STRANGEPLACE

[AncientOfDays]

The first chapter of an Alice-in-Wonderland-esque story I'm currently writing. The imagery in this chapter is based upon dreams I've had:



The Curious Picnic, the House of Ivy and a Dressing Gown Included


Summer was at its height. The sky was not completely spotless; there was the odd cloud here and there, riding on the coolest of breezes. The sun was golden, the air was comfortably humid. All was perfect.

In a field of wild flowers was a picnic. On a large rug a gathering of people sprawled lazily: the women sheltered under parasols, the sunlight filtering through the lace onto their eyelids, their crisp dresses as white as paper; the men lay in waistcoats, using their top hats as headrests. All around them lay the ruins of a lavish feast: half-eaten triangle sandwiches, plates littered with crumbs, empty glasses beside the jug of lemonade, crumpled napkins like dead butterflies. Now, pleasantly full, the party was slowly easing into a slumber.

Only Marie, who was sitting cross-legged in the middle of the picnic rug, did not feel tired. As she looked about her at the adults, who were now all virtually asleep, she sighed. “Why do children have to be ‘seen’ and not heard? I wish it was the other way round, because at least I’d have someone to talk to, and I wouldn’t mind being invisible.” She gazed at the rolling hills around her, listening to the faint cooing of a wood pigeon nearby and the droning of honeybees. Hungry, she finished off her slice of sponge cake. She licked the sticky pink icing off her fingers and, as there was no one to talk to, began to sing quietly to herself.

“Kingfisher Blue, where are you?
You’ve fallen down a hole
And you’re never going to do
What I want you to.”

As she sang, she fancied how much the women picnickers resembled swans in their white dresses. Then she realised that they had now become swans. But they weren’t moving. Marie poked the nearest one’s head gingerly with her finger, and its limp neck turned to reveal lifeless eyes and an unpleasant smell. It was dead. All the other swans were dead.

Marie then became aware of something strange happening to the men. Around her, the sleeping heads changed into those of animals. Her brother had the head of a lamb, her father the head of a rabbit. She knew she wasn’t dreaming all this, because she was awake. The animal-heads snored.

Out of the corner of her eye, Marie saw the napkin butterflies shake themselves back to life and flutter away into the sky. One of them alighted on Marie’s shoulder, and she recalled her mother saying it was good luck for a butterfly to land on you. And I do like good luck. Looking around her, the whole picnic seemed to be coming to life; what was left of the food was getting up and drifting through the air. I don’t why I’m not feeling scared, Marie thought. Maybe these things happen sometimes. She tried to remember any stories she’d heard of eerie picnics, but couldn’t, so she carried on singing.

“Kingfisher Green, haven’t you seen?
There’s a rabbit over there
And it’s getting in my hair
O, it’s so unfair!”

Suddenly, Marie realised she was no longer on a rug of wool, but a rug of ivy. The swans and the animal-heads had vanished along with the field, and she now found herself surrounded on all sides by tall stone walls. It must’ve been a house, but now the floors and the roof are gone, Marie thought.

There was ivy everywhere. It grew out of the crevasses in the walls and snaked along the ground, tangling together to form a monstrous green mass. The place was so silent that even when Marie stood up she didn’t make a noise. It was if someone had muted all the sounds in that place. Marie noticed that it was raining leaves, and they fell thick and fast in a leafy downpour. Whereas the field had been gorgeously warm, the house was deathly cold, like a graveyard.

I tried to walk forwards, Marie thought later, but I only seemed to go backwards. I think I even went upside down.

“Girl, child!” a voice called out. Marie turned to find a bright red dressing gown hovering on an outcrop of stone on the wall behind her. Despite the fact it had no wearer, it could still speak. “What are you doing here?”

Marie tried to reply but her voice was silent. She thought it was a little unfair that the Dressing Gown could speak and she couldn’t.

“This is private property,” the Gown whispered harshly. “Leave now. You are intruding.” Marie again attempted to protest, but not even a whisper passed her lips. The Dressing Gown swooped down from its perch and halted right in front of her. She felt its warm breath in her face, and it slapped her sharply with its woollen sleeve. “You are a foolish child, do you know that? You cannot speak. Nothing speaks or sounds in this, my House of Ivy. Only I can speak or sound here, for it is mine alone. Leave now.”

Marie turned in fear and hurried across the carpet of ivy to a door-shaped gap in one of the walls. Looking back through the leaf rain, she saw the Dressing Gown staring at her. Feeling a little unnerved, she left.


In chapter two, Marie is currently conversing with the Corkscrew Poet, so named because he is an old man with a corkscrew nose. I would like the public's opinion. What think you on't? A fantasy novel with a difference? The new Alice in Wonderland, or Valerie a tyden divu? A surrealists paradise? Too strange to be likeable? A new type of LSD? (Reading this book would be like looking through a window into my dreams and imagination.)

[Philharmonic]

In chapter two, Marie is currently conversing with the Corkscrew Poet, so named because he is an old man with a corkscrew nose. I would like the public's opinion. What think you on't? A fantasy novel with a difference? The new Alice in Wonderland, or Valerie a tyden divu? A surrealists paradise? Too strange to be likeable? A new type of LSD? (Reading this book would be like looking through a window into my dreams and imagination.)

