World Dream Bank home - add a dream - newest - art gallery - sampler - dreams by title, subject, author, date, places, names

The Doctor Kills a Tern

Dreamed 1988/9/24 by Wayan
The Doctor floats a hundred miles
above us. Not in orbit, he
Just hovers, showing off again.
Superior. Serene.

His best friend comes to visit--
a huge white dove. No, tern.
Elegant his long forked tail
and tapered swallow-wing.

He found the Doctor's lost device
to teleport friends up to space,
inviting all his friends along--
a feathered throng of grace.

But the Doctor coolly tells his ship
"Eject them all, I want to be alone!"

Spaced, they choke and plummet
freeze-dried within a minute,
even before they reach an air
dense enough to burn--

not that they flame, for stranglebirds
tumble and flutter at a mere
hundred miles an hour, to land
near intact. Dried flowers.

On the ground I lift the friend.
Like an angel taxidermed,
white feathers all pristine--
the Fall just mummified.

Cradling the plume-corpse, I
burst in on the writers, howl
"This script's out of character.
Revise the dream! Unjustified!"

They're shocked too. This isn't Who!
The bad Doc gets a rewrite. Now
he's grateful that his friend
returned his lost machine.

The nightmare never happened;
the murder-slate is clean.
But my dark slate of memory
recalls his cruelty.

He was a Timelord; they were just
rude guests uninvit,
barging in his house: all space.
Ternicidal snit!

Do I treat others thus?
Freeze them with scorn,
dessicate with cold dry wit,
banish from my space?

I dread to ask my friends (if any live)
Do I treat their impulses of dove
meant as friendship, meant as love,
as insult? Must they cautious tread
when Timelord arrogance terns my head?
Motion-blurred white birds fall from a small blue box floating high above Earth. Digital sketch by Chris Wayan.

NOTES This is Dreamverse #4. This morning my dreams were quiet; so I roved back through old journals, and stumbled on this vivid if harsh dream.
Next: a counterdream? 12 Swallows, 700 Daughters



LISTS AND LINKS: levitation and flight - orbital dreams - aliens - Doctor Who - I dream the Doctor turns mean for a reason: Dr Who and Death - animal people - birds - socializing vs. solitude - self-defense - violence - falling - heat - death - bones - grief - anger - giftedness and genius - pride and arrogance - dream-poems - Dreamverses project - the next Dreamverse: 12 Swallows, 700 Daughters

World Dream Bank homepage - Art gallery - New stuff - Introductory sampler, best dreams, best art - On dreamwork - Books
Indexes: Subject - Author - Date - Names - Places - Art media/styles
Titles: A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - IJ - KL - M - NO - PQ - R - Sa-Sk - Sl-Sz - T - UV - WXYZ
Email: wdreamb@yahoo.com - Catalog of art, books, CDs - Behind the Curtain: FAQs, bio, site map - Kindred sites