to mention the astral lest he get the attention of the wrong people. He wanted competent scientists helping him. But he had never come back here, where there was the most chance to find someone who could explain what half-gravity and full-magnetism really meant.

The door opened and Dr. Rawin stood behind it wearing a brown shirt and a pale face.

“Author Dimeglio, I expected you… Three years ago. Today… Now. I didn’t expect you.” He stammered.

“I should have, I just never dared. Dr. Rawin, can we please make this fast. I just need you to explain the fundamentals of dreaming and quantum gravity and how it relates to the astral and the paranormal.”

Dr. Rawin chuclked warmly but then stopped. He became embarrassed and looked at his toes.

“Author Dimeglio… Well… Natasha and Dr. Johnson were misled. All their research was a dead-end. After the tragedy, the lab has stopped exploring their eccentric philosophy. Instead, well… You know how there is matter and energy. Well, we are postulating there is another type of stuff, another type of energy you might say. We call it myst. Matter. Energy. And Myst.”

Author Dimeglio was speechless. He felt anger and disappointment.

After his shared dream with Occipitalred, he had a long PM conversation with him about what could have caused the dream sharing. Occipitalred kept telling him to talk to Sageous about it, and further explore his theory of thought energy, a completely different type of energy than the one known by scientists. Dimeglio had told him that this was ridiculous, that the truth was held in quantum gravity, not thought energy. But Occipitalred was convinced; he had been converted to Sageous’ foreign ideology. And that made him useless. He did not follow Occipitalred’s suggestion. Instead he put forth the intention to meet up with Gab in a shared dream. Again, the plot was that if he proved dream sharing to Gab, he would get recognition from the whole lucid dream community. He read Gab’s posts for two hours, just to get a better connection to her. Waiting for the night to come, he decided to come to the lab he had avoided for so long. And all that effort just to be directed to thought energy again? Myst? That was ridiculous.

“You are making a mistake Dr. Rawin! Natasha was smart and she knew exactly what she was doing! You will never find the astral by straying off her path!” He turned away and left without saying bye.

He didn’t here Dr. Rawin’s last words. Oddly, they sounded like a meow. Gab. A black cat yawning. Within its mouth lined with sharp teeth was a blue sky with planets of all sizes, some with dust rings. And the yellow eyes, they were two bright stars. The two headlights of his parked car. He had forgotten to turn them off. It was late. He drove home and climbed the hill. The crickets were chirping with excitement. He lied down and closed his eyes. Gab. Gab. Gab. He repeated the name almost religiously.

“Gab!” said a tall man.

“Gab!” repeated a thousand hands trying to touch a dark blue sky.

Dimeglio had entered the dream. And he was lucid. He was surrounded by a cult. Naked women, men and children all kneeled on the dirt. Their hands were dusting the ground now, as if searching for the fossils of an extinct dinosaur. The tall man standing before all of them was dancing in the shadow of a giant cat statue. Gab!

Dimeglio stood in the sea of skin. “Gab” he screamed at the statue. “It’s me, Dimeglio!”

He ran towards the immobile statue. Wood. Painted black. The cultists looked up at him and the tall man stopped dancing. Dimeglio reached the statue and started touching the neck. There was no warmth. No life. The tall man approached Dimeglio and touched him on the shoulder.

“That’s not Gab. I know you love her as much as we do. But that’s just a statue. Gab is below.”

Dimeglio turned around. The dream was different. The people had dug far within the bare earth. Now they were dusting off the giant skeleton of what must have been… a cat. A giant one.

The bones held together and the beast that had slept woke. The skeleton stood high and proud.

“Gab!” they all whispered. Then they shout it. Dimeglio shout it with them. He lost lucidity. He was in awe. This was god. This was the creator of the whole world. The weaver who had weaved the skin of the earth people and that had braided their hair. “Gab!”

The cat skeleton laughed. It shrank into a dress of bones, worn by a beautiful woman. Gab, the goddess. The bones of her white dress shined in the moonlight.

“Gab! Our weaver!” they shouted.

Gab laughed, obviously amused by the dream. Then, she saw the cat effigy. She flew and mounted the giant statue. Everyone was silent. She was to their eyes what water is to their mouth. Dimeglio who was touching the cat’s neck felt the warm, the life. The cat was alive. It bounded over the mass of naked worshipers and ran into the horizon.

Only a god could do this. She had given life to dead wood. Dead wood painted black. She controlled the world. In a second, she was gone.

