LITR 3731 Creative Writing UHCL sample student fiction submission 2003

LITR 3731: Creative Writing
Student Fiction Submission 2005

Devon Kitch

Infected Dreams

(final version)

Do you sleep well at night? Do you dream? Do you have nightmares? Have you ever awakened in tears, trembling with fear, trapped between the real and imaginary? What if you never woke up…if Alice’s trip through the looking glass were a one way ticket? What if your life became a blur of images, one after the other, both good and bad? If you never wake up, would you dream forever? Does anyone know the answers? Can anyone free my mind from the slavery of dreaming?

The doctors tell them to talk to me as if I can hear. I like that. “As if I can hear”. The doctors themselves don’t even seem to believe it; they merely speak the words in an attempt to make the families feel better. Stupid HMO bastards! I can hear everything assholes! At least, I think I can. Sometimes I try so hard to wake myself from this endless sleep. I cry out to them…to my husband Julian, my baby girl, Momma, Daddy. Help me! Get me out of here! I can’t handle this anymore.

But how can someone rescue you from the confines of your own mind?

My mind drifts into and out of consciousness, though I never wake as you do. I wonder how long it has been or how I ended up this way. I remember…I remember…oh, it has become so hazy. I remember waking for the first time and realizing that I could not will myself to move. Not even my eyelids. I’m trapped in this body, in this mind.

The dream. I remember the dream that caused my heart to race, that brought me into this newly altered reality that announced my arrival to this living hell. I can only explain it as the feeling you have when you wake up in your dream, but you haven’t really woken up; you’re still dreaming.

The dream. It reverberates within me, more strongly than any other before or after.

I drive my car down the chemical and power plant-lined freeway, the normal route I would take downtown. My Mobile Device is not the one I have now, but the Honda I drove in high school. The windows are down, the music blares, igniting my carefree spirit, soothing my nerves and dissolving my fears. Driving has always been a relaxing time for me to think, to sift through my thoughts and desires. To converse with the only person who will truly listen to me---myself.

In an instant, my mood is shattered by a loud Bah-Whoom! The noise and rumbling sensation both delivers and precedes an unbearable blast of heat that scorches as the burning power plants exude smoky, red and orange flames. It happens too fast, faster than I realize, faster than I can figure out what hit me. Fear. What the hell is happening? My car lurches forward, tires melting to the ground, a sudden stop from eighty miles per hour. My head hits the windshield in an explosion of pain that courses through my body as each limb crashes through the breaking glass. The back of my head meets the sizzling concrete in a losing battle, simultaneously melting the hair to my skull and the pavement. My skin is burning and soon I will be incinerated.

All I can think about is my husband. He was on the road too. Did he make it to work? I run fast, urged by the situation, to find a phone. My feet are burning and the air is heavy with heat and smoke. There’s an emergency phone! My fingers won’t dial fast enough. I feel intoxicated, making drunken calls, with a hand that won’t cooperate. Somehow I dial his work. “Is Julian there?” I gasp into the phone. No response. Once again, I cry out “IS Julian there?” The voice on the other end calmly asks, “Is this Emma? Listen, there’s been an accident…”

Dropping the phone, I fall to my knees in anguish without hearing the rest. Her brief words rang in my ears as the defeated cry of terror and pain caught my throat. Tears rush from my eyes, blinding and stinging my face. I hear the sound of sorrow rise from my soul and release itself as the guttural cry of an animal as I resign myself to death.

And then it stopped.

The dream ended as abruptly as the car had thrown my body through the windshield; a violent release from a violent dream. The pain was gone, the fires were out, though the memory lingers on, I’m free of The Dream for the time-being.

************************************************************************

He looked through the glass, hoping that she would open her eyes, move a hand. Hell, he’d be happy with a big toe. He pushes the blue speaker button so that she can hear him. “Emma, I wish you would come back to us. Shit, I wouldn’t even care that you lose the keys to your Mobile Device every five minutes.” He pauses, not knowing what to say, feeling like an idiot to be talking to someone who wasn’t talking back. Don’t they prescribe medication for that kind of shit? Talking to oneself? Whatever.

“Lily keeps asking about you. She really wants to see you, but I told her she can come later- when they switch you to a different room. I don’t want her to see you in this thing.”

He scanned the room with its steel gray walls and metallic sheen. The smell of metal never bothered him before, but then again, he had never been exposed to so much of it in closed quarters. Now, the tangy stench that filled the room was almost unbearable. It invaded his nostrils and seemed to affect his brain. Perhaps he’s just paranoid, but it’s one of those smells you never quite forget; like the formaldehyde-saturated cats in the anatomy classrooms, before dissecting was banned.

The room was filled with capsules, ten on each of the five rows. There were privacy curtains that could be pulled around each capsule, but he never saw any other visitors. Perhaps the others had lost their whole families to the Infection. Or maybe the others are so afraid of it that they won’t even visit their families. He didn’t know, didn’t care.

