I do not own invader Zim
Nyan! That means meow in Japanese.
Invader Tenn: "Unfortunately, a super-abundance of dreams is paid for by a growing potential for nightmares." Words by Sir Peter Ustinov
Zim awoke in pure sweat and in pure panic.
Where am I?
"whoa, whoa!"
"Hold him down!"
Zim felt arms wrap around him, two were warm and thin, but they were strong.
The other two were even thinner, but stronger.
"Zim, Zim can you hear me?" asked a voice.
Who did that voice belong to? Yes, it's familiar... who are you voice? Do I know you?
"Zim!" the voice shouted again.
You sound scared... why? What happened?
"Oh, crap."
"What happened?"
"It's Zim, he's functioning but, the PAK is still damaged, he won't be able to move for a while, do you still have that back up?"
"Yeah, why?"
"We're going to need it."
"What did he lose?"
"Some of his memory."
"What happens when we put it back in?"
"Two things, he's normal, or he has to relearn everything as his PAK reprocesses. I'm hoping for number one."
"Great Scott..."
"Eh, who's Scott?"
And once again Zim fell into a peaceful sleep.
By the time Zim awoke, he was in his room. Or his private quarters as he would prefer.
The room was rather small, only big enough for a bed and a small purple night stand with a small white lamp.
Zim then sighed with relief.
So it wasn't real, he was still an invader; he still had a purpose...
Zim then yawned, reaching down to get a book that he had put under his bed and looked over at the digital clock that sat peacefully on the reddish pink wall.
It was...wait... what?
The numbers were out of focus, they seemed to blur over and dance around.
Zim then quirked an imaginary brow and opened the book.
The pages were blank... and then it hit him...
It was real.
He was dreaming.
Zim eventually found himself in the city; he couldn't help but wonder how he got there in the first place.
Then he noticed someone.
Dib, he was coming out of a book store...borders, maybe barns & noble, Zim didn't know... it looked like a coffee shop or a bar...
As Zim was contemplating what the store was, a bar, a coffee shop or a book store, he noticed Dib had sat down at a table, Gaz waiting for him.
She was writing something down in a notebook as Dib took out his computer.
"What are you writing?" he asked turning on his computer.
"A novel." said Gaz rather simply and annoyed.
"What's the story?" asked Dib typing in a password, not really noticing Zim standing merely a few meters away.
"There's no story. It just...people, gestures, moments, bits of rapture, fleeting emotions. In short, the greatest stories ever told. Now shut up I'm busy." said Gaz annoyed again.
"Are you in the story?" asked Dib quietly not really taking the threat that his sister was giving him.
"I don't think so. But then, I'm kind of reading it and then writing it..." she said with a sigh. "Now I mean it shut up."
"huh." said Dib finally taking the hint and simply going back to typing whatever he was typing on his computer.
"Did she mean life?" thought Zim.
Suddenly he noticed something, it was Miyuki. She was smiling at Zim and pointing to her left.
Look to your right.
And he did, and certainly he did see something, but of all the oddities he saw in this world, this one hurt the most.
It was Gir, driving a car, making a straight line towards his master.
He then heard someone scream as the car hit him and then darkness came.
Zim suddenly gasped and bolted straight up. He was on his bed again, but this time...was it a dream?
Did he truly lose his purpose?
"I want to die." he groaned.
Suddenly he took his communicator out of his PAK and decided to call the one person he never would even thought of calling...
He called Bob...
Zim had made his acquaintance when he was escaping doom when his new ship, the one that the tallest themselves had given him, was drifting slowly towards a sun.
All Zim got was an answering machine.
"Please leave your message." Said a tired voice.
Zim knew it was Bob.
Poor thing, he was probably working a double shift.
"*beep* Hello Bob, how dare you not answer Zim buuuuut, I guess you have a double shift today or something. But, uh, remind Zim to tell you about this dream Zim keeps having, yes. Very strange stuff in it. Eh, I guess I'll talk to you at a later time. Okay…yeah."
Zim then proceeded to walk out of his private quarters and go into the elevator.
It took him to the living room.
The odd thing was… the lights were on….
"Maybe Gir left them on…dumb robot. Where is that pesky SIR unit?"
Zim didn't bother to look outside. It must have been dark, because the windows were grey.
