Well, this was quite the dream. I'm not entirely sure where it came from, but I think it might have been the result of some thinking I was doing earlier this week.

I was wondering about fairy tales. So many fairy tales have the same basic premise (guy likes girl, girl gets in trouble, guy wants to save her, yadda yadda yadda...), and I was trying to figure out how people come up with the twists that make certain fairy tales break away from the mold a little. The key, I thought, was to push the genre just far enough that there was enough room to be creative while maintaining the sense of the story still being a fairy tale.

I don't know why I was thinking about it so much.

Anyway, I think this dream was sort of the answer to my questions. It's not as coherent as it could be, but that's usually the case with dreams. It happens in two parts, and the first isn't really part of the fairy tale, but it does provide a minimal context for the second part.

Also, as an added bonus, I've had the girl-who-is-not-my-girlfriend-but-who-really-is (Kori) do a few little illustrations for it.

So, the dream...

Part one

Started out with Audrey Hepburn and Peter O'Toole in a city in some desert. I don't know what country, nor do I even know what continent it was. It was just a sort of generic middle-eastern city. The buildings were all tan, there wasn't a lot of vegetation, and there was dust everywhere. It was hot, dry, and uncomfortable. Absolutely not the kind of place I would have dropped off Audrey Hepburn, but she didn't seem to mind.

They had a job to do. I don't know who assigned it, and I certainly don't understand the point: They were hired to go out into the desert, find a particular piece of timber (how did it get out there?), and drag it back to the city.

::shrug:: Hey - I didn't have a lot of editorial control over the thing while it was happening.

I saw the two of them riding in the back seat of a convertible. They were being driven to the edge of the city, where they were to be dropped off.

They made it, they got out, and then started walking.

They walked.

They walked some more.

They walked, and they walked, and they walked, and they walked, and they walked, and they walked, and they walked, and they walked...

[Rory gets up to go make a cup of coffee]

...and they walked, and they walked, and they walked, and they walked, and they walked, and they walked, and they walked, and they walked...

[Rory goes and reads War and Peace in its entirety]

...and they walked, and they walked, and they walked, and they walked, and they walked, and they walked...

...and then they suddenly found the piece of timber. It was just out there, right in the middle of the desert. There weren't any guards posted, nor were there any signs of any human presence in the area at all. It was just a piece of wood, about fifteen feet long, and a couple feet in diameter, sitting under the hot sun, cooking, and waiting to be taken away.

I don't want to sound too critical, but my first impression upon seeing Peter and Audrey arrive at the big stick was that they had wasted their time. It wasn't a very glorious pursuit, you know?

They approached the oddly-placed log and tied a rope to it. One end of the rope was tied around one end of the log, and the other end of the rope was tied around the other end of the log. There was plenty of slack, and this made it possible for the two of them to pick up slack in the middle of the log and use it to drag the log along.

And so they dragged.

They dragged, and they dragged, and they dragged, and they dragged, and they dragged, and they dragged, and they dragged...

[Rory goes and repaints the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel]

...and they dragged, and they dragged, and they dragged, and they dragged, and they dragged, and they dragged, and they dragged...

[Rory reads every volume of the Encyclopedia Britannica - twice]

...and they dragged, and they dragged, and they dragged...

...and then Audrey started to hallucinate, which is perfectly understandable considering the amount of walking and dragging she had been doing.

As I watched Audrey and Peter walk along, dragging that stupid piece of wood, I got to experience Audrey's hallucinations. That is, even though I was seeing the dream from a third-person point of view, I was still able to see Audrey's hallucinations, which was pretty neat.

The first hallucination occurred after she tripped and fell in the sand. As soon as she hit the ground, she saw herself in the ocean, surrounded by water, going down, drowning. It was evening, the sun was going down, there were enormous clouds in the sky, and she was taking in great lungfulls of salt water.

Then, ::poof::, she was back in the desert, dragging that silly log.

Another few steps, and she was back in the ocean, drowning again, her screams for help being stifled by the constant rush of water into her mouth.

::poof:: - Back in the desert.

This went on for quite a while. I could do the "and she hallucinated, and she hallucinated, and she hallucinated" joke, but I think I've worn it out.

So, she hallucinated^50.

They finally made it to the edge of the desert, and Audrey had one last hallucination: She was back in the ocean, drowning, and she saw a small boat coming toward her. She called to it, flailed about, and generally tried to get herself noticed. The boat did notice her, and changed course to intercept.

::poof:: - She was back at the edge of the desert, about to be picked up, but not by a boat: The convertible in which she and Peter were originally transported to the edge of the city was back, and the driver was waiting.

They got to the car, deposited the log in the back, and then they all started to chat a bit.

"You have to head south. There's a city you need to go to down there," said the driver.

"But that city's under attack," countered Peter O'Toole.

And Peter was right.

::poof::

Peter, Audrey, the car, the timber, and the driver all disappeared. The city disappeared. The dream setting switched from the desert city to the city in the south that had been mentioned by the car's driver.

