Wordzzle 89 - Sugar-coated

This is my contribution to this week's Wordzzle. Wordzzle is a game in which each week word lists, used to create stories, are given on the blog Views from Raven's Nest. Participating users post their stories on their own blogs.

This is my entry number 33, for Wordzzle week 89.


Ten Word Challenge:

officer,
candid,
drowning,
turtles,
sugar-coated,
prospecting,
shame on you,
reclinder,
luggage,
brains

"Shame on you," said the officer to the man on the portable recliner who was eating sugar-coated gummy turtles and taking candid pictures of the near-drowning.

"Why?" said the man. "They should be worth some money to some news agencies. Don't you think a man ought to be able to make some money where he can?"

"Of course," said the officer. "I don't recognize you, and by the luggage sitting by you it appears that you are not local to here. I guess you're just traveling through, prospecting for stories, and it may be that wherever you were raised they didn't bring your brains, and your manners. to the levels expected around here. I was referring, of course, to your not offering to share your sugar-coated gummy turtles with me."


Mini Challenge:

paragon of virtue,
cats-in-the-cradle,
swamp,
sprinkles,
garbage

The paragon of virtue, covered with sprinkles of garbage and stringy plants, looking like a crazy cats-in-the-cradle had attacked him and died on him, climbed out of the swamp. His day, sadly enough, had just begun.


Mega challenge:

officer,
candid,
drowning,
turtles,
sugar-coated,
prospecting,
shame on you,
reclinder,
luggage,
brains

paragon of virtue,
cats-in-the-cradle,
swamp,
sprinkles,
garbage

The moss-and plant draped man, looking like a mad cats-in-the-cradle come to life, stood there, dripping pieces of garbage and swamp.

"Hey, watch it," the officer said. "You're getting sprinkles of that stuff on me."

"This is not the way a paragon of virtue should be treated," the man moaned.

"Well, you should have watched where you were going. Nobody with any brains would want to drive into that swamp."

"It was an accident, I was drowning," he wailed. "Does nobody care?"

"Let me take a few more candid shots," said the man in the recliner. "And try not to drip on my luggage."

"Shame on you, oh shame, shame!" cried the man. "I have suffered so much, and this is all I get. I was trying to avoid running over some baby turtles and lost control, and went into the swamp. And all I get is this, and no one cares, and I'm asked to pose for pictures when I'm sure I don't look my best, by someone prospecting for bad shots."

"Baby turtles? That reminds me. I think I might have dropped some of my sugar-coated gummy turtles back there. You didn't run over any, did you?"

The Question

This is a kind of free verse poem/essay, one that's unusual for me because of its political nature. The election, over a year ago now, settled things for a time, but the person the poem alludes to remains in the spotlight.

This poem/essay is dated 2:00 PM, October 23, 2008, Arizona time (MST).


THE QUESTION

I can't see Russia
From my house.

But I have seen
Japanese cars
And eaten
Mexican food.

Is that enough?

Dream - Studying data formats, then flying to a mall and meeting someone from grade school

On Saturday morning, July 26, 2008, I dreamed I was studying data formats when a practice alert occurred, then afterwards I flew to a mall and met someone from grade school.

In the dream, I was at work in Nevada. The Engineering room was filled with rows of long tables. I was sitting at one near the front near the corner. On the other side of the wall was the short hallway going to the front door.

I was reading books and doing research. The books were about various things, including formats for getting user names and passwords and security stuff. A lot of other stuff too, probably user addresses, but also other information. It seemed a lot of stuff to have to enter into the computer. It also talked about formats of a type of manuscript and for the editing of it. Many other things, too, including natural history type info.

The Engineering boss came over. He was on the other side of the table across from me and down a little ways toward the inside of the room, and animatedly talking to people. He was smiling as he talked, but I felt he was really spying on us, me in particular, checking to see if we were working. I kept on reading the books and I think taking an occasional note. It was something I needed to be doing and was work related. I felt a little uncomfortable anyway, though not much.

A practice alert occurred, a prescheduled one, though I had forgotten it would happen. The others left, some faster than others. I continued to try and read for a little while, to try and finish up some what I had been doing, but finally realized that I had better get going, that I would get in trouble otherwise. I left and wandered around. I don't remember now what I did.

I eventually ended up eating in my car. It was parked along with many other cars in rows in, I guess, a gravel parking lot. It was beyond the buildings out in what in real life would be desert, out in the Elko direction, away from Fallon. Although it was around lunchtime the light was not very bright, like it might be a little cloudy. I think I was still reading while I ate, also looking out the windows and thinking.

I looked at my watch (or a clock on the dash) and saw that it was a little after 1:00 PM. It was almost 11:00 when the practice alert occurred. I had decided to just combine it with lunch. I thought now, though, that the alert was probably only twenty minutes long and now it was getting kind of late and I had better get back. It didn't seem important, the amount of time I was taking, but then it seemed that the time might matter, that some people might be upset. Some other people stopped by and started talking to me. I got out and shut the door. It was an old car, like something from the 1950s. It seems I had another car there, too.

