Raspberry's Second Life

Awake Non-Lucid Vivid

I'm in a shed. The wood is dark and splintered, with white salt marks down it. The shed is cramped and filled with forgotten objects that no one cares for anymore. I turn my head to see a dusty dvd called Cheaper By the Dozen 5.

Someone calls my name. I turn around to look out of the door. Two men are lying in awkward positions on the sandy floor outside. They look as though they've dropped from the sky and broken all their bones when they landed. "Cheaper by the dozen 5?" I say slowly. "I thought there were only a couple of those movies."

The men shake their heads vigorously. "No no. There are much more!"

I go outside. I'm on a small strip of sandy land, surrounded by the sea. There's a rough breeze, and a few wind and salt worn straggly trees sprouting from the ground, their bark the same colour as the shed, with the same white marks. The sky is grey and everything is all together bleak.

Suddenly a wave passes high over head. It's going to cover the whole tiny island.

I jump onto a meter sized bit of bark. It's picked up by the wave and I struggle to stay on the board as both myself and the wave travel higher and higher. I see mountains all around. This is a disaster. A second wave comes up behind me and threatens to crash onto me. I grit my teeth and try harder to rise above the wave.

As we go higher, both waves begin to freeze. I hear chinking sounds as the water suddenly freezes with deathly jagged spikes. I throw myself from the ice and land with a crash into cold, salt water.

I come up for air, exhausted. My vision flickers as I dimly register another little sandy island, with the same dark wood as the other island. There are little wooden log houses on this one, and people bustle about. There are a variety of wooden ships surrounding the island, and fishermen out catching their dinner.

I don't have the energy to swim. I float, unable to swim to shore. It's so close, yet so far. The island fades from view and I pass out.

I wake up in a bed with a log fire crackling away beside me. It's a small two roomed cabin by the looks of it, with plain wooden furnishings and knitted cloths. There is no technology at all.

An old woman comes into the room. She's small, with grey wavy hair tied back and a kind, wrinkled face. She gives me a smooth wooden bowl and spoon, with what looks like soup in it. She says it's potato. I tend to only like tomato soup but i'm hungry and eat up eagerly. It's tasty and spiced with other things too.

When i'm feeling better she takes me outside. It really is a small place, but everyone is busy bustling about. She explains to me that there are two groups of people. People who fish and people who keep ships. They are happy to live side by side as long as the fishermen provide the ship people with fish, for boats in return.

As I look around I notice that the only thing people are eating is little bowls of soup. I get i'll have to get used to that. It's cold, salty, and the sky is still grey and bleak, with the white freezing mountains in the backround. But I feel oddly content and at home. I feel like I have found my place, even if it almost killed me getting here, with the ice dagger waves.