The three merry dead chicks part 2.

A dream of a thousand fish.

Part 2 of Heather Lawson’s previous story.

One of the lines that often echoed through Ophelia’s head during the darker hours happened to be a line that never actually belonged to her.
To sleep, perchance to dream.
Because for Hamlet sleep was all about death.
If Ophelia had ever bothered to stick around for the entire play she would have known that Hamlet was wrong and that he to was one of the many characters who died.
Unfortunately Hamlet only ever died at the end and there was an entire act in between and Ophelia had always been impatient.

When Ophelia dreamed her thoughts were filled with the fish in the stream where she had drowned. There has one been one at the time but in her subconscious it multiplied by the hundreds and thousand until all she could see were shiny silvery scales.
All she could smell was the choking rotting scent of dead fish.

“Don’t be ridiculous Bella these dreams they do not have smells” Juliet said indigently as they buried the body in a rose garden behind the theatre. Well to be fair it was Ophelia who buried the body Juliet just supervised her eyes occasionally flickering onto her fingernails.
“I know what I smell and it’s a rotting fish stench ok? Like this body” Ophelia snapped back her face bright red and flustered.
Juliet just stared at the body barely interested.
“He doesn’t smell that bad, more like wine then anything. Who was he?” she asked and as dirt showered through the air.
“The director of the play” Ophelia grunted, it was difficult attempting to dig a grave with a prop spade.
“I don’t see why we cant just dump the body behind a dumpster” sighed Juliet.
“This production happens to have the best Ophelia madness scene in over two decades Juliet and its not going to close just because the director killed himself with the bottle! The body will be buried and hopefully no one will search for him until tomorrow nights performance” Ophelia said wiping a streak of dirt off her chin.
“Disgusting”
“Oh and what about you Juliet? How about we talk about the time you hid the body of half a cast when they all died from the bubonic plague?” Ophelia asked and Juliet rolled her eyes.
“Can I at least kick the body down the hole?” she asked nudging it with the toe of her satin slippers.
“Have fun” Ophelia replied as Juliet giggled before kicking the body into the hole.
It made a faint splattering sound and then there was silence.
A few seconds later they heard the patter of footsteps and a small intake of breath.
“How did he die?” Desdemona asked quietly.
Ophelia glanced up irritably but then sighed when she saw the tear stained face and disheveled hair.
“Oh alcoholism, the usual” she replied.
“Then why is there blood all over his pants?” Desdemona asked and Ophelia’s hand clapped over her mouth.
Desdemona was right of course, when you spent your time skulking about shows it was hard to tell the prop blood from the real and Ophelia had ignored the stain seeping through the front of his shirt and the trousers.
The smell now however made sense, the horrible rotting fishy smell.
It was the smell of blood and dirt.
“Murder Murder Murder” Juliet cackled gleefully as Ophelia felt sick.
“Remember the last murder Des? When the jealous stagehand killed the man playing Othello because he was banging the seamstress? That was poison though so very dull,” Juliet added leaning over the crudely dug hole her pretty brown eyes lighting up with interest.
“Careful Juliet or your tits will make you topple over” Ophelia said snidely, still annoyed at her for bullying Desdemona.
Juliet made a huffing sound and crawled backwards her infamous cleavage now covered in streaks of mud.
“If it’s a murder we should bury the body, what if a talented actor did it? The last thing we’d need is for a talented actor to waste the next five years in prison” Ophelia said firmly.
“You’re absolutely right darling the show comes first” Desdemona agreed with her and Juliet just flicked a blade of grass of her left bosom with annoyance.
“I wonder what he dreamed about last night,” she said gruffly before her eyes trailed upwards locking with Ophelia’s.
“Don’t,” Desdemona warned her.
“Lets hoping it was fish” Juliet said her lips curling into an almost smile.

The last thing you dreamed about would always be the thing you dreamed about during death. If you were very lucky the night before you died you would dream of lands filled with chocolate or walking into a story where everything is free.
However if you dreamed while dying well then….
The scales were pressing against her skin yet again the slimy wet grazing her lovely white skin. The stench cloyed through the velvet of her dress as she struggled to swim upwards.
It was an accident she wanted to scream needlessly, it was never intentional. But instead she sank deeper and deeper until all the sunlight disappeared and there was nothing but an almost silvery darkness.
Then the dream ended the way it always did.
With complete and utter silence.
Ophelia’s eyes snapped open and instead of silvery scales she saw the slightly bumpy ceiling of the schools theatre.
Her body lay sprawled across the catwalk perfectly still as she waited for the smell to leave her nostrils.
The dead dreamed every night because even their subconscious needed to metaphorically deal with things.

A DREAM OF A THOUSAND FISH.