I say too strange to be unlikeable, tbh. i would like to know how the HELL that Marie couldnt notice that the 'women' were actually swans-was it a case of metamorphosis or something else?

i LOVE weird stories!

you must have a...to put it simply and formally...an interesting array of dream locations and events.
i might just take you up on the invitation into your dreams you gave me in the Dreamscapes thread, seeing how as this is based on your own dreams. a pity that if i did a story based on my dreams it would involve being charged by giant spider-triceratops-scorpion crossbreeds, getting stuck in wallpaper paste while being pursued by homicidal maniacs with machetes and getting attacked by heavily modifed transformers-not pleasant, as you may be abler to imagine.

[AncientOfDays]

It's a simple case of metamorphosis...but I realise now it's difficult to tell. That's a nice little correction! (By the way, at the time of posting if only... you have 666 posts.)

Anyone else have any other comments?

[Philharmonic]

6! 6-6!!! THE NUMBER OF THE BEAST! HELL! AND FIRE! WAS SPAWNED TO BE RELEASED!

(yes i like iron maiden)

well anyway, aod, i look forward to part 2. how it will be told is another story though.

[AncientOfDays]

M'afraid I'm only posting the first chapter to see the general reaction. Sorry to say the typographical elements in the Word document can't be replicated here. However, here's an excerpt of chapter 2 though:



“What sort of poems do you write?”

“Only the best,” the Corkscrew Poet replied. “Where do you come from?”

“I don’t know,” Marie sighed, “but I think it was far different from wherever I am now.”

The Corkscrew Poet laughed, his hunched spine rising with every intake of breath. “So, you are a child unused to strangeness. I can say I was not surprised; I knew you were strangeless the moment I saw you.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m afraid it has no meaning,” the Corkscrew Poet said cryptically. “You, my dear, are in a very Strangeplace. It is where the odd things gather, a place in-between all other places, full of strangeways to go, weird things to see. It is made up of all the strangest dreams you could possibly imagine. And things will only get stranger here.”

He seems to like the word “strange”, Marie thought, but then again that’s the best word to describe all that’s happened so far. At least he might be able to tell me how to get out of here. “Does this place have a way out?” she continued aloud.

“Yes.”

“Could you show me where it is?”

Though his eyes were painted, the Poet still managed to show a look of surprise. “My dear, nobody can know the way out. This place never stays the same; it is always changing and twisting, never keeping the same shape. The exit could one day be in this very room, the next day in another part altogether. You will just have to continue onwards until you find it.”

Then Marie asked another question which had been on her mind ever since she had sung that fateful song: “Am I dreaming?”

The Poet sat in silence for a little while in thought, and then leaned forwards, scrutinising Marie and breathing deeply. Finally, he said, “That is for you to decide. Most people would think that something like this is a dream, and that they can wake up from the strangeness whenever they want. But sometimes, what you think might be a dream is very much a reality. Do you know that feeling that occurs in dreams, when it seems as if it really happened? Well, it did happen, but not in the way you know it.”

“I’m afraid you’re confusing me.”


Next, I plan to send Marie on a journey on the back of a large pastel-coloured rocking horse named Penny-Cheval. I wonder where it'll take her...

[AncientOfDays]

Now, Marie is Everywhere and Nowhere, and she encounters the Dressing Gown again.

[Philharmonic]

frankly, im a little disappointed. what happened to the crushed skulls and the murdering from dreamscapes? i was looking forward to that ah well

[AncientOfDays]

Well, you know, I've only really just begun the story. There's plenty of room for other things! My plan is that, as Marie travels deeper into Strangeplace, the things she sees become gradually more surreal and oh-so slightly trippy (not that it isn't trippy already). So the ending will probably be pretty f***ed up! Also, the writing itself becomes more abstract just to confuse things further. I have big ideas; like the idea of skipping back and forth between past, present and future tense, and things like messing up the chapter numbers, perhaps even removing them entirely and bringing them back again, also mirror-writing and backward words. (It also means I might not be able to post some of that stuff up here 'cos it'd be tricky to mimic it.) I'm basically letting my imagination run completely off the rails. Think of this as an experimental surrealist film, but in book form.

EDIT: I have now envisioned an androgynous "Person", with a rosebush in place of a head.

[Philharmonic]

whew...so things get more gory as it progresses? PLEASE HURRY UP!

[AncientOfDays]

Well, surreal doesn't necessarily mean gory, but I probably will slip in the odd gruesome moment. By the way (Philarmonic??? how the hell'd you change your user name???) since when did you bloodlust?

[Yrael]

By the way (Philarmonic??? how the hell'd you change your user name???) since when did you bloodlust?

You ask a moderator to change your name, that's how i changed it.
But back on topic, i think that it is indeed a strangeplace, but a good bit of writing.

[AncientOfDays]

Thank you! The idea of the book is to submerge the reader in the dreamy world of my imagination!

