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Gas Torches, A Dream ... April 29, 2005
i have what other people would call "nightmares" more than i have pleasant dreams. most of the time, these nightmares are hardly remembered fizzles of blurry terror, full of wide, cattish eyes, my own screams, unnamed horrors reaching out from the dim reaches of my own subconsious and doing things to me which are so fiendishly terrible, i only want to forget that i ever created them. but on occasion, an actual story that is even engrossing enough to remember vividly pours out of my unconscious brain, and it is made all the more extraordinary because it came from within myself and yet was not something i consciously tried to create. these special dreams are my own terrors poured out like fingerpaints on my mental canvas in a seemingly random manner that suddenly bend and mold themselves into something recoginseable, almost as if they are conscious of the picture they are creating without my having to partipate at all.
Our car breaks down as my family (mother, father, brother and myself) heads back from a camping trip in the mountains. We remember that, somewhere, several miles up the road near the foot of the mountain, is a small town that has a garage with a tow truck. We walk to town, easy going since it's all down hill and the sun's gone behind the misty storm clouds that are starting to gather. The boys go with the mechanic back up the mountain to take a look at our car and decide if it needs to be towed or not. While they're gone, my mother and I wonder around the odd little town's downtown block. It's a funny little place, with those old victorian style gas torches poking up out of the sidewalk every twenty feet or so. We examine the torches, wondering why they haven't been taken down like in most other towns that used to have them back in the fossil fuel boom days. We get our fill of the ornate but flameless torches and find a diner, thinking to have a snack. We notice that the diner also seems to have miniature versions of the gas torches every couple of feet along the walls. Otherwise, it's a normal small town diner that looks like it was converted from an old house's entry room into an eatery. We ask the waitress about these torches that seem to be everywhere, and she tells us that they're still used on occasion because the power has a way of flickering off in times of bad weather. She tells us that once, all the old villages in the area used these torches for light, before electric lights became all the rage, but that most of them have taken the torches and their accompanying pipelines out because the largest part of the natural gas deposit that used to occupy the soil at the foot of the mountain has been used up. She goes on to explain that there is still a small amount down there beneath this particular town, just enough to supply them with lights when the power goes out once or twice a year. We have our meal in the otherwise empty room, talking in low voices to eachother of torches and our poor, dead car. After paying, we leave to explore some of the other shops while we wait, planning to meet the boys back up at the mechanic's garage in another hour. Now, the storm clouds are threatening rain, and the sky is terrible and dark. Flashes of lightening crisscross the sky at regular intervals. We wander here and there, looking in shop windows. No one seems to really be around, not a surprise considering the impending storm. Nothing really interests us much until we come to a funny little shop. Although it's got huge sheet glass windows that wrap around the entire front of it, the only window visible from the street is a side window. The displays therein show that it is a women's clothing shop, though the clothing on display seems to be not of the sort usually sold in modern independant clothing shops. There is no door on the sidewalk and the other windows of the shop all look out upon an ill-lit hallway that leads away from the street. We follow the windows and find the door at the end of the hallway. Within are the most curious items of clothing, what would today be considered costumes, the sort of dresses you might expect to see in a production of The King and I, not in a tiny shop in the middle of a one stoplight town. Though some of the clothing near the front of the shop is designed in the modern style, sleek, few details or ruffles, bright colors, but the entire rear of the sales floor is populated by handmade dresses whose stylings seem to date back to victorian times. Deeply colored dresses, none alike but each marvelously beautiful, hang displayed with their massive ruffles flung out invitingly, each in it's own wood paneled indent in the wall. Another odd thing about this place is that it seems to be the only business in town with patrons other than us. It's positively crowded with women, all carefully looking over the ornate frills of the beautiful and unique works of wearable art. My mother inquires about the owner of the place with one of these women, and she points us towards a heavy looking oakwood desk situated at an angle in the back corner, where a man can be seen ringing up purchases on an antique mechanical cash register. He looks more like a butler than a shop owner, dressed in a pompous black tailed suit with a black bowtie. By