Dreaming

Horror Movie Genre

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 08:58:12 -0500

The hill is worn in a wide swath, nothing but dirt and exposed roots, the evidence of many feet. At the bottom of the hill at the edge of the clearing I see a lodge built in a rustic, log cabin fashion. It is dusk and the light is failing. A few dozen people are gathered around me at the top of the hill. I see a large black dog, no two of them, trotting about on the hillside.

We run. The whole crowd of people is running down the hill and I’m following them. They all charge inside ahead of me but I slow and walk more cautiously through the entrance; noticing as I do one of the dogs chewing at a piece of chain attached to the door.

Inside is dimly lit. Another dog eats noisily, something in the back left corner mostly in darkness. To my right I see all the people gathered, silent, facing the wall, unmoving.

Modern art made of welded bits of scrap metal and refuse are nailed to the walls. Thick, rusty chains hang here and there and partition the room. I stop, not joining the rest. The silence is oppressive and unnatural.

From the far side of the crowd a tall man with dark complexion staggers and jerks and moves through the group. He has a sort of metal fish skeleton jammed in his mouth. He’s biting down on it and it is cutting into his cheeks and lips. A few splatters of blood from his struggling splash onto the rest of the people.

The doors start to close but with a flash of contemptuousness I fly through and up...

[I don’t remember any more and I think this my be when I woke.]

Bed Pill Blue Pill

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 19:44:11 -0500

I'm standing one the pavement while he gives me the instructions. He's on the grass doing something with a shrub in the yard. It is sunny and green and the in ground sprinklers are running. They sound wrong and I wonder if I should tell him. Two blue pills and two red pills [thank you The 'Matrix'. Now you're infiltrating my dreams.]

I'm at home in bed. [This is actually one of the bedrooms I slept in as a child, right down to the ugly green carpet.] What time is it? Why am I here? I was supposed to go over and see that the kid took his pills. It is night and that was afternoon. I haven't gone though, but there wasn't any time between the two incidents. I compute the numbers in my head but they simply don't add up in any sensical way. How could I have not had any time to go over there?

...

Mouse [the cat] is sitting in the window looking out at the semi-darkness. Actually there are two of her. Two? There are three and Teto [the late cat]. Teto is swatting the one and growling. It is a bit stockier than the others, clearly a male. Mouse has brought back two cats that look almost exactly like her. I run over and restrain Teto, almost squishing his tail int eh process. I hold him back from going badass on the smaller grey cat.

Evil Ninja Raccoon

Mon, 2 Jan 2012 09:03:59 -0500

In the dark and amidst a light rain a raccoon in a stately blue kimono sits lotus style, serene upon the branch of a large conifer tree amidst a dark forest. Silently, using their mysterious arts, masked ninja (human) appear around him hanging from ropes or clinging to branches. Each proffers a bottle of brown liquid and suddenly the raccoon’s paws move faster than the eye can see. He is holding a pile of bottle caps in his paws when the ninja vanish back in to the darkness.

“Wait! the bottle caps...” yells the raccoon. Then he signs with resignation. A small, furry paw with long claws reaches out of the dark and spears one of the bottle caps on a single, outstretched claw.

“You!” gasps the raccoon.

A ninja raccoon sits beside him, this one dressed in ornate japanese style armor in greens and blacks. He takes the bottle caps, folds each, and affixes it to his helmet to make a sharklike maw of metal around his face. He laughs evilly and I can’t see the first raccoon. The ninja raccoon jumps into the darkness.

The ninja raccoon now sits upon a large branch of a mighty tree, surrounded by enemies. Airships of futuristic design, bristling with cannon poke through the treetops in every direction.

He yells his reccoony defiance, “He said he’d fight me hand to hand, so grab a pistol and come die!”

...some time later...

A man on a yellow, metallic hover-bike hums through the forest. He wears goggles and is armed with a futuristic spear gun. He looks below him to the left and right and reports in over a crackly radio. “Bodies everywhere sir, wounds from claws and teeth. It was a massacre.”

Fight!

Sun, 27 Nov 2011 11:02:59 -0500

The twisted old cedar by the lake is bending in the wind, but the sun is bright and warming and it is a pleasant day out. I’m wearing one of those bulky life preserver vests that never fit quite right. One of the other kids is picking on me. (For some reason the other kid looks exactly like the actor Danny Trejo.)

He hits me in the chest while laughing and the blow is mostly absorbed by the vest. I bat away his next blow but i’m clumsy wearing the life preserver. He is laughing but there is an undertone of children’s cruelty. I remove a stun gun from my cargo pocket. It is one of those cheap pencil style ones made of black plastic, with the prongs only a centimeter apart.

(It would have been nice to have one of those when I was a kid, but then again I just would have gotten into trouble with it)

He does not seem to notice the weapon but I put it in front of me and push the button a few times to cause electricity to crackle threateningly. He laughs again this time a little uncertainly. “Hit me in the arm with it,” he requests, proffering the appendage. I hesitate, then apply it and hit the button. He jumps back and laughs again. It seems defective or maybe the batteries are weak.

I drop the stun gun and take a swing at him while he’s still laughing. I ducks away and I hit him in the neck and shoulder area. He runs off still laughing, past the peeling paint and sagging plate glass window of my parents’ home.

Stupid life jacket.

Found, Tragedy

Sat, 19 Nov 2011 09:35:19 -0500

In the cold light of an autumn day, I look down at my boots as I walk, glancing up occasionally to note the positions of oncoming pedestrians. The weeds are grown up through the cracks in the concrete and between each poured section.

There, tucked away under some debris lies a shiny quarter. I stoop and pick it up, seeing it has a more golden color and that it is damaged. It is slightly bent at the edge and looks shaved as though someone was stealing a little precious metal, as was a common practice in ancient times.

It does not seem to be a quarter after all, but some sort of new dollar coin, with a picture of FDR on it and I do think it is gold, or at least gold plated. Strange.

...

I only have a vague recollection of this one:

I’m drinking with a complete asshole. We have several bottles of cheap liquor in a brown paper bag on the counter. Emergency vehicles have arrived across the patio and are breaking in to help someone next door. I think a person has died. A young boy, maybe four years old, with white blond hair stands crying in the yard.

Education

Wed, 2 Nov 2011 07:38:40 -0400

We have completed the construction and now the children are here. I look about the room and it is enormous. It houses a complex series of canals and pools interconnected by complex machines, some so large I cannot see past them.

I can see a few of the children gathered about the pools, looking in the water, puzzling over the machines. There are more children than teachers. I have devices that are intended for two of them, but which ones? Only the correct child will learn from the specific device.

I walk around the pools looking at this child crying and that child laughing. How will I decide?

