Inachevé

Thirty-two - In the Valley of the Impossible

People, of all ages, dream.  Dreams are what pursue people to move forward in life.   Dreams inspire and create new ides.  Dreams spur small things into large things.  However, there are good dreams and bad dreams, none in between.  Good dreams are usually made up of finding a good career, a healthy relationship, or in summary a happy ending for all. 

Bad dreams are the dreams thought up behind closed doors with the lights off.  They usually consist of villainous deeds that I won’t go into—they’re not the sort of dreams that should be encouraged.   Dreams also come in two forms: the dreams that come true and the dreams that don’t come true.   Everyone wants their dream to come true, it is human nature.  It’s when the dream decides to take over and become a nightmare.  

There are four stages in a dream.  Stage One is entering.  The dreamer never enters sanely like one does when entering a room, instead the dreamer finds him or herself in a place they’ve never seen before, yet they walk and act as if they had lived in the place their entire lives.  If they happen to appear in a familiar location, everything seems blurry, as if someone placed a sheet of onion paper over the background, leaving whatever was in the foreground, clear.

Stage Two is usually the most painful procedure of a dream, much like the second book to a trilogy.  The dreamer experiences excitement, the encountering of people who have irritated them in the past, moments of insanity, and perhaps even death.  However, the story doesn’t end there, and many of the characters are still alive, or replaced by a celebrity, sibling, or some random person with a name.

Stage Three is the waking moment.  It’s where the dreamer is usually being pursued by some menacing creature dressed in black or has a scary face that haunts them even when they wake up.  Stage Three doesn’t always end happily.  Stage Three can also end with a desired moment that wouldn’t happen in real life, such as: talking with an admired person, or being a hero or heroine, or perhaps having victory over a sworn enemy. 

And the fourth stage—hold on a moment! A fourth stage? you must be thinking.  There must be only three because that’s how stories go, even in dreams!  Well, well, my friend, this may become shocking, but there is a fourth stage.

The tale you are about to read is about a dream that comes true.  Except, it’s no ordinary dream; it’s the dream that comes to a person who’s free from slumber.  It’s the dream that changes a life and then disappears.  It’s a dream that’s impossible but real to the one experiencing it.  It’s a dream that leaves a deep impression, yet cannot be explained.   You are about to enter a world where a dream finds a boy, captures him, and leads him down a road of never ending discoveries.  However, he’s never allowed to leave because...well, you must read it...

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Exodus Finkleroy was the boy’s name.   A name not suited for a hero (or for anyone for that matter) but I suppose in this story having a name as weird as his doesn’t matter.  Exodus was seventeen-years-old and worked at his father’s mill in the country.  It was the age of Depression in America, one of the most, well, depressing times in American history.   If you’d like to know more at the Trying Times, I’d suggest you go look it up in the Encyclopedia or perhaps the World Book if you have such treasures in your house.   Now, on with the story, so this boy, Exodus, was a handsome being with chiseled features of a time period centuries before his—by centuries, I mean the time of Christ.  

Exodus had dark blonde, untamed hair that flopped around and had to be constantly moved from his forehead by the flick of his head.   His build was slim, sturdy, and his muscles defined, but not to the point where they puffed out from beneath his clothing!  Exodus was tall, almost making him the talk of the crowd simply because he towered over his peers.  Because of his awkward height, Exodus rarely showed up at town parties, even though his mother insisted.