the expression on his face, he seems positively disgusted with his customers, all lower class labor's wives by the look of their sun bleached and tattered clothing. From across the sales floor, he must sense us looking at him, because his head suddenly tilts towards us and his eyes sparkle in interest. He leans over and speaks to a woman standing nearby, his wife or perhaps just a hired clerk, and she takes his place at the register. His sour expression parts the sea of women standing in line, and he makes an arrow straight bee-line for us. He speaks to us before we can ask him a single question. His voice is deep and entrancing, despite the note of vanity I detect beneath it. He introduces himself as Mr. Smithson and asks us if we are new in town. My mother explains about the car, and he smiles a mysterious and slightly mischievious smile at her. She asks him where he gets his lovely dresses, and he explains to her that he makes them all himself save for the clothing of modern design at the front of the store, which his wife orders wholesale from a factory in China. He explains this last part to us with an expression of utter disgust, as if he believes the presence of these factory made cloths is somehow dirtying and cheapening these dresses which he has put so much of his own soul into. I understand this without him having to say it out loud. He has pride in these things as a mother has in her children, and despises the grubby hands of farm laborors that constantly feel them over. He is a protective father of a beautiful and naive daughter who can do nothing as all the men in town oogle and whistle at her as she walks down the street with him. His mischievious grin returns. He offers to allow us to view his private collection, even try some of them on as we like. He tells us that he can tell we are not mere labor's wives with grubby hands. My mother blushes a little, embarassed that the customers nearby might have heard him calling them mere labor's wives, but none of them seem to have heard him. They are all too engrossed in the hypnotic shimmer of the frills of silk and fur that are splayed out so envitingly over the walls of the shop to pay him any mind. Perhaps he always speaks so lowly of them, who knows? I realize that I couldn't blame them for ignoring his snooty attitude in order to continue to shop with these articles of clothing glowing and dancing round them like lovely silk-clad angels. My mother tells him we aren't anything special, just common people like the rest. He smiles knowingly at her, the crooked toothed smile of a shark. Nonetheless, he tells her, we are invited to see his private collection, as we are obviously of a high enough caliber women to really appreciate it. We can't refuse though we both are obviously uncomfortable at being so complimented by a man who hardly knows us. He leads us to a door along a side wall of the shop and down a hallway. We emerge in a high ceilinged room positively coated with writhing wooden carvings of men, women, animals, all playing, smiling, running. The dresses hung once again each in their own nook are absolutely breathtaking. I feel as if I should be obligated to kneel upon entering a temple whose walls are draped with such beauties as these. My mother and I both gasp and cling to one another. Hundreds of angels from the highest choir seem to peer down at us from their places upon the walls. My mother stutters to Mr. Smithson that she is simply amazed that he would even let us touch, let alone try on such exquisitely perfect articles of clothing. He smiles and tells her that he knew we would appreciate his private collection, then leaves us to wonder over these masterpieces for ourselves. Except for a few dim, naked bulbs in cheaply rigged sockets scattered about the room, the bulk of the light is coming from a fireplace near the door where we entered and a massive high-domed veranda window that reaches from the ceiling down to the hardwood floors. At the moment, the light coming from the window is dim except for when the lightening flashes. The lightening illuminates a wide, rectangular courtyard, maybe half a football field in length and lined with porcelain white statues, all at least six feet tall. The back and left walls of the perfectly level grassy yard are walled in by the rough hewn rock of the mountian. Over a white stone railing to the right, I can see the sun is setting and I realize we must be late meeting the boys back at the garage, but I don't want to leave this place just yet. After our initial awe passes, my mother and I rush forward together towards the closest wall. The time must be passing especially fast, because the sky through the window is deep purple now, nearly black. I am feeling nearly dizzy, and having trouble deciding which one of these masterpieces to slip into first. My mother, though, has already slipped out of her jeans and t-shirt and is reaching up towards a dress decorated with deep ruddy maroon and yellow ruffles. That's when the lights flicker on and off and we both freeze. I can hear the rain beginning to fall in the courtyard. My mother giggles a little at the start it gave us both and then sits down on a nearby bench and slides her feet into the neck of the dress. She asks me to come fasten up the back of the thing. I walk over and wrestle with