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FISHER GIRLS
Dreamed 1996/7/15 by Wayan

I dream of Gray's stilthouse--the cover of FISHERGIRLS.
INTRODUCTION

I keep visiting this other world in dreams. Well, I visit a LOT of worlds in dreams. But this one's a regular, like Earth. It's a warm ocean-world, with only one real continent, and that's polar. So the only decent-sized habitable land is a forested finger like a big Malaya or Kamchatka, stretching all the way to the subtropics. Still, the warm seas swarm with atolls, reefs, and islands. Green isles, with flocks of flowers. And the people are friendly, playful, good-natured, beautiful, and loving... So I keep going back.

But on my last dream-trip, I somehow got myself BORN there.

Oops. More fun to visit. Up close, even Eden has fleas.

I lean on a shoulder-high globe of my world: mostly seas, (labeled in native glyphs) and a rather tangled dotted line: our voyage.
HOME

I grew up in a fishing village on the southeast coast. My people are loving, but so traditional! I felt stifled as I grew older--good girls obey the elders, good girls are modest and quiet. In revenge, I'll draw myself tall bold and glamorous here. You leaned on me, you tried to squash me--well now I'm leaning on YOU, world!

I'm not QUITE sure how we looked. Long noses ears legs and tails, gray fur and grace--but were we feline, canine, or more like lemur or aardvark people? My visual memory's even fuzzier than WE were. I think our eyes weren't shape-oriented. Glitter and motion drew me, like a cat. Sound and touch and smell...

I've tried to draw my life honestly, but when it comes to how things LOOKED exactly, my story stew is a little skimpy on memory fish. Mostly just the thin broth of guesswork.

But what we did and said and felt--that's not made up. It happened and I'll never forget.

This tale is true.

A butterfly-bird perches, looking at the bright body-ornaments of the fisher people: feathered bracelets, a diagonal shell-sash, an inlaid penis sheath.
So here we are. I'm the one dancing of course. You can call me Gray. I guess you can see why--plain tan-gray and white coat, except a few flank dapples, sigh. Who said beauty is but fur deep? The best volcano goddesses always wear gray and white--fertile ash and precious rainclouds--but tell THAT to your agemates and see how many prawns it gets you.

The others are my two best friends. No, dive all the way down, Gray! My ONLY friends.

That's Leaf up the tree, hiding behind her tail as usual. She's the youngest of us three, small and thin and very shy... but she's also the only person I know who's smarter than me, especially in math. She wants to be a navigator, though even her teacher laughs at her. "Girls aren't spatial thinkers."

Under the tree, playing her ammonite harp (it's made from a big Nautilus shell) is our best friend, Atoll--because her spots are hollow swirls like atoll-maps. She's, I don't know, our big sister I guess. The wise one. Well, the FIRST glyph I was going to paint was "sane." True too. She's not even a total misfit. She gets invited to some parties, even if they just want her there to sing. Of course they don't want HER songs, just traditional dance tunes. They don't know what they're missing! She composes these outrageous new ballads from her dreams. Mystical one verse, absurd the next. She gets lost in composing for days sometimes... like Leaf in her maps and stars.

jungle with hanging flowers. Atoll, an equine girl, sits playing a spiral harp. Leaf, a small feline girl, hides in a tree. Gray, a canine/feline/lemur mix, dances to the right.
Leaf weaving a reedfeather staff for trade.


It's up to me to drag them back into life and adventure. A volcano's job--to spice the soil with ash, spice life with a little chaos sauce.

I don't apologize for how plain we look. We make fine ornaments but we don't wear them. No flash and glitter. We're unpopular girls. No one to impress.

You might conclude we're poor.

You might be wrong.

For months, Atoll and Leaf and I have been doing crafts and odd jobs, saving up to outfit our own boat, so we can explore the Edge of the World.

No, not a real edge of course, we know the world's a ball (though my grandma tells me the Forest Folk two days inland still have a secret society called the Flat-Earth Cult. No surprise, they're all dumb as frogs in there).

Our village is metal-poor, so things look stone age, but don't be fooled: we're good biologists and ecologists. Other species are lovingly tended (especially if they taste good). Finding a new species wins you a LOT of respect--and we three plan to do it.

We want to sail unknown tropical seas--and incidentally get away from our relatives.

