Obsidian Dreams

By Jonathan August

Ever since he was a child and encountered JoJo the Mind Reading Clown at the circus, Michael has been plagued by nightmares of Dream World, a transitional dimension between our “reality” and the Afterlife.

But as he grew into adulthood, the dreams intensified along with JoJo’s malevolent presence.

Is Michael truly just dreaming? Is JoJo a figment of his imagination?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jonathan August
• Release date: Jun 13, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476358772

Book preview

PROLOGUE

Papa Bears and Dairy Dogs

Never trust your dreams, Michael.

There was a cumbersome weight behind my father’s words that night, as if each syllable he spoke was another burden heaped upon his shoulders.

But that wasn’t what troubled me the most. It was the fact that he was staring at that old, dusty violin case he’d kept for years in the hall closet behind the forgotten board games and broken toys. He stood there running his fingers over the case’s rough leather surface, his breath coming out in plumes against the cold.

It was the dead of my sixth Oregon winter. We lived a stone’s throw from my grandfather’s dairy farm where my father worked, miles and miles from a spot on a map that could only be found with a blind stab of a finger and a belly full of booze.

We had trudged through the snow from the house to the shop where my father spent much of his time tinkering and building things.

Often times I would hop up on the workbench so that I could watch him work. My favorite was the lathe, watching a shapeless piece of wood spin relentlessly down an unknown path on its way to becoming something. Splinters of fresh Pine would vault skyward, succumb to gravity, and fall lifeless to the concrete floor. In awe I would watch him work. No doubt he was crafting something of such importance that my small mind couldn’t comprehend its magnitude. Many times I reveled in the noise of the machine as he pushed a delicate blade against the throat of spinning lumber.

But that night my father hadn’t come to work.

He came to build a fire.

And as I watched him stare at the violin case I could hear the small wood-burning stove in the corner cough up sparks from the dying Tamarack in its belly. An acrid odor of smoke invaded our senses, but the warmth never reached us.

With slow and deliberate movements my father opened the case as if some great and delicate treasure lay inside. Instinctively I reached to touch the instrument. But he pushed my hand away and breathed, No.

Using utmost care he lifted the violin from its red, velvet-lined case and gazed at it, turning it over and over in his hands and carefully blowing the dust from its neglected and broken strings.

My father moved to the stove in the corner of the shop where the fire crackled and popped. His back was to me, but I could see his shoulders slump as he stared down at the violin in his hands. He stood there for the longest time, then unceremoniously placed the instrument into the fire and watched it burn.

I waited outside the door while he shut off the lights and closed up the shop. Feeling icy kisses from above, I looked up at the sky. It was snowing again. And with it came stillness. All extraneous noises slipped away except for the familiar snorts and eating noises made by the horses in the adjoining stable. The occasional bellows of cattle from the dairy beyond melted with the sounds of barking dogs even further away. I imagined the hounds cornering some innocent, doomed beast against an outcropping of snow-laden rocks as it tried to protect its young beneath an uncaring sky.

Toughy! I called out to my dog. Here, boy. Toughy!

I called him Toughy because he had a sturdy barrel chest and stout legs. But he only weighed about forty pounds with virtually no ground clearance, as he was built like a Dachshund, his body covered in black and white patches. My parents had given him to me as a pup the Christmas before.

I hadn’t seen my dog in a couple hours and I was getting worried.

He’s probably under the house again looking for mice, my father said flatly.

My father led the way to the house, a small, double-wide trailer nestled at the cusp of the foothills leading up to the mountains. A sea of drifting snow curled protectively around it as smoke slithered from the chimney, joining in a delirious dance with the falling snow. From within the sanctuary of biting cold, light and warmth emanated from the windows and pushed toward us like a beacon. I did my usual best to place my feet within the footsteps of each of my father’s monstrous strides. But, as always, I came up short.

