The Erthedni
Dreamed 1977/1/7 by Wayan
for Fran Vashaw and Doris Piserchia
THAT DAY
I've been miserable. So far, 1977's been the worst year of my life. Dropped out of school, homeless, living in a van with Kay... and her recurring rages.
But today, I escaped for hours into a book--A Billion Days Of Earth by Doris Piserchia. A very odd parable set in the far future, in which a silvery being called Sheen tempts each creature it meets by offering a personalized heaven--leaving the frustrations of reality for your ideal world--your dream.
At this point, even knowing it's wrong, I'd cave in to Sheen without a fight.
THAT NIGHT...
We're all obsessive scholars, like Professor Blok
in A Billion Days Of Earth; we gnaw at our little worlds obscure. Our dogs know our pet obsessions; greet
Core, so this laconic dogtalk limns us all too well.
...humans? Are we? No. We're creatures too!
We are hungry, hungry, in a dead-end valley.
ALL FOOD RESERVED FOR THE ERTHEDNI ERTHEDNI's a living God (or Sheen); a superjare.
Desperate we scholars lope toward the DOOR
Emerge in a sea-cave. Shimmer blue. We're caged
Air slips in too, dissolved. Non-bubble form.
The dream-scene shifts. Breathe easy. For now I am
There, bearable at last, my hard dream ends. |
NOTES
The worst year of my life really was 1977--all the way through. The radical feminism of Santa Cruz in the mid-70s left me guilty and racked with self-doubt. I got trapped by Kay--brilliant, but a bully. I dropped out of school and let her batter me for two years. She didn't use threats to keep me, but leftist guilt. She had a feminist right to her anger--who was I to complain just because she broke my nose? Fran was one of the few role models telling me I had a right to leave, to my own life.
By the time I did leave Kay in mid-1978, I was nearly dead.
I've been transcribing my few journals that survived (most were lost or destroyed), and posting a handful of representative dreams from those lost years. This is the very last.
It's been painful, reliving that abuse. Any lessons to pass on? Well, yes. Kay and I weren't in a vacuum. The subculture we lived in was complicit in the crime. Few Frans; most looked away. Actually, that's hopeful; it implies that running can work, if you find a community that won't deny or excuse abuse. Maybe you'll still repeat your old mistake; but maybe not. With a little help from your friends.
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