Dreaming again- Funny Skeletons
Jan. 24th, 2005 11:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethThere were two skeletons.
But not big detailed natomys. Little cartoon sketches. Funny skeletons.
The one on the left had a top hat it/he lifted with its right hand. In its left hand it held a cane, while the other skeleton linked arms with it. The skeleton on the right had pearl earrings and a necklace. Both of them had their legs crossed and bent in the exact same way, half way through walking. Their heads were all one line, blobby like marshmallows, and smiling. Every bone rounded off. But the impression was not roundness, as almost every joint was bent in acute v shapes, interlocking x and pointy edges. They were supposed to be friendly skeletons, little and cartoony. Everyone laughed at her for being afraid, but they didn't know.
To start the two were walking on a green background. Not grass green, which would have made some sense. This green looked rather wrong. Pale, and shiny. Smooth snot green, with a hint of pus. Like they were emerging from a wall of pus.
But then they got blurrier, and the green got lighter, until they were just blurred shadows on a white-with-apple wall. And then there weren't just two of them. They multiplied, in strings like paper dolls, up and down like bead curtains, every bead a skeleton, dancing and twitching and drifting in the wind.
Cut to cutting. A boy, a teenager like her, with blood on his arms, but just sitting there ignoring it. And everyone laughing. The blood is thick and stringy, like he pulled out parts and smeared them along with the blood. It smells like the corners of butcher shops. Old blood.
He's there only a moment, staring at her with this smirk on his face. Piggy face. Then cut again, different scene, his arm with blood, but you can't see the cuts. No wounds but blood everywhere. And he's sitting right next to her, and she shys away, and everyone laughs.
Blink, blink, blink, different places, same boy, image following her, can't get away by moving. Nightmare quality. Then when she thinks she's woken up, she is sitting in class, her instrument case in front of her. Large black wedge, she plays the tuba and the case is huge. And it smells funny. Like the corners of butcher shops. She doesn't want to open it. But like a nightmare she can't not. The brass is smeared with thick dark red, like dark candy, spun sugar, sickly sweet.
Everyone laughs.
The wide end is pointing away from her.
She doesn't want to look inside.
***
So, my brain is convinced this is the opening sequence to a film. Not one I'd seen, because the opening sequence was creepy as hell, and probably my bed time was still before the watershed and the TV got turned off. But this was running in the background of a completely unrelated dream- where the council had got a bunch of high school students to fill in a database, transferring street and house names to the computers so they could order new signs, and seeing as said students were in their last week of school ever they... had fun with the spelling. And contents. And the result was just hilarious, especially if you were 12. But I woke up creeped the hell out, and with no inclination to go back to sleep despite the fact I've had about three hours sleep. Because this? Creepy as hell.
It isn't just the blood. Blood is creepy, yes. But it is the way everyone laughs. Because it has to be a joke. In their experience it can't be anything but a joke, so they laugh, and they laugh at her for being afraid of such a kid prank. Like they laugh at her for being afraid of skeletons, even funny skeletons. But she knows. She knows that it isn't always funny, that things can get more serious than the others can ever imagine.
I'm not sure if the boy is murderer or victim. The thing she expects to find in the tuba is his severed head, so you'd think victim, but somehow this isn't clear. He is still a threat. He smirks, and everyone sees a smile, and they don't see the threat. It has to be a joke, because the other thing doesn't happen in their world.
There was also something fucked up about gender roles. The girl being powerless even though the guy is just sitting there, the skeletons where the guy has a stick. The fact that even skeletons are gendered, when you'd think that with everything stripped away that wouldn't even be relevant.
And why does she think of skeletons? What has she seen that even cartoon skeletons just aren't funny?
But everyone laughs anyway. Alone in a crowd with a very bad truth after you.
Scary.
***
If this was an opening sequence I have no idea how to write a full story that would live up to the creep factor. I'd have to start answering questions, and whichever answers I picked would limit the badness. Better to leave it like this I think.
