Grails And Jewels
by
Serika Iwakura
One evening I dreamed I was a female barbarian warrior. A fine-looking one, too. Fierce of eye. Erotic, the way female barbarian warriors tend to be. I wore sturdy metallic headgear and leggings, and a breastplate worked with snakes and demons of intricately craftsman-like complexity, and a huge heavy two-handed sword, which I carried cross-like across my back, held up by two lizard-jaw clips across my silver-plated shoulder blades. Visually I must say that I was quite impressive.
Internally, however, it was a different story. Internally I was not erotically charged at all. Internally, in this dream, I was very focused and goal-oriented, seeking this infernal grail or that unholy jewel, coolly and professionally hacking off the limbs of numerous writhing ruby-eyed demons etcetera in the course of my job. But that is all it was. A job. Work. And rather hard work. Oh, in the heat of the moment it could get rather engrossing, of course, what with slashed bat-like wings pitching everywhere, skulls gushing brains, red Asmodean talons raised and dripping. But there was no real joy in it, and the prize, once won, only led to an inevitable boredom. For winning meant an end to the diversion of struggling. Even possession eventually became wearisome. What do you really do with grails and jewels, after all? Look at them a while and place them in boxes. And then you have to protect them, and deal with the tedium of thieves and tradesmen, collectors and connoisseurs and guards.
In time my trophies accumulated and were invested and brought me troll-inhabited lands and misty fiefs and lifted me from warrior to warrior-princess. From my stately castle I judged and ruled and became increasingly involved with affairs of state. Affairs which I confess did not greatly move me. My blood no longer sang, my sword no longer thrilled. I sat on my barbarian-princess throne and drank from ornate flagons a great deal.
And as I was dreaming in that dream that I was a barbarian warrior-princess having one too many, I dreamed in the dream that I fell asleep on my barbarian-princess throne, and on my throne in the dream I also dreamed. I dreamed, on my barbarian-princess throne, that it was the twentieth century, and that I was a young child standing by myself, looking at a large sandbox. There were several children in the sandbox, all my age, laughing and playing and holding various scoops and using them to build castles of sand. And as I looked at them, one of the children looked up and saw me and recognized me and waved, waved me over.
“Come on!” he said, or she. “We’ve been waiting for you! Come on!”
And I ran toward the sandbox, suddenly so very happy.