Something in the back of Dimeglio’s head reminded him that he needed to talk to her. It was the only reason he lived in this world.

“Gab, my weaver, like we have found you amongst the dead, I will find you amongst the living” he plighted with a loud voice. And everyone’s shimmering eyes said they would follow him, they would find their goddess together and worship her until they died.

Chapter 3 - Gab Part 2

Spoiler for Chapter 3 - Gab Part 2:

He walked in front. His bare feet kissed the rough earth in turn. Sweat rolled down his back. The naked worshipers followed.

“There is something about you, Dimeglio” the tall man walking beside him said. “There is more life in you than in us. It’s like you’re half a god yourself.”

“Foolish man” Dimeglio said amiably. “There is only one goddess, and it’s Gab. We both saw her fly! I saw a cat statue bare of life. Then I saw her mount it and it was no longer dead. It was a real creature with real blood flowing through its real veins. She wove our skin, she braided our hair, she sharpened our nails, and she breathed the breath of life through our nostrils.”

“Yes, Dimeglio, she did all of those things. I do not deny that she is the goddess creator. What I am saying is that you are not like us. We follow you because where you walk the world exists and beyond it is nothing. The worshippers claim that anyone who strays too far away from you vanishes. They are never seen again.”

Dimeglio did not like the sound of that. He stopped and everyone with him.

“People have gone missing? We should go back looking for them.”

“No, Dimeglio. Before you came out of the crowd last night, screaming Gab’s name and touching the statue’s neck, we did not exist. No one has any memory before that time. The world only exists where you exist, Dimeglio. We can only find Gab if you find Gab. If Gab weaved our skin, you witness it, you give it existence, meaning, concreteness.”

The man turned to the crowd and shouted “Gab the weaver, Dimeglio the witness!”

They shouted back “Gab! Dimeglio! Gab! Gab! Gab!”

Dimeglio felt full. He felt alive. This was his people. A people handed to him by Gab the weaver. He would lead them back to her safely.

“We will continue, then. Just tell everyone not to stray away from the group.”

The tall man nodded and left.

The march was strange. One instant it was day, the other it was night. It felt like they walked for months. He had many memories. A little girl asked to touch his hair. A man died from the wounds he received in a fight. A woman strayed too far from the group into non-existence. But he felt like he could only remember two minutes worth of those memories. They passed mountains with different names. Days, seconds. Soon, the narrow valley opened up to a great city made of metal and glass. The towers pierced the clouds and reflected the sky’s blue hues.
“Nao, bring me my nekked worshipers!” an inebriating voice shouted to nobody in particular, as if commending the dream.

“Gab!” The people shouted. Beside her giant black cat, she stood in her dress of white bones. She was waiting in the middle of a field. The city gates started opening. “Gab!”

Dimeglio ran to her. His people followed. Gab turned around revealing a beautiful longsword made of white steel. There was an amber stone in the ebony hilt that shone in the moonlight and lit up her grin. On one side of Gab, there was an army flowing out the gates of the city weapons in hand, on the other side, there was an equivalent mass of people flowing out the valley with their faith as their only garment. Gab turned towards the army; she had in mind to take over the city. Was a goddess stronger than an army? It didn’t matter. His people and he would fight with their bare hands on her side. The two waves hit her at the same time. Metal armors crashed against naked skin. Soon, both fabrics were stained with sparkly blood. Dimeglio fought beside Gab. She yielded her sword powerfully; each hit sent her enemies flying. Sometimes, she would even take a 2x4 triangular stick and hit someone behind her without even looking. The warriors were killing more of his people, but his people were fierce. Their fingers found any weakness in the armor and dug.

Dimeglio did not do that. The tall man was right. Dimeglio was more than them. He was the witness. No sword could pierce his skin. His skin made steal shatter like glass. Any man he stroke joined the other peaceful corpses. The power. The intensity of the battle. It was reminding him something, something about his true identity, about his past. He couldn’t quite remember.

“Damn, nekked people! You’re all dying on me!” shouted the weaver cutting at the enemy as if poking a crochet in a yarn ball. She was right. All the worshippers were lying on the ground, in the eternal sleep. Even the giant cat which had been swatting at the warriors like flies was down. It was just Dimeglio and his goddess fighting an entire army... But they were no match for them! The whole scene must have looked like an implosion to the moon.

“You should die, nekked man” Gab said in the middle of parrying a strike.

Dimeglio was confused. He stopped fighting and looked at her. Why would she say that?