Zim then figured that his dysfunctional robot was probably hanging out at that club again.
So with nothing else to do, and with the idea that this world was real.
He decided to call the tallest.
Only the screen…it was blank…and then suddenly went into static.
Zim irritated kept on pressing the call button, but it was acting like a TV remote. It kept on flipping through static and channels…
"... bareback riding. Copenhagen William and his horse Same Deal."
"... For a hat band. Sew it into the inside of the…"
"I do not await the future... this flawed perfection is sufficient and complete in every single ineffable moment."
"The Blonde Bee, the Firefly, Praying Mantis..."
"... lunatic macaroni munchkin with my googat ..."
"... venerable tradition of sorcerers, shamans and other visionaries who have developed and perfected the art of dream travel, the so-called lucid dream state where by consciously controlling your dreams, you're able to discover things beyond your capacity to apprehend in your awake state."
"... Series, winning back-to-back ..."
"... Why don't you tell us about what Felix is doing ..."
"... A single ego is an absurdly narrow vantage from which to view this ... this experience. And where most consider their individual relationship to the universe, I contemplate relationships ... of my various selves, to one another."
"While most people with mobility problems are having trouble just getting around, at age 92, Joy Cullison's out seeing the world. Now I'm free to see the world."
Zim then suddenly shook his head and turned the monitor off, running outside.
Only the funny thing was, once he was out there...he noticed that he was dreaming again...because of the emptiness.
But instead of darkness... the world then started to transform...
And it was glorious.
Zim, who was watching the world transform around him was in utter fear.
What's wrong with me? What's going on?
Suddenly the world stopped transforming and he found himself in a strange but peaceful neighborhood... no one was outside... and the wind was blowing slightly.
Then Zim turned around and saw a large white house with grey stained-glass windows.
There was a guy sitting in a chair.
"Hey, how's it going?"Greeted the man.
"Hello..." said Zim rather nervously.
"You know how they say that dreams are real only as long as they last?"
Zim tilted his head a little.
"See, there's a lot of us that are out there that are mapping the mind-body relationship, of dreams. We're called the oneironauts. We're the explorers of the dream-world. Really, it's just about the two opposing states of consciousness which don't really oppose, at all." said the man shrugging.
"See, in the waking world, the neural system inhibits the activation of the vividness of memories. And this makes sense. See you'd be maladapted for the perceptual image of a predator to be mistaken for the memory of one, and vice-versa. If the memory of a predator conjured up a perceptual image, we would be running off to the bathroom every time we had a scary thought." he said snickering.
" So you have these serotonic neurons that inhibit hallucinations that they themselves are inhibited during REM sleep. See this allows dreams to appear real, while preventing competition from other perceptual processes. This is why dreams are sometimes mistaken for reality. To the functional system of neural activity that creates our world, there is no difference between dreaming a perception and an action, and actually the waking perception and action." said the man shrugging again.
Suddenly Zim saw the world transform again.
And this time, he was still at the house, but there was a different person.
Zim found himself staring at a white house with grey stained-glass windows... had he been here before?
Wait...what happened today?
That's right he woke up and was walking over to skool...when he remembered he had to stop by here... but why?
In front of the house, sitting in a chair was someone.
This guy was irken, a familiar one...wait...
This irken... he was tall...he was thin... he was almighty tallest Purple... what was he doing here?
And the strangest part was...he was playing the mandolina, an ancient irken instrument that looked like a ukelele, something that was rather hard to play when you only have two fingers... it sounded like a mixture between a harp and a guitar...how wonderful it sounded.
Zim then sat on the stairs of the house and enjoyed the music...
The last time he heard the mandolina's soft songs was when he was still a smeet, back at the nursery...
Zim was suddenly startled when Purple began to speak.
"I had a friend once who told me that the worst mistake that you can make is to think you are alive, when you're really asleep in life's waiting room." said purple calmly playing the mandolina.
" The trick is to combine your waking rational abilities with the infinite possibilities of your dreams. 'Cause if you can do that you can do anything." he said.
"Did you ever have a job that you hated? I mean really hated? Worked really hard at?" he asked.
Zim then scoffed remembering the hard work he had to do in Sizz-Lorr's fast food restaurant... that job he hated.
