Flying School House

It was another day of Summer's heat.

When Victoria took out the pigs, she bent down in her wooden shoes, and fed them the little bit of feed she still had left for them her family still had left. It was a dry feed. a mixture of various nuts and seeds. Her family had not been to the market in years, and it was just now the trees from which grew the nuts, began to wither and die. After it was done, she went back inside, and told her mother who was now reading her book instead of dusting the stove top, that the pigs have now been fed. "I am tired now, can I not rest?" Ordinarily her mother would say to help her cook dinner.

Instead she saw that Victoria had the sleepy eye.

"You may for this night only, but I will have more chores in the morning." Victoria's stomps could be heard throughout the house, prompting her mother to tell her to quiet it down. As she entered the room, quietness. The moon from the window eased in through the curtain that just barely covered the night. She tossed off her shoes that felt like logs rather than actual shoes, put herself over the covers, and then finally began to drift off to sleep. It was a while coming, but eventually she came upon the dream-gate. Victoria found herself walking through the gardens, that have long sense overgrown. The grass was already much longer than how it was before, when she first arrived. If there was any point she regretted becoming older, it was that silence that has continued since she made her decision to tell herself that nothing that was real, and that nothing going on was really happening.

For this was a time she needed it most, for even if her mother would make toast in the morning, there was still very much work to do. She had to gather the wood to help repair her father's bench outside. She needed to retrieve the mixture in order to make more concrete, because the fountain that once was there, was merely a pile of rubble. In her dream, it had now began to take on merely the qualities of the waking world. Where nothing was as it seemed, and at once she was chased by several wolves searching for prey. For the day has gone, that she no longer belonged to that world, or any world that showed different levels of reality beyond the carefully trimmed hedge brush she needed to trim along her houses sides.

It was when she was pounced on by the wolf remembered.

Where the Bunnies were always white, the grass always greener.

Not the now, where everything was meaner.

It was a warm day in Summer, and the heat was unbearable. A temperature of which made her wooden shoes nigh un-wearable. Yet she would trudge on, because while she was getting tired, at least she did not have to do chores. Those things were such bores, thing older people would do to pass the time. But for Victoria, she wanted to do away with time. Make everything within her world of dreams, fit within a certain rhyme. A world that was like the melody of music, like music notes hopping two and three and upbeat melodies. For this, the tiredness for wearing heavy shoes were bearable.

Along her travels, she met a bunny rabbit. But he was an odd one, had going a bad habit. Everything day he would smoke cigars, and tell stories of his voyages where he sailed the high seas. It was all she could to not go, "Please can you spare the story for another day?" For she wanted the stories to go away. Yet she bared it, as despite the boredom from the millions of words coming from the rabbit's mouth. For it was a warm house, where she always got to read books about children her age. Somehow the memory of being an only child began to fade, and she read wonderful reads until the moon began to wane. Nothing to brush the house with, nothing that was profane.

It was when she aged yet one year, things began to change. Yet it was gradual at first, and it only ever happened as she began to suffer from thirst. For her mother would deny her glasses of water to drink to take away the Summer's heat. Inside Victoria's mind, she saw millions of bunny rabbits hopping in twos and three searching for the lost lakes and streams. Eventually Victoria relented, and did chores for yet one more day. It took a long time for her to gather the wheat to make bales of hay. For what she could bare, one before. Now she craved to be at the shore, at the beach with other's of her kin. Children, mother's, and men. Animals in twos and threes, everyone of it's kind. They played water sports, many varieties that don't actually exist. "May I play with bunny, she would insist." They tossed her the bunny, that tossing the bunny was funny. Yet was no longer funny when the big bear tossed the bunny into Victoria's face.

And she dropped into the water, in disgrace.

It was a gradual feeling of resent moment, growing ever still. Yet she tried to let it go, assuming that no harm was meant. It was the next evening she tried not to visit them, but with regret she decided to take a nap. But at this point she was getting to the point where mother was insisting for her to have chores to do. Oh that's poo, she thought. For the weather had wrought, many flowers swaying in the breeze. It's wind cooling her and blowing up her sleeves. "Put on your wooden shoes, today I will make you sing the blues." Victoria at first hoped that there was no resentment from the animals, yet it was a faint hope. Though her mother kept her busy for much of the day, therefore at first was in the back of her mind.

