Visitations by Noble Dust

Caveat: my comment is a response to John, not an opinion, implied or expressed, on the story or on its writer.

my poor man.

What have they done to you

Yes, Yes, but the proper PC expression, to invalidate future cancel cultural attacks, is "my poor spectrum boy." This may be misleading; so may I please clarify this by saying I am at the traditional extreme of the rainbow.

I am practicing to be good. Not to be obnoxious and rude and abrupt.

You are enviably equitable and non-confrontational. Makes one sick, to the point where they want to get a personality lift due to the powerful example.

“Hey, get the FUCK off my train motherfucker!”

The two tirades collided.

She barely remembered the dream, but as she transitioned into wakefulness, the taught feathers of a massive golden wing gently brushed her back. Fully awake now, she heard its wind-like rustling caress her bare skin. She slowly turned and watched it disappear like a reverse tornado in slow motion, dissolving into the golden morning sun pouring through her bedroom window.

Other times the scales of a huge oily fish would grate into her breasts, pinning her helplessly to the bed as it swam upstream, filling her nostrils with stench.

Of all the famous Taoist parables attributed to Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi (Chuang-tzu) (369 BCE to 286 BCE), few are more famous than the story of the butterfly dream, which serves as an articulation of Taoism's challenge toward definitions of reality vs. illusion.

For a while she had tried to determine if certain types of episodes corresponded with certain states of mind, levels of stress, relative happiness, depression. She made charts, she kept journals logging as much information as possible, trying to draw connections between countless factors. But there was no logic. It had become a form of torture, the beautiful moments as much or more so than the macabre.

...the anxiety of being near maskless riders was palpable. As he moved past Laura, he caught her eye, and his normal routine suddenly shifted. He raised his voice.
“As above so below my friends, you feel me? Whatever you’re thinkin’ in your mind’s gonna come out in your hand...all ya’ll with nothing in your hand got nothing in your mind. Treasure in hand, treasure in mind. Empty hand, empty mind. It comes back around motherfuckers, I know that, I surely surely do. As above so below, as below so above. The cosmos and your minds, motherfuckers. It goes all the way up. All the way down. That shit does.”

Nobody on this train is shinin’ but we’re all stardust and light, yeah, that’s all it is but half of ya made up of dirt and shit. Look at you. You got no aura on earth then you got no aura on the astral, bro. Empty mind, empty hand. Spare some change.”

She felt the claws of the lizard idly grasp for a footing on her shoulder. Her heart beat faster. The lizard’s breathing was small but the slurp of its tongue in her ear turned her stomach to jelly.

...now the lizard’s bottom claws were perched on Laura’s shoulders and she felt it bending over her head to peer into her face

“Deep inside the skull of every one of us there is something like a brain of a crocodile. Surrounding the R-complex is the limbic system or mammalian brain, which evolved tens of millions of years ago in ancestors who were mammal but not yet primates. It is a major source of our moods and emotions, of our concern and care for the young. And finally, on the outside, living in uneasy truce with the more primitive brains beneath, is the cerebral cortex; civilization is a product of the cerebral cortex.”

— Carl Sagan, Cosmos p.276–277

As she walked, a stray cat suddenly darted across her path. Instinctively, she kneeled, catching its eye and gently trying to coax it towards her. Come love me, she thought. Daintily setting her fingertips on the sidewalk like paws, she made eye contact and slowly blinked

“Hi there,” she whispered. As her fingers brushed the soft fur, the cat winced and pulled away slightly. “It’s ok, it’s ok.” As she gently stroked the cat’s chin, she wondered what it was like for an animal to be touched by a strange human hand, and to be spoken to in sounds it would never understand. Remembering her tardiness, she stood up, feeling renewed, and walked on.

Only once, she had felt the warm kiss of a massive thoroughbred horse on her ear, and heard its stately, operatic breathing as it galloped away. She longed for that moment, but these peaceful episodes were too rare.

“Empty hand, empty mind, what do you got in your hand? NOTHIN’!”

