Samson Tonauac
Writer. Hedo-consumerist. Absurdist.
bOOKS
Published works include:
To see some artwork for the Dreamsphere series, click below.
The complete Dreamsphere audio book is available below for free.Dreampshere - Opening Credits
Dreamsphere - Terms and Conditions
Dreamsphere - Dreamscapes
Dreamsphere - Parisian Dreams
Dreamsphere - Prima Vita
Dreamsphere - Cryo Reguree Camp
Dreamsphere - The Game Called Humanity
Dreamsphere - Death Approaches
Dreamsphere - I Am God, I Will Be King
Dreamsphere - The Ten Minutes After You Die
Dreamsphere - The Army of the Unborn
Dreamsphere - Interview with a King
Dreamsphere - Everyone Wants a Hero
Dreamsphere - Jesus Pills
Dreamsphere - The Rise, Fall, and Resurrection of a God
Dreamsphere - My Name Is...
Dreamsphere - Lucubration of the Giant Jiggly Breasts
Dreamsphere - Blubberflies: George's Final Story
Dreamsphere - What Comes After the End: Oresa's Final Story
Dreamsphere - Words from Samson Tonauac
Conceptual art by erdinnandus for Dreamsphere that is not in the book.
Chapter artwork from Dreamsphere.
Contact
Contact me below for questions, inquiries, fan mail, or other requests.
Love and NihilismChapter 1: You AloneThe end was inevitable, as is the end everything. No one likes to think of endings, or if they do, they are all fairy tales, sunshine, and rainbows. But what do you do when you are too old for new love? You find yourself sitting in a restaurant, eating alone—pumpkin pie and lemon pop, and in walks the woman of your dreams. She isn’t a perfect ten—she is homely, red hair—a few freckles, green eyes. She is your soulmate … or perhaps you’re just horny or desperate because you haven’t slept with a woman in, well, I don’t know, a year? More like two to four, you correct yourself. You look down so as not to stare, but immediately your gaze returns to her. The problem is, soulmate or not, you’re 40. She’s what, 20? She has her whole life ahead of her, you have most of yours behind. Cruel trick time plays—lust doubly so. Most men wouldn’t take a second look at her, and she definitely won’t take a first at you—so you think. There comes a point in your life where you can no longer look towards the future—no longer say your best kiss is yet to be had ... greatest adventure…. You get the picture.You finish your pop and pie, leave a meager tip and flash a fake smile to the waitress who looks at you disapprovingly after shaking the change in her hand. You feel bad, but you are pretty much broke—lunch, your first and last meal of the day. You just wanted to feel normal, be around people again, despite the cost. Before you exit, you take one last glance at your soulmate——she looks up, locks eyes. Your heart flutters, and you feel a bit dizzy, so you quickly look down—then dart out.You walk home, back to the empty house where your family once lived. You take your coat off, hang it up into the closet full of empty suits—suits that are empty shells of people you could have been, shells of dreams forgotten—dreams broken ... dreams unfulfilled. Now you’re too old to fill the shells—a hollow body without spirit, without soul. Coroners never do find souls during autopsies, do they? So perhaps you never had one to begin with. Then again, can they find feelings, emotions—remnants of a life lived, remnants of love? If you search and don’t find, does it mean what you searched for doesn’t exist? If you lived in search of answers…. You give up on thoughts, they don’t matter now. The end is near.You take your shoes off and drag your scruffy sock covered feet across the scruffy stain covered carpet—that ugly grey carpet. Head down, up the stairs you go. You nearly trip on the last step up, but instead just stumble a little back down. Another sign of your age, another reminder you’re no longer in control of your destiny—never really was. The room to your right, your kid use to sleep there in his crib—use to play there, dance there, sing there—giggle and laugh and scream with delight as you read Dinosaurs for the hundredth time roaring together in perfect harmony as the book would come to an end; and thereafter he’d always scream with despair and cry as if he knew one day—one day his father would no longer be around to ROAAAARR with him; and so his roars become sedated growls, and his growls eventually sniffles ... snivels. He was right. Your only solace is that he is young enough that in time he will forget you and won’t be haunted by memories of the past—memories of you in the wee hours of the night. Won’t wake up wondering what went