The Estate

Fri, 7 Oct 2011 22:01:02 -0400

I walked through each floor then down flights of stairs, each with a small landing. Eventually, on the ground floor, the household was gathered. I greeted each by name, although the names were but symbols abstracted. I walked to the antique dark wood sideboard and signed the paperwork for the fund transfers and payments. The groundskeepers could be paid again, they’d been working without pay for weeks.

Then, I waited for my sister. [I don’t actually have a sister.] I had taken possession to set a precedent. The estate would be hers, but it was mine now, the first male to inherit. The matriarchal line had always taken possession, but times were different and it needed to be done.

When my sister arrived she was upset and had no understanding. The shock did her good.

Rodent?

Sun, 18 Sep 2011 09:08:16 -0400

There is a sound outside the west window and since I’m heading that way anyway I look to see what is happening. The rain is coming down lightly but the world is already soaked. The farmer lady from down the way is poking her head into some sort of building or bin made of weatherworn grey wood.

“Oy, whatcha doin’ out there” I yell in a bad cockney accent.

She replies with her real english accent, “there’s a little cat out here, run your dryer for a bit and t will blow warm air on her.”

I can see the cat. It is the striped grey one that hangs out sometimes. I walk around the corner and down the sloping cement hallway/ramp that leads downstairs to the utility room. I set the dryer to 15 minutes and turn it on.

I hear a sound that is not the dryer and not the neighbor. I can see through the small window into another part of the house and it is coming from there. Sure enough, some animal is burrowing under the old, worn out carpet bits that cover the floor. I spend the next half hour chasing an opossum around the house.

Vague Artistic Killer

Sat, 13 Aug 2011 17:01:23 -0400

This particular dream is very vague in my memory. Do remember it was a third person dream in that I was not in the dream, but watching what happened to others.

The world is strange and he kills them. The sky is dark red and dappled with wispy purple clouds. The ground is uniformly concrete stretching to the curved horizon in a series of gullies and man made looking cliffs and constructions.

He pushes a man off of a cliff. The man is a stranger to him but the art is familiar. The dead man’s painting is beautiful and indistinct. He paints a dark green symbol into the painting and off the top; claiming it for his himself.

The rest of the dream is too hazy to describe but it involved several more murders where the killer painted onto the artwork.

Pyrrhic Victory

Wed, 10 Aug 2011 17:00:12 -0400

There were more of us and there still are but we lost as badly as the dark men. The battle reduced both sides too much. Maybe five or six dark men are left but they have fled. There are so many bodies. I see them stacked in blood soaked piles on the barren earth.

They can replenish their numbers from the corpses as we cannot. We have to defend the body piles and then we will all die. It is the best we can do.

Swamp Driving

Fri, 29 Jul 2011 23:56:53 -0400

I’m sitting in the passenger seat. Why is Ila trying to drive through this much water? The car will never make it. We sink. We sink deeper and lose momentum.

So here I am. I dive dive down and grab an armload of books. I haul it to the shore and lay the books out on the cheap, rented, buffet tables. I do it all over again. Why were all our books in the car? Why?

Bikes and Ghosts

Thu, 14 Jul 2011 07:32:51 -0400

We’re riding east across the first bridge, into the sun in the early morning...

...

We’re gathered in a brightly lit room. There is a lightly colored wooden bar along one wall and the clutter of personal belongings on shelves. Chris O’Conner is talking about a shared server that will allow for download time and cost savings by acting as a proxy for updates...

...

We ride east across another bridge, all our bikes clumped together, like in a horrible 60’s biker flick...

...

There are four of us left after that last bit. We had to ride over a grassy hill, no easy task on a bike designed for roads. I hear the most unreal of sounds. I can feel it more than hear it, but not quite like feeling strong bass, more like remembering a sound you’ve never heard.

“It was a ghost,” one of them says. You can find them and see them if you know how. We should go look. He removed a can from his saddlebag and opens it up. He pushes it agains a concrete wall leaving two round, light brown marks, then puts the can away.

We fire up the bikes and ride across the grass again. Mac almost tips his bike and he’s singing some silly, made up song. The left grip on my bike is falling apart and I need to replace it. We hit a stretch of expressway that has been closed off and which is in poor repair. We turn down it and are making good time now. A corvette is coming straight at us, on the wrong side of the median and I speed up to swerve into the other lane ahead of the the rest of the crew.

Suddenly I see an accident ahead and I have to rapidly slow down. It looks bad. Is this where our ghost is?

Boating

Sun, 22 May 2011 10:41:50 -0400

The boat is sliding smoothly through the waters of the canal. The foliage on either side is low and in places you can see across the green banks and wetlands. My father is piloting the flat-bottomed boat from a wheel in the midsection. We approach another canal joined to this one, almost a T-intersection and we throttle back to a very slow cruise.

A man on a dock up ahead waves his arms at us and yells something unintelligible. We both wave back. As we get closer he yells across the water, “There’s a patrol-boat up ahead that wants to talk to you.”

My father waves and replies, “thanks” then spins the boat around and heads back the way we came, with a roar of the engine. I think it is amusing and wonder if he has something on the boat he doesn’t want the police to see. Probably not, he’s just being whimsical.

We go around several bends in the canal and out of sight of the other waterway and then slow back down. I’m looking over the side into the water, idly hoping to see some fish, when I catch site of something else entirely.

The body of a very young child is floating in the water, just under the surface, It is a little boy, or maybe a girl no more than two years old. And just a little bit away is a woman tangled in some branches on the bottom. I feel sick. As the boat moves along I see the head and shoulders of a man sticking out of the silt. He is almost entirely bald and has an expression of horror or pain on his face.

I yell and we stop the boat. We’re going to have to talk to that patrol boat. And I’m going to have to call Kristi and tell her I’m not going to be back from lunch in time.

OMG! Zombie!

Sat, 21 May 2011 08:43:59 -0400

It is a clear and bright day and I’m standing in a concrete driveway in front of an open, two car garage. The garage is quite clean and organized (not like mine). Someone yells incoherently and I know a zombie is coming.

I tell the elderly woman standing at the edge of the driveway (peering into the woods) to grab something. We both run into the garage and look around. I point to a camp shower, made of a tripod with long tube and nozzle and tell the woman to grab it. She complies.
I grab a splitting maul covered in white dust. It looks just like one I own.

The zombie appears just as we walk back out of the garage. It is the grey corpse of a bald, hunched man. Its mouth is open but it makes no sound. It moves in lurches, fast then slow.

We are each on one side of it now. I yell at her to hit it once to distract it. she says shower is too short but steps in and swings her weapon at it.

There is a cloud of dust and zombie pieces cascade to the cement, obscured by the dust cloud. I swing downward immediately with maul, even as she is attacking. My attack meets no resistance goes right through like nothing. The head of the maul hits the concrete driveway, jarring my arms.

There is not much left. The driveway is littered just powder and bits of bone, and some bright green leaves tied into a bundle with brown vine.