View of the village, with Gray naked on her steps, stringing shells, watching decked-out couples heading for a dance
teenage Fisher couple in party outfits

Coming-of-age quests are nothing unusual, in our town, for boys. If you return, you're a man; if you find a new species or island or fishing bank, you're a hero.

If you don't come back, well, better to lose you now, before you have dimwit cubs. The science elders call it "The survival of the fit test."

But they make fun of us girls for wanting to sail! We're "unfeminine" to work so much and save up our credit--we should spend it on ornaments and dances like normal girls.

One reason we don't go to their parties is that our age-mates snub us--we're below their tideline. But they buy Leaf's featherweaves and my shell jewelry! Even Atoll--when she plays at their dances some people actually tip her a pearl or two like she's not a guest! And she swallows her anger and takes that!

It's for the boat. The boat out.

Atoll getting tipped at a party for her harping
We finally saved enough to buy this beat-up old fishing boat. The boat-wrights wouldn't give us advice, like they give the boys. "Girls CAN'T sail all the way to the Tropic Edge. You're hard-working cubs; we won't help you die."

So we fix it up ourselves. I don't mind. It's best to know every hair of your own boat.

Boys in trees taunt us three, as we scour the upturned hull of our boat
Leaf working under the boat.

Some of the boys come out and taunt us. I think they're scared: if we come back with news of a new island or species, it's one less for them to find. We're competitors now--I wouldn't even put it past a few of them to sabotage our boat.

Still... it's pleasant working out here under the sky, away from the old termite mound and all its gossips.

Scraping off limpets I feel like a nursling cub again--tiny on the huge breast of Mother Boat. Shaggy with mussel shells though--scratchier than fur.And not much milk!

Or a lover--boat rolled over purring like a boy who likes you--the keel between my thighs, sun-warmed. Mmm. My own mate! One I can scrape the sharp bits off--the attitudes, the catty remarks... sorry!

The boys here don't want me--at least the way I am.

And I am the way I am.

The popular girls would claw my daydreams to splinters if I were stupid enough to tell them. Boat breasts, lover keels! Silly, useless.

testing the boat in the lagoon. But they're wrong. Dreams keep you working when there's tar on your fur again, and some boy laughing at you up a tree.

Or at least they help me.

We righted the hull, retied the deck, stepped the mast, and the old beast floated, stable and seaworthy. The village gossips just retreated one step. Now it's "Girls are too weak for deepsea sailing, and they can't do the math to navigate on such a long journey."

Right. Leaf's only better than Master Glasseye.

We stock up for the voyage as best we can. nervous, hearing their judgments we're sick, suicidal cubs. Funny how physical things all cooperate, as if Sea Mother welcomes us. The only difficult headwind blows from the mouths of our agemates, and their elders... It's hard to ignore everyone saying you're doomed.

And then, one day, there's no more delaying. Leap in the water, risking death, or live here, safe, in shame.

We untie the rope and raise the sail... As we cross the inlet, the village never looked so good. I feel pretty charitable toward the old fish barrel, now that we're leaping over the lip.

Leaving home. Half the village gawks, from stilthouse roofs, landings and canoes. Some laugh; some throw rotten fruit.
Then I hear my own Aunt Ragged shout from our stilt house "Come back! You're going to die!"

Thanks for your support, I think. What a relief to leave you all!

Some cubs throw rotten mangos. But... most DON'T. I thought ALL our agemates hissed at what we're doing! Maybe we have silent friends--just with more to lose than we do.

Now we HAVE to come back alive--to find out.

Oh squid guts! It was easier thinking they all hate us!

A boy throws bad fruit at us from a landing, but his sister drops her mango quietly in the water
Hunting new lands is easier than new friends. When you find an island, you KNOW: you can't dance on water! But silent cubs--what are they? Shifting sandbars, soft tidal mud? Or a rich reef, hiding just under those surface girls with all their flash and glitter--a reef of support I never noticed?

VOYAGE

I jump for joy on the deck, as Atoll steers and Leaf sprawls, confidently marking our chart--shy no more.

dancing for delight, amid the iridescent flying fish

We sail southwest at first, through the settled isles.

Joyous days! Pale blue sky, green water, clouds reflecting the land- and sea-colors on their shaded bellies, white as shells above. I can breathe free, swing my tail without some boy grabbing it and sniffing at my girl-flower.

