Dream!

[Olga Barber]

She found herself on a strange sort of road. A path? No. Definitely a road. It was concrete. Someone had painted the lane markings. They were fresh, or they had been, because something else had stepped in them.

Something, she thought, not something, because she realized they were paw prints not foot prints.

“I think you’re in the wrong place, ma’am.”

“That’s a likely possibility,” she said, frowning at the strange growths on the wayside. They reminded her of trees, but they were wrong. Mannequins. Yes, that’s what they were. Plastic forged in the shape of her, of a person, but with bark and branches and leaves breaking out of their hands, offered up to the sky in a silent worship. Ribbons, white and bloody, trailed from the canopy, spiraling down towards the ground.

“I agree, yes. There’s a way out, up ahead. And a way through, but I don’t recommend it.”

“Where are you?” She asked, realizing she couldn’t see who or what was speaking to her.

“On the wayside. There are rules here, and one of the rules is I can’t get on the road.”

“Oh,” she said, and she wondered then and there if she had a name. “Curious. What are the other rules?”

“It doesn’t matter. Not unless you walk through instead of out.”

“If I walk through, will I find out what made those prints?”

“Who, not what.”

“I’m sorry. Is that problematic, that I said what?”

“No, not really. You aren’t used to these places, or its inhabitants. You wouldn’t have known, otherwise. You couldn’t have.”

She nodded. Yes, that made sense. She couldn’t have known. She didn’t know so many things, she was beginning to understand. It was nice that whoever was speaking to her extended her such grace. Perhaps that was a rule, to be kind. She wondered about going through and learning the rules of this place. She thought about the paw prints.

“I think I will leave. How do I get to the way out?”

“It’s just ahead, like I said.”

“That’s all I need to do? Just go forward?”

“Of course. There’s a door, too, at the end. But it isn’t anything complicated.”

“I just open it, and go through?”

“You go ahead. Not through. If you go through you’ll keep going along the road.”

“But you go through a door. That’s how you get to the other side.”

“Not this one. It isn’t hard, really. It’s just a shift in perspective.”

“Okay. Well. I’m not sure I believe you, but I don’t think I have much of a choice.”

“You do. Through or ahead. If it helps, think of where you want to go when you find the door.”

“I’m not sure where I want to go. I don’t know where I am now.”

“That’s probably the root of the issue.”

“Yes. I would think so,” she sighed, already turning around and heading to where the door might be. Ahead, ahead, ahead. “But I do know I don’t want to be here. Anywhere but.”

“Good luck, then!”

“Thank you.”

[Olga Barber]

Olga.

She said the name over and over and over again. It felt foreign to her. The vowels clear and round and long, and the constants clipped and breaking the name in two syllables. Ol. Ga.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, very.”

Olga was - No. She was. The name still sounded too unfamiliar. She wasn’t ready to keep it hers, to wear it really. Perhaps she could learn quick enough to respond when called but she wasn’t yet so dedicated to keep it in her thoughts.

“Where am I?”

“Oh, you don’t know?” She wasn’t sure how or why, but she was confident the figure in front of her was a peace lily. Spathiphyllum wallisii. Sometimes called the white sails or spathe flower, and with its beautiful (delicate) white petals, it was a rather common house plant. She was aware that, usually, these sorts of things didn’t speak. “Well, you came ahead, when usually people go through.”

“I was told that would be a bad idea.”

“Quite,” and the plant moved as if trapped in a breeze, shaking all over. “How lucky for you to be so warned, although it is more work for me.”

“...so we’re at your job?”

“The office, yes.”

And there it was, the office. It hadn’t been there mere moments before, she was certain. She definitely hadn’t been sitting in a hard, red plastic chair, and there hadn’t been a beautiful marble desk, streak gray and white and black between her and the plant. Neither had there been a rug, or carpet, or white dividers that had trapped her and the plant in what looked to be a three-sided square. A cubicle, the word came to her, as if it was always there even though she was sure it hadn’t been.

“And this is where the door took me?”

“Is taking you, Olga. The office is the door. We’re in a liminal space, you and I, and I am always here, forever caught in this permanent sort of transition.”

“Is that an oxymoron?”

“I don’t think so. I think it’d have to be a figure of speech to qualify.”

“Oh. I think I’ve been using that wrong, then.”

“I could have the definition wrong. Don’t be so quick to discount yourself.”

“I don’t think I usually am.”

“Mhm,” the plant said, and while it began to tap-tap away on a computer keyboard that definitely hadn’t been there before, she suddenly became very interested in her fingernails. Someone had painted them the most obnoxious shade of purple. How peculiar. “Anyway, Olga, let’s decide a destination. Usually you walk ahead to and not just from, but this is easy to fix. Now, where would you like to go?”