"A long, hard day at work, finally you get to go home, get in bed, close your eyes, and immediately you wake up and realize that the whole day at work had been a dream? It's bad enough that you sell your waking life for ... for minimum wage, but now they get your dreams for free." said Purple.
"Since when are you so wise? And why are you here my tallest?" asked Zim rather half heartedly.
Purple only shrugged as Zim went inside.
"I'm on vacation." He heard purple say.
Zim didn't want to question him. Something in his squeedlyspooch told him to get inside pronto.
And so he did.
There were allot of people inside. Watching TV, sitting on couches or just talking while sitting around a table.
Bob was there sitting in a chair. (A.N. - LOL it rhymes!)
He was holding a soda in one hand, and after noticing Zim he raised it to get the irkens attention.
"Hey, what are you doing here?" asked Zim raising his voice a little as he always does.
"I fancy myself the social lubricator of the dream world, helping people become lucid a little easier. You know, cut all that fear and anxiety stuff and just rock and roll." said Bob smiling and taking a drink of his soda, something that he would rarely do since he was a table headed service drone.
"By becoming lucid you mean just knowing that you're dreaming, right?" asked Zim quirking an imaginary brow.
"Yeah. And then you can control it. They're more realistic and less bizarre than non-lucid dreams." said Bob taking another drink.
"You know, I just woke from a dream. It wasn't a typical dream. It seemed more like I'd walked into an alternate universe or something." said Zim a little quieter than usual
"Yup, it's real. I mean, technically it's a phenomenon of sleep, but you can have so much damn fun in your dreams. And of course everyone knows fun rules." said Bob
"Yeah." Zim pulled up a small chair and sat on it.
"So what was going on in your dream?"Asked Bob taking another drink.
"Oh, a lot of people, a lot of talking. You know, some of it was kind of absurd, like from a strange movie or something. Mostly it was just people going off about whatever, really intensely. Zim woke up wondering where did all this stuff come from?" said Zim shrugging his shoulders as if to emphasize.
"You can control that you know." said Bob
"Do you have these dreams all the time?" Asked Zim.
"Oh, yeah." said Bob, laughing a little.
"I'm always going to make the best of it. But the trick is, you got to realize that you're dreaming in the first place. You got to be able to recognize it. You got to be able to ask yourself, "Hey, is this a dream?" See, most people never ask themselves that when they're awake, or especially when they're asleep. Seems like everyone's sleep-walking through their waking state, or wake-walking through their dreams. Either way, they're not going to get much out of It." said Bob taking a drink of his soda.
"The thing that snapped me into realizing I was dreaming was, uh, was my digital clock. I couldn't really read it. It was like the circuitry was all screwed up or something." said Zim remembering his last encounter with his clock.
"Yeah, that's real common. And small printed material is pretty tough too. Very unstable. Another good tip-off is trying to adjust light levels. You can't really do that. If you see a light switch nearby, turn it on and off and see if it works. That's one of the few things you can't do in a lucid dream. I can fly around, have an interesting conversation with a Tallest. I can explore all these new dimensions of reality, not to mention I can have any kind of life I want, which is way cool. So I can't adjust light levels. So what?" said Bob shrugging and drinking.
"But that's like one of the things that you do to test if you're dreaming or not, right?" asked Zim resting his elbows on his knees.
"Yeah, like I said, you can totally train yourself to recognize it. I mean just hit a light switch every now and then. If the lights are on, and you can't turn them off, then most likely you're dreaming. And then you can get down to business. And believe me, it's unlimited. Hey, you know what I've been working on lately?" said Bob putting down his drink and leaning forward a little.
"What?" asked Zim, slightly interested in what the drone was working on... after all, Bob was a drone.
"Oh man, it's way ambitious, but I'm getting better at it. You're going to like this. Three-sixty vision. I can see in all directions. Pretty amazing, huh?" said Bob smiling triumphantly.
"Yeah. Well, I got to go Bob." said Zim getting up.
"Okay, later Zim. Super profundo on the early eve of your day." said Bob leaning back into his comfortable chair.
"What's that mean?" asked Zim turning around, amused.
"Well, you know, I've never figured it out. Maybe you can. This guy always whispers it in my ear. Louis. He's a reoccurring dream character." said Bob laughing.