I can plant my hind legs far apart and stretch and HOWL, and my mom's not here to hiss and bat my whiskers and tell me I'm unfeminine.

Cares drop away under the horizon, with the mainland. Tired at night, but a good tired.

I can't recall exactly how those birds looked, just huge and sort of prehistoric, so I drew them like giant brown pelicans, the most pterodactylian birds on the sea-coast where I live when I'm human, on earth.

I also left off all the rigging on our boat--there were lots of ropes, but when I woke I couldn't figure where they all went--they just looked cluttered. I just didn't want you to think it was some senseless dream-boat. It was properly rigged.

It's just my memory that isn't.

No. That's not true. I remember the essentials. Exploring vast horizons. Friendship. Rebellion.

Freedom!

Freedom!

Freedom!

Leaf and Atoll seem happy too. Atoll sings like a spirit all day--new songs! I curl up happy next to them in the hut at night, or on deck if the stars are out. When the moons are up, the mast shines like a wish-bone. Why can't I sleep? What's my secret wish?

I love sailing with them, I wish I could forever. I wish I could express how much I love Atoll and Leaf--my aunts seem like that only about their mates. I wish I could marry them, marry them both. But our tongue lacks any word for it, our grammar won't say it.

Moonlit deck. We all nest together, purring in a great coil of rope. Only I wake up, suddenly very aware of my girl friends snuggled up to me.
Do I want to marry at all, is that the root of my rebellion? I carefully paddle around that snag of an idea--unthinkable in our village. To marry is our sacred duty. We have to have our four children--one for sickness, one for the sea, and two to carry on. Even though sickness takes so few, now that we know biology.

We'll smell as popular as citrus if we find the ruins--enough to choose our own mates, not settle for arranged marriages. I want that more than anything--not that there's a boy I love, but I have to find one who'll let me travel and break custom and do things with my girl friends too. The freest life I can imagine... with the mind-tools I was given.

Until we found... what we found.

Sleepless, I stare across the predawn sea toward cumulus hinting at land ahead
Leaf, the lightest, up the mast, spying reefs and passages.


As the ocean turns so blue it's almost black, miles deep, and the swells stretch so far apart they're like horizons, we get a bit subdued: it really IS a small boat to go so far into the deep.

Most explorers sail much larger, better-crewed ships. But we gambled a tiny one was better for our quest: we're stalking an old myth of a labyrinth of reefs and channels, whose heart hides a secret: huge, alien ruins rising from the water--an ancient, drowned, high-tech city!

Weeks pass. At last, far to the southeast, we find a promising tangle of reefs, never charted. We squirm through narrow turquoise passages for two days, mapping carefully. On the third day, great rocks rise from the water.

Shaped rocks.

Eroded concrete columns!

The legend's true. What a find, what a find!

Many walls are still intact, rising from the shallows. One great hall's nearly complete, though it's open to the sky. Its oval wall cups a wide pond, like a sky-pearl in the Queen of Clams.

The ancient gate is now a cliff-lined narrows. We glide through the arch with just paws to spare--glad now our boat's as small as a clitoris. No boy-size ship could have gotten in.

We chose right!

Our boat just slips through a slit in the rocks, into the heart of the drowned city.
Munching a cress leaf, I muse on the legend of magic shoes that can walk on water.


The pond is rain-fed: brackish but drinkable. It's choked with a green weed we've never seen. Round leaves. It smells like a giant watercress. Tastes sweet and spicy--real crop potential! Is it a feral survivor from an ancient alien garden?

A new species as well as a new land! We put samples in a water-gourd to take home.

One of my sandals falls overboard, but the leaves are so thick it can't sink. Bladders on the stems make them nearly as buoyant as kelp-trees. The sandal bobbing on the water's face reminds me of that old legend of a shaman who could pull fish from the air and walk on water. Here, the soup's so dense you almost might.

Could the old myth have been handed down from this place? From the aliens, even? Who were they, I wonder? Wonder-workers, certainly. Why not levitating fish-wizards?

Hmm.. I just thought of a delicious eco-niche. Even fish-multiplying shamans need someone to eat their miracles! Or they pile up and stink... I'd be useful, as a miracle-eater--like a shrimp grooming those pesky parasites off bass... cleaning up those unwanted wonders, that annoying abundance!