the buttons up the back of the dress. It's a little small for her, but we manage to finally get her all done up and she spins around to face me. She looks like a queen. She smiles and runs her hands through the golden ruffles that flow in a v-shape down the bosom of the dress. I can hear the seams of the stressed fabric creaking slightly. I tell her we ought to get her out of the thing before it bursts. That's when the electric bulbs here and there in the room go out for good, plunging us into near darkness. I hear my mother shreiking, but I can't see her just yet because my eyes haven't adjusted to the flickery light from the fireplace. My mother is screaming like she's being attacked by some beast. I reach around in the dark, knowing she was just a foot or two away from me before the lights went out so suddenly, and my hands strike something huge and warm and soft. She's screaming incoherently, and as my eyes adjust, I begin to see why. Somehow, some way, she's suddenly grown fat, and not just a few measly pounds heavier, no. She looks to have gained over three hundred pounds in the last three seconds. Her newly added body mass is oozing and jiggling from the neck and sleeves of the entirely too small dress, stretching her skin painfully. She's unsuccessfully struggling to reach behind herself and release the fasteners down the back. I can hear the fabric rending from every fatty roll on her body. Then there is a polite knock on the door. I blink and my mother is back to normal, wide eyed and breathing heavily, but otherwise standing there looking very beautiful in the maroon dress. The store owner's voice can be heard on the other side of the door, asking if we are both alright. I answer for the both of us, as my mother still seems to be unable. He asks if we are both decent. I look back at my mother and then tell him yes. He asks if it would be alright if he came in to light the gas lamps. I open the door for him and he moves silently about with a long kitchen match, turning on gas nozzles and lighting the invisible hissing streams of pressurized gas that come out of each. Before he slips out, he asks if we have been enjoying ourselves. I tell him yes and he slides out of the partially opened door as if he is made of liquid. I shut the door behind him and spin around to look at my mother. She's sitting down, looking at her hands, obviously a bit shaken. I ask her if she's alright and she tells me in a quaking voice that she needs help getting out of the dress. I rush over and unfasten her. We don't talk aloud about what we just saw. I start to wonder if it was just a trick played by the light of the fireplace, a hallucination brought on by the stress of being in this strange little town where the lights flicker and the downtown shop owners have temples dedicated to dressmaking and massive grassy courtyards filled with giant palid white statues in their back rooms. I wonder whether she was merely frightened by the lights going out so suddenly. I can't believe what I just saw and am simply unsure whether it would be wise to frighten my mother by telling her. So we both choose another dress to try on and sit upon separate benches with our backs to eachother. Now I'm almost certain I was the only one who saw that grotesque display of a few minutes ago. I know I wouldn't be putting another one of these things on if it had done something like that to me. My bench faces the big picture window. I hold my feet up in the air so I can get them into the neck of the dress I picked to try on. I can see that the courtyard is lined with seven statues, three up each of the long sides of the rectangles and one in a central location at the far end of the yard. The six side statues are human figures, all the same height, most likely male and each slightly different from the others, though I am unable to discern exactly what it is that they are supposed to depict. The central statue, occasionally illuminated by flashes of lightening, is the largest and most interesting of the seven. It is made to resemble one of those happy-sad masks that are used as the symbol of theater. In this case, it is the weeping mask. Atop this frightening effigy is the figure of a female ballet dancer in mid piroet (sp?). She looks graceful and thin, like a swan made of flower stems. I find myself wondering how a figure this fragile looking could withstand even the slightest bit of wind or rain. She looks like her graceful stone body would shatter if you were to even lay a hand on her. By this time I have wormed my way into the soft interior of the dress and I stand to ask my mother if she will fasten me up. Though I did not hear her move, she is now on the opposite side of the room, hunching over something on a heavy looking desk. She calls me over. On the desk is a tiny replica of the central statue outside. Every detail is to scale, and the model looks so real I wonder whether it could be made of that whitish stone as well. I smile at my mother. It is a beautiful thing, to be sure, though perhaps just a bit too unearthly looking to deserve being displayed so casually as it is. I turn and point behind us to show her the larger version of the thing in the courtyard and feel my heart start up my throat. The statue is now closer, much closer, than it was before. Now the thing seems to have