wrong—won’t be alone.These memories, are they even yours? They seem so real, so close, so tangible, as if you could reach out and hold him once again. But no, these are ghosts of the worst kind—the most unnerving—the most emotionally fearsome. You collapse. Fall to the ground, curl up, and then the tears come. Try as hard as you can, you can’t fight them—muscles clenched, then released—relaxed as you lay on the carpet staring upwards. An empty ceiling—an empty ceiling with those dammed paint spirals—an empty room, an emotionally empty life—ironically, no, sardonically sentimental life. You lay there, sight out of focus, lost in thought—for minutes, for hours—thinking about nothing. Then zen. Perfect zen. Your broken life has accomplished what Buddhist monks have been trying to accomplish for centuries. No more attachments, no more suffering. You lost your marriage, lost your job, lost your family, and in the process you lost yourself. Ego no more. You are nothing and will return soon to nothingness. Buddhism is just a different flavor of nihilism.Having reached enlightenment, enlightenment decides you are not for it and kicks your scrawny pale white ass back down to reality. Get some sun son it says and suddenly you’re sent back down for supper. Sent back to the restaurant. The waitress frowns. You are surprised she is still there, but even further surprised to see your soulmate sitting alone, head down—coddling a hot chocolate with marshmallows. You’ve nothing to lose now, you already lost it all.She looks up, surprised to see you again, and eyes lock. Nervous, you immediately break the connection, look down and for a split-second you’re back in that place—no thought, no more existence. It kicks you back again, not yet your time—your time will come soon enough. You pick your head up, puff up your chest a bit before locking eyes again. She smiles shyly as you approach and take a seat across from her in the booth. But before either of you can speak, that lemon pop from earlier in the day is coming back to taunt you, reminding you that you really do exist, and really do have a physical bladder that seems to shrink exponentially as you get older. Out it comes, ‘Gotta piss, be right back. Don’t go anywhere. We’re soulmates after all!’Before she can say a word, you’re ghost—relieving yourself in some bathroom which smells like it hasn’t been cleaned in weeks. Like your sad pathetic shit stained soul. You’re so excited to get back to her, and away from your own foulness … you do the two second hand wash.Upon your return, she is nowhere in sight. The waitress returns, smiles sadistically, hands you a check, ‘she said the creepy guy in the bathroom agreed to pay. That’s you—buster. And she drank a good 42 hot chocolates, so I expect a real tip this time you cheapskate.’ You sink into the corner of the booth, further and further back until eventually you sink back out of existence, close your eyes and hope for the end. Nothingness.You feel the booth seat move about a bit, but you dare not look. A hand nudges you—roughly, ‘You better not be dead yet old man, I haven’t even learned your name yet and if we’re soulmates, we best get to knowing each other because we aren’t getting any younger. Here, drink with me.’ You open your eyes, it’s her, and her alone. The laughing waitress that played the prank on you disappears, the other people disappear, the surroundings…. It’s just you and her. You are not alone.We talk, we go home together. We marry and a year later we have a kid. She was actually about 29, plus a few years give or take depending on who you asked. The kid turns two. There’s a crib—we sing, we dance—laugh together—read together—ROAAAARR together. Then suddenly, one day after work while the family is out picking up dinner … head up, down the stairs I go. Stumbling over the first step, head first into the last. I look up at the ceiling, at the full house around me—the furniture, the pictures, the memories. I see my kid above me, so close that I could just hold him one last time before death takes hold. I reach out but there is nothing there—nothing but mirages, Fata Morgana. Where did the pictures go? How did I get back up the stairs when I fell down? I am back in my kid’s rooms. It is empty, I am dying, I am empty—an empty life devoid of meaning and purpose. Enlightenment reclaims me for judgment—reincarnation or non-existence, which will it be this time? Suffering or non-suffering? Doesn’t matter. You die alone.
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