The Story of an Opium Dream

 "The Story of an Opium Dream" exists now only as a single file hidden away somewhere dark that no one will ever find. It does exist but none shall ever see it as long as I live. Why? Because it sucked and it sucked root. It didn't just suck, it did so in a way that made my initial rereading of it want me to abandon all reading forever. I was dumbstruck with how dry and dull and just without any pretense of soul this story had. But, and there is always that but, I had written it and could not abandon it, especially since what occurs within had already been hinted at elsewhere. As well, the established time for this event to occur would place it roughly at the end of the 2nd chapter of "Circle of Midnight Black". So, while having invested an awful lot of time and an awful lot of research into this Tale begun late August, 2018, I was left with a soulless and clunky piece that I felt very poorly about. What was I to do?

Well, first of all, another idea sparked as I was finishing this abomination and this was a damn exciting idea that came along. So, not wanting to mope over something that seemed at a loss, I jumped right into "The Obsession of Doctor Paulk", a delightful and fun story which occupied the active spaces of my creativity for the remainder of September. Thing is, regardless how much fun I was having stitching Dr. Paulk's little obsession together, I could not get Xue Mengyao out of my mind. The damn lazy bastard, and yes, this is an accurate description of him, was actively haunting me. This meant that for the remainder of that month, my mind was split between sawing bones and rewriting life into a Tale too dull.

Um, I'm going to say this worked as like "Twelve-Thirtyfour", this received the same conditioned acceptance. With "All Dreams Must Conclude" occurring as well "Outside the Circle of Midnight Black" and my plans for such beginning to spread, these two Tales I held in reserve. That acknowledgement though assures me that where Dr. Paulk only met a middling amount of what might be called success, my experiment here to revive a Tale pronounced dead at completion worked. Each time I travel these tunnels now with Mengyao, something I actually do quite a bit for within this story are clues needed for, well, those who might want to go looking.

I went line by line through "The Story of an Opium Dream" and rewrote the entire story. While there are lines inspired which remain, the overall effect is a near complete rewrite, the first that I have done. I had been horribly unsatisfied with what was and when I look at the passages now and how they read, life is exactly what was brought in. Where that first telling almost reads as chunks of dull exposition meant to pile in information, "All Dreams Must Conclude" brinks Mengyao to life and tells his story, his desperation.

"All Dreams Must Conclude" has become a story far more important than it originally was meant to be. This character, he was not also unique to this Tale when it appeared in either form. Indeed, he had been met before, the Fairy King himself. It was to that end which I was writing in the first place, knowing that this truth must be satisfied. That this would extend beyond has surprised me. In fact, it is this story that I am using right now, along with "Child of the Earth", to dictate where my dear friends Ferris White and Hernán Rios are as they travel deeper down those tunnels in the project that I am working on right now (and where I freely admit I blew my January deadline).

Like with "Kachina" and "Beesh Gah Beesh", "Shanga-ree" and all those Tales which employ words beyond the general usage in American popular culture, I had do to a lot of research in the opening production. I needed to know where Mengyao came from, which provinces in China were experiencing what social and environmental upheavals and even the distinctions of pipes used in diverse regions. Here I learned about the history of the Credit Ticket system and how it was ruled as slavery in 1878. I learned that Prescott was the center of the Arizona Territory opium trade. Hell, I learned an absolute shitload preparing for this story. That I honestly think is the reason the first draft was so dull... I was transcribing rather than telling.

Some of the information that went into this, stuff I learned or was reinforced in memory...

There were a few horrible internal wars going on in China at that time. With the Taiping Rebellion winding down in the years of Mengyao's birth, the Dungan Rebellion and at least two others made sure that the bodies on the ground were always fresh and that childhood play was always at risk of interruption.

The province from which Mengyao comes from allowed me my greatest flexibility both in regionally acceptable names as well as being subject to the greatest external insults.

The massive famine that occurred in China during the late 1870s, the result of a rather strong El Niño effect, would not only have added to Mengyao's potential woes but gives plausible reason for the existence of the blizzard which covered my little valley in the last days of 1877 and through the first months of 1878. This is one of my biggest lucky moments of all the happy accidents which have chased me through these Tales... that my blizzard would/could have been and some meteorologist somewhere reading one of these stories won't dismiss it out of hand. That has seriously been one of my concerns.

Yeah, the whole Credit Ticket bit is a blight on this Nation. Now, add that system to the corruptions of the Bajazid Valley and, well, coerced labor is still slavery.

Did you know that different regions of China preferred different styles of opium pipes? You would be amazed at the number of images of such I downloaded in order to study for this story. Hell, the number of accounts I read from opium users was near overwhelming. Mind you, this was not something I was going to try for research purposes and thus that research. I'm a stoner. I don't do drugs.

I do have to say that while I am portraying a Chinese man in 1890 as an opium addict, this is not for superficial reasons. There is historical basis for this as well as the elements in his story to establish his behavior and reasons. He seriously is on the wrong end of the old luck stick his life through and this is his only escape... maybe. In no way am I portraying anyone beyond this singular individual within the circumstances he finds himself.

As for the influence of Chinese immigrants to this nation, we would be so much poorer without. In truth, and this is evidenced by the series Warrior on Showtime, there is a rich history all throughout the United States of Chinese influence, and not just working the mines and the railroads. This is something that this nation would be wise to illuminate because it just adds to the tapestry of this nation, one so often seen only in monochromatic schemes.

I finished "All Dreams Must Conclude" at the end of September, 2018. It ran 4,902 words, roughly 700 less than the original draft had crammed into it. I finished it the same day I did "The Obsession of Doctor Paulk", the lively and fun Tale I was rattling off as I was making my surgical cuts to bring this to life. This meant that at this point I was, with the completion of these two tales, now but one month away from my goal of 12 Tales complete and I had still three months to go. As "All Dreams Must Conclude" was begun first, this is labeled in my lists as the 28th Tale of the Bajazid while Doctor Paulk's little obsession is the 29th.