Frostwriting

NINE DREAMS THAT TOOK ME NOWHERE

by M V Montgomery

bad start

Library books were strewn in the forest near campus.  I picked one up.  The title was How to Save the Earth, or something like that.

coming to an end

The term was coming to an end, and I was about to close the grade book on each student.  I walked out into the courtyard where there were commemorative slabs in the ground with each student’s name, and, respectfully, placed a bottled water by each one.

evidence

I was back at the university, about to relaunch my career as a graduate assistant.  I was reviewing my previous record there with the Dean, and he was sorting through an archival storage box and frowning.  He mentioned that my rating had not been so high, a 4.  I told him that it used to be a 4-point scale.  Well, now it’s out of ten, he said.  Then he pulled a half-eaten jar of mayonnaise out of the box.  What’s this? 

Had I, in my starving student days, eaten straight from the jar? “We all do some stupid things sometimes,” I said. 

not real

In an auditorium, I was trying to talk over a film and explain “realist techniques” that actually weren’t—a blurred memento mori interrupting a close shot on a character’s face; a “round frame”; variable speed film used to hide subliminal symbolism; and a geometric motif used as a transitional device.

opposite sex

I woke up in bed the opposite sex.  I was about to shake my head to clear it when I stopped and thought, Wait, this is interesting.

qu’est-ce que c’est?

A brash young candidate for our music teaching position was giving a demonstration as part of the interview process and paused to point out a musical phrase which he claimed had been plagiarized by one classical composer from another.  I asked him if it wasn’t rather intended as an homage. 

He looked at me blankly for a moment, then replied that he was tough on cheating in all of his classes.

seeing so clear

My parents were justifiably proud, having bought a car as a present for my brother and his family.  It was the kind of gift none of us had ever received. 

Rubbing my forehead, on which I must have received a nasty bump the day before, I got up from the couch and joined the others in the front room. 

I perceived right away that there was something more to the gift, that it was really a gesture to reassure my brother’s wife, a Haitian immigrant, that she had been accepted into the family.

I didn’t take any pictures: I was seeing things so clearly and felt so attuned to the day’s events that I thought forgetting them impossible.  Instead, I helped my parents perform their subterfuge of forgetting where they had placed the gift and searching around the house before suggesting we all go out to the garage.

The car was a used Mazda coupe, a very light tangerine and black.  While the usual hysterics ensued, I drifted over to a shelf where I noticed the bill of sale.  I perceived that it had been left nearby in case any doubters wished to see.

I rejoined the group—my parents sipping coffee and smiling in two lawn chairs in the background, others still taking pictures and talking in the middle ground, my brother and his wife examining the car in the foreground.

Although she was trying hard not to let others know it, I perceived immediately that my sister-in-law was unhappy about the color.  I whispered to my brother that they could wait a year and a half or so, then find a pretext to repaint over the tangerine. 

He frowned.  What are you, some kind of a mind reader?  Then he told me that I had better go inside the house and take a look in the mirror.

A large eye was opening in the middle of my forehead.

siren says

The singer launched into a sultry number as I picked my way across the front row and started back into the auditorium to find a seat.  Sit down, sit down, sit down she sang, rather compellingly, so I sat down.  Look at me, look at me, she sang, so I did look up at her.  She looked a little travel-worn—had short black hair, a prominent nose, and riveting eyes focused right on me.  Don’t you walk away, now don’t you walk away, she sang, so I gave her a little salute.  She smiled. 

winter dream

Skating near the edge of a vast lake, I worked up a tremendous burst and flew over the ice.  In the gathering darkness, unable to stop, I thrilled to realize that the surface might not remain solid—that at any time, a deep plunge might take me under, down to where half-asleep fish circled below. 

The wind picked up, and now the only light came from a flat glow near my skates.  I tried to turn, and instead spun out, spiraling until I lost all sense of direction.  I had soared so far that the shore was out of sight. 

At that point, I spotted a distant glint and hoped that it might point me home, so I began to slowly skate towards it.  But this turned out to be just a lone strand of tinsel which had blown off a discarded Christmas tree.