……………………………. so tell me again about the dream.

……………as I was saying……………………. blackness. Not like …. sleep, …… more like I’m conscious with my eyes closed. But somehow I know that I’m asleep and I’m dreaming. And then before I can start to analyse the situation I see them.

…………….. I see is tiny points of light. Kind of like a field of stars only the dots of light are smaller and more uniform, no variation and over time………. they start to get bigger.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

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………………………………………they move like shiny silvery fish ……….. deep black sea and as they get closer they start to look like fish too. Only they never get close enough for me to be sure. I can never make out any details or any source of illumination.

It’s happening every night. It’s starting to freak me out.

…. how many ‘fish’ are there …….. dream? Milli….., dozens?

A thousand.

Exactly one thousand?

Yep. Implant, remember.

Of course. ………………… what do you think it means?

I don’t……………………… that’s what I pay you for……………………………………

……………………………………………………………………….

Tom, do …….. remember why ………………..came to me?

`Cause I had too much money and you needed a new boat?

Besides that, what brought you to therapy?

The implant……………… brain……………………… emotions………………

Right……………………. let’s talk about that. How long has it been now?

Two years.

……..how……………….. feel about that? …………has affected your life in a positive way?

Def…………………. on the whole, I would say yes…………but……………….. moments when all I wanna do is find a sharp knife and jam it into my skull.

Why is that?

Well it’s kinda like having another person in your head. Once it’s activated I can’t stop the signals coming in. I can control the output. But the input has no filter. I am the filter. But then, that’s kinda what it was designed for.

……… you want… removed?

No. No. best thing……. ever………to me. My research. My………. problems. Everything is better. It’s just I have these moments, you know. I get overwhelmed. But those moments pass………… the dream, what do you think it means?

What do you think it means?

Haha. Nice one doc. Get your patients to do your work for you. I’m not letting you off that easy. I pay my bills, enlighten me, please.

……………. I think the dream represents your feelings of isolation. You are suspended in a black void, all by yourself, no warmth, no light, no love…………... The points of light, these ‘fish’ represent the rest of humanity. Together, moving in unison. Basking in each others warmth. And far far away from you………………….. Your distance from humanity is so great that you can’t even make them out clearly. They’re just points of light in the distance. ………………………………………………………………………

…………………………………………………………………………………………….

But then again, it could just be a dream.

You think?

No actually, I don’t. The fact that you’ve had the same dream every night for the last two weeks means something. What exactly that meaning is, who knows.

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……………… six months doc. Every night. Tiny glowing fish……….. I think I’m ………… go insane………. scared………….. sleep. I’ve been taking every stimulant I know of in an effort to stay awake. You gotta help me. I gotta get this outta my head.

Are you talking about the dreams or the implant?

The dreams have to stop. I don’t care how.

……………………. tell me, is it the same dream every night? No variation?...........

………………………… formations change, slightly…….. same fish filled darkness. A few times I’ve noticed small coloured lights, kind of in the background. But essentially it’s the same dream.

When was… last time………. appeared? What colours? Describe them………………….

……………………….

…………………….. this week……. a small greenish………………….top right quadrant of my vision…………………………. Last week it was a larger green light. But the ‘fish’ are always the same.

You’ve kept track of them all then?

Of course. Every details been uploaded. I’ve gone through……… can’t make any sense of it. Sometimes no other lights. Sometimes several. Sometimes just one. But always the fish. Exactly one thousand.

Are you sure they’re fish?

No………………………. that’s what they remind me off… school of fish, moving together…………… collective intelligence. It would be beautiful if it didn’t terrify me so………..

Tell me about this terror.

…………………… hard to put my finger on……………… sort of nameless, shapeless fear. Objectively speaking there’s nothing about the dream that would terrify a person…………….. it petrifies me. Initially the beauty of it balanced out the fear but it’s always been there, from the first night…………………………………………………….

……………………………………

The records you’ve kept, would you mind if I took a look at them? Maybe try an objective analysis.

Sure thing. I brought them with me. Here take a look.

Do you mind if I keep these?

Go ahead. I’ve got plenty of copies.

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What is it doc? Why’d you call me in?

………. been analysing these dreams of yours and I think figured out exactly what they mean………….

Really? Wow.

Wow indeed.

So tell me. Am I crazy?

Judging by the dreams? No. Although other evidence is still open to interpretation.

Haha. Okay…………………….. tell me about my dreams.

……………. the lights…………. the “fish” as you call them are alien spaceships………………an armada…………………………. the coloured lights in the background are various stellar phenomena that these ships have been passing on their way to this planet…………………..

Hahahahaha. Wow doc, you really are in a mood today……………. just your way of breaking the bad news……………….. Trying to liven up the moment before the death plunge?