This zombie was very weak and easy to kill, not like that zombie I saw in Hong Kong.

Renegade Police Detective

Sat, 19 Mar 2011 11:34:20 -0400

My perspective in this one is split. I’m seeing through my eyes but at the same time I’m looking at the scene from a third party perspective, like I’m watching a TV show, with the camera angles and cuts and panning and other cinematic trappings.

I’m standing in the aisle in a small convenience store, maybe a gas station. The lighting is yellowish and sad. The shelves are stocked with innumerable packages, boxes, bags, plastic vacuum sealed containers all in garish clashing colors to attract the eye of the consumer.

There is an older man with me, dressed in a brown blazer. I know (without knowing how I know) that he a police detective and he’s been kicked off the important kidnapping case because he rubs people the wrong way. Now he’s stuck doing witness protection duty, looking after me, and I really don’t need looking after. I don’t feel I’m in any danger... and they really need him. He’s there best man and knows what’s going on. Stupid police politics.

We’re looking at a refrigerated case at a selection of beer. “They just started selling it,” he comments, gesturing. There is a tallboy can in a lime green color.

“It’s Guinness with vodka already added in,” he continues. I find the concept disgusting.

“We should do something,” about this, I emphatically reply.

“We could shoot them,” he characteristically offers.

We grab up a few cans as well as a few cans of regular Guinness and leave through the back without paying. The back door opens into a large field of weeds and grass, mowed short and turned brown by the fall weather. We need to swing by the hotel room and get my revolver but before we get very far a helicopter flies in.

Policemen, in uniform and plainclothes, climb out, over closer to the hotel. Clearly they have decided to put the detective back on the case. Hmm, we better do something about all this beer before they see it.

Animalia?

Sat, 26 Feb 2011 10:45:58 -0500

Half remembered bits and pieces:

The house is still there, off in the misty distance where it can’t be seen. No one goes there anymore. This prison cell is a remnant, a cell without walls, a wooden platform that looks like a section of a dock sticking out into the air. The suits of armor are still in the house. I can picture them, fantastical gleaming steel, a little dulled now, with full helms. THEY don’t fit in them anymore, of course. They could compress themselves down and form themselves into them if they truly desired, but they have moved on and are even more horrible.

...

[Teto is the name of a tabby cat]
Teto jumps down off the steps and runs around the corner, all while a small red winged blackbird sits upon his back, chirping.

...

The mouse hides itself and yells up the stairs, “Hide! He’s coming back!”

“What’s going on, you’d think hell itself were here,” comes a reply from upstairs.

But hell is here. He’s come back. A wild boar, all tusks and hooves, is dangerous creature. But now I see him and he’s changed. Gone is the dull grey-brown coat. It is replaced with orange and black tiger stripes. Complementing those tusks are now jagged, white canines in a porcine mouth. A heavy bronze or brass bell with a ring of simple symbols on it, dangles from a ribbon about the beast’s neck. He snorts and smoke drifts lazily about the dimly lit room as he sniffs the rug and floorboards and follows the path of the mouse.

...

Teto leaps joyously out of the grass into a open space then runs full tilt across the field, all while the red winged blackbird holds on to his back singing cheerily.

Recursion

Wed, 16 Feb 2011 08:55:04 -0500

I am in an assembly in a large room with orange carpeting in my old highschool [although I don’t think this room existed there]. The assembly as something to do with the GLBA and tolerance and also something to do with music. My old Latin instructor, Mr. Dutcher is there and he’s giving us instructions. I run to the back of the room to get changed into fresh clothes, but only get halfway done before I’m called back because the assembly is starting. I have to sit in some low bleachers while people talk and I’m not very interested. Some of the school band is a row behind me and try to play something as part of the presentation, but their microphones don’t work and for some reason they are barely audible without them. This seems really strange to me and I wonder if I’m awake. I wake up.

[I check the alarm clock and see I still have half an hour before I wanted to be up. I roll over and go back to sleep.]

I’m in a storage room, still in my old high school. [I have a perspective where I know where I am and can see a bird’s eye view through the ceiling and see what is in the hallway outside. This doesn’t clue me in to the fact that I’m dreaming.] I’m glad that assembly and my dream about it are over. I head out into the hallway amidst a crowd of students all of whom vanish rapidly in a comical fashion into other rooms.

I see Chris OConner in the hallway, coming around the corner near the administration section of the building. I raise and arm and call to him, but can’t properly say his name for some reason. It has to be lunch time now. I point towards the cafeteria. He shakes his head but says nothing. I look at the old fashioned analog clock on the wall and it reads 2pm.

I decide to skip out for a drink and food even if I’m supposed to be in class. After all I’m not a kid even if I’m in high school for some reason. He comes with me and several times I look back to see three people following us down the halls. Two are short and wear glasses. One is tall with red hair. They are dressed in mustard and dark brown colored clothing and are stopping and looking at us through a shiny brass telescope when I look back at them.

We go outside and see some girls I know he likes. [I have an impression of them, but I don’t know I ever saw them clearly. If so I don’t remember what they looked like.] He tries to convince them to come with us. Some unintelligible sound, muted like a teacher from a Charlie Brown special replies from the group. Chris replies “no we’re just going to get drinks. We’re not doing drugs.”

I chime in, “Well and some huffing, you have to huff something.”

They stalk away and he gives me an baleful look. Something is wrong with the light. It is too orange and to consistent in the sky, with no gradient. There is no sun. I try to open my eyes to look at my “Μορφέας” tattoo but in so doing realize my eyes are closed and I’m dreaming. I wake up. [Or so I think.]

In truth this ends the dream within a dream, although perhaps that concept is a bit too simplistic. This isn’t the movie “Inception” where I intentionally go to sleep in my dream. Rather, I’m still sleeping and the influence of the previous part of the dream, (thematically) seems to carry right into the next part of the dream.

This time I wake in my own bed. I struggle out of tangled blankets that are too warm and get up. I am already wearing clothing and I open a wooden door, then one of those metal, industrial doors with a bar for a latch. I am ready to get that lunch. I walk back out the glass, front doors to the high school and see Matt Reeves and Bill Merrill sitting in the snow. I say, “hey” and walk over to them; my feet crunching in the snow.

Bill stands up like he was waiting for me to eat and I start to turn towards town but hesitate. I’ve been dreaming a lot. I should really check and make sure I’m awake. I look at the “Μορφέας” tattoo on my arm and see only vague smudges indicating where the letters should be. “It isn’t there,” I tell them. Looking back I see them as props, faceless dummies ready for the movie magic that makes them seem real, but crude and clearly dummies without it. I will myself to wake and feel a falling sensation. I spread my arms out and lean backwards and seem to fall a great distance in complete darkness. I’m not waking up and I’m a little distressed by this. I concentrate and will myself into wakefulness.