My father did his ritual stomping on the back porch to shake the snow from his boots as he held the door open for me. I called out once more for my dog and, hearing nothing, ducked under my father’s outstretched arm and went inside.

My baby sister, Jez, was at the stage where much of her energy was focused on taking those first illusive steps. However, she was still quite adept at filling her diaper. Father had left her in the crib sound asleep before we had gone down to the shop and now she was crying and stinking up the room to no end. I stood there holding my nose with one hand and a fresh diaper with the other as he changed her. The usual distaste he had shown before while performing this task was gone, now replaced with mechanical apathy. My mother usually took care of the baby, but she was at work that night and wouldn’t be home till late.

I handed him the new diaper. My sister cooed and smiled and burped at him with contentment, her little pink feet and hands pawing the air.

The baby good as new, my father hefted her up into his arms and held her against his neck with one hand, then drew me to his side in a hug with the other. He held me tight against him, tighter than I could ever remember him doing before.

Daddy, are you sad, again?

My father looked up from his desk in the office. The empty violin case was unfolded before him. The baby was lying on a blanket on the floor sleeping again, a pacifier in her mouth.

No, Michael, he said. He was writing something. I’m just tired tonight, that’s all. I’ve got to get up early in the morning. Hey, do you know what’s on TV tonight? . . . Your favorite movie of all time. He looked at his watch. If you hurry, you can still catch the beginning.

But it’s almost my bedtime. Mom said—.

Tell you what; tonight you can stay up as late as you want. How about that? I know how you love monster movies. Just don’t tell your mother I let you watch it. Deal?

My heart soared with excitement despite seeing the violin case on the desk and wondering why it was there. He was right. I did love monster movies. On the weekends I was glued to the television watching Creature Feature. I loved to be taken away, thrilled and terrified at the same time, rapt in the tales of The Mummy, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, the Werewolf and Godzilla movies.

But the film he was talking about was King Kong. It was the new, up-to-date movie with Jeff Bridges and Jessica Lang. I’d seen it a dozen times already on video, but each time I saw it, it was like the first time, like being reborn again and again into an exciting and different world.

And now it was on TV and my father was going to let me watch it!

Cool! I shouted.

Before bounding out the doorway and down the hall to the living room I remember seeing my father turn away and stare at the violin case. His head slumped and his shoulders sagged like the weight of the world had returned. And it seemed he wasn’t even aware that I was still there until he labored the words, Go on, Michael. Go watch your movie.

Curled up in that old beanbag chair in front of the television, I pulled a blanket to my chin, the glow from the screen’s images dancing across the living room like apparitions. Alone in the dark with just the right amount of fear is the perfect atmosphere for adventure.

Perfect.

Kong was coming through the trees. He had caught the scent of the beautiful blonde woman who now stood helpless at the foot of a great wall as an offering for him. I could feel my heart thump in my chest in anticipation as the trees rustled and snapped from the movements of the great beast.

There was something about King Kong that held a great fascination for me as a boy. Here was a creature, powerful beyond imagination, able to snap trees with a mere gesture of his hand, and fueled with unfathomable rage. And, yet he was misunderstood, so vulnerable in his solitude and capacity for love. His eyes spoke volumes of sadness and longing for something beyond even his mighty grasp. Even at my young age at the time I felt I understood him. I knew why he was so angry. He was in a world he didn’t understand, a world where the rules, for him, didn’t apply. He didn’t know why he was here on this twisting ball of rock hanging in space. All he knew was hunger and sleep and loneliness and that indescribable feeling swelling in his deep chest when he looked at that beautiful girl. Though he couldn’t articulate them—which frustrated him to no end—he had questions. And the fact that there were no answers infuriated him even further.

In my humble, six year old opinion, Kong wasn’t a beast. He was just in the wrong world.

Silently I wished it were possible to step outside of myself and watch my life as if it were a movie so that I could see things more clearly from a bird’s eye perspective. Maybe then some things would have made more sense.