Come on, guys. Rise to the challenge, I know you can :up:

She curled up, wishing she could sink into the bed like a stone. Gradually she unfurled and glanced at the clock. 9:15AM. Overslept again; the vet was already open. Self-loathing rolled over her. She lethargically got out of bed and felt for her robe, stubbing her tow on the bedpost.
She limped into the kitchen and sloppily poured almond milk over a bowl of Wheat Chex. As the kettle for her coffee began to whine, her phone rang. She heard it just in time to answer.

“Laura? Are you ok? We’ve already got a pretty big backlog of patients to see, are you going to be in soon? There’s a rottweiler that looks pretty critical. Astro, from last week; we ran tests on him, remember?” Laura groaned. Guilt faded in; it was the second time this month she’d been late from oversleeping.

As she power-walked to the train, a flash of light glinted off the white feathers of a mourning dove, reminding her of this morning’s episode. It had been a particularly peaceful, almost cleansing one; they weren’t always. Sometimes a giant black wing would beat into her violently as the creature took off in flight, leaving her shivering on the bed with sores on her back. Other times the scales of a huge oily fish would grate into her breasts, pinning her helplessly to the bed as it swam upstream, filling her nostrils with stench. Only once, she had felt the warm kiss of a massive thoroughbred horse on her ear, and heard its stately, operatic breathing as it galloped away.

“Hey.”
“Hey Laura...I know you’re at work, sorry, just wanted to talk for a quick second? I know I’ve been kind of a jerk lately, but last night you just seemed really out of touch and I couldn’t stop thinking about it, and I’m just like...I don’t know, I guess it’s two things, one, I’m apologizing for being a dick, and two, I feel like maybe I’ve dropped the ball ‘cause you seem...depressed or something? Like -” She closed her eyes as he rambled, then cut him off.

“Stanley, I can’t talk right now, I overslept and I’m about to get on the train.” She spoke in the voice of a babysitter.

Putting on headphones, she began playing Erik Satie’s Gymnopedies to calm her stress, but soon after, a maskless man came through the emergency doors of the train.

a maskless man came through the emergency doors of the train.

She felt the prickly spine of some massive lizard move slowly up her back. No, no, no. Not in public. This rarely happened; it was maybe the third time in ten years.

“Half of ya got mad dim auras, bro. Nobody on this train is shinin’ but we’re all stardust and light, yeah, that’s all it is but half of ya made up of dirt and shit. Look at you. You got no aura on earth then you got no aura on the astral, bro. Empty mind, empty hand. Spare some change.”

She felt an odd mix of relief and anger. What had triggered it, she wondered? Hopefully no one on the train had seen her private meltdown or smelled anything reptilian. She began to walk the extra ten minutes to work, slowly at first, measuring her balance, then quickly to make up lost time.

So instead of a delusionary experience, to me it would seem its much closer to . an intricate, precise understanding of our reality. She's "talking", (if one could call it that) to presumably her animal patients, after death. Either that, or something else animal-like.

“Hey.”
“Hey Laura...I know you’re at work, sorry, just wanted to talk for a quick second? I know I’ve been kind of a jerk lately, but last night you just seemed really out of touch and I couldn’t stop thinking about it, and I’m just like...I don’t know, I guess it’s two things, one, I’m apologizing for being a dick, and two, I feel like maybe I’ve dropped the ball ‘cause you seem...depressed or something? Like -” She closed her eyes as he rambled, then cut him off.
— Baden

Last Night!?!? What happened last night? Or does it even matter...

“Stanley, I can’t talk right now, I overslept and I’m about to get on the train.” She spoke in the voice of a babysitter.
— Baden

Guess not.

pockets of emptiness

Putting on headphones, she began playing Erik Satie’s Gymnopedies to calm her stress, but soon after, a maskless man came through the emergency doors of the train.
— Baden

I put on this song to see what it felt like; In my opinion, it's probably not the best choice of music in a therapeutic sense. For sure it'll calm an aspect of your stress, but as well it seems to fuel a sort of melancholic mysteria, a tone that Laura is engaged in very heavily.