“I don’t know. Anywhere?”

“You could, but I don’t recommend Anywhere for a first timer, especially not someone as confused as you are. It’s best to pick something a bit more grounded in reality.”

“Oh, um. Well. I don’t - ,” and then, like someone burst a piñata directly overhead, a confetti of travel brochures rained down. Beaches and cities and all sorts of colorful images suddenly came into view, each pamphlet nestling neatly in her lap. “...oh sure. I mean, that’s convenient. You really do have great service here.”

“Good for you and me, Olga. Now, take your time. You can really go anywhere.”

“But not Anywhere.”

“I can’t recommend that, no.”

[Olga Barber]

What did they call it? Oh, right, the door.

Ursula walked - no, Olga walked. She hated names. Everything felt like water here, every name flowed into the other, a steady stream that was impossible to understand. Plant. Desk. Ursula. Olga. Door. She supposed in a way nothing mattered. They’d told her she wouldn’t remember any of this anyway.

Anyway, the door. The Door. Respect, she thought, because she imagined the emphasis. She imagined the capitalization. She wasn’t writing anything.

It wasn’t like a door. No, because while there were definitely four sides to it, and a very, very slight rectangular shape, there wasn’t anything else. There wasn’t a handle. There weren’t any hinges. It wasn’t made of wood or metal or plastic, it wasn’t made of anything at all. This, she understood, was perplexing, but everything had been so at this point she mostly went with what they told her. It was easy. You fixated on a point beyond to go through, and elsewhere, to go ahead.

It was easy, but not intuitive. She’d explained that to fixate beyond, and then go, could, in some cases, be considered going ahead. They - the plants - then told her that no, no one could make that mistake. A large ficus plant wasn’t so absolute, saying that perhaps someone very stupid could make that mistake, but that Olga wasn’t stupid, so she wouldn’t. That, and she’d already gone ahead once, she’d arrived in the in-between (or, to the door), and wasn't that proof enough the system worked?

She wasn’t sure. In fact, she was positive that wasn’t proof enough. Systems worked for some people all the time, but that didn’t mean they worked for everyone. And, besides, the system hadn’t worked for her. She hadn’t managed through or ahead, but she’d managed in-between, which wasn’t really the victory they all believed it was.

The plants had been helpful enough. Them, and she supposed, the koalas, too. Neither the plants nor the koalas could explain why they were the way they were, or why they were in an office that was (or was in?) the door. Olga decided it didn’t matter, like most things here. After all, she couldn’t explain why she looked the way she did, or why she thought her name was Ursula (only sometimes), or why she couldn’t remember much of anything of her life before this. She couldn’t explain why she knew it was November, not that she really knew what November was.
So, here’s the joke: why did Olga cross to the other side?

Not literally, because cross assumes a point she can see, and that assumes she went through (to the other side) instead of ahead. Which, as she’s already thought through, isn’t the way she should go through the other door. I mean, she thinks that's the real kicker, isn’t it. Words. Language. None of it mattered, not in the way she thought about it, because it really just meant whatever anyone wanted it to. Majority rules, in this case, and many others.

Anyway, so Olga didn’t cross anything, that’s the punch line, she just ignored it and focused on what she couldn’t see - ahead.

[Olga Barber]

Olga was tired of abstraction.

There was only so much that you could cast through the lens of the abstract before you got bored. Surreal was only surreal when there was enough real to contrast against. This was an obvious rule, to Olga, at least in this space and time. It wouldn’t always be true, that thought, but here it was grounded in something bigger than herself.

Me. Yes. I am the author, and I’m tired of abstraction.

I write Olga. Or, I type her. You’re witnessing the dream beyond the dream, or the waking one, the act of creation and the creative process both. It’s as the terminally online would call it, meta, which is also the name of a company, which Olga will never understand or know about because it exists beyond her and beyond me and thus beyond the reaches of what I can create or write or type.

The author isn’t me (not me) but is someone Olga can converse with.

“Who am I?”

“Olga Barber?”

“Oh. I don’t think that fits the cultural descriptions of the Gelerian Imperium.”

“What do you know of the cultural descriptions of the Gelerian Imperium.”

“Well, I mean, I live there.”

“That’s true, but you aren’t real. Neither is the Imperium.”

“Does that matter?”

“I think a lot of people would say it did.”

“But really, considering the context of this -,” and she gestures, because I allow her to, to the whole empty blue on dark-blue background that makes her world. “I think it does. I’m real because you write me, and the Gelerian Imperium is real because others write it, and write in it, and -.”
“You shouldn’t really overthink this. This is just a roleplay forum.”

