Ever have that dream where you’re on death row and the only thing that saved you is when your subconscious lost the plot? This dream journal entry is all about the life saving awkward transitions you only find in dreams. Listen for the tone to shift, the title will make a lot more sense.
Tag Archives: Flash Fiction
Commando
The Esoteric Order of Internet Service Providers
Net neutrality is the principle that all internet data should be treated equally, that no service provider should sell preferential treatment to the highest bidder, and that no company can discriminate what sites their users see. It prevents wealthier sites like BuzzFeed from being the fastest things on the net. It prevents Comcast from charging WordPress more to reach their readers at a decent speed. It prevents streaming services, like NetFlix, from passing these new expenses to their customers. It evens the playing field for established corporate entities and promising young entrepreneurs.
Over the course of two elections, this administration ran on the platform of preserving net neutrality. So, how could the President’s appointment for the chairman of the FCC propose its end?
If you’re like me, you suspect secret societies and Satanic rituals are somehow involved. The following is a dramatic reenactment of how I think the whole thing went down.
The Esoteric Order of Internet Service Providers
From the stairs, the underground lair looked like a wolf’s den. The pack was positioned with their fur to the ceiling. They knelt in a circular formation around the podium. With pelts quivering in the midst, they looked like beasts digging, but it was fingers, not claws that held their sacred rings.
Stepping onto the floor, the Alpha broke the fog, dragging a fur robe behind him. The silver mange of his wolfskin hood blended into his hair. Its frozen ears were raised in a permanent state of alarm. Its furrowed brow framed the rubies in its eyes. With its snout jutting out, its canines cast shadows down the Alpha’s face.
The Alpha’s flesh glistened, a pallid mask of skincare products. A pair of black, sunken eyes, hid behind his spectacles. When he looked to his followers, they skittered back with their tales between their legs.
The plumage from a flock of cardinals lined his robe, clasped together with fragments of antlers. Peacock feathers shot out from his shoulders, casting shadows on his snakeskin sleeves. His was a technicolor coat of death and nightmares. Standing over his followers, he was an apex predator.
The Alpha approached the podium, to find a wolf’s paw. A remote stuck out from the amputated limb. Looking to a projector on the ceiling, his gaze followed the beam to a towering curtain. Pinching the paw until he felt a click, he watched a blood red moon flash onto the screen.
“Arise my brothers.” The Alpha’s voice boomed with seasoned authority, a refined tongue that had no qualms with giving orders.
The pack did as instructed.
The Alpha pinched the paw. Spinning, the moon shrunk into the dot of a question mark. Continue reading The Esoteric Order of Internet Service Providers
Stairway to Something (Audio Short)
Ever have that dream where you’re climbing a staircase with no end? Ever feel like you’ll never be satisfied no matter how far you’ve come? This dream journal entry takes the physics of that metaphor a little too literally. Listen as our hero tries to setup up camp on the slope of an incline. It’s metaphor my life at the moment.
The Metropolitan (Audio Short)
Ever have that dream where it’s your first day on the job and you have no idea what to do, where to go, or who to answer to? Ever have that dream where all your coworkers have an instinctual connection to the corporation, while your link has been severed? This dream journal entry takes place in one of these companies, where all titles are jargon, and everyone speaks Greek. Listen as the hero takes cover behind his cubicle.
The Ritual (Audio Short)
Ever have that dream where you stumble into the middle of a black mass with nothing to sacrifice? Ever crash a red ritual with nothing but casserole? Ever realize you’ve entered a black robe and hood affair when it’s too late to go home and change? That’s dream logic for you, never sure whether it’s more important if you feel afraid or embarrassed.
In the dream, cultists chant incantations with midwestern accents. Beneath their masquerade masks, they might just be your friends and neighbors. Perhaps that’s the little league coach drawing a propane pentagram, and the leader of the Boy Scout troop setting it aflame. Perhaps that’s the head of the PTA, drawing a dagger from her sleeve.
Your subconscious got tired of high school settings, of locker rooms and hallways, it wanted try it’s hand at a new landscape.
This is a story about what happens when your subconscious forgets its plotting a nightmare only to resort to the oldest dream cliché in the book. Come for a scare. Stay for a punchline.
The Lookout Tower (Audio Short)
Ever have that dream where you’re alone in a lookout tower with nothing but prairie in all directions? How about the one where a horde of rude people invade your land? This dream journal entry is about what it feels like when the world holds the next Woodstock on your personal space. Listen as a drum circle turns into a rave, and our hero is forced to retaliate.
Let Lucid (Audio Short)
Ever realize that you were dreaming and decide to call your subconscious out on it? Did that free your imagination, or cause conflict? Ever call your dream decorators credentials into question? Ever get lucid and criticize the landscape? Ever interpret one of your nocturnal visions from within? This dream journal entry is about those meta-fiction moments of clarity. Listen as a dreamer takes control of his own nightmare.
This work of flash fiction is part of my Dream Detective series. To read the others Click Here.
I’d Become the Lake (Audio Short)
Ever dream you could fly, only to realize something else was happening? Ever believe you’ve soared above your problems, only to realize you’re still in the thick of them? This dream journal entry captures the horror of that sudden realization. Listen as a dream trades places with a nightmare.
This work of flash fiction is part of my Dream Detective series. To read the others Click Here.
Lagging Behind (Audio Short)
Ever have that dream where you’re following a herd of deer across the city; the one where they lead you from the maternity ward to the cemetery? No, doesn’t sound familiar? How about the one where you’re struggling to keep up with your own peers? The dream gives you the perfect vantage point to see them accept their degrees, tour good homes, and enjoy extravagant wedding ceremonies.
In this dream journal entry, the two themes intersect. Listen as the deer devoir the future. Lag behind the herd as they chew on life events. Witness the nightmare of every millennial, the terror of every man child struggling to fly their way out of never never land.
This work of flash fiction is part of my Dream Detective series. To read the others Click Here.