From: Plonq <snowcat@removethis.total.removethistoo.net>
Subject: I sometimes dream
Date: September 20, 1998 5:14 PM

Preamble:

I managed to get myself signed up for a company-sponsored course in
"effective writing".  As a prerequisite to to the course, they have asked
for each student to bring in a sample of his/her writing.  Since the course
is primarily geared toward communicating with co-workers and customers, I
put together a bogus business letter -- but I thought it would be a shame if
I did not also take in a sample of my more creative writing, so I hammered
out this little flight of fancy today.

Enjoy...

8<--- snip ---

I sometimes dream that I am a dragon.

This dream usually comes to me on overcast days, when the grey clouds merge
with the buildings and streets, filling my office window with a dreary
tableau, like a silent testament to my mundane existence.  As if in answer
to the bleakness outside, a fire of passion ignites within my heart,
spreading outward into my extremities until I am consumed in a conflagration
of emotional cleansing.  In moments, the beast within bursts forth through
my mortal flesh, and I am transformed into a creature of magnificent beauty,
with gossamer wings of spun silver, and a million chrome scales.

A breath, to revel in my new form, and I spring free from the bondage of the
desk that had enslaved me.  I cast myself through the window in a shower of
triple-paned shards. My new wings catch the chilly air, and I sail once
around the building, to give the crawling denizens of the city a moment of
pause in their daily drudgery.  They point, and gape as an ethereal creature
of their childhood fancies brings a fleeting spectre of glory to their urban
wasteland.  Then, with a strong pump of my powerful wings, I sail upward,
into the clouds, and out of mortal memory.

I burst through the overcast, trailing eddies of mist from my wingtips, and
my scales shatter the sunlight into a cacophony of rainbows, surrounding me
with a halo of scintillating colours.  Overcome by the moment, I open my
mouth and vocalise my joy, in a tumultuous cry like the report of a thousand
English horns.  Here I am the master of my azure and white domain, free of
all restraints, where I may circle and bask in the sunshine for the rest of
my days.

The trill of a telephone snaps the wings of my dream, and like a rock, I
plummet back toward the earth, through the clinging chill of the clouds. The
acetic pollution of the city air strips me of my scales, and my broken wings
are shorn as I crash through the asphalt roof of my office.  As the
scattered debris of my lost illusion slowly evaporates around me in a buzz
of printers, voices and telephones, I reopen my eyes to the mortal world.
Here I am master of nothing, just a tiny cog in a corporate machine of
conformity.  I reach for the phone that pulled me back to the ground, and as
I prepare to answer it with the proper, professional greeting, I wonder
briefly if it was ever good to dream at all.

* Plonq