The next great crime series?

[thesilversiren]

I suppose I should explain. I have strange dreams. Dreams that not many people I know have- the elusive narrative dream. Not the Alice in Wonderland sort, where things are surreal. But quite frequently, the sort where it feels like it should be a TV or movie, where things are just logical enough to make sense, but odd enough that I know it’s a dream.

For your consideration, last night’s dream.

It was a special occasion, at least that’s what I assumed, being dressed in a black ballgown after all. It was a strapless affair, black and silky with a big skirt that threatened to swallow me whole.

“C’mon,” they urged- two friends I hadn’t seen since high school, darting off around around the rock formations that surrounded the water.

I started to follow, then stopped, seeing large spiders across the way. Not tarantula large, but Monster Movie large. They blocked my path, and terrified, I stopped. “I can’t. There are spiders.”

“You can do it!”

I look down into the water, it was a good 3 foot drop down into the murky water. But there were no spiders in the water. In my mind, it was the only way.

The water was cold, but warmer than I’d imagined. The dress was heavy, but I was somehow able to swim through the water, towards a spot where I’d be able to pull myself up. My friends had to help me up, but we made it.

There was a bridge across the water, which would take us to a rather large and imposing building. The water led off to the left of the path up towards the building, where a group of tigers lay sunning themselves. “Tigers! The tigers could go in the water, and I was just in there…”

“Guess they just ate,” one of the guys joked. “Do you have your bag?”

Bag? I looked down at my hand which had a leather sort of doctor’s bag that seemed awfully heavy. “Yeah.”

“Good, just up the hill, the detective’s waiting for you to help figure out what happened.”

Up the hill, figure out what happened, I thought. The tigers eyed me hungrily as I walked past, and I saw a white tiger in the moat. Swimming past, almost as though it was a polar bear. Only a few minutes earlier, and it would have been swimming right past me.

The hill was steep and I couldn’t tell what sort of a building it was. Museum, mansion? Neither seemed likely to have a moat, or tigers and giant spiders guarding it. But there they were.

A good number of people were at the door of the building- police, and a couple reporters. Most nodded their heads as I walked past. Well, at least they knew who I was. Suprisingly, there were no looks of surprise. Which you’d assume to see with someone who had just swam through the moat in a ballgown. Must not be the first time I did something like this.

Instead the building, I stopped, taking in my surroundings. It seemed to be a museum. Art on the walls, displays in cases.

“Doc,” the detective said. He turned, waving away the policeman who’d been talking to him. “Glad you could make it out here. Our medical examiner’s already had a look, but you always seem to see something else.” He looked at my outfit. “Spiders?”

“Yeah.” Uncomfortable, I looked around. “The body?”

“Not much left, I’m afraid. Right this way.”

Just past a display case filled with books, was an indoor pond. One meant to be deftly stepped over, which seemed impossible with the voluminous ballgown. How were you to see where your feet were? Next night out, I thought, I will wear something slinky in a slit.

“Oh, let me give you a hand.” The detective took my bag, and set it on the far side of the pond. Before I could try to offer my hand, he’d grabbed me by the waist and swung me over.

It was one of those magical sort of moments where you knew why they always had the lawman and the scientist fall for each other on TV and in movies.

But there was a dead body. In two, and looked to be torn apart. “This is where he was found?”

“The maid discovered him, ran back the way she came. Our forensics team is trying to verify her story, but since she’s in shock, I’m inclined to believe her. The M.E. said it looked like an animal attack.” He said more, but I was too busy looking at the wound, and trying not to think about his hands at my waist.

“In here? While those tigers could have done this damage, there’s too little mess in the room. There would be bloody paw prints from a frenzy like this, and probably a bigger blood pool. It would have to have been a large animal. With the tissue damage, it looks like he was shaken, and he’s not a small man.” I turned. “You’re going to find saliva, maybe even tiger saliva. But he was dumped here.”

“Do you want to see the tigers?”

“I didn’t see any blood there. They also looked like they hadn’t been fed in awhile.” I pulled my gloves off. “I’ll let my team know about them and make some appropriate space to hold them so that I can examine them and make sure that I’m not wrong about it.”

“So you think the tigers are a red herring.”

“I think that someone wanted you to think it was some sort of a freak accident.”

“Your dress…” He looked down at me, and I thought he was going to compliment me on it, even if it was wet. “Someone will have a spare jumpsuit if you want to get out of that.”

“I.. I’ll have them bring me something dry. A jumpsuit and heels just seems silly.”

“Do you want me to walk you back down to your car? There’s a path around the spiders.”

The spiders. Right. One would think that I wouldn’t be afraid of spiders, since my job revolved around animals. But I was.

(Note: And that’s when I was woken up. I find it hilarious that my brain pulled it straight out of the surreal to something that I could identify it with, and then tried to make it a weird sort of Bones-esque show. So even though high school friends kicked it off, I still tried to make it something else.)

Originally published at American Whitney. You can comment here or there.