moved, all on it's own, to the direct center of the yard, coming at least a hundred feet closer in the thirty seconds I had my back to it. My mother, not seeing the look on my face in the dim light of the gas torches, tells me it's a very beautiful statue indeed. Flashing lightening reveals every detail of the weeping mask. It looks threatening now that it stands so large and close, with hollow eyes and an angry mouthful of the mountainous rock wall showing through from behind it. I grab my mother's arm and she looks at me. I shout at her, without any explanation as to what's got me so upset, "Mother, it's coming closer!" She jumps back, probably not expecting my reaction to her comment to be so wide eyed and frantic. Without futher discussion, she begins to undo the buttons down the back of my dress. When she finishes, we both whirl around and I quickly undo her buttons. We pull off the dresses and scramble for our cloths on the dark, firelit floor. But we can't find them. They have somehow become lost in the dark. I see flashes of light outside the windows facing the courtyard. Lightening striking somewhere on the mountain side. The statue is horribly close now, only a few feet from the glass french doors that, in warmer, more friendly weather, would have been thrown open to let the breeze in. I praise any deity I can conjure that the doors are firmly locked against the rain and whatever else might be lurking about tonight. Certain otherworldly statues come to mind. The lightening flash is a sustained one, but just a split second before it goes, the statue flashes out of my vision, dissapearing completely. The rain is quieting now, it was just a passing summer storm, I guess. My mother and I have been sitting on the cold floor of the gas-lit room with the blue flames reflecting off of our faces as we clung to eachother, wearing the only clothing besides the dresses that we still had, our underwear. With a humming sound, the electric lights flick back to life. Our cloths, are on the floor right where we left them, not even an arm's length from us on the otherwise smooth hardwood floor. I swear we looked everywhere, and that, until the lights came back, our cloths had not been where we found them. We scrabbled to pull our cloths on, ran down the hallway hand in hand, and bolted out the front door of the shop without thanking Mr. Smithson for allowing us to see his private collection. Mr Smithson, it seems, hadn't been inside his shop in a very long time now. The windows were boarded up, all the racks of clothing seemed to have dissapeared, and everything was covered with a thick layer of undisturbed years old dust. Our outgoing footsteps were the first to mar the perfect layer of grime in what looked to be some time. We ran down the muddy roads amongst the flickering light of the gas-lamps and found the boys sitting, soaked to the bone, in front of a dark garage with windows that had obviously been long-boarded up. Our car was no where in sight. Upon questioning them, they told us they weren't sure what had happened to the mechanic, his truck, or the car. One moment, they were riding back to town with the mechanic, broken down Honda in tow. They came in view of the downtown street lights, and the next thing they knew, the mechanic, the truck and the Honda were gone. They were merely standing in the middle of a mountain road, in the dark, cold rain, just outside the city limits. Other than the lines of hiss gas torches, the whole town was dark and completely silent. We were all cold and frightened. My mother, after hearing this, burst out in a frightened confession of the hallucinations we had both experienced in the now abandoned women's clothing shop. Thinking better of trying to find a hotel in town after what we had all seen, we all silently began walking back towards where we had left the Honda. It seemed to be the only place we had any hope of finding safety and shelter. The car was exactly where we had left it, and we all huddled close within until sunrise. The clouds began to clear as soon as the light touched the sky. At five past seven by my father's watch, a tow truck appeared around the bend. It was the mechanic, who stopped on the opposite side of the road and got out smiling. None of us said a word or moved an inch. When the man was just a few feet from my mother's side of the car, my father leaned over her, rolled down the window a crack, and in his deepest most threatening voice, lied and told the man that we had found someone else from a town up the road to give us a tow, but thankyou very much. The man stopped in his tracks, frowned in a dissapointed manner, and muttered to himself. "Yeah, I should've guessed." Then he turned around, slouching, and I could swear I heard him say to himself, "Outsiders never understand." He got back in his truck, drove twenty feet up the road and then turned around and headed back towards his garage on the outskirts of that odd little town at the foot of the mountain that sometimes still, in times of bad weather when the electric lights flicker, may use peculiar antique torches that can illuminate more than just the world of flesh and blood, but also can force upon one sights of a place normally unseen, either within or perhaps beyond the human mind.
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