Everything in dreams, was sour like wine. A tart taste of what was once heaven, but now snow ... hither and yawn. Thus for took a break, tried to ignore her dreams. Yet as the back of her dress began to tear at the seams, she craved them again. But that had become different, for the animals were no longer there. Not even a conversation, from the rabbit's cousin. A talking hare. Instead there were revenents, out to kill her everywhere. They disappeared suddenly, and appeared again just as sudden. Many evil spirits, with big sharp teeth and large flaming red eyes. She woke up screaming, mother checked on her.

She lied, said everything was fine. A sorrow, where even dreams may die.

Dreams are now no longer tart, like even a fine wine. The visions as she slept over then next week, began to wither away, and she had silent nights. Another day, she became sick. Doctors did not know the cause at first, because at first there was no symptoms. Victoria had a coughing cough, her eyes began to fade. She died with blood on her shirt. Mother wept until the night became day, regretting the lost Victoria. Her family moved, because there was no longer any reason to be in town. Only the faint memories, of her daughter the was once a clown. The faint memories of her daughters frown, was a minor comfort. As they rode away into the valley of forever.

A few months later, into a more heavenly light.

Night young and bright. Almost evening, closing light.

Mother tucked her daughter under the covers, then forgot to tell her Aida a bedtime story. A song of the deer, running and playing. In little groups of dear mates, never an only child. For there was a group mind set, though not any type humans wrought. Rather that little known aspect of mother nature, that never went away as she aged into older years into her early pre-teens. She was two years younger then fourteen minus two. Aida began to drift, and appeared at the gate of the sands of grey. As she walked closer to the gate, she heard the sounds of ghoulish laughter. Like demons erupting from the earth, then the landscape gradually eased into a land of meadows where the grass was always green enough on both sides of plain.

There was a small cottage, that was cracked and torn. Yet despite it's shell, it somehow gave the feeling of a world far better than hell. Where the there was always food, like the many apples from the trees with the leaves flowing in the breeze. In this world, she could get whatever she wanted. A blond woman, possibly in her early thirties, walked out of the door. "Aida, is time for breakfast. You don't want to spoil that do you?" Aida chose not to pick the apple, and walked inside. She tripped on her left wooden shoe, her mother caught her just in time. They carefully walked inside.

After the meal, her mother let her sleep. Yet there was a storm brewing. Aida found herself in her school. She walked through the halls, of the school that was little more than a one room school house. The only other rooms where the restrooms, and that room that barely resembled what we would consider one. The school house was shaking. She looked through the window, with the other little girls. The sky was at first an orange heavenly glow, then at once began a whirlwind of destruction. Suddenly she paused out, as soon as the house went flying high high into the sky. Then her friends woke her up. "Wakey wakey, look outside. The school is flying." Aida stared out of the window. Felt like she was going to fall.

"How long will be way up here?" she asked.

"All the way till the fall." Aida wasn't she if she was being serious or not.

"But I don't want to stay till the fall, I will get hungry." Aida said.

"Oh we will feed you." said Reika.

Reika handed her an extra bowl, because Aida could not afford a lunch. It was a small lunch, but all the other girls got to have a small lunch. So it was OK. Yet when she tried a bite, Aida wondered what it was made off. Thus, resisted to spit it out. "What is in this bowl of soup." Aida stared at her friend Reika. She was not sure, but she figured at least somebody at the school had to get there on the horse. But where were the horses? Aida wanted to know.

"We keep horses till the snow, we walk everywhere while in the air." said Reika, holding her Teddy Bear. She handed to Aida, because she wanted to share the bear. "Yea it probably does taste like that, I was so heartbroken when they decided to slaughter Betsy." Apparently, although Reika giggled about it.

"Betsy? Reika?" Aida was looking a little nervous.