I wake up. I spoke out loud to myself, “Awesome!” At this point I checked my tattoo several times to confirm I was really awake. That was some very interesting “dream within a dream” interaction with lucid dreaming.

A Bit Mad

Sat, 29 Jan 2011 10:23:09 -0500

I’m swimming in the deep end of an indoor pool, one of those old fashioned rooms all tile in blues and whites. The tiles are cracked here and there and long, dirty, fogged up windows in wooden frames with peeling white paint depict neglect. The overhead lighting from round, metal shrouded lights on cables casts no shadows and is unforgiving. The pool is filled with dozens of crocodiles and sharks. In the clear water I can see them distinctly; toothy crocodile grins and complex golden lizard eyes as they swim up to my legs. I kick one away and bruise my leg a bit. Three or four other workers are helping me arrange things.

The bosses come in through the grand, double doors on one end and are gesturing widely and laughing. Their language is like french, but not quite, some sort of pidgin or maybe they are not even people and it is not a language. The water finally overflows the bounds of the pool and starts to fill the surrounding area. They are getting their feet wet but seem delighted.

One of the crocodiles flops out of the pool proper and heads their way and they all start kicking at it. The bullet-like grey froms of two sharks are nudging my legs, ready to bite me, as I swim to the edge. A phone is ringing (an old fashioned lump of black, not a modern electronic) and I climb into the shallow water around the pool proper to answer it.

I’m out of the water and dry now, going to check on the champagne. The room is small and the carpet mustard colored. Angular shadows define the room. I push to one side a small sliding door on a wooden cabinet. The cubby behind contains the wine; a bottle with a yellow label and one with a bright, multicolored label, along with some plastic swords, some napkins, and other bar type accessories. Only two bottles of wine, neither champagne. Idiots!

I stride impatiently into the hallway and through a decrepit exterior door into the garage. Several people are milling about near the open garage door. It is dark outside and snow covers the ground, but the weather has turned warm and wet tonight.

An older woman with grey hair and glasses is smoking an expensive smelling cigarette. She asks me about my upcoming trip to Germany and how it was. I pick up a sharpened sea shell and make small cuts in my left cheek, then start to tell her.

Germany was beautiful but small and will be smaller every day. The people will all seem nice, but I do not like them. The faces I recall are like dolls, unmoving and too stereotyped. There will be lightning. I recall the storm that will trap me there several extra days. Roads are flooded by brown waters, the scene obscured by falling rain and poor lighting. A green bicycle leans against a building.

Texas Sucks

Sun, 23 Jan 2011 10:32:55 -0500

The basement is painted in beige... the color of blah. I’m still in Texas and need to get back north if the weather will cooperate, but the people on the road trip with me just want to play a game about werewolves. I’m going to find a bar.

And suddenly, I’m at a bar. It’s dark here and I’m at a round table with an imitation wood top; sitting with a few other people. The overall color scheme seems to be red and black. This particular bar is crowded and noisy and smoke obscures everything. This guy comes up to my table. He’s tall with dark hair and really drunk. He wants to talk but is just annoying. He repeatedly picks up my stuff from the table and starts playing with it, then I have to take it away before he can break it or lose it.

I’m out of here too. I pay my bill at the bar, counting out change carefully and then start to leave, but that guy has my wallet somehow! He’s counting through my money, laying it out on the table and I have to snatch it back. I put my wallet away while he blathers on, laughing, then head outside.

Oh great, he’s following me. He keeps pace with me and is clearly going to go to the next bar with me too. This sucks. And then I notice the devil. It’s walking behind us catching up, hobbling because it has one goat leg with a hoof and one more human looking leg. I can only see it in silhouette, but that’s plenty. I start to run down the street.

I go into the first open doorway but it’s a fancy black tie eatery and the maitre-de tosses me out before I can explain. I run again, this time into a sushi bar. There is disco music playing and the place is done up in blue colors. Someone is eating french fires. Hmm, I don’t really like this place. I’m going to run past the devil and make it elsewhere. I head out and run around the corner into a dark part of the street. It is starting to drizzle but there is a neon sign ahead for some place with pool. That looks good. I run inside.

Public Speaking

Wed, 19 Jan 2011 10:01:50 -0500

I’m standing off to the side of the room, between rows of tables and chairs and a stage recessed into one wall and elevated a few feet. I’m carrying a long, wooden box tucked under my arm. On the stage is a single table and a few chairs.

People are starting to filter in and sit at the chairs in the main part of the room. My co-speaker is a woman in a burgundy business suit. I’m directed on stage and she sits near the front of the stage awaiting her turn.

On stage I place my box to one side and tap the little, black microphone where it sits in its stand. Nothing. I tap it a few more times then take it out of the stand. I say “anything people” into it, but it is not working.

The organizer tells my co-speaker to go ahead and take a seat on stage as well. I fiddle with a dial on the mic stand and tap it again. It still isn’t working.

Disjointed Bits

Sun, 9 Jan 2011 10:43:41 -0500

I’m walking along a long brick building. It is about six stories high and party obscured by the blowing snow. I trudge through a foot of powdery snow in the footsteps of faceless others. the path becomes steep as it approaches the doorway, too steep to climb. I detour around to my left and slowly begin climbing towards the entry.

...

I’m sitting at a cheap table under bright, fluorescent lights as he explains his concerns to me. His brown eyes seem dull and I feel a sort of contempt for his attempt at condescension, as if I don’t understand how important it is to have the right bumper sticker. I should wear one of the ribbons on my wrist, so the other workers know I’m patriotic. One of the blue ones, not the red. I nod and smile and he looks satisfied. The world is full of deceit.

...

“He’s baring his teeth” the man says in a shaky voice as the golden retriever sticks its face right into his. I can see the dog’s tail wagging and his hind legs are in a sitting position on a footrest. His front leg are standing up and he’s sticking his face right into the man’s face. I’m not concerned. The dog’s muzzle is a bit of a blur. Is it baring its teeth? I can’t see for some reason. It really doesn’t matter to me.

I’ll Ride Where I Want

Fri, 3 Dec 2010 09:38:33 -0500

First off, no one wants the whipped topping. I have a whole container of it stuck on my wrist, with my hand shoved through the side of the container. What am I going to do with it?

I’m standing in the back on the set of a movie and it is sort of medieval looking with crowds of people in costume making up a royal court scene. They’re filming the whole thing in one long shot it seems, more like a play.

I’m hungry and all that food is fake or in front of cameras. I go out back and hop on my motorcycle. I’m going to get something to eat. For some reason I don’t bother to put on my helmet, but instead tuck it under my right arm.

I take off and ride down the road a ways. I think there might be a convenience store if I turn right at this ‘T’ junction. Oh crap! I can’t make the turn with my helmet under my arm. because I‘m riding one handed. Okay I swerve the less steep direction and have to dodge oncoming cars three times. I’m still going the wrong way, back north and I’m weaving to avoid people still. I pull off the road onto a grassy lawn.

