Fantasy Hunters
By Mel Hartman
Translation from Dutch by Birsen Uçar
Dreams
are illustrations…
from the book your soul is writing about.
(Marsha Norman)
1
My name is Kate Lillian, I’m thirty-one years old, and I’m an emobeing from Emo World, the second dimension. Emo World is a place where ratiobeings from Ratio World dreamed of and dreamed in. Dreamt because, for most this activity now belongs in the past.
I scribble down these notes with a plain old fashioned pen. It does something to me, the contact of my hand touching the sheet of paper, via such a pen. I don’t like a machine blocking my thoughts from the things I will create. Even if these are simply notes or scrawls with which I might want to do something serious later on. What precisely, I still have to figure out. Writing a novel perhaps. I often do things without knowing where it will all lead to.
Good, there are still beings from Ratio World, the first dimension therefore, who don’t know we exist. They still think that their dreams are plays in their own fantasy world. Actually, we are dealing with a dimension filled with creatures, just as alive as themselves, and within their eyes there are many strange creatures.
The so-called monsters from Emo World wouldn’t harm a mosquito, even if it would suck them dry. We too have rules and laws, though these are based on more liberal principles than the ones in Ratio World. Emo World is a real world, just as the Earth, which is now called Ratio World.
However, at the time, there were many ignorant. These were actually ratiobeings who still thought they owned their own dreams. You recognize them, apart from their vague contours; they had expressions in their eyes showing fear, stress and insecurity. They mostly conducted themselves in a manner not quite sure of the next move. They had the listlessness resembling someone who smoked too much weed.
Visually, these dreamers clearly differed from the emobeings and ratiobeings who visited Emo World through the Portal. Their body was a little translucent. It seemed as though they hadn’t entirely passed through, as if the ink of the printer had run out. They ran most of the time, although this cost them a pitiable amount of effort. In general, they were frantically trying to eluding one monster or another. If they only knew these creatures never intended harm towards anyone.
Just like that young woman who ran past me once. Two seconds later, there followed an old scrawny werewolf who heeled next to me. He panted, his tongue hanging from his jaws, his eyes rolling back from exhaustion. As a ratiobeing, you think:
poor woman being chased by a dangerous werewolf. That’s not the case, one should rather say poor werewolf.
I asked him: “Are you alright?”
He squeaked something incomprehensible.
“Do you want some water? There’s a witch shop nearby.”
He shook his head. “I’ll survive,” he panted.
“Why did you chase that dreamer?”
“That dreamer? Was I chasing a dreamer again?” He cursed so loud a few startled by-passers looked up stunned. “That’s why that screaming woman wouldn’t stop, I should have known. I am such a useless old wolf.”
“You scared her to death.”
He chortled with a wee bit of pride. “I still look quite dangerous, don’t I? What a shame I didn’t see her face, these days you don’t encounter many dreamers.”
