Morinne's dreams

for zoe

Once upon a time a little girl woke up and discovered that during the night all of her dreams had come true. In fact, they were all lined up at the foot of her bed, which was especially awkward for the Cyborg Mermaid, who simply could not find a place to put her tail. The dreams all held their breaths as they watched the little girl's eyes flutter open with all the soft quickness of butterfly wings.

The girl, whose name was Morinne, stared up at the ceiling for two seconds as she dwelt on that funny 'I'm being watched' feeling. The dreams held their breaths even harder, if that's possible. And then, oh-so-slowly, Morinne lifted her head. The Prince and his Trusty Steed stood tall, grinning charmingly. Morinne hid back under her covers with a little squeal. The dreams all looked at one another, worried.

They didn't know what to do. I mean, what would you do? You suddenly find yourself out of someone else's head, and they just scream at you. It's quite the dumbfounding experience, no joke about it. Happily for the dreams, Morinne didn't make any more high-pitched sounds. She even pulled the blankets down a bit so that they could see her watermelon-sized wide blue eyes. Morinne looked back at the beginning of the row of dreams, at the Prince. He winked at her, and Morinne couldn't help but smile shyly back. Next was the Phase-Shifting Bunny, who actually never spent any time as a bunny anymore, not since he figured out that he could be a Stapler. There was just something so fascinating about being a stapler.

Morinne smiled at the Stapler, and moved on to look at the Cyborg Mermaid, who was still very busy trying to figure out where to put her tail. Aladdin, who was next in line, cleared his throat and threw his elbow sharply into the mermaid's metallic side. It clanged like an ancient bell, and the Mermaid's head shot up. Her cheeks turned pink, though one of the pinks was produced by the mechanical color screen that covered most of her left cheekbone. Morinne tilted her head. She couldn't remember dreaming about this Mermaid. The little girl continued staring, frowning a little while she tried to remember the dream. But the more she thought about it, the more uncomfortable the Mermaid looked.

Morinne began to feel a little guilty about obviously making the Mermaid sad, so she glanced at Aladdin, who opened his mouth as if he was singing. But no sound came out. Aladdin opened and closed his mouth several times, and he clasped his neck with his fingers, horror spreading over his face. He clutched at the other dreams, who all rolled their eyes at him and tried to move away. Morinne tried not to smile, and while she did she looked at them all and tried to remember each of their stories.

She remembered the Prince and his Trusty Steed well enough, but by the time she finished thinking about the Prince and began to focus on Stapler, Morinne's brain felt fuzzy and unsettled. She rubbed her tired eyes with her tiny hands and then looked at all her dreams again, determined to remember the Mermaid's story. But the Mermaid was staring in terror at the Stapler, who was staring at Aladdin. Morinne hadn't noticed, but the instant she had begun thinking about the Prince's story, everyone had started to fade. The Mermaid was watching the Stapler turn fuzzy like a badly focused photograph, and the Stapler was watching Aladdin, whose arms had disappeared before the rest of his body had got any sort of chance to fade.

Morinne gasped. No! she wanted to yell, but her mouth, like Aladdin's, produced no sound. She looked wildly around the room. All the dreams were disappearing, right down the line. The Mermaid sighed and let her shoulders slump. It never failed. Every time she broke through someone's dream barrier, they went along and tried to remember her story. Ridiculous humans. Morinne couldn't stop it now; the dreams faded and were gone in a matter of ten or eleven seconds. She sat up suddenly in bed, looking around her suddenly bland and empty room.

And then she was asleep again. Morinne's head hit the pillow with a happy little thump, and her eyes closed tightly against the real world. In her dreams, which were once again safe inside her head, a grumpy and uncomfortable Cyborg Mermaid tried to take over the world by turning everyone into staplers.

the end.