I notice my helmet is gone. I must have dropped it. Why would I ride without it on and without a hand on the throttle? How did I ride that way. This seems like a dream. I concentrate for a moment then my bike and I slide down beneath the earth. It’s bright down there because I can still see the sun shining through the many meters of dirt, but the dirt is cool and relaxing. I’m glad I don’t need to buy a new helmet.

Oh yeah, I forgot my lucid dreaming queue. I look at my arm and see the queue and my roman numeral for the day. It is “IV”. I look away and back and the roman numeral is rapidly flickering between different numbers. It should be “IV” and it does settle down and return to that value. Interesting.

I woke up at this point.

Code is Reality

Sat, 20 Nov 2010 00:07:48 -0500

This one is a little vague and I have trouble recalling the details.

The police are on the other side of the railroad crossing. I enter some HTML tags in the air, opening an <a href=” statement forcing them, the police, the world to complete it.

There is a statue and it controls the economy.

Multiplicitousness

Wed, 3 Nov 2010 10:15:13 -0400

I’m walking into the dim hallway, towards the bathroom door, on my right at this end of the hall. (The layout is identical to the home I grew up in.) I see movement down at the far end. It’s the cats. Wait, there are three copies of one of the cats and two of the other. Ila forgot to put the day away at the end of the last few days and now we have duplicates of things walking around.

...I woke up, discussed the dream and went back to sleep...

It’s dark in here and I can tell the room is fairly large. Things are moving around in the dark and I’m pretty sure I just saw two of Teto (one of our cats). Am I dreaming again? I try to look at the tattoo on my arm to check, but it is too dark. There is a digital clock with blue LEDs on the other side of the room, but I can’t make out the numbers. They’re kind of blurred.

Okay, I’m probably dreaming. If I can’t check the usual way, maybe I can just make something happen. I will the lighting to improve and sure enough it gets brighter in here. Hmm... that’s supposedly one of the harder tasks to accomplish.

The room is the size of a three car garage. It has a high ceiling and is mostly empty. A couple copies of the cat are walking about. I push and the room expands into a vast cavern, then expands again into something indistinguishable from out of doors. The light is pale white and comes from nowhere. I start to walk.

The ground is smooth and grey, like polished stone, but uneven and bumpy. As I walk I pass a lion and a pile of leaves. I see Ila standing a bit away and wave to her.

“We’re in a dream, cool huh?” I comment.

She smiles and we walk along until we get to a small, ornamental tree full of small brown birds with long needle-like beaks. They chirp and hop about in the branches. Ila plucks at what looks like an injured bird, concerned for it, but it turns out to be only a clump of feathers.

We continue on a bit and come across a flock of seagulls standing to our right, squawking for food. I make a bag of big sunflower seeds appear and hold it out to Ila. She throws the seeds one by one and each bird catches one in its beak, then a second in its beak, spinning them around and around, like juggling. Each bird than catches two seeds on each wing and maintains six spinning seeds. Is there meaning in this?

At this point in the dream I woke up.

Engine Trouble

Sun, 24 Oct 2010 10:25:08 -0400

We can hear the approach of the convoy in the night. The best view is going to be along the riverside, so we hop over the low fence in the dark, before the lights arrive, and walk down the steeply sloping river bank.

...

I really need to get going or I’m going to be too late. I swing my leg over the bike, turn the key, and hit the starter. Crap! The headlight and instruments dim and the engine does not turn over. I turn off the flow system and hit it again as a test.

Yup, that did it. The bike starts right up with a deep rumble, but also starts shooting a stream of water out of the side. The water is going up and over the side of the pedestal upon which I stand. Why are we hundreds of feet up above the surface of a lake?

I start to explain to the boy. You see here, on the back in this compartment? There are two valves. Once the water stops you have to reach in and flip the first one open then closed again. Pull your hand back quickly so it does not get pinched. Then just close the one on the other side.

I wish I could stay and wait for the bike to be repaired. I’ll have to come back for it. No one will mess with it up here anyway.

Great White Spider

Tue, 28 Sep 2010 08:10:51 -0400

As I walk across the room, I notice a bunch of cobwebs have formed at about head level, in the northwest corner. It looks like there is some crumpled paper stuck to the wall there as well. Wow! That is not paper it is a spider, easily ten inches across. It is white with little black mottling here and there. It’s sort of flat like a crab. It moves a little in the web.

I’ve got to get rid of this thing. can’t believe how big it is. I should catch it in something. Is that antique blue Ball jar on the kitchen shelf large enough? Probably not. This is unbelievable. I should make sure I’m not dreaming.

look down at may arm and read “Μορφέας” and see the numeral “IV”. I look away then back and... there is a sensation off rushing, like blood rushing back, and I’m awake.

Breaking & Entering for Xmas

Thu, 9 Sep 2010 22:49:27 -0400

We had broken into the house. It was cold outside, snow on the ground, and we just needed a place to sleep. Someone with money lived here. It was one of those sprawling houses built in the last few years, where everything is new and expression of conspicuous consumption, but reflects mundane taste and no appreciation for actual quality of material or work.

It is Christmas time and the whole place is decked out with lights and tinsel and various gewgaws. I wanted to sleep by the side window with only one light turned on so we could see if they were coming home and slip out, with them none the wiser. Ila insisted on turning the lights everywhere though and now I’m worried. The family dog is nice though, a golden retriever who seems to welcome us.

Crap! They’re coming home. The garage door is opening. I can see a big, tan, SUV pulling in. We’re running out the back, boots in hand, leaving easily followed prints in the snow, while my socks become soaked.

Vomiting Bigfoot

Wed, 1 Sep 2010 09:06:25 -0400

Two dreams I recall tonight, both brief:

Vulpine Shenanigans

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 15:55:38 -0400

The market streets are narrow and busy, vendors in small booths are everywhere, and the clamor is disorienting. The sun is at a steep angle leaving many of the businesses in stark shadow. I’m examining the wares at a booth where small bags of herbs are displayed and I decide to purchase a bag of yellow seasoning of some sort, labelled “big bird”.

Just then a small fox, mottled grey and red hops up on one of the tables then runs over to me. It is not behaving normally, I hope it is not rabid. It nips at my leg and I reach down to shoo it away, but it bites my hand, hard enough to hurt but not enough to break the skin... I hope. I pick it up as it bites and snaps at me. Eventually I have it held in such a way that it cannot reach me with those sharp little teeth.

Bourbonelle

Sun, 11 Jul 2010 11:48:51 -0400

The man on the opposite side of the ring shaped bar yells across to me.

“Try this!”