But not big detailed natomys. Little cartoon sketches. Funny skeletons.
The one on the left had a top hat it/he lifted with its right hand. In its left hand it held a cane, while the other skeleton linked arms with it. The skeleton on the right had pearl earrings and a necklace. Both of them had their legs crossed and bent in the exact same way, half way through walking. Their heads were all one line, blobby like marshmallows, and smiling. Every bone rounded off. But the impression was not roundness, as almost every joint was bent in acute v shapes, interlocking x and pointy edges. They were supposed to be friendly skeletons, little and cartoony. Everyone laughed at her for being afraid, but they didn't know.
To start the two were walking on a green background. Not grass green, which would have made some sense. This green looked rather wrong. Pale, and shiny. Smooth snot green, with a hint of pus. Like they were emerging from a wall of pus.
But then they got blurrier, and the green got lighter, until they were just blurred shadows on a white-with-apple wall. And then there weren't just two of them. They multiplied, in strings like paper dolls, up and down like bead curtains, every bead a skeleton, dancing and twitching and drifting in the wind.
Cut to cutting. A boy, a teenager like her, with blood on his arms, but just sitting there ignoring it. And everyone laughing. The blood is thick and stringy, like he pulled out parts and smeared them along with the blood. It smells like the corners of butcher shops. Old blood.
He's there only a moment, staring at her with this smirk on his face. Piggy face. Then cut again, different scene, his arm with blood, but you can't see the cuts. No wounds but blood everywhere. And he's sitting right next to her, and she shys away, and everyone laughs.
Blink, blink, blink, different places, same boy, image following her, can't get away by moving. Nightmare quality. Then when she thinks she's woken up, she is sitting in class, her instrument case in front of her. Large black wedge, she plays the tuba and the case is huge. And it smells funny. Like the corners of butcher shops. She doesn't want to open it. But like a nightmare she can't not. The brass is smeared with thick dark red, like dark candy, spun sugar, sickly sweet.
Everyone laughs.
The wide end is pointing away from her.
She doesn't want to look inside.
***
So, my brain is convinced this is the opening sequence to a film. Not one I'd seen, because the opening sequence was creepy as hell, and probably my bed time was still before the watershed and the TV got turned off. But this was running in the background of a completely unrelated dream- where the council had got a bunch of high school students to fill in a database, transferring street and house names to the computers so they could order new signs, and seeing as said students were in their last week of school ever they... had fun with the spelling. And contents. And the result was just hilarious, especially if you were 12. But I woke up creeped the hell out, and with no inclination to go back to sleep despite the fact I've had about three hours sleep. Because this? Creepy as hell.
It isn't just the blood. Blood is creepy, yes. But it is the way everyone laughs. Because it has to be a joke. In their experience it can't be anything but a joke, so they laugh, and they laugh at her for being afraid of such a kid prank. Like they laugh at her for being afraid of skeletons, even funny skeletons. But she knows. She knows that it isn't always funny, that things can get more serious than the others can ever imagine.
I'm not sure if the boy is murderer or victim. The thing she expects to find in the tuba is his severed head, so you'd think victim, but somehow this isn't clear. He is still a threat. He smirks, and everyone sees a smile, and they don't see the threat. It has to be a joke, because the other thing doesn't happen in their world.
There was also something fucked up about gender roles. The girl being powerless even though the guy is just sitting there, the skeletons where the guy has a stick. The fact that even skeletons are gendered, when you'd think that with everything stripped away that wouldn't even be relevant.
And why does she think of skeletons? What has she seen that even cartoon skeletons just aren't funny?
But everyone laughs anyway. Alone in a crowd with a very bad truth after you.
Scary.
***
If this was an opening sequence I have no idea how to write a full story that would live up to the creep factor. I'd have to start answering questions, and whichever answers I picked would limit the badness. Better to leave it like this I think.