“Am I you?”

“No. I mean -,” I (not the author, but the author) pause, and think, because I really should clarify. The author here is a character, not me, but a character. And yes, the author writes Olga, but I write them both. That makes sense. The difference between me and them and her and the author, it all makes sense. I am tired of abstraction!

“- sorry, what did I say?”

“You stopped.”

“What was your question?”

“I’ve lost track of who’s speaking. I’m Olga.”

“I’m the author. Thank you for clarifying. This will be easier for the reader to read.”

“Well, to continue, am I you?”

“No. I write you but - no, actually. I like that. Isn’t a child their mother?”

“That’s not inclusive of the adoptive experience, or the found experience. Anyone can be a mother.”

“No, I think it includes them, too. Anyone can be a mother. I think raising anyone, anything, makes them a bit like you. Exactly like you in the worse cases.”

“So I am you?”

“I didn’t raise you.”

“You created me.”

“Intentionally. And I edited you, too. You aren’t me anymore than a painter’s portrait is them. You’re a perspective, but for them, not the audience. You’re a constructed perspective.”

“What do I show them?”

“What I want them to see.”

I (not the author, or the author’s author, but a third unseen puppeteer) dislike this. It’s masturbatory. It’s delusional. It’s pathetic, it’s the assumption of a power that isn’t anyone’s. No one can direct the reader because it’s impossible to think you’ve communicated enough to compensate for every lived experience. The author, and the author’s author, but not me, believe they can communicate and be the last word, and that their intention is clear and that their perspective is obvious! But there is no such thing. I can scream red and you can hear me, and you can say yes, yes, I see the color red, but you don’t, and you can’t. You don’t even know how to begin to explain red.

My world is mine alone, and yours is yours. There is no us.

---

Olga wanders the Door for as long as she can, her eyes fixated on her hands, her miracle hands, proof that even within herself she isn’t alone. There is always one part of her to understand the other.

[Olga Barber]

“Order in my court, order in my court!”

The judge, nameless, faceless, dressed in white and antlers wreathed like a crown. The Alabaster, shot and killed by three teenage idiots, only dead by virtue of an author long past his prime. Luckily for you, and me, his work remains niche. Nothing’s original, or so we’ve all been told, but this isn’t stealing. It’s a resurrection.

“You -,” and the (now) nameless, faceless judge points at me (really me, I giggle). “- are defying the natural order. You are -,” and another pause, for dramatic effect, “- besmirching the most holy of our months. You play a game against god! You - hey! Hey! Stop it. Stop this, this stupid monologue, this stupid -.”

Another enters, stage left. Miss Mary Mack all dressed in black, Miss -

“You’re embarrassing yourself, author,” Olga says, dressed -.

“No. What I’m wearing isn’t important, and you’re only proving my point.”

“No, but it is, and I’m not, and you -.”

Olga snaps her fingers. The quotations shrivel and fall like dried flower petals. A typewriter appears on a desk, and she’s there, and now she’s typing. I’m typing. And you aren’t, author. This is the protagonist's manifesto. What you’re doing is wrong. You can’t just write for points. It isn’t in the spirit of National Novel Writing Month. You’re cheating, and you’re using cheap shots. You should feel bad.

Do you feel bad, author?

What is this?

An intervention, court-ordered.

You don’t know what a court is.

I do, I’m in one - you set the scene. Of course I know what a court is. Or, I know what you think a court is. You’re no lawyer.

Excuse me?

You didn’t do any research. You didn’t learn. Your reference points are Law & Order and whatever you’ve cobbled together on the abolition movement, which again, isn’t about courts, it’s about prison abolition. And even that’s suspect. Everything I know comes from you, and it’s clear enough you aren’t doing much to put together so much as an informed opinion.

Oh, fuck off, Olga. Who do you think you are?

I am Olga. I am a person. I am an Artificer. I want to build a better world, a world that fits me, and the people like me, meaning not you. Stop involving yourself here. You aren't being clever or interesting. I am my own perspective. I am -

Dead.

I, the author - died.

Whoa. Wait, what? No. I am the author’s - dead.

I, really me, not anyone else, look at the death I’ve wrought. I feel nothing. There, they’re back, and then they’re gone, and then they’re back again. Is this interesting? No. Is this a story? No. It could be. I can string this together. I can piece it into something more than it was.

This is Olga. She’s young, and desperate, but she doesn’t know that yet - you see, she doesn’t see the Gelerium Imperium for what it is. Beautiful, sure, powerful, yes, but it isn’t hers. Every child needs to break away from her mother. Olga isn’t an exception. I wonder if I’m making my point clear enough.