A noise from outside twisted my belly into a sudden ball of cold and took me out of the movie.

The dairy dogs.

They were close, very close.

I’d always been afraid of the dairy dogs ever since the year before when they came up from the farm one night and killed our family dog, Bosco. They had cornered him on our front patio and tore at his little body with their powerful jaws until he bled the snowy ground red. The dogfight had awakened us all from a dead sleep and my father had run outside in his underwear, firing that big black shotgun and chasing the hounds back into the night. But it was too late for Bosco. Though mortally wounded, his instinct to protect home and family were still intact. I remember him running after the dairy dogs for a few short yards and howling in rage before he finally collapsed in a whining, bloody heap. My father carried him into the house and we wrapped him in a blanket by the warmth of the fire. My mother tried cleaning his wounds but there were too many and nothing we could do but lay there on the floor with him and stroke his little furry chin until he finally ceased his moans and slid off into another world.

I bolted up from the beanbag chair and tilted my head to listen, my heart slamming.

Fear pulled me to the frosty window to look outside. I couldn’t see anything, but the rabid intensity of the dairy dogs’ bays and howls was unmistakable.

They were out for blood, again.

BOOK ONE

HYPNAGOGIC STATE

CHAPTER ONE

Birth of a Dream

The nightmare was always the same . . .

The young boy stood at the foot of a dark and endless hallway, his heart pounding so fiercely he put his hand over his chest to keep it from cracking his bones and leaping through his flesh. Although he never actually heard the sound in the dream, he remembered it. Or, rather, heard its echo just a split second after, like waking from a dream of church bells to the sound of an alarm clock. Was it a clap of thunder? Was it an explosion? Whatever it was, it instilled such terror in him that it took every ounce of courage he had to get up and look.

And there it was, like a million times before. The hallway stretched out before him, impossibly long, and at its very end was the Light. Another sound, distant at first, then louder . . . the crying of a baby. The boy wanted to turn and run but found himself rooted to the spot. Even worse, he felt compelled to move forward, the thumping in his chest goading him on. The sound of the crying baby grew louder in unison with his heartbeat as he moved through his fear and down the hall. The Light became painful to look at, yet he could not tear his eyes away from it. An eternity seemed to have passed and there the boy was, bathed in the Light, its warmth touching every part of his body, tingling its way down his arms and out his fingertips with promises to a new world.

And then the baby, suddenly before him, a soul-wrenching wail shooting from the top of her lungs and right through his bones, her tiny, blood-spattered hands reaching up for him . . .

Michael bolted up from the bed gasping for breath, his body drenched in sweat. The alarm clock screeched an unwelcome greeting from its perch on the nightstand. He slammed his fist down on the snooze button.

It always took him a few moments to pull himself together after the dream. Many times he woke up sobbing from the experience. It was so real. He’d hoped after years he would have mustered a way to deal with it, or maybe it would have mercifully lessened in its severity. But every single time it took another much-needed piece from him.

Pulling his lanky, six-foot frame over the edge of the bed, Michael rubbed his tired face. From somewhere above a familiar and deafening roar shook the room and his nerves.

Michael had lived in the apartment for a while now. Yet, he still hadn’t become accustomed to being directly under the flight path of the Orange County airport. It seemed like every ten minutes thunder rolled over his head, shaking the building and his sanity to their foundation.

The passengers in the airliners above—vibrating in their seats like so many bubbling cookies baking in an oven—didn’t care or even knew they were disturbing the small, ant-like people infesting the earth below.

The John Wayne Airport had a noise ordinance problem. The incoming path for planes to land was from the north over Tustin, Santa Ana, and Costa Mesa, to name a few. However, the great, bellowing jets had to take off over the affluent suburbs south of the airport, which consisted of parts of Costa Mesa, Newport Beach, and Corona Del Mar.

