The Consequence

Date: 3/17/2018

This dream is about the social stratum of animal people, in a world where humans have no idea whether their children will grow up to be fully human or not. Children develop some features of their half-Animal forms as they grow up, and when they attain their “complete” forms they are essentially “sorted” into their social (and academic) class at that time. In schools, they’re often taken aside and put in classes just for their kind, rather than attending the human class that encompasses everyone. The main focus of the dream is on a boy I’ll hereby call Max. He has a human mother who I’ll name Janet, and a human sister I’ll name Jenny, and a father who’s no longer on the picture but is implied to be some kind of half-Animal as well. Max himself is a centaur, though he remains largely human for a long time. He makes friends easily, being a naturally kind and gentle soul. He’s naturally muscular and bulky compared to others his age, but he’s unanimously regarded by the entirety of the human/unified class as a gentle giant. He gets excellent grades, helps others with their homework, and is generally well-loved. He’s particularly close with a few chicken harpies (one was a rooster who may be small for his age, but is always proud of his colorful plumage as it continually grows in) and a human girl. Jenny is already in college, but she still lives with the family and keeps a close friendship with her brother. Janet is always doing the best she can to keep them happy and healthy — while also going on adventures with her rich aunts and their eccentric friends. She’s an... odd woman, but tries to be a loving mother. With teachers, family, classmates, friends, and even vendors at local stores admiring and depending on him, Max is happy. He tries to stay that way as long as possible. He tries to hide the degree to which his animal features have taken root as he grows into a teenager. His teachers willfully look the other way, and pretend he isn’t actually growing into a beautiful, powerful stallion. His friends repeatedly tell him that he looks the same as ever. He always knows full well that they’re lying, but he hopes it can last just a little longer. Just a little more. Then, one day, it stops. A teacher from the centaur class notices how cramped Max is at his human desk, how far developed his horse half is (no longer just faun-like horse legs anymore like a kid, but now the full lower portion of a horse like a full-grown adult), and has him transferred to their class. He’s only able to say goodbye briefly on his way past the human class, walking by it in the hall on purpose as he makes his way to the centaur class for the first time. The atmosphere is instantly different here: darker both literally and metaphorically. The desks are more comfortable, designed for centaurs to use, but there are guard ropes everywhere — guiding him into the classroom proper like he’s suddenly cattle. There are huge sheets put around the room to block out windows and doors, as well, and we can’t help but compare them to the blinders used on normal horses. The other large stallions in class sneer and look down at him, while the few mares and small stallions refuse to even spare a glance his direction. He ends up getting the only empty seat left, beside the red-haired daughter of the main centaur teacher, a girl I’ll call Carla, who wears a gold crescent-shaped earring that swings when she moves her head and glitters strangely in the darkness. She’s certainly haughty and condescending like the rest, but to a lesser degree. She lets him sit by her, after all, and actually interacts with him a few times... if only to to grumpily tell him things that he obviously should have known before they were brought up in class. The curriculum’s format is admittedly confusing, and the teachers speak and change topics and toss out handouts far too quickly for Max’s liking. Already, he’s floundering. He can also feel the bloodlust in the other big stallions’ eyes throughout the class itself, and the hatred in the few hurried peeks and glares from smaller centaurs. Max is big, and clearly strong, and now doing his best to shrink down, away from the class altogether. After lecture, he spots a stapled-together scrapbook of notes with lots of colored-in dialogue bubbles and a few drawings of superheroes. He asks Carla whose it is, and she eventually tells him that it really doesn’t matter and he should just leave it alone but if he HAS to know, it was the fat and short kid near the front of class who dropped it: Julien. Max simply thanks her, failing to take the hint, and finds the line for... I think turning in notebooks? Julien is next in the line, whatever it’s for, and Max leans over the guarding ropes to give the smaller boy his dropped notes. Max feels he’s done everything right, being friendly and helpful and polite as he always has; and still Julien trembls with both fear and seething hatred, crumpling the edges of the notes slightly as he stares up at Max with a mix of absolute loathing and unfathomable terror. Max is obviously