What if you wrote about a portal?
Hello humans, robots, ghosts and other sentient criaturas,
I write to tell you of my childhood dreams.
Then to offer you a writing prompt.
Then I shall bid you farewell and strut jauntily into a very moonstruck night.
part the first:
When I was wee, I remember being able to lucid dream. I didn't really choose it. I just knew it could happen. I could live the plot lines.
I'd dream of flying past a clock to somewhere like Neverland. Of walking around a field and falling through a portal to a world with a sugar cereal buffet (I consistently opted for Lucky Charms). And then there were the nightmares. Of being unable to move, crying, spotlighted in a dark void, sitting on my folded legs amidst the pooled skirt of a yellow dress. Oh, also of being chased through Ms. Trunchbull's house by something unnamed and violent.
Free movement. Portals to sweet sweet sugary sin. Stasis. Fear.
All you amateur psychoanalysts out there, make of that what you will. First glance at my subconcious mind is free.
Scene change.
I sat tonight, rewatching Bridge to Terabithia as a grown ass woman, and got to thinking, and also to flinging popcorn kernels into my lap as I shoveled them into my gaping maw with unencumbered I-live-alone-who's-to-judge enthusiasm. Some even tumbled regretably off my lap and towards the cushion chasms of my recliner.
And that prompted a thought or twelve, as is my Brain Parliament's wont.
What happens to all those things that fall between the cracks? What world would be built there. What if a person could fall through. What flora, what fauna. Dust bunnies and sticky pieces of congealed lint and popcorn and melted chocolate shards that you thought were definitely going to be too small to stain anything but did in fact smear heartily, like a rogue fleck of lipstick in the sink. And spare change. ...Spare change. What a marvelous concept.
And I got to thinking—Where are other portals for lost things? Junk drawers? Portals. Computer desktops so filled with screenshots and other digital ephemera that you may never make it out of the Rabbit Labyrinth (it ceased to be a simple hole for me many moons ago)? Portals. Tubular Apparel Rotiseries? Portals. At least for socks who are hankering for a trial separation from their spouses, or who are too befuddled and hypothermic to imagine there's room for Jack the Sock on that door, Rose.
I feel like the portals for lost things are linked somehow, by an Alexandrian Library of Lostness. Fawkes's Grand Central Station. Every shelf holds ashes and tryings and treasures in equal measure.
In any case.
If you feel like it, tell me about your portals.
Where are they? What was lost in them? What does the wind smell like in the worlds where they lead?
Set a timer for 3, 5, 10, 20 minutes—maybe just one. Maybe 10,000. It's a free country. (I speak of my portal world, ya cynics).
And if you dare, for I am indeed daring you, reply with a voice memo of what you wrote, or leave me a voicemail here.
I'll reply with some Gateless feedback, which usually consists of me quoting you and ennumerating my favorite bits and baubles.
With verve and imaginal romplings,
Alex
P.S.
Imaginal romplings
(n. plural)
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Helpful sentient inkblots, fulfilling much of the telos (think purpose, but Greek) of Snow White's small army of song-bewitched forest creatures. Though much less deferent and much more self-actualized. Think purpleblack, dutiful-if-the-context-suits-their-fancies, Flubbers, actually. My troupe of Romplings would like to inform you that their names are Bill, Edgar, and Ted. Edgar is very dour, but has a penchant for cats and expensive wine. Ted and Bill dropship Sew Crates, storage systems for fiber artists, in their spare time, when they're not helping me write newsletters or accomplish ambitious, high stakes group projects.
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A Portal World Breakfast Dumplings, some mixture of beignets, Bertie Botts Beans, and hush puppies, often filled with chocolate or boogers depending on who's cooking.
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When capitalized, a name brand of stick-on strapless brassieres. Romplings Inc. is an Osmium Level sponsor of the Portal World Intraversal Burlesque Troupe.