The people who owned homes in these areas, who were making money hand over fist, could not be bothered with the inconvenient and chest-jolting noise of the skyward bound flying machines. The only alternative was for the jets to take off at a much steeper angle, thus gaining more altitude at a mind-numbing rate so the rich wouldn’t be bothered with the noise as they quaffed expensive coffees and single malt scotches from balconies of gold.

This, of course, was at the expense of the air traveler. As the planes hoisted legions of burdensome human cargo from the runway, the engines roaring with unfathomable anger, the climb was so steep that any person with half a brain could envision themselves coming to a stop over the city and sliding backwards. It was at that precipice, where the pilot backed-off the throttle and the aircraft settled downward a few lazy feet, that the fear set in, the fear that the engines would run out of anger, sending the parade of Man’s faux genius of flight sliding back into the welcoming embrace of the Earth and all its fiery gifts.

Southern California was the place in which many people dreamed of living. It was a place he had thought about for years while growing up in that small Oregon town. He’d seen the pictures in books of palm trees reaching skyward, smiling faces, movie stars and fancy cars. It seemed like a new world where he could start fresh and be anyone or anything he wanted to be; a writer, a movie star, a dot-com millionaire, anything but himself. But what he and many others didn’t realize until they took the great, sunny dive was that it took twice as much out of you to get half of what you needed to survive. And the pay was still the same; all of which were key ingredients for the end of the world.

Michael pushed his way out the bedroom door into the short hallway, half asleep and still shaking. He stuck his head in the doorway of his sister’s room. She had the master. She needed the room for her king size waterbed.

Jez . . . Jez!

A raspy, muffled, and barely coherent voice came from under a mountain of pillows and stuffed animals. What?

Don’t you have to go to work this morning?

A nineteen year old hand waved him away from beneath the covers. Called in sick.

The saucepan they made rice in two nights before, now filled with alcohol-induced vomit at the side of her bed, relayed the rest of the story. He closed the door and moved into the bathroom.

A small bottle of pills stared back at him from the counter. Zoloft. The latest. Only four pills left. No matter. They did nothing, anyway. He’d been through them all. Prozac, Desipramine, Paxil, Luvox, just to name a few. Fifty milligrams. A hundred milligrams. Two hundred. It was all the same, about as useful as a bag full of nose hair. And it was all more than he could afford.

Michael stepped into the shower. Even after several years away from home, he still hadn’t become accustomed to the hard water. It was, for lack of a better word, sticky. He’d been raised with fresh water from the foothills of the Oregon Mountains. Piped two miles down from the well in Ghost Canyon to their home and the dairy beyond, the water was very soft, impeccable in taste, and without a single additive. He used to think of all the millions he could have made selling it with overpriced packaging to the mindless, suit-wearing populace of the doomed and image conscious city. But, apparently, someone else had already thought of that.

Fifteen minutes later Michael picked up his apron, a bottle of Evian, and headed out the door.

Work.

In Michael’s mind whoever came up with the concept needed to be hunted down and bludgeoned repeatedly until cold and lifeless. His body would then be dragged naked through town in front of crushed and lamenting loved ones to the main square. Then, preferably broadcast on live television, the body would be hacked into unrecognizable pieces to the shock and dismay of the world, then burnt and thrown to the wolves. Once the beasts were through, their bellies full, having gleaned every conceivable piece of flesh, a parade of dissatisfied humans would stand in line by the thousands with broad smiles and full bladders and piss on the remaining bones.

Pay-per-view, of course.

Not that Michael was bitter. He just hated work.

So what do you do when you don’t know what you want to do, but you have to do what you need to do?

You wait tables.

The lunchtime rush. Waiting tables at a busy, upscale restaurant on the harbor was like juggling a dozen butcher knives with no handles. The money was decent, although not as lucrative as working nights. The much coveted night shifts belonged to a select few who had either put in the time or had perfected the art of planting sweet, wet kisses upon the overstuffed asses of the upper management. Michael had yet to fulfill one of the requirements and, with his attitude, didn’t foresee the second option happening anytime soon.