“The story of your brain on music is the story of an exquisite orchestration of brain regions, involving both the oldest and newest parts of the human brain, and regions as far apart as the cerebellum in the back of the head and the frontal lobes just behind your eyes.” — Daniel J. Levitin, This is Your Brain on Music

Well like ?Amity alluded to, it seems to be some sort of intense, forced transformation in the way she see's the world due to her intense guilt and depressive sensations she has endured, presumably on rottweilers like Astro. The story in and of itself seems to be talking about the intrinsic difference's between animal and humankind, and that the sense of distance isn't as far as it seems.

The writer captures how anything can happen in a subway train in a mega-city. The alienation. The anger. The coming together of broken lives and lives that don't care about other lives. It's a melting pot of misery on the scale of nuclear disaster, subway trains are.

I almost did not read the entry after the first few sentences, where taut was spelled as taught. But now I am extremely glad that I did continue the reading.

She slowly turned and watched it disappear like a reverse tornado in slow motion, dissolving into the golden morning sun pouring through her bedroom window

Reality v Illusion.

All the senses surveyed in this physical and mental onslaught.
Touch, smell, hearing and sight. Taste, do we have taste ?
How real? We 'feel' them as we read...so real ? Hmmm. Surreal.
Sensory or extra-sensory perception ?
The author isn't scared to explore the psyche or supernatural and still incorporate the scientific.
Mind over matter ?

Laura is looking for love...like an animal...

What's the lizard trying to do. Excite or explore. Both ?

Did I allude to that ? I must pay more attention...can't remember that at all... !

I missed that. About it being an 'intricate, precise understanding of our reality'.
What do you mean ?

To this story I do relate, though in a different time of life, in a different setting and with different 'visitations'. When I was 4, or 5, maybe even a bit older, I used to complain to my parents about 'seeing the scary heads'.

As she gently stroked the cat’s chin, she wondered what it was like for an animal to be touched by a strange human hand, and to be spoken to in sounds it would never understand.

I do wonder about these experiences, and am not one to write them off in the name of Lord Science Our Savior.

For a while she had tried to determine if certain types of episodes corresponded with certain states of mind, levels of stress, relative happiness, depression. She made charts, she kept journals logging as much information as possible, trying to draw connections between countless factors. But there was no logic. It had become a form of torture, the beautiful moments as much or more so than the macabre.

Writing, in all its varied forms, is an empowering and complex process. It calls upon the writer to bring together the random thoughts in their left and right parts of the brain and shape them into something useful, beautiful and inspiring so another person can follow and understand it.

The need to feel understood and to know what others think matters and is universal.

She made charts, she kept journals logging as much information as possible, trying to draw connections between countless factors. But there was no logic.

...Another sign of possession is the subject reacting to the suggestion of a depossession with anxiety, contempt, or even anger (perhaps this is why some in the medical field react so strongly to the idea?). The lost soul, or even demonic energy “on board” doesn’t like the idea of being forced out. What the lost soul doesn’t recognize is that if they leave the host and go to the Light, they will get everything they need. Unfortunately, many lost souls, like incarnated humans, don’t believe in the afterworld and higher planes and stay stuck in the lower dimensions.

Either philosophy—the conventional or spiritual—is difficult to prove, but those suffering from personality disorders have nothing to lose by trying a depossession, though the stronger the dark forces with the person, the more likely they will find an excuse to avoid it.

As she gently stroked the cat’s chin, she wondered what it was like for an animal to be touched by a strange human hand, and to be spoken to in sounds it would never understand.

This ending is perfect, a kind of mirroring of her own visitations.

Did she have all the necessary tools to hand to look inside her head ?
The interaction between body and mind.

The importance of sleep, diet etc....
How thorough was she ? 'Countess factors' is a bit vague...
As a vet, did she think to contact medical professionals ?
For blood chemistry samples, for starters.
Or was she biased - due to her belief system ?