“Have faith, nekked man. Die. And you shall live” She teared the seams of a man with her sword and his limbs fell to the ground.

Dimeglio was speechless. A part of him said “You are the witness. Without you there is no world. Everything will cease to exist. You will cease to exist!” The other said “This is the weaver. She is your goddess. She knows all, better. Have faith!” A sword pierced his chest right where the heart is. He did not expect it. He looked at the man who did it. He wore a helmet made of titanium, smooth like a motorcyclists’. Another sword hit his spine. The pain crossed his body. But he was not dying. He was the witness. He couldn’t die unless he chose to. He had to choose to die. To have faith. Dimeglio died. His blood seeped out, like apples falling from their branch in ripe season. He saw Gab jump off from a man’s head, flip in the air and disarm a strong burly warrior as she landed. Then, he was no longer in his body. He was the river of blood; he was the giant cat’s corpse, the water particles in the air. He was the bright moon, the witness.

From there, he could see Gab fighting the army alone. Then, she raised her hands and everyone within three meters of her was sent flying backwards.

“Nekked people! You have sacrificed yourself to me. In return, I give you your life back. You are resurrected from the dead and may the zombie apocalypse begin!”

The naked worshipers rose, whole or not. Swords had no power over them. They bit the warriors who turned against their own kind. It was no longer a war. It was a feast for zombies. Dimeglio was in his body again. He rose. He wanted flesh. “For Gab!” he shouted.

The tables had turned and everyone was progressing towards the gates, following Gab on her giant cat zombie. As they entered the city and hell broke loose, Gab admired the city and said “I have the bonus task for March completed!”

Enlightenment! Dimeglio gained lucidity. Gab was no goddess. He was sharing a dream with her.

“Gab! I am Dimeglio! Author Frank Martin Dimeglio!”

Gab stopped smiling. She looked at him confused. The moon lit up. Dimeglio woke up on the hill. He was awake again. The weaver and the witness were gone. The naked people were gone. The zombies were gone. It felt sad. But the excitement was stronger. He ran back home, opened his laptop and announced in a public thread the dream he shared with Gab. He explained the fundamentals of quantum gravity and made sure to mention that this was all very important. He published the thread. Then, he edited making sure to ask for a comment from Gab.

He waited and waited. He refreshed the page over and over. He kept looking at who was connected. When Gab’s reply appeared, his heart skipped a beat. She claimed to have shared the same dream. Then hell broke loose on the forum like it had on the war field. Everyone was commenting, mocking him, thinking that Gab was being sarcastic and was playing with him. But Gab kept commenting that she was being dead serious. Occipitalred joined the discussion and confessed having shared a dream with him too. He made their private discussion public. People still needed an explanation for his weird behaviour. He had gone too far not to answer. He told them about Natasha, about her research, about her death, about how they had seen each other after she died, and about how he did not understand half-gravity and all that scientific jargon, that he just wanted someone to use it to tell him how to find the astral, whatever that was.

It was done. Dimeglio was the new hero on Dreamviews. But obviously, there was doubt.

The dares sprouted like dandelion. People wanted Dimeglio to share dreams with them to prove it.

What a waste of time! It made Dimeglio furious. But something gave him hope again, and the strength to maintain his temper. The weaver had spoken: “I want to help finding Natasha : ( ”

In this one chapter, I have included every single member to have participated in the thread except for Tropicalbreeze, GalvinGill, Tihiti, Sibyline, Deanstar, DeviantThinker, Dave36333. Sorry . Oh and three more exceptions: Gab, Sivason and I aren't here because it was just too much. And the next chapter is about Sivason.

Disclaimer: I do not own the song. I do not own the characters. Every single one is supposed to be a real person which I have never seen in real life. I have also been using Sivason's Fanfics as cannon for my story just because they sort of fit, if you're not too strict.

Sorry, Suvid, as this chapter shows, the apophenia is too deep in me. It is a terminal disease in my case.



Chapter 4 - Ebbtide000

Spoiler for Chapter 4 - Ebbtide000:

“Stupid. They’re all stupid.” He muttered to himself as he rubbed the dishes with sullen strokes. The water was too hot and it burned his hands every time they plunged to rescue another plate.
It had been a month since his shared dream with Gab and there had been no progress after that. He had shared dreams with 10 other Dreamviews member but all fruitless. He didn’t want to share dreams with them. He wanted to share life with Natasha. Natasha. It’s all about Natasha. And they’re making it about themselves!

