sadoeuphemist:deepwaterwritingprompts:Text: There was nothing more valuable than dream shards. I wis

sadoeuphemist:deepwaterwritingprompts:Text: There was nothing more valuable than dream shards. I wished shattering a dream were a less violent act. I wished we had any other choice.                  CASH for DREAMSHave an unfulfilled dream that’s just getting you down?    Don’t let it be ground to dust by an uncaring world!             Sell it now! Cash in on its value!     We pay TOP DOLLAR for DREAM SHARDS                     CALL: 555-DREAMThe ads are everywhere. In the classifieds, taped to bus stops and in public restrooms, slipped into the menus of restaurants, lying crumpled in the gutters. Makes sense. Ubb is a city of dreamers, sleek and elegant, bustling and brusque, promising you everything and then leaving you passed out in an alleyway with your pockets riffled through. You clipped out one of the ads on your first week in the city, kept it neatly pressed next to your driver’s license. You were a dreamer, sure, but you weren’t stupid. You knew you’d need a backup plan in case things didn’t work out. Well, here you are. Things have not worked out. The ad calls out to you because you’re desperate, but not hopeless. That’s the sweet spot. You’ve been living in Ubb for six months, trying to network, make connections, applying to every industry position available while bussing tables for minimum wage. In that time, you’ve gotten two interviews, zero job offers, and now you’ve burnt through your savings and your half of the rent is due. The dream’s still bright, still shiny, still dangling so tantalizingly within the realm of possibility. Maybe just a few months more, just a little longer, and you could hit your big break. It could be right around the corner. Who knows? Or, you could sell out now, cash in, make more money that you have in the past six months, and maybe hang around in Ubb a little longer or return back home, world-weary and wise, a comfortable little stash of cash in your pockets. You’re a dreamer. You’re valuable. That beautiful little dream that you grew and nurtured in your heart all those years? It’s precious, objectively, with an insane market price. It’s how you worked up the nerve to move to Ubb to begin with. Either way, you win. You win, that is, assuming you don’t keep waiting too long and let the dream wither and die before you can sell it. That’s the hard part. Knowing when to quit. Anyway, the choice has been made for you. You’re broke. You need the money, now. The dream’s still rattling around inside you, as hot and bright as it ever was, but who cares about dreams when you’re on the verge of being homeless? You make the call. Your hand’s been forced. You set up the interview. You sigh as you hang up the phone. Already you’re feeling nostalgic for the idealistic days of youth. The place is set up in a shoddy little office in the back of a pawnshop. There are a couple of other people in line, slouched on chairs set out in the hallway, casting resentful glances at each other. You try and guess what their dreams are by the way they dress. Financial whiz. Aspiring thaumaturgist. Wannabe zoetrope star. The woman who finally interviews you tells you to call her Alba. She wears a blood-red jacket, has skin as pale as ash. She flips through your portfolio - they told you to bring it along - and starts asking questions. You’re a little hesitant at first, but Alba seems to know what she’s talking about, sounds genuinely curious. You start talking, and before you know it you’re getting into an involved discussion about color choices and palette when she abruptly cuts you off. You fall silent, embarrassed at being the earnest kid from the countryside here to sell away your dreams. Alba only smiles at you. They’re very interested in what you have to sell, she says. She offers you a contract. You read through it and then sign. That is a lot of zeroes at the end. Your hand is shaky as you set down the pen. You’re doing this. This is the Real Deal, money changing hands, everything signed and sealed and irreversible. The oneiroi start setting up the equipment. You ask her if this is going to hurt. Alba smiles again. You can’t tell if it’s sympathy or anticipation. They call it violence to shatter someone’s dream, she muses. But really, how is that any worse than the alternative? Letting them be ground to dust over time, losing their luster, until that oh-so-precious thing has been devalued to the point where it isn’t worth anything at all? Isn’t that violence itself, of a different sort? You don’t really know how to respond to that, so you just kind of nod and look straight ahead. She pats your shoulder. You’re young, she says. You’ve got the rest of your life ahead of you. You’ll grow better dreams, truer and more fulfilling