Etude 1 (Continued)

After that was Victorian Literature, and then an hour free until the dining hall opened for dinner. Sarah went back to her dorm room, thankful that her roommate had a late-afternoon class. She'd dozed off in Victorian Literature, too which was usually her favorite class, but she just hadn't been able to keep her eyes open. She still felt muzzy, and her eyes were throbbing. "Time for a nap, I think," she said to the room. She set an alarm, got into bed, and fell asleep. Her dreams were random mutterings of images, and then a voice calling her name.
"Sarah? Sarah, dinner's almost over. Were you going to eat?"
"Huh? Wha?" She turned over to see her roommate, Maggie.
"It's ten minutes before dinner closes."
"Oh. Uh. Okay. I'm getting up." She checked her alarm. "Maggie, did my alarm go off?"
"I don't know, I just got back."
"Okay." She scrambled to get her shoes on, grabbed her jacket, and walked out into the wind.

...


I must be more tired than I thought. That's the third time I've slept through my alarm this week. She stuck her hands in her pockets, trying to warm them. I wish I didn't feel so tired all the time. It's harder and harder to wake up in the mornings, and it's harder and harder for me to fall asleep at night. It's almost as if I'm scared to fall sleep sometimes... She let out a little sigh and rubbed her cheek. And I bet there'll be hardly any food left at the dining hall. Cold potatoes and congealing gravy on rubbery meat. Joy. Why can't anything go right? The wind whistled past her with a muted whispering sound, as if murmuring in sympathy. At least it's not raining anymore. She hurried her steps until she reached the dining hall.
Dinner was not as bad as she'd feared, but it was still unappetizing. She forced herself to eat, unenthusiastically, until just the sight of the chicken in sauce nauseated her. She stopped eating; her plate was still more than half full. I guess I'm not that hungry. She sat there, staring at the food for a little while longer. She poked the chicken with a fork; the sauce had congealed over it in a goopy mess. Okay, I'm definitely not hungry. She got up and deposited her tray on the belt. She headed back to her room.
Then there were hours of bashing her head against the latest set of Econ problems. Then the sun rose, and then there was sleep. And dreams.

The dream started innocently enough. No biting wind, no empty plain, no angry sky. Just a clearing in a forest, brilliant green with the flush of spring. Butterflies, sparkling and glittering with iridescent wings. She was so tired; she just wanted to relax and lie down and not have to worry about anything ever again. She sat down on the grass, grateful for its softness, and leaned against a tree, watching the butterflies dance. She didn't know when they changed, but the butterflies became harsher, less colorful. Metallic. And there was a low drone that grated on her ears as they continued to dance. A wind began to blow, bringing with it a smell of copper and fire. The butterflies fluttered about, wings gleaming. They started suddenly, with the flash of thousand small mirrors, and flocked together at the opposite end of the clearing. Some inner warning made her stand, and look behind her.
Along a path into the forest, she could see a light. Even behind the trees, it was so bright it hurt her to look at it. It was coming for her, slowly, without haste. She started to run. The butterflies followed her, the eyes on their wings glowing a sullen blood-red. The seasons changed from bright spring to blasted autumn to forsaken winter. Suddenly, she was running in the foothills of a mountain range. She slowed down to climb over the rocks, trying to concentrate on not being found. She didn't know what would happen if the light reached her. All she knew was that she had to get away from it, away from its blinding brilliance, away from the searing tendrils that ever reached for her. It was catching up.
The butterflies had disappeared at some point, taking with them the last vestiges of color. She felt suddenly blind, looking at the boiling gray sky and muted gray tones of her skin. She looked behind her again, and saw the light calmly gliding over the rocks. She kept climbing, now up a vertical stone face. She crept a glance below her. The light was floating upwards after her. Its tendrils had multiplied and were now a swarming mass that made her eyes throb. The next rock she grabbed crumbled in her hand, and she started to slide downwards. She screamed. There was a dizzying wrench, and she was climbing downwards, with the light floating above her.
Another rock crumbled beneath her foot, and she began to slide downwards again, scrabbling at the surface for handholds. She caught herself before she reached the bottom, but as she looked around, she realized she was trapped. She had entered a narrow valley that stretched on farther than she could see. There was no exit from it, nowhere out except up the other wall. The light was closer than it had ever been, flooding the valley with its day-like brilliance. It was too bright now to look at directly, and it was coming closer. If it reached her, she would be blinded. She scrambled away from it. And then, from the corner of her eye, she saw a cave. Its mouth yawned open, perfectly black and still, a welcome refuge from the glare surrounding her. She ran into it, tripping over a rock and falling into the cavern. Darkness swallowed her. There was nothing more.

