Thread: Loosing The Marbles, And Other Dreams

I was at my elementary school back in Harrah, WA; I was digging up something with a spade where my totem-tree once sat. “They must be here,” I am telling myself, “She had to have left me something.” (referring to my totem-tree who was recently torn out; I am referring to back in my childhood when this particular tree, named Mother Nora, would give me “gifts”.) suddenly I hit a hard object with my spade and start to dig with my hands and I bring up a large black treasure box, and I open it up.

“I better get these back home, soon, before they come.” I think I’m pretty lucid (by my standards,) now, because in my dreams of my school, there are always hobgoblin children who take away my Mother Nora gifts. Anyways, I crack open the box with my shovel and it turns to ash. Inside, there are five or six, seven at most, marbles. I distinctly remember saying the names of a few marbles aloud, “Pop-eye patches..King brand boulders…aggots…gasey…OH LORD, it’s the king of them all, the Genus Speenus.” I think I’m referring to the marble as having a genus, as an animal or plant would. I still don’t know what a “speenus” is. O_o;. It was one of my very favourite kind of marbles, tho, a Bennington clay! “This Speenus must be civil-war era!” This particular marble is melted, and is all ruined and won’t roll; but it is the most important find. It is, after all, the Genus Speenus.

Suddenly I hear the hobgoblin children, all pitch-black skinned and wearing thong-shoes and clawed and toothed and skinned like animals; I dash over to the fence by the tennis court to find the Indian’s Gate to escape. Suddenly the dream shifts and I am in the middle of the playground and that damn lead hobgoblinchild is strangling me. He’s about 5 or 6 years old, the rest all are 3 or 4; except the Elders, who are all 8 and 9. there are usally 3 Elders.

“No, NO, you…you can’t have it! NORA gave it to me and god, you won’t take her away from me again!” Then huge black raven wings sprout from my back and I start to fly away, but those damn kids grab my dress and pull and tug so it ripples up and chokes me. My wings are a flurry, a torrent of wind, and they break and splinter and I fall and crawl away. The second in command, a girl (I …think it’s a girl. Sometimes she has gentiles, yet she’s always a girl…hmm.) grabs one of my marbles. The 1921 glass-swirl, hand-made. I swear at her and jump on her and bite and claw and break her neck, but she never lets go of my marble. The rest come to avenge her and steal my Genus Speenus. I tackle them all and even with their teeth, claws, and knives, I win, but they come back to life. I lost lucidity around the time the girl took my marbles. In my dreams the marbles are very very, very important to me and I would rather die than loose them. It’s like their part of my soul or something. I horde them, I am the Golum of Marbles, I cannot bear to be without them.

I spot him. The Main Hobgoblin boy. He has a African mask; it’s black with red eyes and white streaks and a massive, black lion’s mane. I roar at him and charge, tell him he better give me my Speenus, or I’ll never let him into MY NORA’S PLACE again. But he guts me with his hands and I see the Bennington for one last moment.


I don’t know why, but the same or similar dreams just haunt me, nightly. Reoccurring dream for three months now. I really hate those hobgoblin children; I despise these dreams because I know when I’m in one and what will happen. It’s horrid. Worse, I am becoming obsessive about marbles in real life. I have a very small collection and am greedy for Bennington civil-war era Clay marbles. Whenever someone gets too close to my marbles or touches them, I feel like I am some kind of pre-human guarding it’s fire or something. I also feel that this playground is a kind of holy ground in which these hobgoblins have NO RIGHT to, Mother Nora was there and she was mine. The other kids tore off her bark and tore down branches when I told them about her, and now these kids are immortally starting war with me in my dreams.

It really sucks when you loose your marbles.