When he finished he pulled the plug and the water retreated, like an ebb tide, until there was zero left. He looked at his red hands and did a reality check. Then, he walked out into the night bare feet and naked. Since that dream with Gab and the naked people, he had become a naturalist. It gave him comfort. Besides, he had no close neighbours so it did not bother anyone.

He preached to the crickets. His discourse had changed. There was a little bit less on gravity and invisibility, more on the astral and shared dreaming. When he was tired, he lied down and stared at the night. There were zero clouds, like they had ebbed away behind the horizon. He closed his eyes and waited for the dream to form. The stars he had seen in the sky, he could still see against his eyelids. One of them started growing brighter and brighter until he was blind. His eyes adjusted to the lighting and he could finally see. There was a smoking Jesus balancing on a unicycle on the trunk of an Asian elephant. There was a girl doing acrobatics on a trampoline. She wore a clown’s costume and a white mask. Her hair floated around her like sunrays gleaming out of her mask’s radiating grin. There was a dolphin flying below the red tent’s roof and acrobats were using its tail as a trapeze. One of the acrobats looked like Superman. The other was a sleepwalking bear. A mushroom stopped in front of Dimeglio. It took its hat off in a fancy salute. Suddenly it ran away from a grotesque beast. Dimeglio almost ran away himself. It was a tall horse whose feet were trolls. The horse was mounted by a sheep wearing a gas mask. The end of the mask burrowed within the horse’s left eyelid. As it galloped, it almost ran over Dimeglio who had to take a step back. Then, he had to take a step forward to avoid a mare. Dimeglio realized all of Dreamviews was sharing a dream within the big tops.

In his mind’s eye, they had been assorted clowns. Now, they really were.

Not wanting to have none of it, he walked out the tent. He had to avoid a fencing fight between two alphabetic ghosts. One was C, the other was D. The world outside was dark. The path was lined with cages of different size. On his left, In a big cage, there was a tiny cat, white with brown on its back. It reached a hand out to him through the bars. In another cage, there was a girl with mango colored hair. There was pink foam seeping from her mouth and her eyes were insane. He increased his pace, passing more cages with more crazy critters that induced fear in his heart. He passed by another big red tent. He tried to go around it but the red fabric never ended. And when he decided to go in the opposite direction, there was another tent more imposing than the first. A face was peeking at him from between two curtains red like wisdom. Then the face vanished behind its veil. Frowning, Dimeglio entered the tent searching for the face’s owner. Behind the curtain was another curtain. And behind that one was another. Dimeglio dug in the endless layers of red. “Rhinoceros.” Someone said in the darkness. There was a scribbling noise. He dug further. “Pythagoras.” It came from behind him. There was no air. The thick fabric was chocking him. He struggled towards the next word, “February.” The air was hot. He just threw himself forward and landed on something hard. He was on a desk. Sitting on the chair beside it was a burglar, pencil in hand. At another desk sat a man with a sponge for a shirt. His hair was a rainbow mane. He frowned at Dimeglio. “Acquiesce” meowed a grey cat. The man with the rainbow hair looked down and rapidly wrote on his piece of paper. The burglar grunted and pushed Dimeglio. Dimeglio left the room as the burglar flipped his desk, outraged that he didn’t know how to spell the word. Again, the red sheets chocked him. They danced around him like real fire. The heat suffocated him. Then he saw the face again, staring at him between two sheets. Dimeglio ran after it only to find himself in a small room. A girl with dark red eyes framed with long white hair, like a heart on a playing card, was frying a man alive but his eyes were serene. A Spanish boy beside him was reciting spells from a purple book. When he was done, he pulled up a black blanket from the ground. And suddenly, there was a woman peeking out of it. She pointed behind Dimeglio. He turned. There was girl wearing a bears head as a hat and a mouse skull as an amulet. She held a match to Dimeglio’s face to see him better. “I am scared” she whispered. “But it’s not your fault. It’s a phobia.” She blew the light out. There was only darkness, silence and emptiness. He took a breath and searched for an exit with his hands. He found a door knob. He opened it and was relieved to see the night sky again and feel the fresh air. He walked out a colorful caravan. The big tops were on his left. Here were all the private cabins. He heard something slice the air on his left. A prince with blueish white hair and crystal earrings was throwing glass moths at a woman with black hair attached to a spinning wheel. She didn’t flinch a bit as a moth’s wing punctured the wood right beside her temple. She looked at Dimeglio when she was upside down and called out to him with a blue voice. “Hey, Frank, the lion tamer!”