He went up to the hospital as often as he could without upsetting Lily. She had really taken the situation hard, but what three-year-old wouldn’t? He couldn’t talk to Emma about the present so he talked through the speaker about the old days. About the time they went to Mexico for almost a week. That is where they decided on their special song, where they got drunk and danced all night. Bodies close together, swaying to the rhythm of their wine induced state. So much had changed since they were younger. The world had changed.

He bent down, kissed the glass, and walked away. He was tired from working so much overtime. He needed some sleep, but he also couldn’t stand to see his wife in her current state. The Medical Advisors for the corporation weren’t even positive that the patients could hear, but an increase of brain activity usually occurred when they were spoken to. Emma was an exception. Not only did she have an increase of brain activity when spoken to, but also many times throughout the day and night. Knowing this gave him hope.

************************************************************************

The Infection came too fast, making it impossible to contain before the population was largely exposed. When one person was quarantined, the next wasn’t far behind. Julian was at work the day Emma contracted the Infection. She had been at the Learning Center when the news came through the intercom. Panic exploded throughout her department as the voice requested that they remain calm. Emma’s interns dropped like flies around her. She saw it coming. Like rain that falls in sheets across a lake, the infection moved closer and closer, visibly manifesting itself in the bodies that lay sprawling across the floor.

The Medical Advisors were still trying to figure out the cause of this odd virus. It was like nothing they had ever seen. Chemical warfare, biological warfare, they could handle; unfortunately, this was something completely new.

Infected Dreams

The doctors tell them to talk to me as if I can hear. I like that. “As if I can hear”. The doctors themselves don’t even seem to believe it; they merely speak the words in an attempt to make the families feel better. Stupid HMO bastards! I can hear everything asshole! Atleast, I think I can. Sometimes I try so hard to wake myself from this endless sleep. I cry out to them…to my husband Julian, my baby girl, Momma, Daddy. Help me! Get me out of here! I can’t handle this anymore.

But how can someone rescue you from the confines of your own mind?

The dream. It reverberates within me, more strongly than any other before or after.

In an instant, my mood is shattered by a loud Bah-Whoom! The noise and rumbling sensation both delivers and precedes an unbearable blast of heat that scorches as the burning power plants exude smoky, red and orange flames. It happens too fast, faster than I realize, faster than I can figure out what hit me. Fear. What the hell is happening? My car lurches forward, tires melting to the ground, a sudden stop from eighty miles per hour. My head hits the windshield in an explosion of pain that courses through my body as each limb crashes through the breaking glass. The back of my head meets the sizzling concrete in a losing battle, melting the hair to my skull and the pavement. My skin is burning and soon I will be incinerated.

All I can think about is my husband. He was on the road too. Did he make it to work? I run fast, urged by the situation, to find a phone. My feet are burning and the air is heavy with heat and smoke. There’s an emergency phone! My fingers won’t dial fast enough. I feel drunk, making drunk calls, with a hand that won’t cooperate. Somehow I dial his work. “Is Julian there?” I gasp into the phone. No response. Once again, I cry out “IS Julian there?” The voice on the other end calmly asks, “Is this Emma? Listen, there’s been an accident…”

And then it stopped.

The dream ended as abruptly as the car had thrown my body through the windshield; a violent release from a violent dream. The pain was gone, the fires were out, but the memory lingers on. I’m free of The Dream for the time-being.

************************************************************************

He looked through the glass, hoping that she would open her eyes, move a hand. Hell, he’d be happy with a big toe. He pushes the blue speaker button so that she can hear him. “Emma, I wish you would come back to us. Shit, I wouldn’t even care that you forget the keys to you Mobile Device every five minutes.” He pauses, not knowing what to say, feeling like an idiot to be talking to someone who wasn’t talking back. Don’t they prescribe medication for that kind of shit? Talking to yourself? Whatever.

“Lily keeps asking about you. She really wants to see you, but I told her she can come later- when they switch you to a different room. I don’t want her to see you in this thing.”

He went up to the hospital as often as he could without upsetting Lily. She had really taken the situation hard, but what three-year-old wouldn’t? He couldn’t talk to Emma about the present so he talked through the speaker about the old days. About the time they went to Mexico for almost a week. That is where they decided on their special song. They got drunk and danced all night. It seemed light years away. Hell, it almost was light years away. So much had changed since they were younger. The world had changed.

He bent down, kissed the glass, and walked away. He was tired from working so much overtime. He needed some sleep, but he also couldn’t stand to see his wife in her current state. The Medical Advisors for the corporation weren’t even positive that the patients could hear, but an increase of brain activity usually occurred when they were spoken to. Emma was an exception. Not only did she have an increase of brain activity when spoken to, but also at times throughout the day and night. This gave him hope.