confused and concerned, but he just chalks up the terror to himself projecting his own nerves and the loathing to him being hated as the new kid. He walks away, satisfied with his good deed and unaware that the line is slowly devolving into a mob that parts the guarding ropes and centers around Julien. The large, bloodthirsty stallions mock Max’s gesture. Literally, they exaggerate his behaviors and speak in high, derisive, falsetto voices. They let Julien know through this act, as clearly as possible, that Max is the one whois ultimately responsible for what happens next. And then the hunt begins. The larger stallions hunt down their weaker classmates, beating them as hard as they can until the teachers notice and start to make half-hearted attempts at stopping the chaos. One lanky, skinny, weak stallion with dread-locked hair finds himself cornered during their rampage. He’s backed up onto some kind of half-disassembled medical device (which is there for... some reason?), being swiftly knocked down into a helpless prone position, and viciously kicked with the sharp, cutting hooves of his classmates. One stallion uses all the force he can muster, and slams down on the skinnier centaur’s neck. It not only breaks the bone, but partially severs the neck itself from the body of his victim. The stallions cry out in victory, and the teachers finally put real effort into calming things down. They call an ambulance, tell the class they are dismissed, order them to disperse, and sigh heavily; returning to their desks with movements that clearly betray just how many times this has happened before, and how tired the teachers have become. The stallions give Max one last look of triumph as they leave, reminding him that this was his doing. He trembles where he stands, much like the heavily injured Julien did before, and barely manages to stay upright as he haphazardly makes his way to where emergency services are collecting the body of his dead classmate. He stands at the curb beside the emergency vehicles, frozen and blank, until the sky darkens and it starts to rain. It feels like night has suddenly fallen, and is actively trying to swallow up everything — the flashing lights, the gossiping school kids, the body and memory of the boy he killed. His mom and sister show up in their silver-blue SUV after awhile. Janet is clueless, but Jenny manages to put most of the puzzle pieces together and get a nearly full picture of what went down. She opens the back hatch, revealing that the seats have already been put down for her brother and his special blankets have been laid out for cushioning on the ride home. “You get the seat of honor, X-man,” she means it as a nickname, a reference to when they would lay across each other in an “x” shape as children, falling asleep and forgetting the worries of the world beyond. “What does my ex have to do with this?” Janet checks around for him with full seriousness and sincerity, but never does spot her ex-husband. “I was talking about Max getting the backseat to himself,” Jenny explains while Max arranges himself in the back so that the hatch can properly close behind him, “He’s obviously having trouble. Just... let him be, okay?” The rest of the dialogue fades out as the two women get into their own seats, buckle up, and start to drive. Jenny is still telling her mother to be gentle with Max, trying to get her to avoid bringing up the obvious topic of gossip that is the dead centaur boy. Janet tries and fails to comply, stumbling around increasing uncomfortable and awkward topics. The women carry on in their argument, with Max in his own awful little world in the back. The seats have been laid down flat for him, but the one right behind the driver’s seat is cushioned and padded to stand up so he can lay his upper body on it while his lower body lounges in the open space. It’s supposed to make him feel safe. After what he’s seen in class, he’s not sure he can ever feel safe again. He not only provoked the other stallions, but utterly failed to do anything to stop them in the chaos. He killed someone. He draws his lower body in on itself and curls his arms up so he can cover his face. He makes himself as small as possible, even moreso than in class; wrapping up into as tight of a ball as he can manage with the padded seat in his way, and gets washed away by sobs that shake him to his core. He cries like the world is ending, and as terrible as we both feel... it may as well be true. The rest of the scene falls away, until he and I both forget that he was even in a car at all up to this point — in any world but his own. There are only a few tangible things left to us now. Only the blankets, the padding, and the feeling of horrible sadness and guilt and failure and fear that eats at Max from the inside. He sobs so hard that when I wake up, I have to suppress a powerful urge to cry, myself. The immediate intensity of that sensation — that tortured emotional state — actually dissipates rather quickly. But the feelings themselves... the experience of Max’s hopeless guilt... that might stick with me for awhile.