Warming up for my Flash Fiction marathon, called Flash August Fiction. I hope if you are kind enough to come to this page and like this post, you might also take a second or two to share, or restack it. Thanks.
This is not a Flash Fiction Story, really. It’s more of an audible story that I transcribed and then edited for efficiency and brevity. I’ll do more work on it.
Kindergarten
I had a vivid guided dream about a decade ago that has stayed with me. In this dream, I'm hiking a trail with a real-life friend. We found a plateau with a pond and two strangers. They invited us into a tent where a large fire sat in the middle. We were sweating profusely, and one of the strangers became my guide and instructed me to look into the fire.
As I stared, I experienced an auditory-visual hallucination. I saw two types of people: those rooted to their homeland and travelers who were at home everywhere. In previous, successful epochs, these groups understood and valued each other, leading to incredible technological advancements, even space-time travel. However, in our current epoch, this symbiosis failed, leading to conflicts and genocides throughout history.
We left the tent, and we were by the pond again. We were instructed to jump in, and as I descended, I found a light at the bottom. I swam into the light, and emerging from it, I was back on the shore, and my guide asked, “What is your question?” It was as if he knew I would have a question. I realized my question was, “How do we fix this situation?”
Back in the tent, we repeated the previous process, and again I had an auditory-visual hallucination. I saw birds from my childhood, and when they sang, they sounded like dinosaurs. I understood that the answer to my question was that we can't change our nature in this epoch. We must do our best with what we have, as the next iteration of our species might be gentler. Just like many of the species we see here today are descended from much more fierce ancestors.
This dream left me with a somber feeling, reminding me of the Sisyphean nature of our existence and the challenges we face as a species.
The End316 Words