'What a stupid name.' thought Zim.
"Good-bye, Bob."
Zim only smirked and turned hitting the light switch as he was leaving...but nothing happens... he hits it again four or five times... and the light stays on...
Zim whipped around and stared at the light, then at Bob...the drone only shrugged his shoulders...
Then Zim started floating, he was dreaming... and now he was going to the next part.
Z?
Zim suddenly found himself in a movie theatre. He looked around the dark room rather disgusted, the room was filthy and smelled of old popcorn and dust.
And there indeed was…old popcorn and wrappers on the floor.
The irken suddenly heard something behind him.
"Hey! Zim-roo! Over here!" it was Spork. He was sitting in the highest row right in the middle.
"Miyuki will be here soon. Come sit down." He said gesturing to the empty seat next to him.
"Zim is honored."
"Hang on…OY! Miyuki! Come!" Spork waved his arms around trying to capture Miyuki's attention…
"Oh hey, I just got here…Zim-roo!" she squealed.
"Miyuki-rah, it's a pleasure to see you again." Said Zim, wiggling his antennae in respect towards the former tallest…
"Don't be so formal Zim-roo, you're embarrassing me… anyways what are we watching?" asked Miyuki sitting down next to Zim.
"I don't know…" said Spork munching on popcorn.
Suddenly the screen started beeping and the movie started.
It was a scene between almighty tallest Red and Purple.
"Cinema, in its essence, is, well it's about an introduction to reality, which is that, like, reality is actually reproduced. And for me, it might sound like a storytelling medium, really." Said Red putting his chin on his thin hands.
"And it feels like, um ... like ... like ... like literature is better for telling a story. You know, and if you tell a story or even like a joke, like you know "This guy walks into a bar and, you know, he sees a dwarf." That works really well because you're imagining this guy and this dwarf in the bar and there's this kind of imaginative aspect to it. But in film, you don't have that because you actually are filming a specific guy, in a specific bar, with a specific dwarf, of a specific height, who looks a certain way, right?" Asked Red tilting his head a little.
"And like the whole Hollywood thing is just taking film and trying to make it like the storytelling medium where you take these books or stories, and then you like, you know, and then you have the script, and you try to find a person who sort of fits the thing. But it's ridiculous, because it's not, it shouldn't be based on the script. It should be based on the person, you know, or the thing. And in that sense, they are almost right to have this whole star system, because then it's about that person, you know, instead of, like, the story." Said Purple sipping away at a drink in his hands.
"wow.." sighed Red.
"I got it?" asked Purple a little surprised.
"Yeah, you got it." Said Red a little impressed.
"Ya! I feel smarticle!" squealed Purple happy.
Red just rolled his eyes and continued to speak, despite the fact that maybe his counterpart would not understand.
"the best films aren't made ... the films ... The best scripts don't make the best films, because they have that kind of literary narrative thing that you're sort of a slave to. The best films are the ones that aren't tied to that slavishly. So I don't know. The whole narrative thing seems to me like, um ... Obviously, there's narrativity to cinema 'cause it's in time, just the way there's narrativity to music. But, you know, you don't first think of the story of the song, and then make the song. It has to come out of that moment. And that's what film has. It's just that moment, which is holy. You know, like this moment, it's holy. But we walk around like it's not holy. We walk around like there's some holy moments and there are all the other moments that are not holy, right, but this moment is holy, right? And if film can let us see that, like frame it so that we see, like, "Ah, this moment. Holy." And it's like "Holy, holy, holy" moment by moment. But, like, who can live that way? Who can go, like, "Wow, holy"? Because if I were to look at you and just really let you be holy, I don't know, I would, like, stop talking." Said Red letting his ideas flow.
By this time Zim felt as if someone was staring at him…
It was Miyuki, she was staring at him.
"Well, you'd be in the moment, I mean ..." said Red after a second or two.
"Yeah" said Purple sipping his drink.
"The moment is holy." Sighed Red.
"Yeah, but I'd be open. And then I'd look in your eyes, and I'd cry, and I'd like feel all this stuff and that's like not polite. I mean it would make you feel uncomfortable." Said Purple.
Zim and Miyuki continued to stare at one another. Both of them seeming comfortable in each other's gaze.
