#kite boy

[catcreations]

All images ©Catherine Holtzhausen

[minthoneydew]

The Misadventures of Kite Boy

12/4/2013

  There’s a really luxurious train that’s rolling through a seemingly endless grassy plane. It appears antique, like something from the 1920’s, and the plume of black smoke from the chimney on the outside of the train shows that it’s a locomotive that runs off of coal. The inside is covered with gold, burgundy and rich browns with really ornate furniture and embellishments. I’m standing in one of the cars next to a girl I just met, and we’re both leaning against the wall as we talk about random things. Somehow the conversation takes a weird turn and suddenly we’re on the subject of our absolute favorite show. Her favorite is one that I’ve never heard of before. The girl begins to explain it to me in detail and once she’s done I do the same, telling her about my show after she expresses how she doesn’t know what it is. I begin with something like, “Well my favorite show is” but I can’t remember the name of the show or if the show even had a name to begin with. I’ve already begun my narration, explaining the plot and the characters as the dream slowly switches scenes.

Now the dream is focused on a young boy around 14 years old who happens to be really crude and foul mouthed and kind of rude. He wore old clothes that also looked as though it was from the 1920’s, a white dress shirt and light brown ¾ pants with suspenders. He carries around with him a giant white kite that’s about a little taller than he is and maybe twice his width. I think his kite might have been rare or uncommon or obsolete because I recall there being this general sense of him gliding with it being unusual and few people did it.

The boy uses the kite to fly, riding on really strong air currents in the sky like a hang glider, and before he lands on a nearby grassy cliff overlooking a vast ocean he makes a full circle in the sky for fun. He comes to a stop next to someone he knows, another boy about his age, and they begin to talk about something. Suddenly a huge blimp ship (apparently they’re called airships, but I’m not quite sure if that name still applies since this was literally a giant pirate-like ship attached to an equally large blimp) flies by incredibly fast, kicking up wind and creating a large current. Kite Boy, who was still holding onto his kite, gets swept off his feet and pulled off the ledge and before he knows it he’s trapped in the strong current being created in the airships wake. All he can do is hold on with both hands and try to keep himself parallel.

The airship comically zigzagged through the air before it finally crashed into the ocean. Kite Boy is released from the strong wind currents but at this point he’s lost too much altitude and he’s too disoriented to steer his kite away from the airship. He ends up falling into one of the two lifeboats that are attached to the outside of the ship and the boat rocks a bit as if it was about to capsize due to his impact. He lies on his back for a few minutes trying to catch his breath before he sits up and looks around, noticing that there’s a second boat next to his. There’s someone inside the boat, an older man who’s maybe around 23 or 24 with a long navy blue coat with gold trimmings, who is slowly regaining consciousness. The boy curiously leans over the side of his boat and watches as the man wakes up. Once the man cracks open his eyes Kite Boy cynically smiles, fully reaches out his arm for a handshake mere inches from the man’s face, and says with sarcastic cheer, “Nice to fucking meet you, asshole.” He has a strange accent—something mixed between an old style Boston, New York and British inflection.

Stuff happens that I can’t remember, but Kite Boy ends up inside of the giant ship. He learns that the man he met in the lifeboat is named Leon, and he’s the captain of the airship. Leon has a small crew, around 5 to 7 men, and they were on their way to a relic tower that has some sort of rare treasure at the aerie at the very top. The plan had been to fly directly over the tower to reach the top and swipe the treasure, but on the way to their destination their blimp was somehow punctured and lost all its helium and its ability to fly. All they could do now was sail to the tower.

The tower was really tall, reaching up above the clouds, the top of which couldn’t be seen. It was old, made of crumbling yellowish/sandy colored stone on the outside while the inside had darker brownish beige stone floors. The floors and walls were cracked, occasionally covered with weeds or a random vine of some sort. Each floor of the tower was a large square platform with one set of narrow stairs leading up the next level and both the platforms and the staircases lacked any sort of railing to prevent people from falling off. There were small windows cut into the walls to allow light inside, and the tower itself was puzzle like in construction.

  Some more stuff happens, like Kite Boy, Leon and his crew entering the tower and running into some girl who was also looking for something in the tower, all of them being chased by weird gray blue orc monsters that may or may not have had spears who I guess were guarding the tower, the group solving giant block puzzles while on the run to the treasure and other things, but it’s all pretty hazy. I remember at one point the dream switched back to me and the girl. She had asked me a question about the show I was explaining and I answered her before the dream went back to Kite Boy and his misadventures.