Etude 1: Adagio Sognando

The dreams that in waking I see
Are all that is left of me

Of all the days to be raining, it had to be today, thought Sarah. It had to be the day when her term paper was due, when midterm exams were being returned, when her boyfriend had just called up to say he wanted to see other people. "I hate the rain," she muttered under her breath, to no one in particular. She sighed and clutched her binder more tightly, hoping that the rain wouldn't get inside and make the ink on her paper run. The wind blew, cold and harsh as her falling GPA and her parent's expressions. Her hair blew in her eyes, and she cursed softly as she tried to shake it out, refusing to let go of the binder. And then suddenly, the wind stopped dead, and the rain disappeared, and she looked up to see a glowing light in front of her. It seemed to reach for her menacingly, and she backed away from it. She was about to turn and run when the light disappeared, and the wind and rain resumed.
"Okay, that was weird," she said. She stood there for a while, staring at the spot where the light had been. There was nothing there. She shook the hair out of her eyes. Something about the light had seemed familiar. She looked behind her, expecting to see someone laughing, but nobody else had noticed the light. She sighed and walked on towards class.

Class had already started by the time Sarah got there, but she was able to slip into the back of the auditorium unnoticed. Thankfully, Professor Mel hadn't started collecting the papers yet, so she wouldn't have to be obvious about slipping hers in. She sank gratefully into a seat in the very last row. She shared the row with two drunks, a druggie, and a guy she'd never seen before. The first thing that struck her was his hair; it was cut in a sort of reverse mohawk -- spiky on the outside, with a stripe shaved to the scalp in the center. He also had an earring, and a nose ring, and a chain connecting the two. She found herself watching him, morbidly fascinated. I wonder what happens when he sneezes? Does the metal get in the way? He turned to look at her before she could turn her attention back to the lecture. He looked at her as if she was just so much chopped liver, then went back to drawing on his arm. She forced herself to pay attention to the lecture, but was unsuccessful. Somewhere in the background, the professor droned on about gender constructions in the work of Charlotte Bronte. Three hours of sleep a night for the past week caught up to her, and Sarah drifted off into a light sleep.

...


She stood on a vast plain beneath a smoky sky. Streaks of dull blue ran through it, meeting and joining the angry whorls of red in the east. She could not tell what the ground was made of, only that it was firm and slightly damp. She knew, somehow, that there was no-one alive in the area. This dream again, she thought. But it's too early! It's been barely any time since the last one... A wind began to blow, filled with particles that grated against her skin. She started walking, going along with the wind instead of fighting it. Then the wind stopped, and a light appeared in front of her, glowing. It extended a tendril, reaching for her, and she turned and ran from it. Then there was a sudden murmuring of voices, and she blinked, awake. Class was over, and people were getting up to turn in their papers before leaving. I don't remember falling asleep, she thought. But she was grateful to note that she wouldn't be the last to turn her paper in. She got up and hurried to the front of the auditorium with it, slipping it in between two others, and scurried out.


My first words! Yay! Not that much, but they didn't take me all that long, either. The title of the chapter means "Slowly, dreamily"; it's musical terminology. However, I should be getting to bed. More words when I wake up!

Etude 1 (continued)