"Well you could laugh too. I mean, why would you cry?" asked Red quirking an invisible eyebrow.
"Well, 'cause ... I don't know. For me, I tend to cry." Said Purple shrugging.
"wus." Laughed Red.
"shut up." sighed Purple going back to sipping his drink.
"Well, let's do it right now. Let's have a holy moment." Said Red.
"Okay." Said Purple.
By this time Zim wasn't really paying attention, he was paying attention to Miyuki. She seemed to be smiling at him as he stared into her eyes. Slowly her antenna seemed to reach over and gently cares his, slowly wrapping around it. Then her hand reached for his. And slowly their fingers began to entwine.
Long moments pass with Red and Purple staring at each other.
The same could be said about Zim and Miyuki.
"Everything is layers, isn't it?" laughed Red breaking the holy moment.
"Yeah." laughed Purple
"I mean, there's the holy moment and then there's the awareness of trying to have the holy moment, in the same way that the film is the actual moment really happening, but then the character pretending to be in a different reality. And it's all these layers. And, uh, I was in and out of the holy moment looking at you. Can't be in a holy ... You're unique that way, Purple. That's one of the reasons I enjoy you. You can ... bring me into that." Said Red ending the conversation, and continuing to stare at purple.
And before Zim knew it, his lips met Miyuki's, and the world seemed to transform again.
"I'm sorry Miyuki…" he mumbled.
"I forgive you Zim-roo…I'll always forgive you… even before you make a mistake…" she sighed.
"The next time you see me you won't remember me…" Zim heard her say.
And finally darkness came again.
this time Zim was walking along railroad tracks that ran beside another train. Zim felt lonely... he missed... who did he miss... what was her name?
suddenly a boy jumped out from the train, well...one of the train carts anyway.
Zim wasn't startled...he didn't have to be.
he was rather tall and thin, the only thing Zim noticed was that he had a grey T-shirt on, he couldn't read what it said tho..
"Hey." greeted the boy.
"Hey." greeted Zim.
"You a dreamer?" asked the boy.
"Yeah." Zim responded.
"Haven't seen too many around lately. Things have been tough lately for dreamers. They say dreaming's dead, that no one does it anymore. It's not dead, it's just been forgotten. Removed from language. No one teaches it so no one knows it exists. The dreamer is banished to obscurity. Well I'm trying to change all that, and I hope you are too. By dreaming every day. Dreaming with our hands and dreaming with our minds. my planet, your planet, many people's homes are facing the greatest problems they've ever faced. Ever. So whatever you do, don't be bored. This is absolutely the most exciting time we could have possibly hoped to be alive. And things are just starting." said the Boy handing a black megaphone to Zim.
"what should Zim do?" asked Zim.
" you know the answer dreamer... live life... dream dreams... make things happen..." said the boy.
"change the world." said Zim smiling.
The tracks eventually sub-way, as Zim was riding the disgusting train, he knew where to stop... he was expecting it. As Zim stepped out he bumped into someone.
"Excuse me." she said.
"Excuse me." he replied.
"Hey. Could we do that again? I know we haven't met, but I don't want to be an ant, you know? I mean, it's like we go through life with our antennas bouncing off one another, continuously on ant auto-pilot with nothing really human required of us. Stop. Go. Walk here. Drive there. All action basically for survival. All communication simply to keep this ant colony buzzing along in an efficient polite manner. "Here's your change." "Paper or plastic?" "Credit or debit?" "You want ketchup with that?" I don't want a straw, I want real human moments. I want to see you. I want you to see me. I don't want to give that up. I don't want to be an ant, you know?" said the woman suddenly.
Zim then quirked an antenna and smiled.
"Well I'm not human but...Yeah. Yeah, no. Zim doesn't want to be an ant either. Hehe. Yeah, thanks for kind of jostling me there. Zim has been kind of on zombie auto-pilot lately, I don't feel like an ant in my head, but I guess Zim probably look like one. It's kind of like this idea of two people meeting on a road. And instead of just passing and glancing away, they decide to accept what is called "the confrontation between their souls." It's like, um, freeing the brave reckless people within us all." said Zim smiling.
"Then it's like we have met." said the woman.
before they knew it, the two were already talking in a room.
it looked like an apartment.
