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Tuesday, May 13, 2008


"The Story of Dry Lake"

I've been having very vivid dreams lately. Almost every night, in fact. Some of them have been peculiar (as most dreams are), but others... well, they've been a bit more realistic. Believable even. All of them, however, have had one thing in common -- they've been complete stories with a beginning, middle, and an end.

So... in honor of this entertaining string of cinema-like dreams, I thought I'd take a moment and post one that I experienced way back in 2003. I found it so interesting, in fact, that I turned it into a story and posted it on my website. I've edited and reposted it here for you reading pleasure. Feel free to give it a read, and let me know what you think!


"The Story of Dry Lake"

The warm afternoon sun shines down upon Dry Lake. A young boy sits quietly on it's sandy shore, gazing out over the sparkling water. The day is beautiful, warm, peaceful... perfect for a leisurely swim to the opposite shore.

The boy's arms are strong, his swimming skillful, but he tires somewhere near the middle. So, resting for a moment, he floats peacefully in the cool comforting water. He listens to the environment around him. All is calm. All is quiet. When he feels refreshed, he resumes his journey.

Then, just below the surface, something jagged hits his leg. He stops.

Cursing the pain, yet filled with boyish curiousity, he dives below to see what he ran into. Much to his surprise, he discovers the broken mast of a sailing ship. Rising for air, and then returning below the water, his curiousity reveals the mast to be that of a mighty warship, its wooden planks mangled and broken in battle long ago.

Swimming down around the hull, the boy surveys this haunting wreck. Down here the lake is still illuminated by the sun above, and the waters are less deep than he thought. His curiousity growing, the young boy swims down further, alighting for a moment on the bottom of the lake. This strange ship intrigues him. He wants to learn more. Looking around, he sees that the lake bed is barren and upturned. No plants; no fish; no life; just him. Death and emptiness linger everywhere.

Suddenly, as if his presence had been expected, the waters vanish. Air fills the young boy's lungs, and be begins to breathe. His curiousity grows further, and he starts to explore. He wanders around the wreck. The illumination from above has disappeared, the waters are gone, and the same lake bed is now dry and dusty. A cloudy night sky drifts overhead.

Wide-eyed with wonder, the boy surveys his new surroundings. Strange shapes of metal and upturned earth join the wooden wreck. Shadows cast monsters in the moonlight, and the jagged shapes become old war machines jutting haphazardly upward from the pitted earth. Death and darkness saturate the scene, and the moon bounces eerily off the rusting vehicles. The ground is cold, the air warm. A battlefield rises around the boy.... A battlefield at the bottom of Dry Lake.

Curious, the boy inches toward a nearby trench. A twisted machine thrusts itself skyward. The ground is hard, caked and brittle by years of drought, and dried mud entombs everything unlucky to sink within. Half-buried human skeletons -- untouched for years -- litter the field, left to memorialize a battle no one remembers.

The boy's eyes grow narrow; they dart about the shadows. He hears a sound. Off in the distance, a coyote scrambles out from beneath an old vehicle. It looks around, yelps in fright, and skitters off.

Fear surges within the young boy's heart. He hears another sound. He looks down. Near his feet the dry earth moves. He jumps back. There, in place of once skeletal bones, rests a complete yet bedraggled soldier. It's body moves. It's eyes open, and the man sits up. Paying no attention to the wide-eyed youth, the old soldier unearths his weapon, dusts off his helmet, and crawls to his feet.

The young boy, frozen, his bare feet glued to the dusty earth, watches as the ancient soldier rises and makes his way toward a series of earthworks a few yards away. Others join him. Men of two distinct armies quietly... slowly... hauntingly... rise from the earth and take up positions in the field. The only sounds are the movement of resurrected troops, and the mournful whisper of the wind through the formations of earth and steel.

Mustering what strength he has left, the young boy slinks unnoticed through the sea of soldiers. He discovers a large overturned tree and hides behind it, watching as the long line of trenches fill with life. The moon passes behind a cloud, the shadows melt away. The boy is shaking. He's cold. He's frightened. He cannot speak.

Then the clouds pass; the shadows return. The once jagged earth is fresh and new. The trenches are full, a battle seems imminent. Men load cannons with empty shells. Broken vehicles, no longer covered in dirt and rust, lumber painfully toward positions of war. What was once a forgotten grave, has now become a field of battle.

A man silently loads another shell into a nearby cannon, and ducks below the rim of the earth. The scene falls silent. Minutes pass. Nothing moves.

Then, with a sudden burst of anger, the ground erupts into conflict. Shells explode everywhere, throwing volcanos of dust and debris high into the air. Shouts of battle pierce the night. Screams of the wounded crawl across the ground. Metal tank treads rip apart the earth, and the repeated popping of gunfire becomes a thunderous roar. Instinctively the young boy thrusts himself deeper into his tree, his head beneath his legs. He slips into darkness as the battle around him intensifies.

Time passes, and the darkness subsides. The boy awakens. All is silent. He waits, afraid to raise his head. Then, after an eternity of quiet, he pokes his head out from behind the shredded tree and surveys his surroundings. The smoke is drifting away. Nothing moves. The sky has grown lighter, as a new day arises. But the clouds still hold out the morning sun. The battle is over, and the trenches are empty. Stillness returns. Death and emptiness lurk about.

Slowly the boy crawls out from behind his tree. He sees the jagged earth. Broken vehicles thrust hauntingly into the morning sky, rust covering them just as before. The ground is pitted, and the soldiers are gone, replaced once again by the ancient skeletons half buried in the earth.

The field has returned to the way it was.

The boy emerges from his shelter, walking gingerly out into the past. He returns to his warship, and surveys the battlefield. After a few minutes, the air grows thin; it becomes hard to breathe. The waters return, and the boy is once again swimming around the old wooden wreck. The twisted mounds of earth disappear into the lake bed, illuminated only by periodic rays from above. The old rusty shapes thrust upwards -- reaching to be remembered.

The young boy feels his lungs call for air as he rises alongside the broken mast. He breaks through the surface into the warm sunny air, and once again finds himself drifting in the middle of the lake. Lost in thought, he turns around, returning to his sandy shore, and lays there in the peaceful afternoon sun. He watches the sparkling calm of the lake and begins to wonder.... Was that a dream? Or had he just witnessed a haunting secret buried beneath Dry Lake?

Years pass. The young boy grows up, becomes a man, and moves on in life, his experience nothing more than a forgotten dream. No one remembers.

Then, one warm summer day, a young boy sits with his friend on the grassy shore. The sun shines down, sparkling beautifully upon the water. Smiling, the boy looks at his friend challenging him to a race. His friend accepts, and before long, the two go for a swim.... a swim across Dry Lake.

-Jon

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Jon Baas

Blogging Since 2002!
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USS Enterprise 1701-D
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