Dream!

[Olga Barber]

Ask anyone, and they’ll tell you a single truth: life’s a game, and sometimes, if you want to win, you have to cheat.

Olga walked the streets of Paris. No, sorry, wrong world, wrong time. She’d walk Paris, one day, but not now, not here, because she was dreaming of the world she knew. This time, she was walking the streets of Gelerand. You (the reader) would recognize the time old signs of cyberpunk, sort of. High fantasy, maybe. Definitely a combination of, or that’s what you’d think (I assume). It’s what I thought. There’s magic, sure, but there’s also guns and radios. There’s science. It’s all magitech, baby. It’s all very New York, not that you should, or would, make such a comparison.

So, Olga’s walking. She’s dressed to the nines. All black, sure, but it’s all about the textures, nowadays. You gotta remember it’s the 1920s there, or that’s what I was told, and so that’s what I’m telling you. She’s a babe. A dame. Her dress? Flapper style, but sleek and all oil shine, more plastic than gold. Hair? A bob. Shoes? Yes, boots, leather, up to her knees. And gloves? Of course.

I mean, she wouldn’t be wearing this if she was awake. No, this was a dreamer’s outfit, this was all what’s ifs and could be’s, if only the rest of the world was different. The waking Olga would never. Her life wasn’t a fun sort of game, but in the dream, it kind of was. Look, there’s lights, there’s people, there’s food, there’s fire, all sorts of fun. Here, when she was dreaming, she could be the kind of Olga that enjoyed that sort of thing, that liked fun.

But remember, it’s not a game if you can’t cheat. The dreaming Olga knows that, and you (the reader) do, too. I just told you.

So, dreaming Olga is cheating. She has a gun. Sure, there’s magic, but a gun’s just as good, especially when it isn’t any gun, but a semi-automatic, from the year 2021. A pandemic year, a bad year, but a good year for guns. What, you don’t believe me? You don’t think I know about guns? Fine. Ok. You caught me, I don’t, but who cares - you shouldn’t, and I don’t. This is all a fiction. It’s make-believe. If I say a gun’s cheating, well guess what, honey? It is.

Olga brings a gun to a magic fight, all wands of different kinds, but hers goes bang, bang, bang. Suddenly, everyone’s dead but Olga. Good. Cheaters win, cheaters prosper, cheaters get to live to the next day.

So, she gets up the next day. She gets dressed all in black. Do you get it? Like she’s mourning. She’s not. She’s a cheater. A cheater in black means victory. Olga has a gun. Oh no, she’s got a gun.

This is the game of life. People cheat, and you have to use your every advantage. The winners get to see the next day. It doesn’t matter how they win, you (the reader) know the how of anything never mattered.

[Olga Barber]

“My name is Olga. I’m never ashamed.”

The thing was, Olga realized, that beauty wasn’t enough. Everyone seemed to have it. There wasn’t any monopoly on beauty, was the thing. There might have been, if there’d been a god or primal of beauty, but there wasn’t. Nobody owned it, and so it belonged to everyone (or, did everyone have a right to it?). There was something beautiful there, she was sure, as sure as she was that it was a cliché.

“Olga, the emperor sent us to die.”

That was something else. As far as she was aware, there was an emperor everywhere. There were kings and demigods and all kinds of rules, and none of them were especially concerned with the people, and less concerned with her, especially. There would be no emperor that sent her to die, because no emperor knew her. Olga, even in her dreams, understood hierarchy, and that it wasn’t personal, and that people died regardless of whether an emperor wanted them to or not. The emperor wasn’t Death. No emperor was.

“Olga, you’re a monster, you and your friends, all of you.”

Olga didn’t have any friends. She decided a long time ago that friendship wasn’t a luxury she could afford. Friends slowed you down. They weighed you down, because, you know (Olga knows) that there’s the expectation to carry them with you, even if they aren’t doing the work to justify them being there (with you). Besides, even if Olga wanted friends, there wasn’t anyone in particular she wanted to be friends with. There was an assumption of equality, there, or peerage, something that seemed to suggest that to be friends with Olga meant that you were of the same kind of quality Olga was. But Olga hadn’t met anyone like that. Sure, there had been all sorts at the Academy, but none had been as capable as Olga. And Olga was pretty sure monsters were solitary creatures anyway.

“Olga, you’re a wiz -.”

No. Olga wasn’t a wizard. She wasn’t a mage. She wasn’t a witch. There was magic in her world, yes, this was clear and true, but to her there wasn’t anything ritualistic about it - nothing that was adhered to purely because of tradition, or expectation. Magic was science. Thus, magitech. There were experiments and rules, like any hard science: physics, or math, or chemistry. Various things mashed together, and then she could understand - because it had been done before - what the results would be; and then, of course, she could build upon those results to get stranger things done.

