found drama

get oblique

dream.20151205: ephemeral itinerary

by Rob Friesel

You are sitting in a treehouse, trying to plan a trip, the two of you. You believed that you had narrowed down the destination and all you had left was to book it. But things got complicated. New suggestions came in. People kept appearing with new ideas. You couldn’t possibly do them all. Maybe over a lifetime you could, but you felt pressured to expand the scope. You tried to write down each of these ideas. To rank them, to sort them. Someone said that hey maybe the two of you could combine two of the trips? Half as much time in one spot and then move on to the next? It’s overwhelming, it’s too much. You climb up from the treehouse, up to the top of a hill, then the top of a dam. Everyone follows you. You drop your pen. Your paper blows away. Someone hands you another sheet of paper, but it’s torn from a glossy magazine. The pen is replaced with a marker. You try writing but the ink just smears. Every voice get louder. Everyone shouting over everyone else. You climb down to retrieve the original pen. You try writing the place names over again but you can’t press hard enough and the paper rips into a dozen pieces, then a hundred. The wind picks up. Water rushes over the dam.

About Rob Friesel

Software engineer by day. Science fiction writer by night. Weekend homebrewer, beer educator at Black Flannel, and Certified Cicerone. Author of The PhantomJS Cookbook and a short story in Please Do Not Remove. View all posts by Rob Friesel →

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