Mental Illnesses are Diagnosed by Symptoms
Unlike some disease diagnoses, doctors can't do a blood test or culture some microorganisms to determine whether a person has a mental illness. Maybe scientists will develop discrete physiological tests for mental illnesses in the future; until then, however, mental health professionals will have to diagnose mental illnesses based on the symptoms that a person has.

Basing a diagnosis on symptoms and not on a quantitative medical test, such as a blood chemistry test, a throat swab, X-rays, or urinalysis, is not unusual. Physicians diagnose many diseases, including migraines, Alzheimer's disease, and Parkinson's disease based on their symptoms alone. For other diseases, such as asthma or mononucleosis, doctors rely on analyzing symptoms to get a good idea of what the problem is and then use a physiological test to provide additional information or to confirm their diagnosis.

When a mental health professional works with a person who might have a mental illness, he or she will, along with the individual, determine what symptoms the individual has, how long the symptoms have persisted, and how his or her life is being affected. Mental health professionals often gather information through an interview during which they ask the patient about his or her symptoms, the length of time that the symptoms have occurred, and the severity of the symptoms.

In many cases, the professional will also get information about the patient from family members to obtain a more comprehensive picture. A physician likely will conduct a physical exam and consult the patient's history to rule out other health problems.

She slowly turned and watched it disappear like a reverse tornado in slow motion, dissolving into the golden morning sun pouring through her bedroom window

Suggestion: maybe...

"In slow motion, it disappeared before her, dissolving like a reverse tornado into the golden morning sun."

I was a writing teacher and editor for while

Haven't figured out the word count thingie yet but other than that I could probably come up with the odd hopefully helpful suggestion.

That sounds like you don't have much faith in 'Science' whatever you think that is.

My critique would be that it's actually a bit over heavy on metaphor/simile and this comes across as a bit awkward in places even when I appreciate what's being reached for.

That sounds like you don't have much faith in 'Science' whatever you think that is.
— Amity

I do have faith in science; I think one problem is that a lot of folk are unwilling to admit that it IS a type of faith.

Or shall I say, a nasty habit of metaphor?

As a reader, my brain had to keep braking and reversing. I like Laura, but didn't get to know her enough.

She slowly turned and watched it disappear like a reverse tornado in slow motion, dissolving into the golden morning sun pouring through her bedroom window.

Metaphors. Some simply live and breathe them. A recent thread showed me just how much they are used without any of us realising. Fascinating.

Where in the story did you have to keep reversing and why, specifically?

As for getting to know Laura 'enough', how much more information would you need ?

Having a different taste is fine. But to say it's a 'nasty habit' used by the author is quite something else.

So, this is relevant for another thread and time:
https://www.allaboutscience.org/science-and-faith.htm
I'll leave it there. No more distraction from discussion:

We write compelling websites that reach out to skeptics, seekers, believers, and a hurting world with powerful evidence for God and the Good News of Jesus.

I'm assuming you're not a Bible-thumping creationist? Did you look into this website? From their "about" section:
We write compelling websites that reach out to skeptics, seekers, believers, and a hurting world with powerful evidence for God and the Good News of Jesus.

I had meant to add something about schizophrenia.
Along the lines of: Gone are the days when the evil spirits were beaten out of the sufferer.
But, are they ?
I found this rather disturbing:

It's double trouble from both sides of the world's navel.

She lay for a few moments, basking in the rare but familiar feeling. All the years of emotional weight, trauma, and stress lifted momentarily from her psyche. She felt the weightlessness of some forgotten childhood morning in which the entire world was brimming with the energy of a beehive...
[ ... ]
Only once, she had felt the warm kiss of a massive thoroughbred horse on her ear, and heard its stately, operatic breathing as it galloped away. She longed for that moment, but these peaceful episodes were too rare.
[ ... ]
It had become a form of torture, the beautiful moments as much or more so than the macabre.

The closing paragraph calms me as I imagine Laura's relief. The treatment of the cat feels like it anchors her down

“Hi there,” she whispered. As her fingers brushed the soft fur, the cat winced and pulled away slightly. “It’s ok, it’s ok.” As she gently stroked the cat’s chin, she wondered what it was like for an animal to be touched by a strange human hand, and to be spoken to in sounds it would never understand. Remembering her tardiness, she stood up, feeling renewed, and walked on.

how does she cope?