Zim and the woman were in the kitchen drinking something. Zim wasn't sure what it was...but it tasted sweet.
"So I'm doing this project, and I'm hoping that you'll be interested in doing it. It's a soap opera, and, so, the characters are the fantasy lives or the alter egos, of the performers who are in it. So, pretty much just figure out something that you've always wanted to do, or a life you've always wanted to lead, or occupation or something like that. And we write that in, and then we also have your life intersect with other people's in the soap opera in some typical soap opera fashion. And then I also want to show it in a live venue and have the actors present so that once the episode is screened, then the audience can direct the actors for subsequent episodes with menus or something. So it has a lot to do with choices and honoring people's ability to say what it is that they wanna see, and if you don't like what you got, then you can send it back, or you get what you pay for, or just participating, just really making choices. So, you wanna do it?" asked the woman with an exited look in her brown eyes.
"Uh, yeah, yeah, that sounds really cool. I'd love to be in it, but, um ... Uh, I kind of gotta ask you a question first though. I don't really know how to say it, but, um, uh, what's it like to be a character in a dream? 'Cause, uh, I'm not awake right now. And I don't have a clock... Um, uh, yeah, I don't even know if you're able to answer that question, but I'm just trying to get like a sense of where I am and what's going on." said Zim.
"So what about you? What's your name? What's your address? What are you doing?" asked the woman, this time with a wondrous look in her eyes.
Zim suddenly blinked, and then laughed.
" I, I, you know, I can't really remember right now... Zim... my name is Zim and I... I can't really, I can't really recall that. But that's beside the point, whether or not I can dredge up this information about, you know, my address, or, you know, my occupation, or whatnot. I've got the benefit in this reality, if you wanna call that, of a consistent perspective." said Zim smiling.
"What is your consistent perspective?" asked the woman.
"It's mostly just me dealing with a lot of people who are exposing me to information and ideas that seem vaguely familiar, but, at the same time, it's all very new to me. I'm not in an objective, rational world. Like I've been flying around. Uh ... I don't know. It's weird too because it's not like a fixed state, it's more like this whole thing of awareness. Like, right now, I know that I'm dreaming, right? We're, like, even talking about it. This is the most in myself and in my thoughts that I've been so far. I'm talking about being in a dream. But, I'm beginning to think that it's something that I don't really have any precedent for. It's, it's totally unique. The, the quality of, of the environment and the information that I'm receiving. Like your soap opera for example. That's a really cool idea. I didn't come up with that. It's like something outside of myself, like something transmitted to me externally. I don't know what this is." said Zim laughing again.
"We seem to think we're so limited by the world, but we're really just creating it. You keep trying to figure it out, but it seems like now that you know that what you're doing is dreaming, you can do whatever you want to. You're dreaming, but you're awake. You have, um, so many options, and that's what life is about." said the woman.
I have a choice.
"Well, I understand what you're saying. It's up to me. I'm the dreamer. It's weird, like, so much of the information that these people have been like imparting to me. I don't know. It's got this, like, really heavy information." said Zim smiling slightly... he couldn't really remember now... no... he couldn't...
"Well, how do you feel?" asked the woman.
"Well, well, sometimes I feel kind of isolated, but most of the time I feel really connected, really, like, in this active process. Which is kind of weird because most of the time I've just been really passive and not really responding, except for now, I guess. I'm just kind of letting the information wash over me." said Zim
"It's not necessarily passive to not respond verbally. We're communicating on, on so many levels simultaneously. Perhaps you're, you're perceiving directly." said the woman.
"Most of the people that I've been encountering, and most of the things that I would want to say, it's like they kind of say it for me, and almost like at my cue. It's, it's like complete unto itself. It's not like I'm having a bad dream, it's a great dream. But ... it's so unlike any other dream I've ever had before. It's like the dream. It's like I'm being prepared for something." said Zim.
the woman then smiled and went back to sipping her drink...
Zim was now back in the sub-way... he got out at a stop and saw someone standing there... who was she? what was she?
she was an irken female...short and unique... she had a purple dress like uniform and combat boots...purple eyes that seemed to shine in the dark, with curled antennae and a beauty mark on her left cheek... but the strangest thing she had was this metal wire coming out of her temple...
who was she?
Zim then noticed that a man was walking with a woman.
they looked related to one another, and the man was talking.