"Why Betsy the horse, we killed after it could no longer perform in the cicurs." Reika said. Then had a frown, "Sorry it was a joke. I'm not really sure what meat that is, it's school meat I guess." Reika told Aida that she would be back in a minute.

But that minute never came. Mother already woke her up.

"Honey, it's time for school." Her mother said. No, she wanted to play in the large pool of the ocean. In the village on the shore by the sea. Where the clothes were always drying in the wind, a place along the rising waves where she could swim to unwind. She could could not swim very well, and she almost fell under the sea again. Her hair lost it's bind. She wanted to see Reika again someday, even though she did not exist. And could not exist, but she was there in her mind forever.

Her first true friend. It was a few months later, her village had new neighbors. Whenever they passed by her own the street. They passed abruptly in jolts, with blocks of brick on their feet. They hoped quickly going thud through the road of mud. Hop, hop, hop through the mud. "Who is that girl staring at us?" asked the father that was once the father of Victoria.

"Oh just another girl, she looks like our daughter. Don't you think?" the wife said.

Like their child? What do they mean? She thought of herself as unique, she didn't want to look like anyone else. Not at all. "How do you do?" said the father, who boarded the cart. Then whipped the horses, and rode way over to their house.

"I hope one of the horses isn't named Betsy?" said Aida, the fussy Hetsy.

"Aida! Aida! Did you finally me the grumpy old people!" said Mosey. Then they walked together along the home along the dirt road. "So what's been eating you?"

"Does anyone named their daughter's Reika?"

"Well I don't know."

At home Aida finished her homework, then went back to bed. But she could not get to sleep, for she heard young deer running and playing. Spinning around in circles in twos and threes. "Where do you dear ever young, when you run and play?" said Aida. The deer sung:

Where the fields never wane,

Where the flowers, never turn to grey,

Where the lion with the mane,

Sleeps with the horse, and it's bail

Of hay!

If only she could visit, where the field never turn to grey. And fly again in a flying school house, where the sky was always beneath them, and she was always higher than she ever been. When, she would have that dream again, she did not know. Merely hoped it would happen again soon some day.

Sometime before the snow.

It was the next week Aida decided to visit the neighbors, and although it was against her mother's wishes, she wanted to visit them then swim with the fishes. At the house, she wanted to make a good impression. So not to dirty the carpet in their small cobble stone cottage, a change from their lost one that was slightly bigger, she placed her wooden shoes by the door. Aida knocked on the door. "Who is it, can you see I'm making a pie?" Aida heard a voice, barely beyond the snore from her guy on the couch, riding an old story book.

"May I help you make a pie?" Aida said. The lady stomped to the door.

"And who are you, I decry!?" said the old mother of Victoria.

"Hello! I'm your neighbor!" Aida said, trying to form a smile.

"Well so is the rest of them. Maybe next time."

At home her mother lectured her about visited the neighbors, and by the time she finished her lecture it was already getting late. So she turned out the lights in the room, and left her daughter Aika to fate. Then Aika heard the dear rustling in the hedge brush, and saw that they were chewing upon the branches of the tree. Go away from me, fair dear for I want to sleep tonight thought Aida.

The next week she met the neighbors.

She helped them make a pie. Then she met her daughter. Not by any direct acquaintance, but rather from being introduced to the storybook read by the neighbors guy. "An old storybook my daughter used to love, I have been reading it since she left."

"Where did your daughter go?" asked Aika.

But before he could answer, the wife glowered at him.

"Maybe for another time." said the father of Victoria.

But she still wondered, where did Victoria go? Then she went to her home, and her dreams of the girl her Victoria storybook. Where she reunited when Reika again, in some form where the girl reminded her of that girl of the dream, where the fields never turn to grey.

And hoped to meet Victoria, someday.

In a dream somewhere. She hummed the dears hum:

Where the fields never wane,

Where the flowers, never turn to grey,

Where the lion with the mane,

Sleeps with the horse, and it's bail

Of hay!