Sorry to be a bother for the questions, but I just want to know other opinons. If you saw this book in your local Waterstones, would you buy it and why? (It'll probably never get published, but it's a nice thought!)

[AncientOfDays]

As No body has posted here in a while I expect that Strangeplace, my most precious piece of literature to which I am lovingly drawn, has fallen out of memory. But I wish for the opinion of those who are still in some degree of interest, for I have rewritten the opening chapter of the book, and indeed the sequence of all those that follow. May it be noted that the protagonist's name has been changed from Marie to Della.


Chapter One:
The Billowing Maze


Summer was at its height. The sky was not completely spotless; there was the odd cloud here and there riding on the coolest of breezes. The air was comfortably humid. All was perfect.

On the lawn behind her house Della was sprawled lazily on the grass in the shade of the oak tree that grew there. The sunlight was dappled in a golden patchwork by the leaves, and its warmth brought a smile to Della’s face as she listened to the sounds of a wood pigeon cooing nearby and the drone of bees. “If only this calm would last forever,” she thought. Her parents had gone off to the beach for the day but she had been perfectly happy to stay home. She loved the stillness it gave her.

A lone car rattled by on a nearby road.

The breeze picked up slightly, causing the dandelion clocks in the neighbouring field to shake loose their seeds. They drifted through the hazy air above Della’s head, swirling around her. They landed in her hair and on her dress but she was too tired to brush them off. She had abandoned trying to read her book a while ago; now it lay beside her, a daisy chain resting on the cover.

And then she remembered what her mother had said before she had left: “When the sheets on the line are dry, take them down and put them in the laundry so I can iron them.” Della rolled her eyes. Typical. There was always some chore that needed doing.

Very reluctantly and hoping it wouldn’t take too long, Della rose and padded barefoot across the lawn to the washing line. She felt strange as she walked as if she was being turned inside out. The world distorted behind her like those mirrors you find in a funhouse at the circus, and the dandelion seeds swarmed in a halo around her head.

The washing line was a rotary one which pivoted on a pole and span around if the wind was strong enough, and it was now heaped with thick white bedding sheets. Della found they were all dry but was just about to take the first one down when the wind rose suddenly, causing a pillowcase that was somehow unattached to slip off the line. But before it hit the ground it shaped itself into a butterfly and fluttered gracefully up to rest on a sheet. The sight was so bizarre that it was impossible for Della to resist; she abandoned her task and moved into the mass of sheets towards the pillowcase butterfly. Sensing her presence, the butterfly was off in one beat of its wings and it flew deeper into the sheets.

And before Della’s eyes the washing line was transformed. The sheets seemed to stretch off into the distance, sometimes branching off into separate paths, sometimes with dead ends. It was a billowing maze. The butterfly was still there, drifting away through the linen; Della continued to run after it, her hair growing wild and tangled as she ran. Her dress, once crisp and white, was now crumpled and with grass stains. “Am I dreaming all of this?” Della thought. “This all seems too strange to be real. But then again, if I was asleep my eyes would be closed, and they aren’t!”

The butterfly flew on, leading Della down the long corridors formed by the sheets. Even the floor and roof now seemed to be made of smooth white bed linen. And the more she ran, the further away the butterfly seemed. “Is there any sense running after it?” she wondered. “I didn’t know that pillowcases could fly so quickly. Mind you, I never really thought much about it.”

But then Della blinked and in that short space of time the butterfly suddenly disappeared. She slowed to a walk, looking all around her to see any trace of it, but of course there was not and it soon dawned on her that she was completely and utterly lost.

“Dear dear, of all the things to happen!” Della cried in frustration. “What will Mum and Dad think when they get home when they find I’m gone? I wonder if they’ll think to look in the washing line – but then they might get lost too and we’ll never find each other! I might as well find out where this maze goes for the time being.”

She calmed herself down, told herself not to worry and set off down the path before her, moving farther away from this world and into the next. After a while, she became aware that the sheets that made up the maze were getting thinner and blew easier in the breeze. In fact they soon faded away altogether, crumpling into untidy piles on the ground; the maze had now entirely vanished.

* * * * *

May it also be noted that the Billowing Maze is inspired by a true incident. Anyone who wishes to hear another excerpt need only ask.

[Philharmonic]

Well, surreal doesn't necessarily mean gory, but I probably will slip in the odd gruesome moment. By the way (Philarmonic??? how the hell'd you change your user name???) since when did you bloodlust?

since about ten years ago actually.

im getting impatient!!!

[AncientOfDays]

If you want unpleasantness, I thought of having Della witness a group of people stapling or sewing their eyelids and lips shut.

Like Valerie and Her Week of Wonders used vampire folklore, I might use some of the myths on zombies (who appear often in my dreams), Ole Lukoje/Sandman/Morpheus/other sleep and dream spirits (I might make the Dressing Gown their equivalent), Baba Yaga (the story of which uses quite surreal imagery) and Elizabeth Bathory the Blood Countess. But I really don't want my book to swing off into the horror genre. Just fantasy. Fantasy horror at best. But not total horror.