Unscrewing After the DreamingUnscrewing After the Dreaming
Usually, when a piece of mine is first published someplace else, I post a notice here on my blog, with a link to the someplace else. I also post the notice and link on Facebook. Then, about three months later, I add a copy of whatever it was to my previously published works on this site, with a notice of same posted again here on the main line.
Tonight is different. The aptly named Synchronized Chaos published one of my short prose pieces, “After the Dreaming,” on their website two weeks ago and so butchered it that I’m not posting a link to it here or on Facebook or anywhere else. What I’m doing is posting here the original unscrewed piece, so that all three of my readers may enjoy it in its pristine entitlement.
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After the Dreaming
We woke up and found ourselves wearing clothing and carrying weapons, our women carrying babies on their hips as we wandered dry, sun-drenched plains on our way to gather in crowded cities and drink beer in cool, dark shops, gossip and grind grain by the city walls, watch the seasons and the pirouette of the stars. Calculating when to plant the corn, painting ourselves, hacking the gemstones, melting the ores and prostrating ourselves before ten thousand gods we sliced the hearts from endless rows of sacrificial victims captured by the soldiers arrayed in endless rows of the armies we found ourselves marching in when we woke up out of our infinite dreaming and into this endless nightmare.