Jonah

I think I was in a small boat or vehicle traveling along the rim of a grassy valley. The valley was filled with a beautiful, smooth, pale blue lake. Sands floated onto the lake in thin patches, and people would walk onto the lake on the sand, near the shore. There was an older sister walking onto the lake, on the floating sands, with her toddler sister in tow. I thought how it was like the Sand Seas in my novel, Spirit of a Kyrie […].

Then a giant whale rose out of the lake—just its dorsal with its blowhole, surfacing to breathe. Nevertheless, it took up nearly the entire lake with its shiny, rubbery, dark blue back gleaming wet with lake-water. It was amazing to watch as it filled the lake with its size. I wondered where such an enormous whale could come from—how it could possibly fit beneath the lake’s surface. Someone in the same boat/vehicle as me (for there was a group of us) told me that the lake was connected underground to the sea.

As we traveled on through the valley, I thought that it was a good thing we hadn’t been swallowed by the whale. But then, as we continued, I gradually realized that we had indeed been swallowed—the whale was so massive, I hadn’t noticed that we were actually sailing inside of it. Many others had been swallowed by the whale over the years—and they had built small villages, with the houses stacked high and flat, with little lawns, along the curve inside the whale’s sides. Ocean water that the whale had ingested ran like rivers in front of the houses—and we sailed on these waters, taking in the sights, observing this place that would likely be our new home, along with the others trapped in the whale. I remember sailing past an old man who was sitting in front of his ramshackle house on a small boardwalk extending just into the waters. He was wearing a tattered straw hat and ragged trousers, dangling a fishing line into the water […].

I don’t remember much else, except a murder that happened in the whale. I was watching, as if on television—but at the same time, I was also the murderer, a man who had shot someone over a dispute inside one of the whale houses. Quickly, the man ran away with the gun dripping the victim’s blood onto the floor behind him. I was worried about a way to dispose of the murder weapon without leaving traces of my fingerprints. But it seemed impossible. The best solution seemed to be to flush the gun down a toilet. So I/the man hurried to a small bathroom in a house (the whale houses were all attached together in a jumble) and flushed the gun down the toilet. – and I thought how the water was carrying the gun away, down into the whale.

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Swings in the Sea

I was with my tour group from Berlin, and we were by the sea – the ocean was a crystal pale blue with easy, gentle waves.  Our tour guide […] gave us a black plastic washing basin – it looked like a large pail, like something you would wash your dog in – it was for us to sit in, like a small boat.  But no one else could sit in it, because the waves at the edge of the beach kept pulling it away from under them as soon as they tried to sit in it.  Somehow, I was the only one with the skill to get into the makeshift boat.

So I floated out to sea, with my bottom sunk into the washing basin, and my limbs sticking out the top, trailing in the water.

Floating out in the middle of the sea, I saw a giant swing set erected in the ocean – the beach was still visible on the distant horizon.  The great swing set rose out of the sea, high and tall like towers – it was pure white, the top of it nearly to the sky, with the swing seats dangling on great long strings – the seats themselves just barely skimmed the surface of the waves.

There were a bunch of swimmers swimming around the swing set and swinging on the swings.  I really wanted to go swing.  But I think I realized my tour group was leaving soon.  I can’t remember if I actually went for a swing or not, but by the time I floated back to shore in my bucket, my group had already left and the beach was empty.  So I rushed back to the grungy hostel where I found them again.

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Siren

I remember a beautiful woman was standing in a rowboat with two of her man servants who each had an oar in his hands, rowing the boat across what I assume to be waters.  One of the man servants was sitting in the front of the boat and the other was sitting in the back with the lady standing between the two.  I got the impression that she was a queen of some sorts – she had an imperial air about her, with long, dark, curly hair that fell across a body covered in a rich, deep red, silken robe trimmed with golden threads.  Her face wore a stringent expression and her eyes were painted beautifully and elaborately.  Suddenly, I became aware that they were rowing towards a shore which harbored a most strange sort of siren – male, I think he was, and instead of singing he recited powerful words, luring the [travelers] onto his shore.  The man servants frantically rowed with all their might against the siren’s call – struggling with every [ounce] of strength in them.  Finally, they were able to break free, beaching their tiny rowboat on a hard shore studded with pebbles.  The man servant who had been in the back, leapt out, heaving with exhaustion but possessed with a fierce anger.  He was breathing hard as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand before using that same hand to point at his mistress.  “The next time you think about doing something like that – !” he screamed at her, and I was surprised that he had the audacity to address her in such a manner.  The woman and the other servant were also on the shore and she turned that same stern face in the agitated man’s direction, looking upon him as though he were a lesser being.  The man cried out at her, “Feed your people!”

And then I think they sailed on, or perhaps they continued on foot.  Either way, I became the woman, for I looked out through her eyes and saw a gorgeous building on the siren’s shore as it toppled to ruins, the archaic walls and pillars falling out and turning to rubble.

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