'Astro the Rottweiler'.
(What's in a name, huh ?)

Why would it peer? A psychic analysis ? Her 'underbelly' ?

So
instead of a delusionary experience, to me it would seem its much closer to an intricate, precise understanding of our reality.

The story in and of itself seems to be talking about the intrinsic difference's between animal and humankind, and that the sense of distance isn't as far as it seems.

The visitations themselves are mysterious and disturbing, because it's not clear how real they are. It's the fact that they lie somewhere in between reality and illusion that hooks the attention.

This ending is perfect, a kind of mirroring of her own visitations.

she wondered what it was like for an animal to be touched by a strange human hand, and to be spoken to in sounds it would never understand.

I'm glad it read that way; that was the goal.

Thanks, glad someone picked up on that!

Can you expand on that? I know you already did, but still not sure I follow, but I'm curious to know more.

The whole concept for this story actually comes from watching humans interact with pet animals and wondering what their experience is like. And then from there, imagining humans having the same experience that the pets have, somehow...in this case, manifesting as larger-than-life animals making physical contact with Laura; "petting" her, so to speak.

And these visitations could be interpreted as higher forms of consciousness, yes, that's implicit, but I hope it's open-ended enough to be interpreted however you will.

All the senses surveyed in this physical and mental onslaught.
Touch, smell, hearing and sight. Taste, do we have taste ?
How real? We 'feel' them as we read...so real ? Hmmm. Surreal.
Sensory or extra-sensory perception ?
The author isn't scared to explore the psyche or supernatural and still incorporate the scientific.
Mind over matter ?

What is it about L-aura...an aura-l attraction?

Laura is looking for love...like an animal...

Is that why she chose her occupation as a vet ? She has empathy - psychopathy - an empath.

Who else wonders as they take comfort from a cat just how heavy a human hand might be?

Anyway, felt like I overlooked a few of your thoughts and wanted to address them.

Glad you "felt" them. That's certainly the goal. But also surreal, yes. Toting the line. Sort of like dreams that happen on the borderland of waking, that leave you with a feeling of the dream being more real than reality. If you've every woken up and felt like you've come from reality back into some sort of gray twilight zone...

She's an unwitting/potential shaman of sorts, with some link between healing animals in the mundane world and these visitations. Maybe these are just the spirits she's failed to save and so they linger/trouble her.

Great critical feedback, thank you. I agree and want to work on toning down the flowery language. With less of it, the good bits will hit harder, I suspect.

The story which I submitted to the story contest back in the day of PF was actually based on a dream I had. A scary one actually.

That was also my best short story I think.

...a master thesis for criminology.

So in my case inspiration comes from many quarters, but the dream has been an especially fruitful one.

I wonder if some of the old PF stories will make their way to the new 'Short Stories' category in the 'Symposium'.

Do you still have it?

Now that is an area I'd be keen to hear more about.

Yes, inspiration can hit from anywhere I guess. All life experience and aspects.
It's being aware and able to express using a range of vocabulary and styles...
...that is what enthralls me.

Yes I do. I am proud of it because it won the competition that year...
I will not post it first though, because I think the better writers should come forward first. (And of course, I am afraid it will be shot full of holes...)

Unfortunately in a cruel twist of fate, environmental law became my research field. The question is what would you like to know about it?

So, Nils Loc's suggestion about Laura being revisited by unsaved animals has a ring of truth:

So, she only falls into a deep sleep at dawn...

However, your expressions I think reflect the florid nature of visual hallucinations.

I actually wrote a short story years ago (maybe 10) based on a dream I had when I was like 8. I wrote a song about it in college as well. Weird how sometimes these images can be so etched on the brain.

Do you still have them? The story and the song, perhaps even the same or similar dream?

I think our first experiences of an upset or impactful event are almost inevitably etched on the brain.