Maybe there IS a free lunch.

(Uh-oh, eco-heresy again. Leave THAT fantasy out of my logbook!)

I sprawl on a great lilypad, letting an ancient wizard conjure a rainbow of fish right into my open mouth.
Motion in the water! I panic for a moment. Wait, I'm an explorer, a biologist... Be brave. I lean out over the weed and look closely. It's a creature nearly as big as Leaf, with wrinkled skin, pale periwinkle-blue. A freshwater porpoise--and a SECOND new species! Its shape is very strange: instead of a sleek smiling spindle with a tail, its dwarfed body splits into long flat eely legs twining thru the pondweed. It looks like a chromosome, so we name it Blue Genes.
I drop to all fours and hiss, and Leaf climbs the mast in panic, as we spot a fierce, blue, toothy creature.
Are its skinny twining legs an adaptation to the dense weed-forest? Our distant relatives the treecats are smaller than us, the better to climb and slip between trees. Their cramped environment leads to a cramped brain, too--small thoughts!

I've always suspected that ports and shores, where worlds and eco-zones meet, places with choices and elbow room, are the richest niches for big brains and new thoughts. Here we're on a shore of time, where the present meets a deep current upwelling from the past. Fertile water! I suspect if we stay here long, we'll find things to really stretch our brains.

And then the boys we'll really think we're plain! Swollen brains, ugh. They'd rather have a swollen flower all the time.

Gray, catch yourself! Do you think they're opposites? That's how they talk. I want both. Brain hot with good ideas and girl-flower hot with good desire, thank you. Opposites? Sssssssss.

You can sail away from home, but they stow away inside you, those village voices. Relatives. Remoras. Pry those suckers loose!

Prying remoras off each other. Talking remoras. They say, in native glyphs, 'Be good! Go home! Get married! Have cubs!'
One advantage of being an unpopular girl is that you have time to read a lot. Deep in my memory-pool are the tangled stalks of a thousand legends and dreams--and they tell me this whole scene's ominous. What a conveniently opaque pond--in any epic, it'd exist to hide some kind of dragon--a porpoise-eating monster who'll see Gray the fishergirl as a new flavor. Big jaws will erupt from the water--the plot just requires it now! Treasures have guardians. There's SOME reason no one's returned with news of this place.

But I don't WANT to be a free lunch! I hate literary tension! Adventure is more fun when it's just squid ink on bark. I want my happiness risk-free, thank you.

Me on my stomach in the meadow, reading a round book, another at my side. A butterfly hovers, lured by the color illustrations.
Yet the ancient storypatterns nag me--the deadly quest, the forbidden castle, the frightful guardian... so I tense for the white explosion. But nothing attacks.

Yet my dragon-bell keeps bonging--I'm SURE there's a monster hiding here! Is this only fear? Or... memory? Did I dream of this place? I do dream the future, now and then. Maybe I KNOW it's a dragon's lair. I don't have intuitions this strong for nothing.

I picture a sea-dragon swallowing Atoll, as Leaf jams an oar down its throat.
At last I get tired of dangling on the fish-hook and propose we land near the only standing tower. If the monster won't come to Gray, Gray will come to the monster!

Leaf is scared, but reluctantly agrees. Atoll steers us through winding channels in the pond-jungle to a little beach on the far side, under a fallen part of the wall that looks climbable.

We're going dragon-hunting.

I cringe on the prow as fantasy monsters erupt from the water
I hop into the shallows, startling a pink waterbird.


We land on a beach of rubble across the pond. Fern-trees loom, twitching like the tails of giant green fishercats curled up dreaming, with just their rumps sticking out.

So tropical and mysterious. Like nothing back home--though we can't get the discovery-credit for them, they're known from plenty of nearer tropical atolls.

Still, they're new to me. And so beautiful.

And O! The magenta toothed herons! And great dragonflies, twice the size of home. Little skittery lizards I can barely see, they're so fast. Just green on green.

Above us is a low crumbled spot in the wall near the ruined tower. It must be taller than any tree in the world! I want to climb it and see what the builders saw, so long ago.

Leaf's the lightest, and the best climber, so she goes first up the wall. At the top she hisses in wonder, and won't tell us what's there, even when Atoll, guarding the boat, complains.

She'll only whisper "Just come see for yourself."

I scrabble up to the low point.