A 2-liter bottle is passed around until it reaches me. The label has old fashioned printing in browns and yellows. It reads, “Teaspoon’s Tea (A Bourbonelle).”

Intruders Do Not Exist

Fri, 7 May 2010 15:14:03 -0400

This was a successful lucid dream and so may be of more interest to people than my average dream journal entry.

I wake suddenly hearing a noise outside. It’s dark and I’m in the bedroom and not only is there noise outside, but I know someone means me harm. I wrap myself in a blanket and pick up my revolver. I listen for the direction of the sound and walk out into the living room.

It is dim in the living room, still night out, and all the furniture is covered with black comforters, sort of like the sheets in furnished houses with no one living in them, you see in the movies. That’s really odd. If I have to break a window to get out, those will be useful. Do I smell smoke?

Am I dreaming? I should check by looking at my arm. A glance down shows that it is far too dark. I move over towards the back door (and the window in it) to get more light, but it is clearly going to be too dark there. I bring on dawn and it gets lighter outside. Now early morning light is shining in. [Strangely being able to make it dawn does not seem unusual or a sign that I’m dreaming.]

I hold up my arm as I get to the door and read “Μορφέας” then the roman numeral “IV”. I look away and look again. Now here are three different roman numerals written on my arm and one of them is sort of translucent and hovering above my arm. What do you know... I’m dreaming.

Now what? I set the pistol down on the kitchen counter. I hope I haven’t been sleepwalking with a firearm. What do I want to do? It is all ephemeral and internal, so none of it will matter. Then again, maybe that’s not wholly true. I return to the bedroom and sit on the bed in lotus posture. I focus on myself and looking into myself for understanding. In addition to myself I see my organs depicted as curves and spheres; as glowing abstractions. What can I understand? My mind explores.

“Meow.” I glance up to see the cats playing in a silvery metal box on the bed. One wants into the box and the other jumps out, waits for her to enter, then bats her in the head from outside. I smile. The sound of rain grows more intense, entering my awareness. When did I close my eyes? I open them and this time I really am awake.

Pick-Up-Sticks

Sun, 21 Mar 2010 15:16:46 -0400

I drift in the water, in the sunlight, sleeping... near wakefulness. Around me white walls rise up, surrounding the pool, with a glass wall on one side. The world has passed away.

I arise and try to prepare, but the light is too bright. I can’t keep my eyes open and stagger about with them closed. My whole family is here, my mother, father, brothers, my grandmother, and grandfather [he’s alive in my dream but passed on in real life]. Caleb is trying to fix a wireless internet router and TK wants the password.

Now we’re at a shop, one among many in an enormous strip mall. They are all full of confiscated possessions repossessed from the dispossessed. My grandparents things have been taken and are here. We wander. My brother Frank finds a box of beer, Guinness, but strange flavors thereof. He asks if I want to go in on them and I agree, but I wonder why I don’t just buy them for him as a gift.

I open drawer after drawer looking. One drawer is full of old toys. Another is full of teddy bears, each taken, now indistinguishable. In one drawer I find a box, carved in abstract detail and made of a lightweight, dark colored wood. Inside are wooden slats, carved with hash marks and the occasional raised bit of hieroglyphics. Below those are sticks, like chopsticks, and mixed in is one die. It is also carved wood, but intricately so that it looks like a monkey skull. One side juts out too much and it would never land with that side down. I ask my father about it as we all head to the front of the store and he tells me it is a game of pick-up-sticks. I must have never learned how to play that game, because it is so strange to me.

My Grandfather is checking out at one counter using a credit card. He isn’t sure how it works and they want to know if it is debit, but this is his first card issued by this store. My grandmother is working the register at the next line over. A woman compliments her on her sweater and the hand painted bunnies on it. She tells her, it was really nice when the store confiscated all of them and put them up for sale.

The Fence

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 07:06:15 -0400

The fence is electrified. It would not keep the hippos contained if it were a regular chain link fence. I don’t remember why I’m in here with them, but the snows are deep and in some places it looks like I can get over the fence. I want to sort of jump forward, so I don’t fall back against it at any point, even if I slip.

I can hear her voice as she’s telling me...

“so it’s all different with kids now. I saw some kids jump the fence and I ran after them. When I caught up they were angry and indignant. ‘what school are you from?’ they asked.

‘I’m from the university,’ I (she) replied.

‘Oh, OK. We might sue.’ the youth countered.”

Foot

Mon, 1 Feb 2010 12:32:19 -0500

I’m just getting into the shower while the argument rages. The shower itself is a long stall of small white tiles, sort of like a locker room.

“That level of intolerance towards people from the middle east is not acceptable,” I yell back to the commander. Why do they have to pull this crap when I’m about to shower? Worse yet, my left foot just fell off and is sitting by itself on the floor while I walk on the stump.

Is it really worth the effort to go back out on my stump and deal with those idiots? My other foot feels a little loose too.

Bendable

Wed, 13 Jan 2010 09:48:36 -0500

The stadium is lit tonight by those ultra-bright overhead lights that look like white balls of lighting clustered together and strapped to a very tall pole. I’m in one of the areas where the view is obscured, back behind a series of bleachers. The crowd has not yet arrived and only a few hundred people are milling about preparing.

I approach the first set of bleachers to get to work. It is grey, powder coated tubing, slightly rusted, and the benches are a fake wood laminate in white on top. There’s one guy up at the top of it, rigging some advertising banners, but he waves me on.

I focus on the benches, looking at the bleachers from one side and push with my thought. A tunnel, about two meters across, begins to form as the benches bend and twist. After a moment I’ve created a circular tunnel made of bleachers, that starts about the third row up and goes all the way through to the other side.

I repeat my performance on two more stands and move into the central area. This is going to be the hard one. I feel like I’m fighting myself, struggling as I make a small tunnel, only a meter across. The others were simple compared to this one. I can see it is not working out. I’m going to have to redo it.

What’s that sound?

Lame

Sun, 10 Jan 2010 11:25:38 -0500

I get off the bus expectantly, but apprehensive. I haven’t been to the factory in a year and a half. Will I still get along with the people? I enter and the whole group is sitting around the break room smoking cigarettes. I say “hi” and am received cordially, but without enthusiasm. Well, we’d better get to watching the Mystery Science Theater 3000 DVD I brought along. Why am I here?

The dream ended at this point with a feeling of confusion and disgust.

One Fine Day at the Hospital

Sun, 20 Dec 2009 11:48:58 -0500

Walls of sterile white, fluorescent lighting galore, ugly tile floors and hallways everywhere; I’m certainly in a hospital, a hallway outside of the reception area for this department. I’m in the midst of an argument with a young woman with blonde hair.

“I’m going to stay” she asserts. “If you people solve it I want to know and with only a handful of people left you can certainly use my help. Will I really be any safer hiding in the city somewhere?”