When Aida went back to her mother's house, she found out that her mother had received word about her accomplishments. Whether she had already known or not, she didn't seem to act like she cared all that much about anything she did. It was almost like she only wanted her to do chores, and nothing else. And so Aida went back to bed again, and settled for her next night's sleep.

It was when she was in bed, that she had a different dream from the night's before. Almost as if it were not a dream at all. There was a ghost in the room wearing a shall. The ghost walked closer to Aidia, who clang to the wall. That was behind her bed, where she rested her head. And hoped for the ghost, not to crawl onto her bed. But there was no ghost crawling onto the bed. The ghost had a similar appearance to a girl that must have been the daughter of the next door neighbor. Then a mood of no sorrow.

"I hear that my mother is teaching you how to bake my favorite pies." At first Aida was unsure of who it was. But after the buzz, she found who the voice belonged to. It was Victoria. "I sure wish could be around to savor the pie, but then I had a disease. Not here I stay after I died. Waiting for new company, to stay by my side." Aida wasn't sure at first what to think of what Victoria said. Then they read Victoria's favorite book together.

"And the little dear that ran and played, finally was able to spend time with the other little dear. Then there was nothing but good cheer." After they finished the book, Victoria bed farewell, till next next adventure. And hoped there would not be another misadventure. Then Aida was able to get to sleep. She was back in the flying schoolhouse, with the other little girls. There was the girl that made jokes about horse meat. And other that were new arrivals.

"We have a new friend here." said one of the little girls. There Aida was able to see, that her new friend Victoria was there. It was almost as if she had not died at all. Victoria invited Aida to come sit with her, and there they had lunch together for all the evenings of the following week.

And in a wink, the book was closed.

Victoria and Aida went into the dream together, where they arrived at the flying school house. Here they had normal dream-school. They had lunch with the other girl that Aida met before, and for now all was well with the world. Yet Victoria could feel something brewing in the air, something that did not feel quite right with the world of dream. In her own mind's eye, she could sense a storm was brewing.

A silence, not quite silence. When it came close to the end of the dream, and Aida would soon would up for the morning, Victoria talked with Aida friend from before. She told her about her feelings, but the friend simply shrugged it off as nothing by the wind. Yet there was something she could sense. She could hear the sounds of cackles, in the dark.

Meanwhile on the other side of the dream, the nightmare. The skull-fairy queen was sitting on her throne. She was brewing about what to do for the evening of eternal night. She remembered the many times in the dream world that Victoria tried to foil her planes. The dear in the world continued to ran and play. Yet oh how she hated dear. The queen hated how they were brown, and had baby fawn. She hated their very existence. So she called one of her servants, "I want you to bring me the head of dear. And if you can find her, I want you to bring Victoria to me. I must have her abilities."

Things were peaceful, for now.

It was the next evening that Aida arrived home from school. Victoria and Aida decided to have a wooden shoe dance. But the dance could be heard all the way to the ends of the netherworld. Clop, clop, clop. All the demons across the fiery pits of hell went screech screech, they looked like small little grey demons. Victoria and Aida were breeding hate from the very depths of hell. Clop, clop, clop. As they laughed and played. The demons began to complain to the skull-fairy queen. "Very well, servants girls. Make it choppy." The skull-fairy servants girls flew to the ends of the dream-world. They fought many creatures, and over time the pleasant dream-world became no different from the depths of hell.

The skull-fairies flew to the flying school house, and landed on the front porch. They knocked, and the girls went to go see who it was. The girls were scared from the depths of hell-fire. For they had never seen a true skull-fairy before. The girls corned every single one of the girls in the flying school house. They bound up the dear, the wined because they could not longer run around. Aida was trying to sleep her bed, but she felt like she was out of her head. Instead she put the pillow over head, for she not get a proper sleep. The wind felt like it was howling, and this made her go bawling. Bawling, bawling, bawling across the ends of the Earth. At once she feared for her friends, and wondered how they were. Aida was beginning to develop sleep problems over the last two days. She barely work on the days she was tired, and thus everything began to grow steadily downhill.

