Fox On The Run

Not much to put for this. I was playing question for question with a friend, and she asked me about dreams I remember, I think, it's been a while. So this is the sickening spawn of that early morning hour. Thanks to Neil Young for the quote, The Sweet for

     "I am a child, I'll last a while.
                   You can't conceive of the pleasure in my smile."
                          - I Am A Child, Neil Young
      
          When I was a child, I had a dream. Y'know, the kind of dreams you remember throughout your life time and only seem to make more and more sense as time passes? I guess you could call it that. Maybe I am the reincarnation of Mr. Martin Luther. Ah, who knows? Anyways, to the dream itself. It was real simple, yet almost hypnotic. Thinking back on it now brings out nostalgic feelings. Stay golden, Ponyboy. Those were good days. Nothing was troublesome, everything was easy, and the whole world was open to our finger tips. Smells, sights, feels, all new, all ours for the taking. The dream captures this essence perfectly. It feels as if I were living in the same time, as if I were to wake up onto that time and be myself again. I've changed quite a lot since I've had that dream. Hell, it must have been... 8? 9 years? Bah, dates are unimportant. What is important is that I remember it. It was an autumn evening. Both in the dream and the present, for the facts. Also both in the dream world and reality, my mutti was a member of the PAC, which stands for the Parent Advisory Council. In short, it's the group of people who get together to "discuss" the future of the school, how to spend the money and other decisions of equal importance. Just a nice way of saying "a group of people who waste taxpayers money to talk about how all our school systems are failing, whilst smoking cigarettes and eating donuts". Now where was I? Right, the dream! Well, I used to go with mein mutti to these debaucherous spectacles, but as I was a student at the time, I wasn't allowed into the building, so I hung outside on the school grounds, playing on the welfare equiptment they set up for "your" entertainment. I suppose it could be entertaining, watching the little brats tripping and falling around up there. Serves them right. Anyways, in my dream, unlike reality, there were a grand number of kids around my age outside the school building. Not many people brought their children to PAC meetings. And what do kids do? Well, they play. So that's what we did. "Grounders" was the game of choice. Now if you've never played "Grounders" (in which case you're probably the odd kid that never has), I'll give you a brief run down. The goal of the game is to not be "it", simple enough, no? When you are "it", you have to close your eyes and go to the ground and count to twenty. Once you've counted, you must search for the other players, who have hid while you were counting. The name, "Grounders", comes from the "it", who says "Grounders", when he or she suspects someone to be on the ground. If you get caught, whether on the ground at this time or if you are tagged, you're "it". This was sort of the catalyst to my dream, you could say; playing "Grounders". I'll take this time now to lay some setting in my dream. I'm not sure whether it was set in film noir or if it was just nighttime. Or both. I suspect the later, because almost always, PAC meetings were around seven in the evening. Either way, it was like that. Next, the playground was close to the street. Far too close as a matter of fact, considering children are at play. So, here we are, Lords of the Flies, playing "Grounders", when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw it. The Fox. It was almost mystical, as I remember it, which I don't very much. I'll save myself the lie now and tell you I hardly remember the Fox in detail. The most important part of our story, and I forget the majority of it's appearance. Figures. I can tell you that it was illuminated, which, thinking back, seems kind of interesting, considering the black-and-white context of my dream. I don't remember getting off the jungle gym or following it to the street either. Trying to piece these dream segments together is almost like trying to piece together a night of excessive alcohol consumption, although that can be much more sucessful at times. I chased the Fox. I chased Him good. Chased Him to the street. I remember one rather odd thing. The street lights. As I chased the Fox, the only source of light was the street lights, almost as if it were a bad film noir. The street lights shown down in cone-shapes. Split up at equal intervals. The playground had been completely light, with great overlapping shadows and different textures, but the street was different. The street was very monotoned. Black and then coned-shaped slits of light, then monotoned, and so forth. This was the only way I could be sure I was still tailing the Fox. Another odd thing about this part, is that I chased the Fox for what seemed like a lifetime. The street I chased the bogart down what was... oh, say, 7 blocks tops? I must've chased the b*****d for 30 or more. This is the key part I remember of this dream, chasing a fox, block after block, street light after street light.
          And that is my dream. But here is the reality...
      
      Epilogue
      
          I don't know why I remember this dream. Few things still stick out from my childhood, but this is one of the more vivid things I remember. I've changed a lot over the years. Changed myself mostly, through my friends, my ideals, my opinions, but this dream has stuck with me, for better or worse. Until recently, I wasn't sure what it meant. Maybe I'm still unsure, but I like to think I am. It adds to self-esteem, or so I've been told. I suppose the dream could mean different things to different people, but to me it means that we are chasing ourselves. I think of it as a metaphor, I guess. That we are chasing ourselves throughout the night. I think that it is supposed to represent our lives and how we strive (and chase) after the ideal wisedom, popularity, compassion, etc, that we want, but, little do we know, that we already have what we strive to have. We have what we want, it's whether we use it to our advantages that is the difference. I think it also shows how we spend our lives chasing after something, when it is right there all along, and all we have to do is stop and cherish the moments of peace and prosperity when we are true to ourselves and all things are good. Nostalgia may bring back memories of the past, but doing makes the present become the past, which you can look back on and feel, not nostalgia, but joy.
      Selah.

Reviews

[JC]

The sub conscious is a wonderous and complex thing. I really enjoyed both the story and the epilogue, the pace was excellant and the subject matter engaging.

A note of suggestion is that you break the piece into paragraphs. It makes it easier on the readers and allows them pause to digest what is being said.

Welcome to the WC, hope to read more of your works,

JC

[Rachel Koepke]

i liked it. u should write more