Dog Days
(July-August 2016)
5: Dreams Know the Way
From the Journals of Dipper Pines: Thursday, July 28—Didn't get enough sleep last night. This news about the book really threw me. In a way, I'm afraid that whoever does the adaptation won't be careful and will mess up what I wrote and make people not like the idea of the books.
In a way, I'm excited. And there's the money. Though today I talked to Ford, who reminded me that there will be a big tax bite (publishers don't withhold money for the IRS) and that it probably would be better to work out a deal to be paid over several years. I suggested five years, because that will see me through college, if I'm lucky. He thinks I should have a CPA who'll take care of investing all the money up until then. That will give Wendy and me a great nest egg, he says. But he urged conservative investments and keeping half of it liquid.
I feel so—weighed down with responsibility! I mean, this doesn't put me in the Northwest neighborhood, or anywhere close to Grunkle Stan, even, but it may be more money than is good for me. Maybe I should give a bunch of it away to charity. I don't know.
Grunkle Ford once told me, "When you have a dream that you don't understand, just trust it to know the way—and follow it."
I'm not even sure that makes sense, but, whatever. I do have dreams. Last night brought a bunch, but I can't remember most of them. The last one, though—it was unusual.
And weird. A weird Gravity Falls dream. So what else is new? It's all kind of foggy now, but I've got a little time after my shower and before work, so let me sit here and try to recall a little of what went on.
First, it was a lucid dream—the kind where I know I'm dreaming. I was in the Mindscape, walking in the woods somewhere near the Shack. That much I know. It was the middle of the night, and there was a waning moon overhead, but no stars. I think I was searching for something or for someone.
I walked on and on and came to a deep gorge with a fallen tree over it. It looked rotten, and I was afraid to try to walk over it, but I knew I had to get to the other side. Somebody said, "I will test it."
And that was the first time that I became aware that someone had been following me, right behind me the whole way. Whoever it was—I don't remember a shape, just an impression of someone who sort of, I guess, glowed? Or was dressed in something white and swirly? Or, I don't know, was a kindly ghost? Anyway, someone walked across the log and said, "It will hold if you hurry."
So I edged out onto the log and teetered and nearly fell what looked like hundreds of feet down into a river where I knew monsters were thrashing and snapping the air with sharp teeth, but somehow I got across and hopped off the log, and the second I did, it crumbled and toppled down into the torrent.
I tried to find the person who'd helped me, but they were gone. So I went on alone through the woods, searching for something or somebody.
After a long, long time, I came out of the woods somewhere near the place where Wendy and I have gone camping, near Ghost Falls. Nothing looked familiar, though. The sky had become some kind of liquid, with flowing streams of glowing color winding through it, but the moon still shone down.
Ahead of me, I saw somebody sitting on a tall bank over the beaver pond—there aren't any tall banks there, really—fishing. The person seemed to be all bent over.
I didn't know until I got close that the fisherman was Bill Cipher. He patted the ground beside him but didn't speak. I sat down there and looked out. His pole stuck way out over the pond, but it didn't seem to have any fishing line.
"How are you?" I asked him.
"I'm sort of how, yes," he said in a considering sort of voice. "Not as how as I'd like to be, but hower than I have been lately. I hope you are the sane."
I wasn't sure I heard that last word right. "Sane?" I asked.
"Not for me, thanks, I'm driving," he said. "Shh. Don't scare them away."
"Who?"
He said very seriously, "I'm fixing for axolotls. They infester me. I don't know what I do them to want with me! Couldn't they be more less stupid? Sorry, Pine Tree, I'm my not-self right now. Only a little bitty bit left of me, most of it deep in your heart. A lone you're not at least. Who's a good boy?"
"You're not making sense," I told him.
"Am I making dollars? Each one is a hundred centses. No matter, mo' natter. Nothing is what, it seems," he said, oddly pausing in the phrase. "Pine Tree, be careful of the statute of intimidations."
"Statute?" I asked. "Statue, do you mean? Your effigy?"
"So are you, smart guy! It's not me. It's not my shadow. It's not even a mouse. But it's a fisher, too. A fisher in reality. But don't you get hooked, Pine Tree. Guard your keep up. Good you have a friend."
Then his fishing pole bent, as though he did have a line on it and had just felt a bite. He jumped to his feet, tugging hard, bending the bamboo pole into a U. He yelled something that sounded like "Weenie! Weenie! Weenie! You bes weenie ad mihi!" That's not it, but it sounded like that. I wrote the words as soon as I woke up.
The bamboo pole snapped with a sound like thunder, and Bill fell on his back in the grass. He jumped up, shaking his fist. "Oracle! Oh, wrecker! What do you have against me?" Then he adjusted his top hat, shrugged—sort of—and gave me a jaunty wave as he said, "See you around, Pine Tree. Remember, rambler, the statue is a fisher, too. That's not a smart crack. I'll catch you later, and your little dog, too!"
And he was gone. But then I became aware that Mabel's new dog Tripper was following me. In fact, I started to think he might have been the one who tested the log bridge first. I said, "I guess you can talk, too?"
He sat on the ground and did that sideways head-tilt that dogs do when they're interested or puzzled. But he didn't say anything.
"How come you showed up?" I asked him.
He got up, walked a little way off, and looked back at me, so I followed. We went through a belt of pine trees and came out on top of the grassy, domed hill that covers the crashed spaceship.
That's impossible in real life, the beaver pond is miles from the hill, but in dreams, I guess anthyding can hadplen, as Soos sometimes says.
"What's here?" I asked the dog.
And the mound suddenly split wide open—
And I woke up. I grabbed my Journal from the table next to the bed and scribbled down the words that Bill had said as fast as I could, because it seemed important.
As I lay back, the dog came up and nuzzled me under my chin. Then I looked at the clock. It was nearly seven, so I had to get out of bed and dress for the morning run. When I got up, the dog hopped out of my bed and went over to Mabel's, and I helped him up onto it. He curled up at the foot.
I finished getting into my running gear and shoes, and as I started out to meet Wendy, I heard Mabel say, "Be careful."
"I will," I called back.
And Mabel stirred and muttered, "Humh? Dipper? What'd you say?"
"Nothing," I told her.
And now that I've had time to sit down and try to write everything as I remember it, well, only now have I started to wonder—was Mabel even the one asked me that question?