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DOCTOR VENTRIL

A nightmare dreamed 1978/9/22 by Chris Wayan


You lured me in your office, baiting me
with empathy.
"I hear a baby
cry in there"
say I.
"Can't be one but
let's go see,"
says thee.
My spidersense tells me there's something strange: afoot:
Either that baby's deformed and has no foot
Or has too many,
how many?

Tell me the truth doctor
Show me the truth doctor
Show me the child, doctor

"Yes
You guessed.
Let me lock the door
So no one will see..."

Then you spin to me
with fragile baby's cry,
Sank your
venom
fang
in
my
I
wish I
suppose I should wish I
hit you I cut you I shot you
or quietly
died

Not fought for an eye for an eye
By stinging you too.
For that's what I tried.
I gotta eat too.
With spidersense, I get by.

Astract spidery shapes, red white & black, illustrating 'Doctor Ventriloquy', a dream by Wayan. Click to enlarge.

NOTES IN THE MORNING

I really was less upset by the doctor's ventriloquy or treachery or ability to transform into a giant man-eating spider, than by finding out I was one too.

I'm not a spider fan. Or a Spiderman fan. I think this nightmare was provoked instead by Charles Harness's book The Ring of Ritornel, with supplemental giant-spider touches from Fritz Leiber's The Big Time. Probably not Shelob from The Lord of the Rings. Subtle wasn't her style. She never once hung up a plaque.

ART NOTE

The spidery abstract was painted was made without a brush--dripping acrylic paint and then blowing it across an unprimed wood panel to make tangles of spiderlegs. I got quite dizzy making it, from hyperventilation. Or possibly hyperventriloquy.



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