Munmun(71)

“Playing music is all I want to do in Dreamworld really,” she said.

“But what if someone wants to make something for you,” I asked.

“I guess they have to learn to make it in wakingworld,” she shrugged and grinned.

Sometimes too in Dreamworld I used her songs, made a channel to it and played it over speakers like in Mun World and then the dream really goes bright, wild, oily, you wake up with a quick heart and wet eyes, for a few minutes you’re not anywhere.

And I waited for her to take the hint, get curious, come exploring onenight and see what other people can dream, ay kay ay me.

And in Lifeanddeathworld retrack test came roaring at me but really it was me roaring at retrack test, gaining speed and building force, melting the days away with my whitehot mind, racing backandforth through the rooms of the house of math, muttering facts during Lifty workouts, hammering practicequestions in the livingroom, demolishing entire practicetests, looking like the last act of a beautifull successstory afterall, Hue Family had highhopes for me again.

And that whole time I was not myself, barely even human, a robot without emotions or memories.

Markfive and I stopped talking asmuch, I noticed he started enjoying me less, I stopped being a badass to him, was really just a studynerd.

He started leaving twentyminutes early from studysesh, then an hour, then before long he wasn’t even coming inside the house, everymorning I just trotted out to his car to do drugs, walked back inside as he sped away, I didn’t care, fine on my own.

Only in Dreamworld was I really alive, did I have desires, giant wants that made me ache, but everymorning I couldn’t remember what they were.

The last weekend arrived, last days to study before retrack on munday.

Daughterday I took all nine sections of a practicetest and toppled them all, great grades, two perfects even.

Sonday I did it again, even better, four perfects.

Hue said Warner it’s clear that you’re truly ready, Kitty said You can do this you can change your life forever, Prayer said Bro I’m so proud of you.

I knew I should be feeling feelings, I knew I should feel pride and excitement, instead I just watched myself getting hugged and celebrated, I was above my own body watching coldly.

The night before the test my dreams were berserk, every dead and buried object birthed a thousand ghosts, every thrownaway bag and bottle, every broken piece of tech came alive and danced, humans don’t need us anymore so now we are free, a thousand ghostworlds poured out of the trashed one.

I almost flew into the operahouse and yelled stop the show, Kitty I want you to see this, maybe even need you to see it, live for just a second in the poem that I wrote for you.

Instead what I did was wait, lurk, hover in every ghostpoem and watch for her.

Waited for the wildness to finally crack the operawalls, bleed shadows in, shimmerings, playfull vapors, waited for Kitty to realize, I should find him.

She never did, someone else found me though.

Someone who knew me pretty well, knew how to reach me. Instead of the faraway tick tick ticklings, faint purrings of other people’s doorbells, I got a rain of pebbles against my window that night, a gray firework in my sky.

His hair grew and ungrew, like he couldn’t remember whether he had it still, and all he could do atfirst was repeat, “I thought it was you.”

He was dreaming super weak, blipping in and out, repeating himself, recognizing me and forgetting and remembering again.

“I thought it was you,” Usher said, smiling.

“Usher,” I choked.

“I thought it was you,” he said, exactsame smile.

Around us every ghost shut their eyes and held their breath.

“Usher, you’re alive, where are you, tell me everything,” I demanded.

“I saw the dreamstuff, I thought it was you,” he told me, overandover he said it, I needed to shake him, I needed to touch his skin and couldn’t.

“Usher, focus please, tell me are you in trouble,” I begged. “Do you need help, where can I find you, please.”

“Great nice wild dreamstuff,” he said. “I thought it was you, Warner.”

“Where are you,” I pleaded. “Where are you.”

“I knew the dreamghosts were Warner, I knew it was you,” he repeated, it made him happy and ripped leaks in my heart.

I sat with him for a month of dreamtime, onenight but a thousand hours, sometimes that’s how long it takes.

And at the end finally he blinked, got vivid, murmured, “Nono, notyet, headandshoulders, notyet,” and cringed, just a little grimace but it was worse than a scream.

He bowed his baldhead and for a swift moment I saw the face inked into the back of his skull, the crude gape of a cartoon idiot, tongue lolling out of a drooly frown and goggly eyes, I had barely enough time to realize I was looking at a faceboy tat before he woke up.

He left me only a glimpse of the Sand Dreamough reservewar, glitching and miraging like bad uservids from the news, the view from his new sad bedroom remained for a few tooshort moments after he popped out of Dreamworld like a weak bubble.





VI.

USHER





LIFEANDDEATHWORLD


I woke up, sun was buried, house was still, Prayer was snoring.

My heart was pounding, mind was pretty clear though, the only thing in there was, save my friend.