************************************************************************

The Infection came too fast, making it impossible to stop before the population was largely exposed. When one person was quarantined, the next wasn’t far behind. Julian was at work the day Emma contracted the Infection. She had been at the Learning Center when the news came through the intercom. Panic exploded throughout the Learning Center as the voice requested that they remain calm. Emma’s interns dropped like flies around her. She saw it coming. Like rain that falls in sheets across a lake, the infection moved closer and closer, visibly manifesting itself in the bodies that lay sprawling across the floor.

Draft Exchange Report

Author’s report on draft exchange process (2-3 paragraphs)

The draft exchange process went smoothly with every thanks to Lindsay. She actually contacted me, asking if I would read her piece. I didn’t forget about the draft exchange, I just thought I had more time to complete it. Lindsay e-mailed me her story and I sent her what little I had of mine. Then, I e-mailed Audra, told her how sorry I was not to have responded to her story more quickly and begged her to respond to mine.

Lindsay replied to my story a couple of days later, giving some good advice. She was encouraging and supportive and understood what I wanted the story to imply. I have since thought about taking it a different direction, but these things remain to be seen. Lindsay’s part in the draft exchange was generous, to say the least. She even offered to read the rest of it when I wrote more, which was really nice. I was afraid the subject matter would be a little too weird for most people, but she was open to my ideas.

Audra didn’t give me much advice, but I was a bit last minute. Perhaps she was mad at something I said about her story! She did give me a couple of helpful tips that I put to good use and she was very prompt.

First reader’s feedback: (include name +-ID of 1^st reader; 1-3 paragraphs?)

Lindsay Niemann sent an amazing amount of feedback and advice. She recommended that I continue to use the first person present tense for Emma’s dream sequence because it seems more realistic. She liked the first dream because it tells the reader a little bit about the character.

Lindsay guessed that the explosion in Emma’s dream, was a real explosion, a real experience that landed her in a coma. At the time, that was the main direction I had intended to take; therefore, Lindsay’s reaction was exactly what I wanted the reader to think.

She suggested that in order to keep the readers’ attention and interest, I should continue to reveal the character through her dreams, adding in bits and pieces of her with each dream.

Second reader’s feedback: (include name +-ID of 2^nd reader; 1-3 paragraphs?)

Audra Caldwell probably had a lot of work on her hands with all the draft exchanges! She helped with my explanation of how Emma dreams, or rather, the repetitiveness I had in my description. I went ahead and deleted the sentence that caused the biggest problem. She mostly had questions about where the story was going and what I intended.

(Optional:) Feedback from additional readers: (1-3 paragraphs each?)

I had my significant other read the beginning of my very first draft and the only thing he told me was that it was intense. Intense seems like a good thing to me, but perhaps it isn’t.

Author’s final comments on outcomes, lessons of draft exchange: (2-3 paragraphs)

I enjoyed doing the draft exchanges and I actually wish that I would have done more. I want to continue working on my story, developing the characters and plot. I suppose that my unspoken (until now) dream is to write some sort of sci-fi/ futuristic novel or short story. I have always been drawn to science fiction and my dreams give me some pretty bizarre inspiration! Plus, the field is dominated by men and it would be fun to create something that could compete with them.

Lindsay was helpful and encouraging, which made me feel good. Audra’s response was so brief that it left me feeling a little hopeless. I’m sure it was unintentional, but I read too much between the lines. It was nice to get one negative and one positive review. If the opinions were not varied, then it would feel like superficial niceties.

Peer review really helped me shape the rest of my piece, but it would have benefited me more if I had done it sooner. Next time I take this class, I will try and be better about doing peer review! When something scares me, I put it off. Well, writing fiction scared me, which inevitably made me put off peer review!

My fiction piece is definitely a work in progress. I have horrible dreams quite frequently, which provide some excellent images for writing a story. The first dream sequence in my fiction piece is an actual dream I had about four years ago. I remember that dream as vividly as the day I had it, which is not fun. For a couple of years I was scared to drive down 225 and felt panicky when I crossed any large bridge. I have always been haunted by my dreams, so writing about them seems natural.

I already commented that I want to write a science fiction piece. Which direction of sci-fi to take is yet to be seen! I have several odd ideas from the government has collapsed and the nation is run by corporations (not a new idea), combined with some kind of alien involvement or telepathic warfare. I am not really sure about the rest of the story, but it will eventually fall into place.

I am planning on keeping the dream sequences in present tense, if not all of Emma’s feelings. It seems like the reader can better relate to the dream in real time if it stays in present tense.

I am probably one of the few people who still write with pen and paper, so I will scan some pages for the portfolio to demonstrate my thinking processes and revisions.

Writing fiction has been very hard for me. I love to read and never realized that the process of creating a story is very difficult. I haven’t attempted fiction since I was about twelve, but I have always wanted to do it. This class has forced me to try again, but I have no complaints.