No. I’m being quite serious. They’re coming.

Aliens? Coming here?...............................................................

Yes….

…………….you deciphered………….. this from………………….. dots of colour in an otherwise……………… dream?

Ye……………………………..

And how, pray tell did you manage that?

………………… Tom it’s a kind of code…………… the armada…… been broadcasting to that implant in your head………………… sending updates of their…………. travels to this solar system.

And you cracked the code?

Yes.

And you………………. how?

…………..I had the key to the code Tom, that’s how…………….

Where……………… this key?

They gave…………. me.

They gave………………….Why would they………………………………

………………how else would I know they were coming?

You………………………………. expecting them....................you’re an alien then? ………………………… advanced scout?

Something like that……………… sending them intelligence for the last 50 years…………………… you have that implant in your head……………… because…….. needed a way to transmit…………… to me so………. make the appropriate preparations.

What kind of preparations?

……………………….. every global satellite system is crashing…………….. defence system will go down all over the world…………………… weapons and munitions………………………………………………. will be less than effective, to say the least………………….. no mercy……………………………………………………..

too late……………………

Why? …………………………….. purpose would it serve to travel light-years across space just to destroy one insignificant planet?

Insignificant? …………have no idea how lucky you are………………. A planet like this one is so ………………….. lucky we got here first……………. over……….. farewell…………………………………………………….

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…………. final transmission…………………. too late for us……………………… save you………………………….. my name is Tom……………………. vigilance……………………………………………………………………………………

goodbye………………………………………………………………………………………

END SIGNAL

spawn

The glimmering shine of the scales from a thousand fish spawning together make them all look like one magnificent, grand creature. Sometimes I wonder what would happen if one of the fish decided to turn and go in the opposite direction.

Not everyone goes the same way in reaching a goal or objective. From point A to B may be the most common and possibly the quickest way but are we missing something by not looking at other points on our journey?

A DREAM OF A THOUSAND FISH EH?

For some its cracking a beer at the end of a working week and watching the sun go down knowing that they have provided and cared for their nearest and dearest. For others its jumping out of an airplane and careening towards oblivion. And yet others feel it when they simply wipe the arse of their ailing grandmother, supposedly understanding the ironic nature of oroboros. For me, the feeling of fulfilling my souls purpose is escaping the fixed confines of a corner of my perception and ravaging the purity of formlessness with my own delusions. This I do after 3 and a half pills and enough psilocybin to freak the fuck out of Dr Zeus.

There was this one time when my motor skills had failed me and I was experiencing an extreme case of glossolalia that I stumbled upon an ocean. I had been wishing my friends from all over the world a happy new year. Escaping the confines of time and space I was able to be there and embrace them with as much love and happiness on New Years Eve as I could mustre. There really is nothing like exploring ones transcendental nature. Of course, I could not have let my friends know it was me hugging them so I wore a mask of hazelwood, peacock feathers and glitter so that at the stroke of midnight they would only know that as the strong embrace of a stranger made them reminiscent of me.

Turning away from an ex-girlfriend in Norway I fell into a warm and finely illuminated sea. Luckily I seemed to have fallen onto a naturally formed sandbank as the water only came up to my knees. It was trully amazing. Standing up and viewing a 360 degree veiw of an ocean, I was drowned in a feeling of gratitude. The sight before me was quite a gift. It was calm and the moon engulfed the northern part of the sky, its wavering twin looking back at it from beneath the waves. The stars seemed to be moving faster than usual, yet the moon itself held sway over this place. A flicker of irridescnece drew my attention to the water directly surrounding me. Beneath the waves swam a school of fish. The way they moved were so synchronised I marvelled at the way their collective mind allowed them to move with such cohesion.

Fantastical as it may seem, I then noticed that the glowing aquatic residents of the sea were circling me. Again I felt my heart hum with love and gratitude. What a gift to behold! Even the fish of the sea are expressing their unconditional love of me in their own way. This is surely going to be the best year ever!!! I simply stood there vibrating away in ecstatic dreaminess.

It was as I marveled at the beauty and grace of this experience that the warmth of the water, so grasciously bestowed on me, withdrew. It was not until I could feel the cold biting into my shins and the painful tightness of my calves that I regained some composure and cleared my vision. The fish had stopped circling. The fish had lost their lustre. The stars had disappeard and the moon had grown hungry and swallowed up half the sky. For a second my bliss indulgent heart imagined the stars in the water´s surface. But there is nothing more reason defying, and therefore horrendous to the human ego, than a thousand fish raised up out of the water. Their black eyes and scales lending the illusion of cold false stars.