"You haven't met yourself yet. But the advantage to meeting others in the meantime is that one of them may present you to yourself. Examine the nature of everything you observe. For instance, you might find yourself walking through a dream parking lot. And yes, those are dream feet inside of your dream shoes. Part of your dream self. And so, the person that you appear to be in the dream cannot be who you really are. This is an image, a mental model." said the man.
Zim only smiled and shook his head.
then the irken girl started approaching.
"Do you remember me?" she asked.
"No. No, I don't think so." said Zim.
"At the station? You were on communicator and you looked at me ... a few times." said the girl.
"I remember that, but I don't remember that being you." said Zim.
"Are you sure?" asked the girl tilting her head to the side.
"Well, maybe not." said Zim.
"I was standing at the corner and you were looking at me." she said.
Zim then proceeded to mumble something as she drew close, wrapping her arms around him and leaning in for a kiss.
"Tak." he finally said just before their lips could meet, then he woke up.
he was back in his room and desperately he looked at the clock sitting on the wall, the numbers were still dancing... and he realized... he's still asleep.
Frustrated Zim went back to the living room and turned on the monitor to call the tallest... and again the screen was changing channels like a TV.
"My little friend, dream no more. It's really here. It's called Efferdent Plus."
"In hell, you sink to the level of your lack of love. In heaven you rise to the level of your fullness of love. You see ..."
"Hurry up! Come on! Get in the car! Let's go."
"Allegedly, the story goes like this. Billy Wilder runs into Louis Malle, this is in the late 50's, early 60's. And Louis Malle had just made his most expensive film, which has cost 2 1/2 million dollars. And Billy Wilder asks him what the film is about. And Louis Malle says "Well, it's sort of a dream within a dream." And Billy Wilder says "You just lost 2 1/2 million dollars." what a douche."
"... I feel a little more apprehensive about this one than I did about ..."
"Gobbledygook!"
"Down through the centuries, the notion that life is wrapped in a dream has been a pervasive theme of philosophers and poets. So doesn't it make sense that death too would be wrapped in dream? you could never again wake up, Never again return to your physical body."
Zim suddenly was frightened by the last channel...
was he dead?
no. impossible.
in frustration he walked out of his home...soon enough he found himself in a convenience store.
as Zim was walking in, a man walked out.
"As the pattern gets more intricate and subtle, being swept along is no longer enough." said the man.
Zim huffed and entered the store... then noticed something familiar about the cashier.
"What's the word, turd?" said the cashier.
"who are you?" asked Zim confused.
"Name's Spork. What's it to ya?"
"Hey, do you also drive a, a, custom made car? a-a, yeah, a custom made hurududu?"
"A what?" asked Spork.
"you gave me a ride in a custom made hurududu." said Zim.
"No, kid , I don't have a "hurududu" whatever that is. I don't know what you're talking about. jeez, this must be like parallel universe night. You know that cat that was just in here, who just ran out the door? Well, he comes up to the counter, you know, and I say, "What's the word, turd?" and he lays down this burrito and he kind of looks at me, kind of stares at me, and then he says, "I have but recently returned from the valley of the shadow of death. I am rapturously breathing in all the odors and essences of life. I've been to the brink of total oblivion. I remember and ferment a desire to remember everything." pretty freaky huh?" said Spork.
" what's a turd? WAIT! don't answer that, I don't want to know...So, what'd you say to that?" asked Zim.
"Well, I mean, what could I say? I said "If you're going to microwave that burrito, I want you to poke holes in the plastic wrapping because they explode, and I'm tired of cleaning up your little burrito doings. You dig me? 'Cause the jalapenos dry up. They're like little wheels." said Spork shrugging his thin shoulders and laughing.
(A.N.- man, now I want a burrito..)
Zim just stared at Spork as he spoke.
"Kiierkegaaard's last words were, 'Sweep me up.'"
Zim suddenly turned his attention to a female playing with a pinball machine in the corner... she was fairly beautiful, and her image suddenly made Zim's heart jump.
"Hey." said Zim
"Hey." she answered, not really turning away from the machine.
"Weren't you in a hurududu? You know, the guy, the guy with the green eyes? He gave me a ride in his hurududu thing, and you were in the back seat with me." said Zim recalling a very faint memory.