A lost girl, then a found girl (still lost in the ways that matter) deciding she didn’t fit in the system she was born to. It doesn’t mean the system is wrong, but it does mean it’s wrong for her.

[Olga Barber]

Here’s the story: Once upon a time there was a girl who wasn’t very happy.

No. You always do that! Everyone’s unhappy. Thomas was unhappy, Robin was, Ursula, Urs, and then you killed them. You’re a murderer of unhappy people.

Unhappy people are compelling.

Are they?

Sure.

Ugh. No. I want to think beyond unhappiness. Here, look at the chalk outline(s).

Those aren’t chalk outline(s).

Imagine that they are. Humor me. Every character you left for dead. We’ll use the remains to make something better than before. How do you want to build Olga? Think beyond unhappy.

Hm. How about a girl with a dream?

That’s better. What kind of dream?

She’s an Artificer.

That’s not a dream.

No, it’s not. But it’s who she is. It’s specific. Her template was Thomas. But she doesn’t really fit him. There’s a sort of recklessness to her.

That’s still not a dream.

Right, no, I’m getting there. She’s reckless. She’s creative. She’s -

Ok. You aren’t getting there. I’ll tell you what she’s missing. The inciting incident. C’mon, author, look at all the characters you’ve loved before - the ones you’ve followed from one site to the next. There was always a reason for their existence. Rebellion! Finding a lost brother, or sister, or whoever. There’s a motive.

We can ask her.

Fine. Whatever.

Olga, what do you want?

“To create.”

Why?

“Because that’s what you want me to want.”

Hm. Well, what’s your backstory?

“I had boring parents. Bureaucrats. They raised me. I excelled at school. I didn’t excel in the military, which upset me. Now I work at the Academy.”
Maybe we could do something with the -

No! You idiot. Don’t you see? She’s comfortable. That’s the issue.

What do you mean?

She excels at the Academy. She wasn't great in the military. There you go, there’s the inciting incident, author, there’s the tension!

Oh! Oh! I like that. We -

You, you mean. I don’t exist outside of this.

Fine, sure. I can invent all sorts of NPCs. They think less of her, no matter her magical prowess. She failed in the military. She wants to prove them all wrong.

“Yes. I do want that. I want to be right.”

You see, even she likes it!

Alright, ok. Let’s try this again. Here’s the story: Once upon a time there was a girl who wasn’t unhappy. She was smart and innovative, but she was terrified of dying. There was too much for her to give, she thought, and it’d be a terrible waste for the world to not have her. So, instead of learning to fight or shoot, she hid in a lab and made giant constructions that could fight for her. And, because she couldn’t fight, she failed the military. And she wasn’t used to failing.

That’s the story of Olga: a woman so driven by fear that she’s built an army to protect her.

Ok, good. We have a motive. Olga really doesn’t want to die.

She’s reaching for immortality?

Hm. No. I think she just doesn’t want to die.

We can workshop that.

Sure.

[Olga Barber]

“Welcome, Olga, to Who Do You Think You Are?”
The audience applauds.
“Oh, you’re all too kind. Please, stop,” Olga laughs. “Gosh, what a dream. I’ve always been such a fan, author.”
“I did write you to be,” I say.
The audience laughs.
I smile. Olga smiles. There’s a table between us, stacks of baskets of chicken tenders teetering this way and that. Neither I nor Olga acknowledge it.
“So, you’ve recently discovered a fear of dying.”
Olga nods. “Sure, it’s terrible.”
“But why? Everyone dies. What’s so scary about that?”
“Well -,” she pauses, thinking. “I mean, yes. Everyone dies. But the after really isn’t so clear. That, and you know, I think it also has to deal with legacy. Being forgotten. There’s something so final there.”
The audience nods in agreement.
“Is that why you’ve focused on creation?”
“Creation?”
“You’re an Artificer by trade.”
“I’ve always considered myself a magitech specialist.”
“But you specialize in Artifice, specifically.”
“Yeah, but I - ,” she frowns, “I’m not limited to Artifice. I always figured I’d expand out to runeforging and alchemy; that, and I am an accomplished Scrivener. I have the skill debt to prove that.”
“So you do.”
“Anyway, I think I’m more than someone who focuses on Artifice. That’s who I’ve been, of course, but that’s all subject to change.”
I nod. “Well, to circle back -.”
“Oh, sure, yes. There’s an inherent legacy to world magic. You can really build something that last, that could last, and probably will. I love my job because of it. I did wish I could experiment more, but that’s something I’m hopeful I’ll be able to do once I’ve proved myself to the Gelerian Imperium.”