He’d spent the first four months bussing tables with the amigos before ascending to the lofty position of food server for the lunch shift. Newport Beach was one of the most beautiful towns on the West Coast. The harbor was like a sun-kissed painting, almost surreal in its beauty, christened with hundreds of sailboats and yachts floating lazily on their backs in the pristine waters. The restaurant occupied a coveted piece of the harbor-front real estate overlooking it all.

Michael had found a lookout point shortly after having moved from home. From this sun-drenched perch, he could see the entire harbor and more, the peninsula, Balboa Island. And beyond, further to the south was the sleepy little town of Corona Del Mar. It all splayed before him like the inviting curves of an impassioned lover. And most important, it was not Oregon.

A guy could reinvent himself here.

Marco! Michael pushed through the swinging double doors from the outdoor patio and into the kitchen.

The place was alive. Busboys, food servers, and kitchen staff were moving at a frantic pace in a thousand different directions. The tantalizing aromas from the grills and ovens competed with the squalid odors from the dishwashing station.

Michael negotiated through the hurling bodies and dropped two plates of unwanted food on the stainless steel counter.

Marco, one of the main chefs, was a plump little man from Mexico City. Reeking of cannabis, he always showed up for work with a smile and his Cajun Pasta was purely top shelf. With great expertise he shook a war-ravaged pan over the flames, enraptured with the sizzling and dancing shrimp.

Marco! What are you doing to me? Michael huffed.

Whas’ matta?

This steak sandwich was supposed to be rare. Michael jabbed a finger at the ticket, clearly marked appropriately. And this customer says the scampi tastes funny.

Marco dipped two pudgy fingers into the scampi and slurped on them. Is taste good for me.

Well, she thinks it’s lousy. What can I tell you?

I fix for you.

Michael, you got food up, a voice from behind him squawked. Marlene was one of the shift managers. What she lacked in personality she more than made up for in masculinity.

I know. I know. I’m getting it, Michael almost shouted back.

Well, hurry up!

I had to bring some food back. I can’t do two things at the same time. She always seemed to ride him for some reason.

Her tone was very short. Don’t argue. Just get moving.

With a blink of a prehistoric eye, Marlene pushed off into the murk in search of more prey. Michael quietly pushed a lump of rising anger back down to the pit of his stomach.

Bitch, why don’t you two get a room?

It was Tyler, coming back for another order.

She’s working my last fucking good nerve, Michael said not so quietly. I swear to God, I’m about to snap.

Wait till I get my salad first. That fat bitch on my second table specifically asked for no blood or brain matter on her arugula, Tyler said. Hey, Marco! You got my Caesar’s Salad?

Over the past year, Michael had become best friends with Tyler, who’d recently spent thirty years on the planet. They’d met at the restaurant. While Michael had been toiling for months as a busboy, his eye on moving up, Tyler came in and immediately started in the wait staff. Having been assured from the management that Michael would be next to catapult his career in the food service industry from bussing tables to actually serving food, it was not a good day when Tyler showed up and took his spot.

Tyler, sitting upon years of restaurant experience, showed up from God-knows-where barking orders at the bussing staff and generally being a holier-than-thou, standoffish pain in the ass. Not only that, when it came time to tip-out the busboys, he was a cheap bastard. Word had been passed along in whispers between the huddled masses in the bus station, as they slammed down stale rolls and frozen butter, that the new guy knew the owners.

Michael hated him at the beginning, but his initial impression of Tyler soon bled away once they got to know each other. Tyler was jaded and cynical, creative and intelligent, and had a wickedly perverse sense of humor about the world around him. Ultimately, that alone drew them together.

It was autumn, those brief few months of the year book-ended by the oppressing heat of the summer and the festering bite of the Holidays. With it came change. Life was in flux. Bright green, purple, and red succumbed to withered browns and tired yellows. The trees wept and reluctantly set free offerings of their dying children, the wind carrying them with silent promises of peace and salvation to the earth. Mothers nursed and cared for their young in hopes of making them strong enough to weather the inescapable winter.