“Olga, what do you do, when things hurt?”

Or when she was scared, or too overwhelmed, or confused, or experiencing anything on the I don’t want to feel this spectrum. But wasn’t that the question. What did she do? What did you do? Sometimes she hurts people to feel better - but sometimes she just hurts people. A lot of the time, it’s just easier to not feel. Not that she did drugs, or drinks, or whatever. You couldn’t do that, not really, as a magitech. You could blow up, or worse, if you weren’t especially careful. A classmate sent his own consciousness reeling into a glass doll and no one could put it back. Olga didn’t want that to happen to her. It was a funny story when it happened to someone else, but to her? Well, a tragedy. A big one. Anyway, to answer your question, Olga mostly worked a lot. It was the only way to really stop feeling much of anything. She launched into project after project to distract from what was really happening, when she was sad, which was mostly her not getting what she wanted. Olga is nothing if not selfish.

“Olga, are you the one?”

No. Ask Olga about the Hero’s Journey? Oh, she doesn’t know? Good. Let me tell you about the Hero’s Journey. It’s called the monomyth. It’s because of an Englishman influenced by a Swiss man, who was a psychologist who wasn’t Freud, that we have the Hero’s Journey - although, to be fair to Joseph Campbell, I’m sure it would’ve existed anyway. But, it’s uninteresting, the idea that every story has to follow a formula. It’s boring. It’s also not true. Although, it did bring some very fun drama into folkloric studies. Not that Olga knows anything about that, nor do I, not really, and neither do you. Who would get a degree in Folklore? What do you do with that, like, can you do anything? Far be it from me, or Olga, to criticize the humanities. Like, I mean, surely you can say you gained critical thinking skills. Oh, actually, you probably do, don’t you. It’s probably the same thing as someone with an English degree, or studied a foreign language, and then didn’t get into the Foreign Service or decided not to do translation. Anyway, Olga isn’t the one, and I don’t like the monomyth.

“Olga, are you Judge, Jury, and Executioner?”

Yes.

“Olga -.”

Bam. I shot you dead. You’re dead now. This is how this game ends. Don’t you know the dangers of playing make-believe? Especially when one of the players has a tendency to get bored, and quickly. You get it, don’t you, that if you can conjure up a dragon or a magical forcefield, that I can create a gun that shoots through anything and kills everyone. That’s not even hard to imagine. Actually, it’s probably the easiest thing in the world to imagine, even if you’ve never held a gun - and Olga has. Olga shot no one during a war that wasn’t happening, but she held a gun and she did shoot it. They sent her to a training range and then she shot until she ran out of ammo, she shot until her ears were ringing, she shot and shot again, and never did she feel less powerful. It only affirmed her ideas, her ideals, that she could create a machine more perfect than any human. And she did. Olga, for the military, made all sorts of machines, not just tanks. She made armor, she made guns, she made flying contraptions, and things that fought for and alongside soldiers. She could make things that shot and never missed and she did, and she’d make worse than that.

“You like war, Olga.”

Yes, I do. Why wouldn’t I? I’m not ashamed. Are you trying to make me feel ashamed? That’s rude, first of all, and second, it won’t work. There isn’t a third, because those two explain it pretty well. I don’t mind that I profit off war. I mean, I don’t, not really, but I get the resources the Imperium can afford because of war or conquest or whatever it is they do with the things I create. Don’t get me wrong, though, it isn’t like I’m just creating uncritically. I really thought about it, the pros and cons. First of all, I live in a state run by the military, or some kind of god emperor, I’m not really sure. It’s not like the government is falling over itself to explain what is actually happening. So I don’t know, but I do know that there’s a tendency for people to disappear when they piss off the government. I don’t want to do that, and I do want their resources, so I settled. I make great and impossible things for war and I get to do that because I play along. Two, I mean, I just sort of told you, right? I want the resources. Do you know how much it costs to get these things built, and then how much it costs for the magic? The dragonshards? I hope you realize none of that is cheap. I couldn’t afford to do this on my own. I can’t afford to be great on my own, but trust me, if I could, I would.

“So you’re not loyal to the Gelerian Imperium?”

No. Well, yes, technically, in that I don’t want to die. I don’t want to be banished from the Academy. I thought I was pretty clear I wanted the resources. Wasn’t I? That’s why I’m here. Or, one of the reasons. It’s home, too. I don’t know anywhere else, and I don’t particularly care to. Sure, it’s a big world, and I know that, but the Gelerian Imperium is the most progressive. The most well-situated for what I want out of life, which is the power and the resources to secure my own position. Or make enough money to find what I really want to do, whatever that is.
“So, you think the Gelerian Imperium is the most progressive place out there?”