On the far side of the wall is a broad stone terrace just above the water.

And on that terrace...

Leaf and I scramble up the overgrown wall; Atoll, straddling the bow, toes in the water, asks what we see.
A dragon in red sun-goggles emerges from the silver clam.

...a giant silver clam, with crystal eyes! It's nearly as big as our fishing ship.

A sky-boat!

No barnacles either--it's no relic of the city-builders, but a living ship! Someone from a farther isle than ours has landed on this shore. Are they the ones who built the old city? Can they conjure fish and walk on water?

I have to meet them, these sky-sailors. I scramble down the far side of the wall, and sidle up to the glittering shell. Leaf, always shy, stays up on the gap. As I reach the clam, one eye blinks, becomes a door.

And a monster crawls out! Big, scaly, with spines and sharp jaws--the dragon I foolishly insisted we find.

Now what have I gotten us into?

I stand my ground--and the monster speaks. He (she? But he looked bold and toothy like a boy, so I'll call him that. Maybe they have other sexes. I thought it'd be rude to ask) he isn't that big a dragon, and not especially fierce. Friendly, in fact. I have a wonderful talk with him, over tea.

He's a lot like us--a tourist enjoying the romance of the ruins. His people usually travel alone, in these little clam clouds. They're legendary on many worlds, and sensible people always deny they're real, since a swarm of little sky-boats skipping around senselessly, never trading or swapping data with the local elders--well, it's economically absurd.

But profit's not everything. Once you get to know a dragon, their skittishness DOES make psychological sense. They're easy-going, they can't stand quarrels, and they won't take orders. So when they just can't agree, they LEAVE, and each do what they please. So most of their vast population is scattered around this galactic arm. Oh, they pretend to be traders and scientists and explorers, but really, the wind that blows them isn't profit, or even curiosity.

They're just out for some emotional whisker room.

Like certain unpopular girls.

Tea with the alien dragon, sitting by his saucer. Leaf, shy again, hides behind her tail.
I sure like this dragon. His story inspires me to steer my own life, not follow my village's tradewind. I was bred for meekness, but now I know we don't HAVE to obey the elders. Other lives pull and tickle me, like my girl-flower in heat.

But this itch is deeper. My freedom is itching.

The dragon shows me a microbe living here in the pond. Says it's his gift to me, a souvenir--a third species of life we can claim credit for. "It's already infected you. It's not harmful, though. You'll get a bit more sensitive to ultraviolet--you may burn your nose when the tropic sun is high, so learn to wear a hat. But in exchange, the microbe lets you control your own fertility! You'll only get pregnant if you will it, and mate over and over for days."

Giggling, I raise my tail to the sun and let its sperm-rays thrust inside me, confident I won't impregnate: a dragon in me gobbles up its sperm. I wear a wide hat, like the ring round a gas-planet, like a flying clam. Its brim bears glyphs saying 'Enjoy the warmth, but don't get burned.'
It does something else useful if I ever sail in the sky like him--something about falling freely without getting sea-sick? No, I've forgotten, it made little sense to me. No matter, I guess, since I'll never use that feature. Because... I turned down his offer to go along with him and see the galaxy.
Offered the galaxy, I picture a husband I don't want, versus a silver clam with me at the tiller, or me shining at alien parties, landing on other worlds, and being loved by a dragon. But then, my dragon kissing a girl of his own kind, me as his alien pet. And Atoll and Leaf, who I'd never see again.
Oh, I was so tempted. He was sweet, not like the boys back home. But I have to go back for my friends' sake--and out of a stupid sense of duty to my people. Our peninsula is so overcrowded, due to our Sacred Obligation to have four cubs. No doubt it made sense back before biology, when we didn't understand sanitation, and half our cubs died--but now? This bug will let us choose our own fertility, and it's the ideal contraceptive: built in, so the husbands can't take it away. Can't make us obey!

You know, I suspect the dragon didn't "find" this bug, but cooked it up somehow, after hearing my story. A very kind trick, if it is one.

So we set sail...

BACK

Our ritual in the Great Hall. We sit on the red round rug and show our finds: lost city, blue genes, alien cress, contraceptive bug. Three judges in the foreground glare and confer. The audience behind us is already arguing.

Half the village crowds into Great Hall to see our discoveries. Or maybe just us. Girls too stingy and ugly to die! Atoll overhears two girls behind her whisper 'Why'd she get involved with THEM?'