Before I was swimming in their love. Now I was drowning in their unimaginabely cold stare. I could feel the contempt and hate gouging its way into the very pores of my skin that constricted in vain to keep me warm. Words like revulsion and cold bile crept into my mind.

'Our sacrificial pig is come. Our sacrifical pig is come. Our sacrificial pig is come. Our sacrifical pig is come. Our sacrifical pig is come. Our sacrificial pig is come.'

A marauding horror began to find its foothold in me. This deep violation would not be held back by the light and warmth of my heart. It began gaining momentum.

'We thousand dream. One will come. We thousand dream. One will come. We thousand dream. One will come. We thousand dream. One will come. We thousand dream. One will come.'

Their mantra hummed and throbbed, squirmed and writhed. The air around me seemed to stir and pulse with the same tenacious energy. The words themselves having an aliveness that poked and prodded the atmosphere of two worlds. For even as this sensation nailed part of my fixation in this watery horror, another part was being visciously abused by the cold blackness that was devouring me from the inside.

'Decieve, peirce, rip and gut. Be devieved, peirced, ripped and gut. Decieve, peirce, rip and gut. Be devieved, peirced, ripped and gut. Decieve, peirce, rip and gut. Be devieved, peirced, ripped and gut.'

I could not hope to contend with the torrid despair that had all but nearly consumed me.With my last spark of hope I turned and went with the tide of darkness. Knowing that there was no longer any resistence, the vile icy blackness swept over the last remnants of whatever was left of my bleak inner landscape and cut to my core.

It was in this moment that lasted a forever that I realised what my driving force in life was... Sadness, grief and despair.

With that stark realisation came the most visceral of perception jarring sensations as I vomitted all over myself.

Fish Are The New Muslims

The day was Tuesday. Not a particularly special day. It was grey. It was mild with a nippy breeze. It was exactly why I like living in England, absolutely fuck all happens and a child murderer playing Cluedo in his cell is still classed as newsworthy.

I spent the day how I spent everyday of my 12hrs of employment a week life by doing absolutely fuck all. Wake up, look at some strange pineapple fetish ass fucking porn whilst kidding myself that I'm watching it for a laugh not because I get a raging hard on for this kinda shit, have a wank, smoke a joint and settle down for some hardcore Dick action... the daily 2.10pm showing of Diagnosis Murder.

The credits of Neighbours are rolling and I'm waiting in eager anticipation for some OAP friendly medical sleuthing and then it happens.

"BREAKING NEWS - THE WORLD TRADE CENTER HAS BEEN ATTACKED BY FLYING FISH"

I was appalled. How could our stupid aquatic friends launch such an attack at this time? Do they not realise this a televisual holy time? Shouldn't they be busy luring dolphins into fishing nets?

Questions just kept going round my brain like sardines herded into a bait ball. I just couldn't make gills or fins of it. All I knew was I had to find out the truth so I marched onto down to my friendly Asian fishmonger because really who knows more about fish than the orientals?

He was quick to put my fears to rest, this wasn't the beginning of the feared Human-Fish wars, this was just an attack by fish extremists who have had enough of being used as food, sport and trapped in glass boxes for our own amusement.

They didn't understand how we could treat fish like this without a ounce of compassion when we had given black people all these civil liberties.

Even worse than this were the so called Vegetarians. They walk around talking about how heating animals is bad and throwing buckets of pigs blood on people but they'd go home and tuck into a love piece of cod. Are the fish not animals too?

We should've seen it coming, our fish policy smacked of hypocrisy and elitism.

They had named themselves "The Jews Of The Sea" and were lead by the menacing looking cleric Abu Herring who was instantly recognisable by the hook sticking out his jaw, a reminder of his foiled suicide bombing when he tried to take out a group of English anglers.

I thanked Mr Wong for his help but passed on his offer of Sushi, it just didn't seem right given the new climate.

I was unsure if this news made me feel safer or not. Sure, the thought of all out war with the fish was scary but knowing we're dealing with suicidal guerrilla fish was a different kind of fear. The rules of engagement had been thrown out the window. There was no battlefield and no soldiers, Just billions of potential victims.

The government needed a response because if they did nothing public outrage and vigilantism would be rife with thousands of innocent fish slaughtered for no reason. But if they did too much they could risk alienating the rest of the fish world and driving them into the hands of the evil clerics like Abu Herring.

Sadly, our leaders were not sympathetic to the plight of the fish and began to bomb them out of the water forcing them underground where the hatred spiralled out of control.

There have been attacks all around the world since this fateful day, it was only yesterday that a school of Salmon set themselves on fire and dive bombed a Glasgow airport reminding us that regardless of how much you batter the fish they will never go away.

Be brave my brothers and sisters. Just don't look up.