It is.

“Are you sure?”

Yes.

“How do you know?”

Because of the magitech. Because of the Academy. Because we’re suspicious of people who call themselves witches or wizards, because you shouldn’t brand your soul with magic.

“Well, and Necromancers, too.”

They’re gross. Unclean.

“True.”

I mean, definitely, it is.

[Olga Barber]

Oh, what to do, what to do.

Olga thinks about sand. She thinks about life on a different planet. She thinks about three suns, no two, and nine moons. Less moons? More? She isn’t sure. There are a million ways to dream up a planet. You have to start at the beginning.

Olga is at the center of everything. She is the sun. She brims with nascent light, bright and burning, and the dust of beginning slowly turning into her orbit. This, she dreams, is what makes a god. She doesn’t feel, not yet, but only because she hasn’t invented it. She dreams about a world of logic. There should be no world without a heart, Olga dreams, deciding against one of only logic. Or rather, she decides to blend the two, both heart and mind, to become something greater than anything she has dreamed of.

There she is, at the center, surrounded by the dust of a new universe. Slowly she turns, and turns, and reaches out - a glowing, melting hand, and she catches the dust, and she holds it, making a circle. This is how gods make planets. Everything is a show of effort, because creation is an effort. This is true no matter the dream. Every dream has a basis in reality. Creation costs, even her dream-self understands.

Spit and sweat become water. Bone becomes desert. This is an old story, and everyone knows at the root of everything is blood. Olga bleeds. The blood of a god is a rare thing, she knows this, and so that truth becomes a reality so core to this planet and its life; blood is a costly thing, a thing of worth, a thing of value. Her blood flows from her, creeping to this nascent rockscape, this floating orb of potential, and soon, everything floods red.
She creates an old woman at the core.

“You will be the first, and the last,” Olga declares, in a way that only a god can.

The old woman nods - what else could she do - as stone encases her. So, a god creates another god, which is a curious thing. Here she is, unlimited in her power. While dreaming, of course, this isn’t real. But, here she is, unlimited, and she decides to limit the power of another. Olga has created the beating heart of a god. A mother goddess. And she has chained her to the core, her life to this planet, and when one dies so will the other. Just in case, Olga thinks. You can never be sure. Gods seem to take rebellion and revolution as well as people. Contingency plans are necessary for survival.
Olga knows that when the time comes, this woman, this goddess, her first and her last, will do the same thing to the gods she makes, and then to this planet’s mortals. Everything will come with a contingency plan. Everyone will know that survival means to limit, to control. There can be no equals. An equal can kill you, and so can a lesser, but they will need to work much harder to do it.

Bone, next, for the mountains. This is painful, but creation is painful. This is a truth everywhere. She plucks from her rib, and she creates a spine along her planet. Then another, because why only settle for one mountain range? It hurts, sure, but what doesn’t. You’ve already taken one rib, so you can take another. And, not just mountains, and not just ribs. Teeth can become hilly valleys, and you can gouge out a canyon with your finger. Texture is important to art. You and Olga both understand this.

Then, water. Easy. Spit, sweat, liquids you won’t really think about as you wet the planet. You sow clouds into the sky. Weather, oh weather. Rain. Snow. Thunderstorms. Inclement weather, broadly, most will hate it and wonder why but you see the broader need for things like floods and droughts. You could make it perfect, always, but that requires time, and also patience. Perfection is subjective, and to deal with the inhabitants would require a certain amount of management you don’t want to give.

Oh, but you need air. Wind. Of course, to move things along. Wind breaks down as much as water, eating away at mountains and widening canyons, too. Erosion, yes, yes, you remember your elementary school science classes, even here, in the dream.

Olga thinks. Well, breath. Easy. It can be two things, as she keeps a bit to herself, to spend later. But for now, she gives this planet wind and - oh, there’s someone else now. Another god. Minor, it seems, to her, anyway. The old woman works as Olga does, and that, she realizes, is how competition is born. But, as with all things, there can be a contingency for this, too. Olga doesn’t kill this god, as much as she could, for it’s a gnat compared to her. But, she gets close. She takes back her own life, through the old woman, then through this godling, enough so that its existence is only a single breath - be careful, she warns, lest you spend yourself all together.

And that’s how the god of Death is born.

