Fertile Dream By Michael Seelye (Excerpt from my unpublished book.)

The world was hazy and covered in a light mist. Twilight hours. There was a sense of peace. Tina looked down and realized that she was naked. This didn't seem to bother her surprisingly. As she looked around she saw that the landscape around her was barren. Clumps of browned grass sprang up through hard cracked earth. There was no sound. There was an object in the distance. She could barely see it off in the horizon. She began walking towards the object, as she walked the mist swirled around her ankles. The mist was thick and snake like, similar to that of a cigarette's smoke yet more translucent. The scenery never changed, and the focus of her attention in the distance never became more proximate. Tina wasn't bothered by the fact that the object never got closer until it seemed as if she had been walking for hours. She began to jog then. The distance between her and the object remained constant. She began to run. Still the object never got any closer. Tina stopped, and began to search the landscape for any other objects to draw her fixation. Anything to focus on, aside from that object that she couldn't procure. As she searched should begin to feel a terrible sense of despair. There was nothing, just dried grass, cracked earth, the mist and that object. She laid down, face up, and looked up at the sky. The color of this sky was pleasant, a very dry pastel purple with hints of red etching slow circular patterns across the horizon. This sky too was ultimately unchanging exclusive of the warm and subtle color patterns, but this didn't seem to bother her as much as the constant presence of the object. The colors of the sky were soothing and she lay there for a longtime, unmoving. Sleep would have been nice, but she realized that she was already asleep. Time moved on and still nothing changed. Again she focused on that object, that unachievable thing. This time she didn't feel despair, she began to feel anger and outrage. Tina rose to her feet and began to run full force. She continued to run and run until she was short of breath, sweaty and legs aching. Still she continue to run, on and on, and the object never seeming to get even an inch closer. After what seemed like an eternity she collapsed, falling to her knees, hair all disheveled. All sense of time was gone and what remained was nothing but her own thoughts. The tears began in small waves at first, and then quickly became hysterical sobbing. Chest heaving Tina whipped her sorrow streaked face as the tears subsided, her observations of the object became less dramatic. Having exhausted all of her emotional energy she now sat Indian style facing the object staring blankly at it. The object in the distance had remained constant, never changing appearance or venturing any closer to her. The outline of the object was a reflective sphere and, in perspective to its distance, the size was that of a penny. The color of the object, a shinning obsidian black. The look and feel of the object was very out of place with the surrounding settings. The surreal nature of the object in a near twilight setting rendered the viewer captive to its mere presence. She began to notice that the reflection of the sky on the object was false. Intently she watched as the pastel purple and red reflection twisted and turned over the surface of the object. The speed in which the colors moved across the object were much faster than that of the serene heavens above, the sky was calming and the motion of the colors moving across the object were chaotic. Perhaps the reflection on the object was not in fact false, perhaps the material that the object was made of was similar to that of a liquid, a liquid bound in a spherical cage moving with dissimilar motion, Tina questioned to herself as she remained captive in her observations. This thought intrigued her. Her fear, frustration and apprehension began to melt away and replace itself with a feline sense of curiosity. Her eyes focused on the liquid sphere, diligently following traces of color as they moved in no discernible pattern across the surface. The harder she stared the slower the colors danced. The reds and purples on the surface began to alternate swirling to the left and then to the right. The liquid sphere appeared larger on the horizon, it was moving. It was cold. This realization of temperature startled Tina. The colors again began to go erratic. Quickly she focused her attention on the object's surface patterns again. The motion became calm. Not only was the object cold, she realized it was ethereal. In an instant the object had traversed the distance between them and surrounded her blocking out all view. The ground was gone and she was floating dead center inside the sphere. Engulfed in a deep and infinite void. Her scream was silent and her body was held motionless. Waves of sheer terror rattled her nerves and blanked out her sight, never in her entire life had she ever experienced such utter dread! There was nothing but fear. Indescribable and absolute fear. Her screams continued to ring out but only in her head. As quickly as this sphere had enveloped her it shrank inwardly, condensing unto its center point that was located within Tina's body. The world was black, without sound, feeling or temperature. The only sensation was that of the sphere, now deep inside of her. The size of an egg it was nestled dead center inside of her and just above her groin. Again a scream ripped its way through her throat and out her mouth. She heard her scream.

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