ones, dreams you couldn’t even imagine having at this point in your life. The dream you have now - well, it’s gotten you this far, it’s certainly been useful up to this point, but it’s a child’s dream, isn’t it? Best to make a clean break of it. Give up childish endeavors. Start over fresh. Her fingernails press into your shoulder. She’ll make it quick, she says. The oneiroi have set up the rack in front of you, threads running back and forth across it like some crazily-knotted goalposts, making fractured patterns that almost turn into shapes. Alba starts asking you questions. How young were you when you first started doing this? (seven) Who was the first person who suggested you could do this professionally? (your dad, probably, but you’re not sure he was serious) What sacrifices have you made in service of your art? You start stilted at first, but gradually she gets you talking, and then your whole dream is flowing out of you just like that. It gathers on the strands, glistening, congeals, parts of it flowing into one another and solidifying. You’ve never seen it all laid out in front of you like this before. You had started to believe that this was just some stupid kid’s dream, totally unrealistic, no point in clinging to it any longer, but as your dream slowly expands in front of you, you realize: it’s beautiful. The facets of it gleaming under the lights, luminescent, green and gold and wavering like seawater, holding treasures in its depths, arcing above you into a canopy that casts dancing patterns on the floor. It is the most beautiful thing that you have ever seen. And then Alba shatters it. She’s very efficient about it, very professional. She says three simple sentences, and the whole thing falls apart. You sit there. Now that she’s said it, it’s utterly, stupidly obvious why your dream would never have worked. It’s lying there in pieces on the floor. You feel numb. Or rather, because you’re numb, you don’t feel anything. The oneiroi are gathering up the shards, and Alba is swiftly riffling through a big fat wad of bills, counting out loud for your benefit. You can’t stop looking at the shards of your broken dream, as green and hypnotic as you imagined them.You ask if you can keep a shard. One of the oneiroi takes offense to that. He starts telling you, very patronizingly, that they’re sharp and that you’re liable to cut yourself on them, it’s not a good idea. He’s an expert, you see, he knows how to handle them. You’re not, and you don’t. You just keep staring at the shards of your dream, trying numbly to shuffle around him, until Alba finally intervenes and says, Okay, okay, it’s not that big a deal. Let ‘em keep a shard if it’ll keep things moving, we’ll just take it out of the fee. She makes a show of peeling away a few of the bills and putting them into her pocket. The oneiros grumbles, but he fishes out one of the smaller shards and finds an empty cigar box to put it in. Be careful with that thing, he says. You find yourself outside the shop, your pocket bulging with money, the shard sliding around inside the cigar box in your hand. You walk home. You could take a taxi home. You could do a lot of things. You’re flush with cash, and the great city of Ubb is full of things to buy. You could sit in a nice restaurant for once and eat a decent meal instead of having to subsist on locusts and ramen. You could go drinking. You could celebrate. You could rub shoulders with the influencers and pioneers. You could set your sights higher, start acquiring a new dream, a better one, only this time with the necessary capital to make it happen. You’re young. You’re in Ubb! You have the rest of your life ahead of you. You look down at the box in your hand and slide it open, carefully pick up the shard between thumb and forefinger, lifting it up to your face. The world seen through the shard is softer, less sharply-angled, the corners of buildings warping into curving towers, the hazy yellow sky submerging into aquamarine. It has the soft glow of nostalgia, and yet the novelty of a world that’s never before existed. It is a kinder, gentler world, a more forgiving one. It is the kind of landscape that only exists in dreams. When you get back to your apartment, you think your roommate should be happy that you’ve finally come up with your half of the rent, but instead she points at your hand and shrieks that you’re bleeding. You look down. You are. Your fingers are a slick red and dripping onto the floor; there’s blood spotting your shoe and long drips of it streaked across your leg, bloody fingerprints where you brushed against it. You’ve cut yourself, just like the guy said you would, like an idiot, without even noticing. It went in so sharp you never felt a thing. So gorgeous. -- source link

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