She doesn’t wait for an answer but does an about heel and stalks off. “there’s only a few of us?” I wonder. What I’m really interested in is the dead woman. Her body is in the morgue, a middle aged woman of african american descent. She is one of twins and her twin is out there somewhere.

I re-enter the reception area then on to an examination room. I’m almost a doctor now, and does it matter anymore. I sit at a small desk and begin to write with great difficulty as I speak the same words to the patients [whoever they are]. “This is condition Y. We’ve seen it before. Let’s run the test and start them on it.” I can’t seem to spell or type properly and it takes me half a dozen tries to get it down.

Dummy

Sun, 6 Dec 2009 11:41:05 -0500

The tunnel is lit by sunlight on each end, but does not really exist where the ends meet the world. Glass pipes line the walls, many meters deep, with openings and junctures and panels. The red, red blood flowing through the pipes colors the whole tunnel crimson by it’s mere proximity.

I’m tucked back behind some pipes, searching when they come. They are two of my own kind, at the end of the tunnel. Do I hide? Run? Why should I; they don’t know anything yet?

They have the books. One was his, and they know it. It is written in the secret language. The numeral on the front cover is a give away.

*Have you seen this* he thinks hard at me.

*No, what is it?*

*Is this yours* he thinks, pulling out my book.

Shit. They have my book with my scent upon it. It was in the library.

*It was my father’s* I reply as he flips it open. The diagrams are there with the messages and keys, hidden in innocuous illustrations of men and women and vehicles. *It’s in the mortal tongue. I can’t read it but I used to look at the pictures* He’s a hunter for certain. Can he tell I’m lying? I go for the big bluff. *Mine! Give!* I drag it from his hands. He’s a little scared of me and backs off. If only he knew. He goes quickly.

I turn and go down the passageway to the other side and my own pipe of blood. It’s right on the main path, prestige from my heredity. The panel is cloudy and filled and there is a blockage. It looks like a toy horse, a dark shape in the blood, blocking the flow. They’d tear me to shreds for it, and it has always been there, stopping the blood, stopping me from really being one of them. It makes me weak, but my mind is strong and I outthink and bluff and trick and no one suspects the old bloodline could be anything but mighty.

I open the panel and dip my claw in the exposed blood, suspended. I scratch the symbols right on the glass of the pipe and turn the heavenly keys in the heaven in my mind. I see the shadows as he flows out behind me. An evil shard of me, quarantined, strong, horrible... obedient. I turn an look at him. He is not a horse at all but a dog. A humanoid dog-thing absurd in appearance. He’s taller than me and half his face is covered by metal, like an old jouster’s helm fused to flesh. Lettering raised in the metal reads “Dummy” in the mortal script.

The effect is comical. How they will smirk at this monstrosity. No one has ever been exposed as long as I. No one would or could wait so long to claim their birthright or in such a strange way. I am still apart from them, but now I have a dummy and they will learn to fear. A phantom floats invisible behind him, the shades of my ancestors all in one. Do they approve or are they angry? I don’t really care either way.

Fastfood Dreaming

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 11:39:29 -0500

I’m sitting outside at a McDonald’s on a sunny, but colorless day in the fall. I’m in the process of cutting a paper placemat into wavy strips about a centimeter across, using a small metal knife. After I cut each one, I eat it.

Some guy with long brown hair is delivering mail across the street and a woman dressed as a waitress from the 50’s is picking up placemats from nearby tables and putting down new ones. Ila is here and she grabs the arm of some guy I’ve never seen before and tells me to look at his shirt. It is green and has been cut all the way around the gut area exposing cut marks on his skin as well.

Immolation

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 13:07:05 -0500

He’s sitting there with both hands in front of him, rubbing them together furiously. She continues into the room looking exasperated. Then, with a snapping sound, his hands and forearms burst into tongues of brilliant orange flame.

Aquatic Preserve

Thu, 5 Nov 2009 11:34:52 -0500

I’m walking on the wooden walkways overlooking the murky water. In one juncture, it is too hard traverse so I run down a ramp and get a new piece of wood, that flimsy plywood sheet, to bridge the gap. The lumber I obtain is about 30 meters long and one meter wide. [which does not seem strange at the time] I paint the entire board a dark blue color and it dries instantly. I grab one end of the board and a passerby grabs the other and we walk it up a ramp that is a double switchback.

Eventually, we get the board up by the educational building, but just then tour guides arrive with a long train of children. I’m in the doorway, so I collapse the plank as though it were a rug, piling it up before me.

One of the tour guides remarks, “well we’ve got to make enough to keep the place open” as he passes me with a mob of noisy children. I notice my hands are coated with algae and muck so I go inside to wash them off.

When I come back outside I walk down to the water and hop from exposed stone to stone heading for the location for the new boardwalk. I stop on large boulder and look at a white anemone of some sort just below the water level. It moves and twists in the current, little tentacles reaching. Small children are yelling and running around behind me.

Advice

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 11:30:56 -0400

My old friend Mac sits before me on a wooden rocking chair. He’s dressed as usual in a mixture of plaid, denim, and leather. As if continuing a discussion or lecture he states, “You haven’t really lost a fight unless you end up in a hospital or a jail cell.”

Tres Critters

Sat, 10 Oct 2009 11:17:42 -0400

A large well lit classroom is full of students. The tables are a light colored wood and the walls and floor are white. The arrangement is tiered and semicircular and a monitor displays images on every desk. The students are hard at work, trying to concentrate but the biggest light in the room, at the center of the ceiling, is flickering, distracting everyone.

Finally one student is fed up. Frustrated he stands up and goes to a switch panel on the wall by the door. It’s one of those switches that needs a little key or a paperclip to flip it. He gouges the panel open with his knife, prying it off.

He jumps back as a large tarantula crawls out of the hole and onto the wall. He leans back in to look but a huge, bright blue spidery thing crawls out as well.

“Hey it’s a [unintelligible]” someone exclaims. I wish I understood what they said since I don’t know what that is, but it looks freaky. After it has emerged, out pops a little, fuzzy, yellow duckling.

All three critters follow him to the front of the room where he announces to know one that he’s taking them to the animal lab.

Growl

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 16:26:29 -0400

“Hey, when did that dog get on the bed” I think as I look behind me at the bed. It is small bed under a window with light streaming in. The walls are white and the sheets have a vertical stripe pattern. The dog himself looks like a young german shepherd. “I’ll get him” I tell them.

I grab a plastic laundry basket and try to trap him, but he springs up and playfully chews on my arm while looking at me over the basket. He looks stupidly happy. He’s cute though.

Incomprehension

Tue, 8 Sep 2009 12:06:49 -0400

I get to recall the the tail end of a very confusing lucid dream:

All the way from the longest island to the other one. It makes perfect sense even if it is a dream because it is just like recursion. I know I’m waking up now and I have to write this down when I’m awake for my dream journal and because it is so insightful. There is an elegance to the contention.

