Another writing exercise

In the writing class I mentioned below, the deal was that you'd read a novel, short story or poem every week, and then write a selection based upon the tone, mood, perspective or writing style of the work. This was written from a story called "Dr. Safi." This wouldn't go anywhere, but I do like the dog dreaming part...


Travels with Homer
Jeffery didn’t have a job. He was 30 and lived with his dog Homer in the basement of his parents’ house, which he’d converted into a small apartment. He liked to sit on his bed with his back to the painted cement wall and watch TV or read old magazines from the 60s, like LOOK, while his dog slept curled in an “O” at his side. Upstairs his parents trampled around and called to each other as from across a great distance, and in the morning the aroma of his father’s coffee filtered under the basement door and permeated his dreams.

On the weekends Jeffery would pull together a few dollars and buy a little baggie of weed from some guys who hung around the university across town. He’d drive his old Impala to pick it up. It was a long, blue car that he called Mothera because there was a dead Monarch Butterfly that had been preserved for years in the space where the windshield almost met the dashboard. When he got home he’d play a tape by Tangerine Dream or Vangelis and roll a joint. He liked the idea of smoking a joint even though he wasn't very skilled at rolling one, and sometimes he’d finish rolling it only to have to unroll it and start over. But Jeffery didn’t mind if it took a while. It’s the weekend, he thought.

One Saturday evening after he’d smoked an oblong joint and was sitting on his bed listening to the Alan Parsons Project’s Tales of Mystery and Imagination, Jeffery had a vision. He closed his eyes and from the inky blackness saw a vast blue landscape arise, which he took to be a representation of the music, or perhaps his mind, but which also looked a lot like Utah or some other western state. It was a vivid and defined landscape that stretched toward all horizons and he hovered above it, watching. He soon realized that he could “fly” through the contours of this dark terrain, and so he did -- soaring across stretches of smooth bedrock, over granite abutments and down into scooped out riverbeds, feeling the rush of mossy air on his face. It was a sensation that he remembered having as a child when he dreamed of flying; the absolute certainty that it was real. And the more he explored, the more he realized that he’d visited this place before. Not just in his mind, but physically. This place existed in the real world, he was sure of it.

He got up off of his bed and walked over to a map on his wall. He turned on a table lamp that was balanced on top of some CD cases and bent the neck up so that it illuminated the map. Hmm, he thought. Where had he visited out West? Had he ever been out West? He looked over at Homer who was watching him from the shadows of the bed. “When was I out West?” he asked. Homer stood up on the bed and stretched, his mottled tongue unfurling from his blond muzzle, then plopped back down.

Jeffery stood there frowning at the map. He then got a beer out of his mini-fridge and walked out through the basement door into the backyard. It was a warm June night and the sky was filling up with pale stars and crickety sounds. I’m going to go out west to find this place, he decided. I’ll get some things together tomorrow and drive out with Homer.

Inside, Homer was also dreaming about flying. In the dream he was chasing a bluebird across the lawn, running and running as the tiny bird flittered just beyond his snapping reach. Suddenly he realized that he was airborne high above the house and Jeffery was calling for him. “Hooomerrr!” Jeffery called, but his scrabbling legs found no purchase in the air and he sailed helplessly away as the house got smaller and smaller. When he awoke in the frowsy darkness, he sensed that Jeffery wasn’t in the room. He wobbled off of the bed and walked through the laundry room into the old family room, pausing to listen at the stairs. Then, his nails clacking on the cement foundation, he walked outside to where Jeffery was sitting and the two of them stared into the night.