"Uhhhhh...I mean, I'm not saying that you don't know what you're talking about, but I don't know what you're talking about." said the female.
"No, you see, you guys were going to leave me at this really specific spot that you gave him directions to, then we are captured by some creature, but then, I just woke up because I was dreaming, and later than that, I found out that I was still dreaming, dreaming that I'd woken up." said Zim.
"Oh yeah, those are called false awakenings. I used to have those all the time." said the female shrugging her shoulders.
"Yeah, but I'm still in it now. I, I can't get out of it. It's been going on forever, I keep waking up, but, but I'm just waking up into another dream. I'm starting to get creeped out, too. Like I'm talking people. and the TV's telling me about death. I mean-" Zim suddenly let out this desperate sigh.
"I'm starting to think that I'm dead." he said. (A.N.- again...POETRY!)
"Look. I'm gonna tell you about a dream I once had. I know that's, when someone says that, then usually you're in for a very boring next few minutes, and you might be, but it sounds like, you know, what else are you going to do, right? so I kept on dreaming about my life...I kept on having these false awakenings, you know? and just to make it short...It kept on happening until, you know I just enjoyed it." she said finally turning away from the pinball machine.
"When I finally woke up, I was like, whoa, that wasn't a dream, that was like...my life...my adventure." she sighed.
"So what happened? I mean how did you finally get out of it?" asked Zim desperate.
"Oh man. It was just like one of those like life altering experiences. I mean I could never really look at the world the same way again, after that." said the female not really paying attention to Zim.
"Yeah, but I mean like how did you, how did you finally get out of the dream? See, that's my problem. I'm like trapped. I keep, I keep thinking that I'm waking up, but I'm still in a dream. It seems like it's going on forever. I can't get out of it, and I want to wake up for real. How do you really wake up?" asked Zim nearly shouting.
"I don't know, I don't know. I'm not very good at that anymore. But, um, if that's what you're thinking, I mean you, you probably should. I mean, you know if you can wake up, you should, because you know someday, you know, you won't be able to. So just, um ... But it's easy. You know. Just, just wake up." said the female.
Zim at that time found himself again in his room...
'Wake Up!' he screamed in his mind. And this time...full of frustration... he ran outside and ran towards the convenient store again...but it was closed... Zim then looked around and saw the female again.
"kiss me..." she sighed.
Zim then felt something pull at the back of his mind... suddenly there was a loud scream and he woke up again.
the female was shaking him.
"Hey, hey! Wake up!" she cried.
"Hmm?" Zim looked up at the female... and Remembered everything...EVERYTHING... and smiled.
"Miyuki..." he whispered.
"Oh good your awake!" said a male voice...it was Spork.
"Are you feeling okay?"asked Miyuki, her face full of worry.
"What is going on?" asked Zim.
"We were attacked by some Blob thing... you were knocked unconscious.. but yeah, you're back." sighed Spork.
"Oh? I thought I was dead." sighed Zim.
" No the Blob thing let us go and then you were hit by a Hov-car." said Miyuki.
"The car!" gasped Zim
"What happened?" asked Spork, worried.
"Miyuki...you pointed so I could look to your right then a car came something about see worthy and the world… and the dream… the dream…s-someone please give me my memory drive... I need it!" cried Zim.
"You should rest" said Miyuki.
"This is more important, you were right Spork this did change my life, and now I must hide it... the one place no one will ever look... I must do what has to be done..." sighed Zim
Wake up.
"Zim?" Spork cast Zim a concerned look.
Zim then stared into Miyuki's eyes...those beautiful, wonderful, amazing eyes... this was a holy moment... this was the time to wake up.
Miyuki stayed still as Zim did the only thing he could think of... He pressed his lips against hers...and hid this new wonderful memory somewhere hidden in his drive.
and this time... he woke up... for real.
"HE'S BACK!" shouted skoodge.
"Zim! can you hear us? SAY SOMETHING!" cried Dib.
Zim who finally woke up only smiled at the two, and said something that they never expected him to say...
"Quando il gioco è finito, il re e pedone andare nella stessa scatola"
GOD! that was a long ass chapter! well please review and well ask me anything you want and well thats it... man I'm tired...
remember this story will be confusing!
MEOW!