We sit on the Red Round Rug, and show our finds: lost city, blue genes, alien cress, contraceptive bug. I purr with pride as we present the Elders with the ritual samples of THREE new species. Just finding the legendary ruins is a huge coup, but those three species... it's lemon on our oysters! Sweet vindication, after they swore we'd sink an hour from shore.

Atoll and I overhear two fans of her music whispering "Why'd she get involved with THEM?" I feel a sudden surprise, realizing that all along, she may have played down her popularity, for our sake: but the truth is, she, like me, could've dumped her friends and had another life.

The judges glare skeptically, as I present our finds. When I explain that the blue bowl, with, apparently, plain brackish water in it, is a sample of a contraceptive bug that we can breed and give to all, they order the ritual halted!

This is unprecedented. The ritual is our time, not theirs to interrupt!

But they do it. The three confer, in low growls and mutters, for a long time...

Behind me, I can hear the debate-storm rising, already...

A teen perched on the windowsill of the Great Hall tells her mom she's choosing the Bug. Her mom says 'You're too young to decide; what if you stay barren?'
A daughter begs her conservative dad for permission to use the contraceptive bug. Girls whisper to their friends "do you want this contraceptive bug?"

"Will they punish us for it?"

"Can we hide it?"

But as family groups start taking side, the argument is cut off.

The oldest of the Three Judges stands and howls for silence. Slowly, the arguments subside as he glares at us all. Only when the silence is absolute does he declare the Elders' Decision.

"These three, who have made themselves barren, and would spread their illness among us, are soiled, diseased, neuter, not real women, unfit for any mate...

"Therefore, we, the elders, cast them out.

"They are banished forever."

I wish I'd run off with the dragon in his shining clam. I'd be a savage out there, maybe just a pet--but I'd have learned a lot, and maybe, eventually, won their respect. At least their minds were open. Instead, I'm stuck here, cheated by the Elders.

Shall I sail meekly off into exile? No.

This isn't for me alone. Other girls need this. I'll tell them all! Even the ones who make my bristles rise? The rotten mango girls? Yes, even them.

I'm fighting back--and I won't be alone.
Leaf's dad always backs her up. He leans and watches calmly, despite the elders' outrage. I begin my mission; let pups and teens lick me and nurse from me, to get the contraceptive bug.

We stay that night in Leaf's house, for her father welcomes her back (her mom is dead). He's always supported her; I've always envied her a bit, having been raised by Aunt Ragged and her mate, who hardly seem to know my name. Leaf's dad cheerfully defies the ban, saying half the village disagrees with it, and it'll take time for the pot to boil over. He suggests we move into the old stilthouse just around the point--technically outside the village, but within an easy paddle.

Compared to the real issues, I suppose it's just a waterbug by a barge, but I have to admit I look forward to having all our village beauties coming to me in their moonday best--feather crests and fringed sashes and shell bracelets I made but couldn't afford to keep--all coming to US, who they ignored--to pet me and lick me all over and nurse at my breast and sleep in my arms--to catch my shame, my unfemininity.

And maybe more than that is catching.

Is pleasing yourself a disease?

Oh, I'll have fun. Maybe not as much fun as sailing the stars with a crazy dragon in a silver clam, but here in exile, I'll make what fun I can.

It'll be civil war, I expect. The women and the men, or more likely the young and old. But the elders chose this. They could have just accepted us.

They bred us to obey. That's why I came back, you know--I was a good little fisher girl. I brought back my catch to share.

Now they'll have to learn to live with it.

And me.

Our new lodge, where girls come bearing gifts, to make love with us and catch the contraceptive bug.


THE ANSWERS

A NOTE ON DREAMS

Dreamworlds are real. I've always dreamed other lives--solid, coherent, clear. The vague choppy experiences you call dreams sound like bad TV reception, or the surf-zone between land and sea. If you just keep going out through the foam and chaos--the roar of static--you reach a vast stable realm dotted with other lands as solid as your own. But most of you turn back, due to your alarm clocks (thank capitalism) or your fear that dreams are spooky and crazy (thank the witch hunts). My spontaneous soul-travel and clear recall may be partly a genetic quirk, like perfect pitch, but partly privilege--my life's safe and quiet, I have the free time to cultivate dreams. But learning to read takes time too--does that make literacy an elitist indulgence? Dreaming's an art worth making time for. When I do get tired and stressed from busyness, I lose touch and get surf-zone dreams like Americans. Lousy reception! That's all your dreamnesia is.
The sea of dreams. From sunning and sketching on the beach of waking, I dive into the surf zone and swim out beyond, where spacetime islands beckon.