Part two - The fairy tale bit

The next thing I saw was a panorama of the southern city. It, too, was a desert sort of town, full of low, tan buildings, and surrounded by a low wall to keep the sand out. This area was lusher than the previous, though: There was foliage all around the outside of the wall, grassy patches out in the sand, and the occasional tree dotted the landscape. The region surrounding the city was slightly hilly, making it a little more interesting than the "Hey, look - There's sand in every direction" feel of the previous city.

It was actually very pleasant. Upon seeing it, you might find it very appealing in a peaceful sort of way, but that would count on your not noticing that, surrounding the city, an army of sinister little men riding on the backs of tigers was approaching.

My dream camera zoomed in on a group of these dirty little soldiers.

The tigers were crawling along, low to the ground, with their shoulder blades jutting out of their backs as their legs cycled through each step. The men riding them were swaying, slowly, from side to side as the tigers moved along.

At the front of the army was a group of runners. Each of them had a bag of steaks (a little silly, no?). Their job was to run ahead and hand out steaks to the townspeople. This would make it easy for the tigers to find people to pounce on.

And so the runners ran forward, and into the city, where they were welcomed. Nobody in the city had the faintest idea that it was about to be attacked. They were a little confused about the goodwill of guys handing out free food, but what are you gonna do? They took the steaks.

All the while, the tigers were coming closer.

A couple thousand feet out from the city, there was a man who was sitting in a hole that he had dug. I don't know why he did this, nor do I intend to guess. The hole was next to a grassy patch on a small hill. There was a tree over the hole, giving it shade. The man could be heard inside the hole. He was talking about the steaks:

"I heard someone's handing out free steaks. Where's my steak? I want a steak."

With that, a runner tossed a steak into the hole. This satisfied the hole-man.

A few seconds later, a tiger could be seen walking up to the hole. It got close, and then leapt in.

::poof::

The camera switched to the interior of one of the buildings in the city. It was no longer third-person. Everything I saw was now being seen from my point of view, as I was one of the people in the city.

Standing near me was the girl-who-is-not-my-girlfriend-but-who-really-is (Kori). She was wearing a white dress of some sort, rather elegant, and she was holding one of the steaks, looking at it in a puzzled fashion. She was someone of some importance, and I was someone of no particular importance at all, but we knew each other.

She couldn't figure out why the steaks were being handed out. I kind of put two and two together, and figured that there was something rather bizarre going on. I grabbed her, and led her out back, behind the building. There was a cellar there (how do you build a cellar in the sand? I don't know...). I told her we had to go into it to hide.

There was a metal door blocking the entrance, which I lifted. Kori went in first, and I followed down the ladder after her. I closed the door behind me, and padlocked it. After locking it, I realized that I didn't have a key to the lock, but also realized that this was the least of our problems. I walked out of the entrance and into a small room. Kori was sitting there, in a chair, with a revolver in her lap, waiting for the first sign of trouble to come pounding on the door.

We sat around for a few hours, and nothing happened. Kori suggested that we go to another room. This came as a bit of a surprise to me, as I had no idea that there was another room at all. It worried me a bit.

She said that it was a room that I had always wanted to see.

A little background: In the dream, I had known Kori for my entire life. We had seen a lot of each other as children, and then even more of each other as we went through our teen years and into early adulthood. We always had to see each other on the sly, though, since her parents definitely didn't want her to be running around with an urchin such as myself. I was a haggard mess, and she was always perfect. She enjoyed my company, though, and snuck along to see me when she could. Although I was very attracted to her, there wasn't any real possibility of our ever having a relationship for reasons previously mentioned (her status, her parents, etc.).

When we had been much younger, she had talked about a room that she loved. It was a room that was just for her, and I was never allowed to go into it, and this heightened my curiosity. I wanted to know what was inside.

Well, this was that room.

I followed her in.

The first thing that struck me was its size. It was easily 1500 square-feet, and the ceilings were about twenty feet tall. Two enormous oriental rugs covered the floor. There were two toy horses hanging from the ceiling with their backs at about my shoulder height. They looked like expensive toys for a privileged child.

Then, and this is what justified my earlier concerns about the existence of a second room, I noticed the windows. I thought that we had locked ourselves into a secure basement that only had one entrance. But, because I had never been allowed into Kori's private room, I had never known about the windows.

There was blue light streaming into the room from the windows. In the hours since we had entered the cellar, night had obviously arrived. We knew nothing about what had been happening outside, and the windows were just barely too high for us to reach, making it impossible to get a glimpse at how the rest of the city had fared.

Because of the windows, I knew we were done for. She knew it, too.

She walked over to one of the horses, and climbed up its side. She sat on it for a minute, remembering her childhood. Sitting on the horse was one last little bit of innocence for her - Something to counter the savagery outside.

I watched her the entire time, and admired her in every way. She looked absolutely beautiful. Everything about her was perfect.

I heard some scratching at one of the windows.

I watched her for a few more seconds, relishing that I was finally allowed into her room. I thought about everything we had been through, about how much I had wanted her, about how I was never going to have her, and about how I only had another few seconds to watch her.

The scratching got a bit stronger, continued for a few seconds, and then stopped.

I grabbed Kori, dragged her off the horse, threw her over my shoulder, and ran.

I heard something come crashing through the window behind us.

I kept running, still with Kori over my shoulder.

I could hear something running after us, and then the silence as it leaped through the air.

Then, I woke up.