But finally she was able to sleep. Aida noticed that the world was different. The world had become grey and lifeless. No longer was it the world of the dream, where anthropomorphic animals mingled with the regular animals. And children from across the dream-world would play jump-rope. Nope, nothing but the fields turned to grey. Victoria's spirit came to her in a holographic projection. "Aida, Aida Adia." But then there was no more of her sweet sweet voice, for she was captured and sent to the depths of hell. Then Aida woke up screaming, and her mother went to go check up on her.

"It is only the monster in the closet." mother said.

"But it's not the monster mother." Aida said.

"Then what dear?" mother said.

"The silence, mom. The silence."

Where the dear once ran to play,

The devils of hell came to slay,

Animals, of their kind, from the day.

Silence, silence, more silence.

It was was not the quivering mother, but the blank stare.

Aida stare went to nowhere, and everywhere. Somewhere else in the dark, Victoria was there waiting. Alone, crying. Quivering, Aida felt like she lost another part of her self and that deep dark dungeon. Where the ghouls now come out to play, where the demons come out to slay. The creatures of the night. "Yes, we have the girl now. It will merely be a matter of time, before we are able to extract her crystal heart. And use it to light are lamps, for it has been very dark in this part of the world. I am tired of darkness." But Victoria did not have the heart to tell her, there was other ways of removing darkness.

But she was to tired to say anything.

When Aida woke up the next morning, she was to tired to do any chores. Aida's mother and father were not sure what to do. The tried to have her switch to a hoe, but she fall down into the grass. The next week they sent her to the doctor, told them it was a bout of insomnia. So they gave her a specific prescription, of meds to take. But none of them made her mind a'bake. Until on the forth night of taking them. Here she was able to gradually get back into a regular sleeping routine. Aida found herself in the sands of grey, and many spirits flickered across the desert. Spirits that once were there. Many ruins were filled with orbs, and she arrived at them to see what they were about. The orbs were large magical glowing things that kept this world balance in check. Oh what the heck she thought, I'll put my hand on the orb. Or it's all for naught. The orb wrought a large holographic projection of where Victoria was being hid. And so she ran to the castle, that she did.

But instead Aida was locked in a cell of her own.

The cell was dark and murky, and she could here many of her once friends chatting amongst themselves in the cell. Wondering why 'oh why Aida was not there to save the day. She could not help, she was simply to do to feed the horses hay. Nah' they said, for she could have made time for them. She waited silently in the cell, waiting for the guards to give her gruel. The favor of which she thought was very cruel. She waited and waited and waited for hope to come. Until eventually she was to dumb to stay awake. And it was this that she came upon the dream within a dream.

And it was glowing, vibrantly.

A picture of a land that was once meadows, now made present and whole. A land unadulterated by the skull-fairy queen, who was always green about the meadows that were only slightly greener than she. Only the fruit she could have had, "No more fruits for me." And it was with this she decided to aid the groups escape. Even if she died trying. She called for a guard, made a provocative pose. Then after she picked her nose, this was what caused her to anger a skull-fairy guard. Therefore, the guard opened the door. Instead she threw a rock at the head of the guard. He fell down and down and down until there was no more down to go. And splat his head against the dirt floor. "Ow my head." She stole the guards keys, because he was a very stupid stupid guard. Then helped the others girls out of their cells, then they walked together silently through the cell that was darker than night.

Somehow they had lost the guard, and thus they were home free. But there were hungry, each thought there was no enough fruit for me. Together they outsmarted the other guards, and finally was able to get to the skull-fairy queen lair. They took the queen, and jerked her around by her long hair. Then coerced her until turning the world back to how it was before. Finally she gave in, and turn the world back to how it was.

A few weeks later, the world was back to normal.

Aida got herself a dream journal, and everyone now and then she would still be visited by Victoria. And they had the time of their life. Eventually she came to enjoy her school classes again, and simply could not wait to see Victoria again during the Summer after spring. And pictured herself riding on the back of a unicorn, flying into the sky. Then landing onto the porch of the flying school house. "Things have gotten better sense you have been gone." That, Aida was sure glad that was.

Reika was no longer mad at Aida.

Thereafter.