Dew Drop Inn Tourbook 1995

December 7, 1995, Dew Drop Inn Tourbook
written by neil gaiman


It began in darkness; the little girl hesitantly touching the piano-key. She made up a song to sing to the darkness. She sang about the big girls, the pretty ones. She sang all her fear of growing up, all her fear of what she knew she would never be.

When the song was done she lay down, beneath the piano, in the dark.

The piano sang her a lullaby. The black keys and the white keys began to grow, and twine, and blossom, and she was dreaming: and they came into the bare room, all the dream people, crowding and strutting and scuttling and dancing.

There was a woman with a rose in her dark hair, a rose the color of blood. She had a bruise on her check, and her eye make-up was smudged and streaked. She stared at the other people as if she was scared of them; as if any one of them might hurt her again.

There was a hairy-legged man with horns and a tail; he looked like a devil, but when the little girl asked he told her he had been around before ever the devils walked, and he smelled of rain and the forest. The Prophet, his beard dusty with the desert sand, fixed his lipstick, and whispered, "Hey, is that a thunderbolt in your toga, or are you just pleased to see me?" But nobody heard. Wild horses thundered past, their hooves drowning out the noise of the lost lovers, damaged children, wakened babies...

And by then the party was underway, and all the boys were partying, even the boy who were girls, and the World War One flier and the secret agent, all of them grabbing the party food and spilling their drinks and laughing nervously and too loudly. Each of the people had a shadow, and the little sleeping girl found herself staring not at the people but at their shadows, as they danced their flickering shadow party on the floor and on the walls and ceiling, as they caressed and fought and fucked and died in their silent shadow carnival.

A beautiful woman - much too beautiful ever to be a beauty queen, with a tongue split, like a snake's - was carrying a window underneath her arm. Through the window the little girl could see a mirror, and reflected in the mirror was the dark smoke from the mountain. The man with the black-and-white-striped eyes shivered, and began hunting for a door, but none of the guests had remembered to bring a door with them. The virgin began to cry, as her friends strapped her to a chair. They took her gun away from her before they threw the switch, dropped the pill into the water-glass, got her in their sights: four live bullets, one blank; that's the tradition. The American way.

The houngan was feeling up the junkie widow. "I shouldn't be here," she said. "I really shouldn't be here. Maybe I'm not." She pissed herself, then, a thin trickle of vivid yellow urine which ran over his hand and down her stained legs and collected in a pool at her feet.

The floor juddered and trembled. The moon shone through the window, past the volcano, through every mirror in the world.

One by one all the dream-people climbed into their shadows. One by one the shadows crawled beneath the piano, nestled under the little girl. The shadows slept inside her dream.

And when she woke, there was nothing there to show that anything had ever happened at all, only a distant star that twinkled in the window that someone had left propped up against the wall.

She played a song to the star on the piano, one note at a time, while the shadows billowed and swelled and filled the room with darkness, extinguishing the lamps, swallowing the candle-flames one by one, until there was nothing left at all.

Only the dark; and in the darkness, just a twinkle.
--

故事出自Dew Drop Inn Tourbook裡
版權由Neil Gaiman所有
以下是我playboymommy私人的翻譯


一切從黑暗開始。小女孩遲疑地觸碰鋼琴琴鍵，她編了一首歌唱給 這黑暗聽。她唱著關於漂亮大女孩的事，唱著她害怕長大，害怕著 她知道自己不會成為的事。

曲子結束的時候她躺了下來，躺在鋼琴下，躺在黑暗裡。

鋼琴唱了首搖籃曲給她。黑色的琴鍵和白色的琴鍵開始生長，盤繞，開花。她夢到：他們走進空無一人的房間，所有夢裡的人，推擠 ，昂首，疾行，舞動。

有個黑頭髮女人，頭上有朵玫瑰，玫瑰紅得像血。她的臉頰上有傷疤，眼畫得煙燻，她盯著其他人看，像是害怕他們，像是他們之中 有人會再傷害她。

有個腳毛濃密的男人，長著角，還有尾巴；他看起來像是魔鬼，但 是當小女孩問他時，他告訴她早在魔鬼以前他就在了。他有著雨水 和森林的氣味。先知，他的鬍子沾滿沙漠的沙；他塗抹好口紅，輕聲說：「嘿，你們托加衣上的是閃電嗎？還是你們只是想見我？」 但是沒有人聽見他的話。野馬轟隆而過，馬蹄聲淹沒了迷失的情人、毀壞的孩童、醒來的嬰兒的聲音。

然後派對開始，所有的男孩都參加，即使是女孩的男孩也參加，還 有一次大戰的裝訂員和情報員，所有的人抓著食物，飲酒濺得到處 ，緊張又大聲地大笑。每個人都有影子；小女孩發現自己盯著看的 並不是這些人，而是這些人的影子。當他們跳舞，他們搖曳的影子 在地板、在牆壁、在天花板狂歡，在他們自己無聲的影子嘉年華裡 愛撫，爭吵，做愛，死去。

有個美麗的女人，有著分岔的舌頭，像蛇的一樣；她的臂下抱著一 位寡婦。透過窗戶小女孩看得見一面鏡子，鏡子反射山林的黑煙。 有著黑白相間眼珠子的男人打了冷顫，急著要找門，但沒有賓客記 得帶扇門來。少女開始哭泣，她的朋友們把她綁在椅子上，丟掉棍 子前，把她的槍拿走，藥丸投進水杯，瞄準好：四顆實彈，一顆空 彈；這是傳統，美國人的方式。

男巫師正在撫摸那個有毒癮的寡婦。「我不該在這的。」她說。「我真的不該在這。或許我根本沒有在這裡。」她撤了尿，黃色的尿 液流過他的手，她髒污的腿，在她的腳邊聚集一池。

地面震動、搖晃。月光穿透窗子，越過火山，透過世界上的每個鏡子。

一個接著一個，所有的夢人爬進自己的影子；一個接著一個，所有的影子在鋼琴下爬行，偎依在小女孩下。影子在她的夢裡睡去。

當她醒來時，房間裡什麼都沒有，只有一顆遠方的星子映在窗上發亮。

她為這顆星演奏了一首歌，一個音符一個音符彈，影子波濤翻滾，鼓起，整個房間被黑暗佔據，熄滅了燈，吞噬了燭火，一個接著一 個，什麼都沒留下。

只剩下黑暗。而在這黑暗裡，有一點光，閃閃發亮。