This is funny because Olga is terrified of dying. But not here, not now, not when she’s dreaming of so much power. How could she, when Death is so small? So helpless? Here, in the palm of her hand, glowing like the sun, she creates a reason for Death: collect enough of the last breaths, and you too, will get big. You might rival the old woman one day, but never me. I will come for you all long before you could dream of reaching me.

So, wind, water, earth. Fire comes from weather, or from the ingenuity of - oh, yes, Life. The rest of her breath she doesn’t need flowers over the planet. Green, oh, impossible green. Colors come later, she knows. Flowers come in spring. Time was already here, yes, so she only really needs to wait. But, she watches as plants grow. First, in the ocean. Then, over land - except the places she touches, only too late. She moves her fingers from what are now desert wastes. A bit of water will be added, enough to flower, and it will be just as vibrant as the rest, but she knows the things that grow there will be thorny and rough, like her own skin. She had to remember this, that too much of her touch, too much of the divine, is a bad thing.

Animals she makes from a mixture of blood and flesh and a bit of breath she catches here and there, before the god of Death (and last breaths) can. She’s quicker and stronger and that god is only a gnat to her. As a joke, she makes gnats and flies and buzzing things, all a reminder that yes, there are small things, but surely you are not as grand or as big as you think you are. Impossible. Funny. A joke. Yes, yes, even a god can laugh. She watches the things fly, before she starts bigger. Stranger things. She realizes here how unlimited she is, because even if she knows things shouldn’t work (their necks are too long, their wings are too weak, they have fins but don’t live in the sea), life finds a way. Olga delights in this, the smoothness of creation. It is never this way in real life.

People are next. Olga, even as divine as she is, even in a dream, isn’t sure there is a difference between people and animals. They are the same. So they are here. Some animals are smarter than others, more hungry than others, more vicious and all-consuming. Her dream self wonders if she, herself, hates humans. Olga is self-hating. No. Yes. Maybe. She hasn’t decided, but now is not the time for those conversations. Soon, the animals - the people - will grow enough to worship others. And oh, there they are.

Some god of water, of her sweat and tears, floods the lower valleys, and some god dances from the forest, spreading trees. Oh, look, the people kill that god, they kill the wild, they domesticate. The god is resurrected, changed, and is different - but the same. There is something still wild about it, natural, but it bends to people where before it did not. Fields grow instead of trees nearest their camps. Animals, certain others, allow themselves to be made fat and turned to foot, or to serve the other animals; it is to their benefit. It’s good to know when you’ve lost, and where you can still win, in smaller ways.

Religion. This, Olga knows, is what she wants - she craves their worship in a way she can’t explain. This is what she thinks of gods, after all, this is how she images them. Why else would they stay? She can’t understand. She won’t, perhaps, but she would try, she thinks (wrongly). But it’s better to focus on the now. The other gods are moving. Growing fat of rituals and sacrifice and prayer that should be hers. She picks an individual.
She picks the one.

You, you, she thinks, as this person dreams. You belong to me. You are mine. Look, look at all that I gave you, all that I’ve written. It’s all for you - and me - but it’s mostly for you, and the rest. A whole world to conquer, to enjoy, to do with as you will. You can be selfish or otherwise, and I will not judge you, what’s only important is that you live, and you remember that it was me (before all others) who gave all of this to you and yours.
The slumbering person dreams, and dreams bigger. Why only one world, why only one sun, why only one moon, why only one life? There are so many questions they dream to god.

Olga ignores the questions, as uninteresting as they are. Instead, she thinks of gifts, of wonderful things to give this individual. Did they dream of power? Yes, oh yes, they reply. Easy enough, she dreams in their dream, how very easy. She gives them power over others, she calls it dominion, and twists horns from their head into a crown, thorns and needles and oh so very pretty. All will know it was her, and she will tell them that if they want power, too, well they only need to worship her.

The individual dream-wonders, how will we worship?

Through life, she says, through getting what you want, however you can. Ambition is to be rewarded above all else, but she isn’t particular in how you approach these things. It can be bloody or quiet or earned through virtue or taken, or however you think is best. She isn’t a judgemental god, but she is a bored one, and she at least expects to be entertained.

[Olga Barber]

What is a dream?

Well, Olga thinks, a dream is an expression of the sleeping mind, not that she believes in the subconscious versus the conscious mind. But, she is dreaming. Oh, she’s dreaming - that’s never been clearer to her. No, that’s not true. Remember? I said it before, Olga won’t remember any of this. She’s dreaming. She’s sleeping, she isn’t awake.

A dream can only happen when you aren’t awake. A daydream isn’t a real dream, and lucid dreaming doesn’t count either. Congratulations if you can, Olga thinks it’s nice, but surely, it isn’t anything that special - you’re just enjoying an overactive imagination, is all.