A NOTE ON THE STORY

This tale isn't based on a dream--it IS a dream. Oh, I invented a little--filled in details I forgot, made up names. But the plot's straight from my dream journal. I was Gray. I drew her voyage during a long lonely year when I was single and not even dating. I poured all my frustrated sensuality into the art. It helped, too: I'm less apologetic about my need for love, sex, touch, and play. And respect. And freedom. Don't you apologize either--no matter how much our fundamentalist elders hiss!

A NOTE ON THE PICTURES

Most of my art's been comix--crowded little panels. This tale grew from a hunger to try full-page pictures. What elbow room! It's all pencil--the lines mostly 0.5mm mechanical pencil, the gray textures a fat, flat artist's pencil rubbed over the bumpy cover of an old binder. Roughed out each page till it smudged up, then traced the good bits onto clean paper and drew more. Traced them on a plexiglass square over a hole cut in an old card table, with a desk lamp shining up through it.

For this Web edition: I had no scanner, so I photographed them with a friend's borrowed digital camera, corrected any distortion in Photoshop 3, then sharpened, increased their contrast, and tinted them using the airbrush tool set on "color", so it couldn't darken or lighten, only tint things 10% or so. More looked lurid.

A NOTE ON THE AUTHOR

Wayan is the common field name for a shy herbivorous mammal endemic to the warmer hill slopes of the San Francisco Peninsula. This delicate and graceful creature is little seen, though it nests even in cities. Whether it's native or a feral offshoot of the common western shaman is still uncertain. Its song varies greatly, mimicking other species. Treated gently it makes a loyal and intelligent pet, but must be allowed to graze, as it cannot thrive on human food. The species spends two-thirds of its life sleeping, dreaming, and drawing dream-cartoons.

A NOTE OF THANKS

  • Xanthe, a dream-artist I know, urged me to write and draw this dream (and others).
  • Lily (fabric artist), Zooop (web artist) and Dawn Z. (painter, sculptor) all critiqued my layouts. Dawn posed for sketches too--she's basically a lemur.
  • Locales and plants: the rocks, pools, and fern-trees are mostly from Golden Gate Park and the Sutro Ruins in San Francisco.
  • The boat's passage thru the rocks is based on a surrealist painting, "The Boat," by Ithell Colquhoun, though it's less explicitly sexual than the original.
  • Michelangelo deserves a credit. You can see why.
  • So does the anonymous cave painter of Le Sorcier, the oldest known depiction of a shaman.
  • Li Gardiner (builder of Artist Resource, the webguide for artists) lent me Thomas Easley's book The Figure in Motion. Unlike most figure-drawing books, its models are wild nude dancers caught with a flash in mid-air. Drawing them as lemur people was a challenge, but great fun.

    DEDICATION

    To all dreamers and sexually uncertain teens everywhere, straight or gay. To find things out, you have to set sail. Use contraceptives: "enjoy the warmth, but don't get burned."

    And to Easley's models--all anonymous, in this sex-scorning, body-hating age. May the wheel turn!

    Gray, Atoll, and Leaf walk hand in hand down a path into a fern-forest, and are gone.


    LISTS AND LINKS: recurring dreams - other worlds - forests - I'm Just Not Myself Today - cross-gender dreams - cross-species dreams - dream beings - animal people - cats - coyotes - horses - lemurs, other primates - loners - gender - boats & sailing - cleanups - lesbians - out of the closet! - joy - mazes & labyrinths - plants - taste and smell - dragons - fear - aliens - flying saucers - gifts - diseases - light - outcasts! - sex dreams - lesbian sex - love - sexy creatures - hunks - babes - goals & values - social change - community - healing from abuse - politics - power - top- & underdogs - quests - life-paths - comix - pencil - another dreamer saw the Fishergirls before I did: Trespassers in Malanchai - a 2nd dream inspired by Shirley Rousseau Murphy's "Nightpool": Fox Boy

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