Snacks From the Butler's Pantry

The Ghost Detective
I am a detective in Victorian England. I am investigating the case of a rich woman who can't leave her bed. She believes the bed is haunted, and the spirits bind her to the mattress. At first I believe the woman to be crazy, so I examine her with olde-tyme doctor's equipment. Somehow, I come to learn that the case is not as simple as it seems. I meet the maid who tells me a story of two children who were drowned in the bathtub.

I decide to investigate. I lay down next to the woman on the bed, and induce an Out of Body Experience. I want to communicate with the spirits of the dead children. I enter the spirit world with my OBE, and realize the woman is really a ghost. The children were not killed in the bathtub. The mother went mad, and nearly drowned her twin children to the point of brain damage. She then locked them under her bed and killed herself.

Somehow, the children were half dead. Half in the spirit world. When the mother killed herself, the children trapped her soul halfway between life and death. She could not leave the bed, because she could not leave he place of her attempted suicide. I free the children from their prison under the bed, which restores their minds, and frees the woman's spirit.

The Smell of Cedar
I live in an old run down row house in my childhood hometown. I nostalgically take on the task of restoring it to its former beauty. The contractor wants to do a walkthrough of the landscaping in the back yard. He is tearing out all the overgrown trees to pour a new concrete patio. Like an idiot, I accidentally step in some wet concrete. To repair the damage, I use a large, thick syringe. I pierce the hardened skin of the cement, and draw fresh wet cement out of the center of the slab. I then squirt this into the damaged areas, and smooth it over, good as new.

One of the slabs is too badly damaged, and I volunteer to help re-pour it. I go into the garage to get my concrete sculpture equipment, but it is all entangled in overgrown roots. I end up having to carry a huge tree stump out to the construction site. While I struggle to untangle the roots, the contractor tells me about his plans to cut down all the trees in the yard.

I get an odd feeling, and my sense of smell becomes super heightened. I can smell everything. The wet concrete, the nutty smell of the treeroots. Most of all, I can smell the old trees themselves. They smell absolutely incredible. I walk around the yard smelling all the trees up close. I am intoxicated by the clean pine, the hearty redwood, the sharp cedar. As soon as I get a whiff of the cedar, I become completely lucid. I look around and realize this house is not just a house in my hometown, it is the house I grew up in. I get a flood of my waking memories, and all the nostalgic memories of my childhood empower me. My sense of smell is still heightened, and I reach out through the smells to touch the trees with my mind. I pour all my memories directly into them, and they begin to grow.

Their branches start twisting and reaching. Their roots burst out of the ground. I see freshly poured concrete torn apart by the tree roots. The branches touch the walls of the house, and rip through them like paper. I feel like the trees are part of me. We are connected through their strong earthy aromas. Pushing out with my branches, I feel the man made materials of the house disintegrate under my power. Soon the house is a pile of rubble, and I am reaching out to the sunlight with my wide branches.

I do not want to wake up yet. I know it is a dream, so I want to enjoy the feeling before I lose it. The sunlight strengthens me, and the breeze stretches my trunk like a satisfying morning yawn. I try to remember the powerful scent of all the different wood. I hope that when I wake, I will still have this ability to reach out to the world through my sense of smell.