Dunking in the Dream Tea
Dunking in the Dream Tea
Discovering synesthesia, pulling myself out of a bad week, creating dreams on-demand, doodling in the first draft and more whale imagery
Over the past week, I was feeling pretty mellow and fell off my great-mood streak of about a month. Upon some much needed reflection, I realised that it had something to do with not seeing the impact I was making in my day-to-day life or rather having no tight feedback loop to see how my efforts were paying off. Any which way I turned, it seemed like I was facing the direction of disappointment.
As I was floating through this bad dream of a week, H suggested that I make up a dream. He said this would be my assignment and completing it would feel like a small win. I told him I might actually be able to do it; whether well or badly I’ll let you, the reader, decide. So, I embarked on this creative adventure, in the park on a Sunday morning, to take advantage of a mind that wanders and a brain that races to whip up a dream in waking.
Take an office building with its innumerous storeys. Yellow was standing atop it with a drink of tea in his hand. As he looked or rather stared deeply at the greenish-yellow liquid in his porcelain cup with Victorian etchings, his brain kept itself busy atomising visuals that an on-looker wouldn’t have guessed for the life of them: the tea split into its constituents in mid-air, burgeoning out of the physical boundaries of its vessel.
Yellow had a different brain that made up visualisations that were unreal many a time and hence this particular incident didn't surprise him the least bit until…
Until, the sky above his head growled in a deafening thunder and looking up in the direction of the stupefying sound, the heavy cakes of clouds unleashed a downpour causing a confused Yellow to make a run inside the building. But the story had other plans. Unbeknownst to him, there birthed a communication portal between his imagination and the rainstorm. The mysterious qualms of nature morphed his visualisation into reality and the water element from his cup kept growing and growing until it became one with the rain. He was trapped in a flood.
A lonely Yellow panicked, for he was one of the sorry souls who didn’t know how to swim. As the water’s grip tightened around his tense body, he heard another growl with a hint of a beckoning voice, dipped in honey for all the sweetness it oozed.
“Let go of the fight. Give into it.”
It was not as if he had any other choice. He slowed down his breath, stopped flapping his limbs haphazardly and steadied his legs together. The latter sensation felt strangely comfortable, coaxing him to dart a glance at his feet. To his bewilderment, his feet had been replaced with fin-like structures.
The events that transpired next zipped past him in lightning speed. For starters, he dived to the source of the voice. He discovered that it was the leader of a tree grove that sprung from the depths of the ocean and held up the sky on the other end. His eyes turned blue and and a water-repellent layer formed over them. Realising he no-longer had to hold his breath and that he could actually speak, he conversed with the swarm of krill that were passing him who mumbled, “Oh! it’s just blue field crytopic vision”. He had no clue it had a name. Before he could thank the krill, a commotion started that could have been traced back to a whale call. A huge blue-whale, in its full gigantic glory, swam right in front of his disbelieving eyes, swallowing in a truckload of krill. What a sight! Just as Yellow was starting to get accustomed to the wild scenery, the trees spun around and called out to him, “Tuesday, your time is up. Off you go!”. Yellow would realise later on that the tree was synesthetic just like him. After all, mondays appeared blue to him.
The water started to drain out, as if someone had pulled a plug and the horizon revealed a narrow water chute which he found himself plunged into. The water chute unwinded over a vast area zooming past coral reefs, blue-whale calves feeding, a group of young trees having a happy-go-lucky conversation, more krill and a dazzling display of colour by all kinds of fish. Yellow shook his head to jolt back his attention to his bodily state - his fins were gone, his eyes were tearing up and he was inhaling water when he tried to breathe in. Fortunately for him though, the water chute worked along the force of anti-gravity and he was sliding, alright, but just up. The water element was shrinking rapidly and as and when he arrived at the end of the chute, a massive golden light materialised underneath his feet and he was sprung up to land onto a concrete floor…
Presently, he hears the voice of his assistant from the elevator that just dinged open, “Boss? Can we send out the painting? It’s framed and ready to be packed.” He nods and accompanies him to their 67th-floor office that could pass as a forest for all the indoor plants it sported. A huge picture of a blue-whale stands in front of him and he bathes his brown eyes in its blueness. He takes a deep breath of air and nods, at which the team gets busy in packing and shipping out one of his most recent masterpieces.
Yellow glances down at the cup in his hand and recalls the ocean-scape he just returned from as having porcelain boundaries.
The End
Behind the scenes: My silly little first draft with its silly little illustrations :)
