Prompt: Using a nightmare/dream, or Game of Thrones imagery

Note:  Have you ever written a story or scene from a dream? Sometimes I’ll have a dream that is incredibly vivid and coherent, but I still have difficulty capturing it in words. Or there’s not quite enough “there” to make a complete story. I literally had this dream this morning, foiling my rare opportunity to sleep in…

Warning, this is not PG13...think George R. R. Martin's Game of Thrones...

I was visiting with family in a large vacation home, so everything was unfamiliar. Some of the people there were dream-family, but not real-life family, which was causing me some confusion—though I rarely am aware within a dream that I am dreaming.

The house had huge windows that opened up, and then fabric “screens” with embedded (sewn-in) poles dropped into the bottom window frames and held them in place. There was a storm coming, with lots of wind, so we were all going around closing the windows, which meant pulling up the poles from the frames, but then the fabric, like thin colored silk, would blow around, poles clanging, making it very difficult to corral all of it out of the way and pull the windows closed.

I fumbled my bedroom window closed and wrangled the screens with their long, slender poles to the side, then left my room to go help with other windows. My bare feet felt the cold of the smooth marble on the broad hallway floor. I stopped in the doorway to the formal dining hall, mesmerized by the wind-filled screens flowing like a river of blues and greens and golds across the open windows. My brother-in-law (not in real life) pushed past me and hurried to the farthest window. “Come on, ijit! Don’t just stand there! Help me get these,” he snarled. We didn’t get along, and didn’t fake it when no one else was present.

I moved to the opposite end from him, and started pulling the poles from the frames, trying to keep the screens from tugging loose and blowing around in the strong wind sweeping in. He closed the first window and moved to the next one. Glancing over at me, he said, “Leave it. I’ll finish here. Go tie up the pool shades. Surely you can manage that, at least.”

I didn’t answer, just dropped the fabric I had gathered and let it blow free, poles banging against the frame as I walked out, feet slapping against the cold marble.

As I walked outside the French doors to the pool courtyard, my pace slowed and my eyes narrowed against the wind. I loved it, actually, as it whipped cold and wild against my skin, blowing my hair loose from its thick braid. It swept the curtains surrounding the pool area in broad arc, some swirling around the elaborate wooden frames, some flying high overhead. My brother-in-law wouldn’t be able to reach them, despite his extra height and longer arms. I didn’t know how I could.

As I neared the pool, the air grew hot and humid, and though the curtains still blew, no wind touched my skin. I glanced back at the house, and the air seemed to shimmer behind me. As I turned forward once more, I heard music playing, something like guitar, and maybe harp. I peered through the curtains and saw people lounging in and around the pool. Men, women, and children--they were all nude, and somehow unfamiliar. More than the fact I didn’t recognize any of them. The men were burly, hairy, sporting beards and long curly hair. The women were voluptuous, golden-skinned, with long hair piled in curly crowns on their heads.

I hid behind a curtain, drawing it around me, as a young woman in a simple white dress carried a tall pitcher with two handles around the edges of the pool, pouring into goblets they adults held up for her attention. A large man held a young girl on his lap and reached up with his goblet. When the servant reached down to pour into it, the girl twisted away. She was naked, and though she looked nine or ten, her breasts were well-developed. The man grabbed one and pulled her back against his chest, without spilling any of the drink from his goblet. As he drank, she struggled against him, and he laughed at her. No one seemed to be paying any attention.

A women in a plain white stola came through the curtains on the far side. Wading into the water, she pulled the girl away from the man and started yelling at him. He stood up and roared at her, pulling the girl from her arms and tossing her like a rag doll up onto the edge of the pool. The girl scrambled away, out of my view.

Suddenly the man had a thick, short sword in his hand, and he slashed toward the woman. She stumbled away and fell in the water. She crab-walked away from him as he lunged toward her. Everyone moved out of their way, but no one aid anything o tried to intervene.

He dropped to his knees and pushed between her legs. Without warning, he thrust the sword straight down into her belly. She arched up, screaming, and he sawed straight up her body with up and down strokes, splitting open from her belly to her neck. He stood up and stomped out of the water toward where the girl had disappeared. The woman lay in the water, her arms unmoving by her side, looking down at herself, blood pouring out the length of her torso as she shrieked one long, endless scream…

Thank you, brain, for letting me wake up from this Game-of-Thrones-esque nightmare…

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And so, with a loving heart, I offer you

Namaste

I’ve heard many translations. Here’s one I love:
The light of the universe that shines within me recognizes
the light of the universe that shines within you.

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Dogs in House	Houdini, Brindle
Time writing	~45 minutes
October word count	2862