Dimeglio looked at himself. He frowned. He was a clown just like them. He wore white tights and black boots with pretty decorations. He wore armor and golden shoulder pads. His short red skirt showed even below his lab coat. His mustache was well balanced and his fez concluded the whole joke. He frowned and walked away from the private cabins area. Further from the circus, there was a lake. He sat beside it and looked at the moon’s reflection. “Natasha,” he whispered. There was an answer. The tide broke and a mermaid appeared. It was not a mermaid. The woman’s bottom half was not the tail of a fish. It was the tail of a kangaroo covered with reddish hair. It covered her face too.

“You are the freak woman!” he blurted out.

She laughed.

“So why do I see lust and admiration in your eyes?”

Frank had a start. She was right. He felt warmth in his heart and groin. Below the hair was a woman with the traits that he loved in Natasha.

“Natasha?” he asked.

“No, I am Ebbtide000.”

Dimeglio blushed. She was his favorite Dreamviews member. She was persistent and never gave up trying to understand his babbles. She was compassionate and he had loved his shared dream with her. She had listened to him an infinite amount of times and she had guided him to a smart kangaroo. Both had found understanding in his words and had flown high in the sky. It had brought tears to his eyes. It had given hope to his soul. If they could understand him, he might understand himself one day and find the astral.

There was a spark of passion within him. It scared him a little bit but he grabbed Ebbtide’s soft roo tail.

“Ebbtide
Havago

If ever the Devil was born without a pair of horns
It was you, Ebbtide, it was you
If ever an angel fell
Ebbtide, it was you, Ebbtide, it was you

If ever a pair of eyes promised paradise
Deceiving me, grieving me, leavin' me blue
Havago, it was you

If ever the Devil's plan was made to torment man
It was you, Havago, it was you

'Twould be better had I never known
A lover such as you, forsaking dreams and all
For the siren call of your arms

Like a demon, love possessed me
You obsessed me constantly
What evil star is mine that my fate's design
Should be Havago?

If ever a pair of eyes promised paradise
Deceiving me, grieving me, leavin' me blue
Ebbtide, it was you

If ever the Devil's plan was made to torment man
It was you
Night an' day, every way
Ebbtide, Ebbtide, Havago”


Ebbtide blushed. Dimeglio felt more attracted.

“You forget yourself” she finally said, breaking the silence. “You have a goal, Frank. You need to find Natasha. I am not Natasha and as much as you may think you love me now, I won’t replace Natasha. It’s her you must find.”

“Ebbtide, I will never find Natasha. I must confess! I don’t understand anything of the astral and quantum gravity. You gave me hope, Ebbtide, when you flew with that kangaroo. Seeing both of you satisfied with your wisdom, it gave me hope I would one day understand what I was saying if I kept repeating it.”

Ebbtide gazed into his eyes for a while. Then she looked up at the moon.

“Frank. It’s all very simple. The answer is not in dream thoughts or quantum gravity. You can try to define things as much as you want. But when you’ll ask for duct tape, they’ll give you a duck. How will you repair your broken glasses with a duck, Frank? How will you?”

Her eyes were intense and Dimeglio trembled a little bit as he drank her words.

“Words don’t make reality, Frank. They simplify it. In doing so, you have to cut off a lot of it off. Look at us here. How would you define this moment?”

He went to answer but she put a finger on his mouth.

“It was a rhetoric question, Frank. There is no need to define this experience. It is whole. It does not need to be cut into pieces. How did you share dreams with us, Frank? Using quantum gravity? No. You created a bridge between all the members of Dreamviews, not by defining the experience and using theory. You did it with your love for Natasha. Now, just keep using love and full experience.”

“Full experience!” Dimeglio screamed. “That’s it! Ebbtide! You are so smart!”

Everything made sense to him. The dream retreated like an ebb tide and he was left alone in a white light. There was only truth. Full experience.

The next morning, when he woke up, he went to his computer. He added a comment, explaining that there was no need to simplify the experience; all that was needed was to have full experience. That is the fundamental truth of everything! It means that you interpret life as it is. You don’t simplify it. And the way to the astral is the same way as the one to the supermarket. You just want to go and you go. Intention. That’s it.

There were few replies to his comment. There was only one discussion now: the biggest shared dream in recorded history. Everyone described the dream from their perspectives and put the pieces together. The excitement was at a peak. But Dimeglio felt serene because he knew how to find Natasha.