And Michael, like he’d done so many times after work, sat on his lookout point over Newport harbor struggling to see the beauty.

CHAPTER TWO

JoJo the Mind Reading Clown

I’ve always been a little freaked by clowns. For most of us they are just people hiding behind a mask of grease paint and childlike antics that entice and thrill. But, for me, if there is such a thing as evil, it is personified with a painted smile and size twenty-two shoes.

When I was six, my mother and father took me to my first and last circus. The dancing bears, the elephants, and the surprisingly graceful Clydesdales filled my eyes with wonder as they pranced around the ring. There was popcorn and cotton candy and all the sights, smells, and excitement that a young boy desires. When it was over, I didn’t want to leave.

As my parents lured me from the show among a horde of happy circus goers, we came upon a small tent just outside the Big Top where a midget shouted his pitch from atop a three foot box.

Ladies and gentlemen! he shouted. Come one! Come all! Meet JoJo, the Mind Reading Clown! He will amaze and thrill you with his magical talents.

I begged my parents to take me inside. After all, it wasn’t every day one got the chance to see a mind reading clown in Oregon. I didn’t even know what mind reading meant. I just knew he was a clown, and the clowns in the Big Top show were hilarious. They fell down a lot, bonked each other’s heads with rubber hammers, and I was amazed at how many of them could fit into a car the size of a bathtub.

My father finally gave in to my pleading tugs on his sleeve. He paid the man on the box and received three tickets. As we were ushered past, the little man looked me straight in the eye as if he knew me and said just loud enough for me to hear, This is only the beginning, little one.

As we moved toward the tent’s entrance I strained to keep my eyes on the miniature man for as long as I could, for there was something infinitely strange about the way he spoke to me.

Don’t stare, Michael, it’s not nice, my mother said.

My father gave me a gentle push through the canvas doorway and said, Come on, Michael. Let’s go see the clown.

The show was already in progress and the moment I entered I could feel the magic in the air. It was electric, irresistible. At the center of the tent, a stage was created by a velvet rope that held back the audience, which was standing room only. Pulled by a sudden and overpowering feeling, I left my parent’s sides and pushed through a forest of legs and hips to the front where I saw him for the first time. A mad dance of fear and exhilaration shot through me.

The clown wore a black tuxedo with tails and a black top hat. He seemed taller than humanly possible, his hat almost grazing the roof of the tent as he stalked the crowd. He wasn’t a normal clown. No brightly colored wig or obnoxious, floppy shoes. His black painted smile, nose, and brow seemed to change and swim across his face with each new expression. His eyes weren’t dark brown or blue or hazel. They were of the deepest black I’d ever seen, as if cut from polished obsidian.

His show consisted of guessing what audience members had in their pockets, their first names, etc. From the reactions on their faces after he’d made his guess, I was very impressed and full of fear and wonder.

JoJo was loaded with charisma. He worked the crowd with charm and grace, with imposing strength and virility. The women batted eyes and cooed submissively as he kissed their hands and the men laughed and wanted to be like him. It was as if he held them all under some kind of spell.

I need another volunteer! JoJo bellowed like a used car salesman.

He searched the faces of the crowd, a dagger-like finger moving past a rapt throng of believers. His gaze finally lowered and for the first time those all-knowing eyes looked straight into mine. A chill rose through my spine, out through my arms, my fingers, and into the red velvet rope I gripped in a white-knuckled clutch.

You! he shouted. He knelt down before me. What’s your name, child?

Michael.

Nose to nose with him, my six-year-old intuition told me that JoJo was, indeed, a real clown. If his make-up were peeled away, only a bony and bloody nightmare would remain.

He smiled at me as if he knew me and said, "Child, I want you to think of a word, any word. Say it over