Then I woke up and while I could remember the tail end there I simply could not wrap my head around what the abstract idea I was dreaming about was or meant or maybe it meant nothing and just seemed to in the dream. I hate that! Maybe I‘m just less intelligent while awake.

Arachnids

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 11:13:34 -0400

I’m sitting in a hard wooden chair in a musty room, lit indirectly by meager illumination out the window. Ila is lying down upon a brown couch with faded, dark green, draperies behind it. There is movement near the ceiling and looking up I can see a spider... no two huge spiders each mottled black and white and about 8 inches across. They have flat bodies and short, strong looking legs.

I urge Ila to get up and she waves me off. I warn her that the spiders are coming down, but she just wants to sleep. A third one appears and they’re getting close to Ila now. She’s still refusing to listen to my warnings. One of them starts making some odd hissing sounds and biting at her and she finally looks at them and is alarmed.

Finally an even larger spider, maybe a foot across comes scuttling down the wall, biting and snapping. Ila grabs up one of the smaller giant spiders and tucks it under her arm. She jumps up and runs away, cradling it protectively to save it. She has a new pet.

Al Pacino?

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 01:09:00 -0400

I’ve been doing boring and repetitive tasks since I got here at 8 A.M. Who’d have thought working in a police station was so boring? The officer at the desk sends me down to help out on floor three. I climb the stairs and open the door into a cramped office. Two guys are sitting on opposite sides of a desk with their heads laying down. One of them is Al Pacino! Weird. There’s also an odd woman with carrot-red hair and a long brown coat, chain smoking.

Pacino raises his head up and looks at me blearily. “We need lots of donuts. We’re on this diet and need thousands of calories. And we need decaf coffee. Donuts. Donuts. Donuts.”

He goes back to sleep and I head down the stairs and exit into the lobby. The guy at the front is busy with a lot of people so I head out on the street and look around. There’s a glowing “Tim Horton’s/Wendy’s” sign on the building I just exited. I go back inside and follow little signs until I come to a huge cafeteria with a Tim Horton’s built into the wall. Hundreds of people (mostly uniformed police) stand in line that wraps around three walls.

I sigh as I queue up. There is a menu in a glass case, which, in turn, is on a metal stand. I start to peruse the offerings looking for a couple dozen donut variety bag.

That’s when I woke up.

Phantasms

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 15:23:51 -0400

I sit in the entryway of an old, rather rustic home. The floor is battered hardwood and has seen better days. An electric chandelier with fake candles and flame shaped bulbs hangs from the ceiling, covered in dust and unlit.

They dance, these ghosts... or perhaps they march. In a large circle they move steadily. Their hearts are cold and they are only there to the eyes. They are silent and have no presence. The cold hits my eyes in waves and makes them cold to the world, in turn.

My knees creak and hurt as I stand and hobble into the next room, pushing open the antique double doors. A fire is burning in the fireplace and I need to warm up. For some reason sheets of cloth, maybe a square yard each, are pinned to the wall above the fireplace. Each one is faded red, probably linen that was once a rich color. As I watch, they catch fire and are consumed. They fly from the wall in burning tatters and swirl about the room.

The fire singes my hair and burns my eyes. My eyes are frozen and burned and the world looks cold and ruined and hellish. The ghosts follow me into the room. Each one walks over to a series of ornate brass bird cages and takes a bird in their hand. They clutch and squeeze and smother and take the birds with them. The birds were wrong in any case they deserve their fate.

A chair falls over and a bird cage hops a few times then flies up into the air. Some old papers take flight next, then a wooden panel from the wall. Furniture and timbers and bricks and everything swirls and rips into a maelstrom all about me. It bounces off of me and I spin and the world rips itself apart in the eternal night.

Curfew

Fri, 5 Jun 2009 09:43:10 -0400

My exile was foreseen. I knew it was coming and was not going to wait for it. My friends knew. The town council probably knew too. I’m not very patient.

I hop quietly through the garden in the dark of night. The only illumination comes from street lights outside the courtyard. The air is humid. The trees and vines sway in a light wind. I trust to my luck in picking the stones to step on and the ones to avoid.

I reach the back of the house and I can feel the invisible web surrounding it. From within my shirt pocket I remove the folded over sheaf of paper with my note on it. It isn’t much of an explanation, but at least it is a goodbye. I shove my right hand and the paper through the web and lift the window latch. My left hand is clenched into a fist and I open my mouth, breathing heavily. No alarm.

I become aware of the old man as his astonishment overwhelms his craft. He’s been sitting on the porch, tucked away, watching me. I stare into his eyes and he into mine. I’m caught. He’s thinking what I’ve done is impossible. It is not impossible, but certainly remarkable.

Anyone else would have raised the alarm by now, but he is curious and confused. Perhaps he’s a little wiser than everyone else. My co-conspirators tip him over the edge. One of them makes a sound on the other side of the wall and he starts. The outdoor flood lights come on and I can hear the household awaking. I dance through the beams and trees and leap the wall and I can feel many eyes upon me as I make it over. Then, I turn it all off and the house plunges into darkness. We run.

It will take them a while but we’ve drawn too much attention to ourselves after curfew. We run down streets, cut through alleys and across parks to put distance between us and the incident. Our work is not yet through. I trust in my luck.

With my companions in tow I head to a house with an outbuilding and no wall or fence. The grass is cut short but bushes have grown along the edge of the building. The lock on the shed opens at my command and I step inside. I light a flame and we rummage around. There it is, a water purifier. We’ll need one in the swamp, but this is not a normal handheld. It is a big, industrial one with a two foot long metal tank, strapped on wheels. I grab an old, military bedroll as well and we head out.

The alarms start to ring. My luck has run out. We scatter in different directions and I take to the sky, leaping hundreds of feet in a jump, rooftop to rooftop. As I descend towards a wall I see a man, middle aged, with short hair, smoking a pipe.

“I mark you” he says as I alight. He’s rather smug and thinks my capture inevitable. He’ll be ready to testify before the city council. He looks a lot less smug as I bounce the purifier canister off the side of his head.

I leap again and again. The wall around the town has been activated and I can see my companions subdued by bailiffs where they tried to cross. I head north and into the swamp where the wall has not yet gone up. I knew I’d be the only one to make it, but I wish I had the rest of the supplies. I’ll return some day, many years from now, and some will still remember.

Hidden Brew

Wed, 3 Jun 2009 20:44:07 -0400

I only remember a few snatches of dream from last night.

It’s a sport bike with matte black engine parts and a blue gas tank, nestled among tables and chairs. “I should bring my bike to work,” I think.

...

Beneath the vending machine, if you lift up the bottom panel you can see cans of beer. They have a gold finish. They must be the champagne of beers.