There was some kind of odd locking device on the outside. Sometimes it was on the fender near the passenger door and sometimes it was on the other side of the door around the bottom of the thick roof pillar. A key went in it to turn it. It was a round thing perhaps a couple of inches across with a bar across the middle. Once the key went in I turned the dial around quite a bit, it had a lot of travel. I kept talking about it as I demonstrated it. It seems it also had something to do with the wipers. One person was still there listening, but the others had gone on, going back to work. We had to get started, too.

I went and looked and there was a long way down to the shopping center. Although it was now a shopping center, not the place I worked, it didn't seem to matter or even be noticeable. The shopping center was at a lower level, down in the desert. The desert had occasional brush and plants. There was a broad dirt road that led down there that went to the side and then turned to the left toward it. Someone was still with me, though it didn't seem to be the same person as before, he seemed taller. Though I suppose he could just have changed in the dream, he looked different, too.

I decided to just fly down there, that I could do it. I wanted to show the other person, too. I think I was encouraging him to fly, but he didn't want to and either drove or hurried down on foot. I flew down, low over the landscape. I couldn't get much height.

As I got closer, a bunch of people were coming out and going down the road toward me. Then the man I was with suddenly came out of the tall brush at the right side of the dirt road. As I came down to the ground the people moved past me, talking among themselves. It seemed to be closing time, at least for the shift the people were on.

I went in to the shopping center. The light was dim. There were still people around, though not huge numbers. There seemed to be some military connection, like the shopping center had some military connection or side purpose.

I was still thinking about the user name, password, and user data formats as given in the book. It seemed there was some manual there that also talked about it as part of other things. It talked about something completely different at the front of it, maybe appliances or something like that, like the rest was partially hidden.

I needed to go to the upper level. It seemed the shopping center was very tall (though it didn't seem so when I saw it outside). The upper levels may not all be shopping and I think that some of them may have had more of a military purpose. There was some kind of projecting balcony or landing, maybe with folding stairs, though I think there was also a stairway or elevator somewhere far at the back of it.

I showed the person with me that I didn't need to use the stairs, I was so tall that I could reach up and grab the floor or something around there with my hand and then pull myself up on it. I think I may have originally thought more about flying up, though.

However I did it, I was now up on the walkway and could go toward the next level of the shopping center. The walkway was made of some dark material, metal and maybe old wood. It went into a right angle turn to the left and then I reached the end. There was a bit of a gap between it and the next level of the shopping center, and the next level was slightly higher, maybe a couple of feet, maybe more. The next level had a narrow walkway long the front of it with a thin metal railing. Someone was already there, or got there just as I was reaching it.

I recognised him as a short person I used to go to grade school with. He was still short and looked much the same, just older. He was there now on the walkway beyond the railing. He wanted to know if I recognized him. I said yes, and told him my name just in case he didn't remember it. I was very, very tired now, though, and I didn't get the name out very well. It was soft and blurred and trailed off. I tried again, saying something like "Stlephebim Morgahn." It was not very good, but I was so tired it was very hard to talk. He seemed to understand anyway.

He offered to help me up on the narrow walkway where he stood, there in front of the next level. I took his hand and he pulled me up.

When I got there I saw he was much taller and his face was longer and narrower. He was much taller that I was, maybe a half foot or so taller. I was surprised. He said he shot up a lot after grade school (or I simply supposed that to be the case). There was some other quality about him too, like he had some extra knowledge and/or power and was part of the military aspect of things in some intelligence or security function or knew something about it.

Dream - The small buildings in the lake, some with red liquid and some with blue

Around July 20, 2008, I dreamed I was driving back to Nevada along a place like the road by Walker Lake, going north, but instead of the lake being way down it was up near the road. My brother was there, in a separate car I think. He was irritated that I wasn't going faster. A lot had already happened, but I no longer remember it.

We got past the big curve and were going along a section that wound in and out slightly along that end of the lake. There was some kind of building or structure that went from the lake out over the road, very low, and we had to go through it. My brother went into it in his car, going slow, and I think stopped for a while. I was flying beside the road over the lake now, very low, unable to get much height even though I thought I should be able to. I think one arm or hand was stretched out toward and over the road, touching it, and my body and legs were out over the water. Sometimes my legs dipped into it a little bit as I flew.

A little before the building, maybe before the curve I think, I went out over the water and there was a tiny building, the size of a very small restroom, that had a pool of liquid near the door, trying to spread forward some, with little waves or ripples in it. It was a bright deep red in color, almost a fluorescent red, and a little thicker than water, like Jello before it sets or like antifreeze.

Now with my brother under the structure that came out from the water, I went out again over the water and found another little building. I think I did this a couple of times. These buildings, like the other, were tiny and had a narrow path to the door, but the pools associated with both of these had a bright deep fluorescent blue color instead of red. I was thinking that sometimes it was one color and sometimes the other, like this was normal and matter of fact. All the ones in this section seemed to have blue liquid though, which was a little disturbing for some reason.

Wordzzle 88 - Who done it?

This is my contribution to this week's Wordzzle. Wordzzle is a game in which each week word lists, used to create stories, are given on the blog Views from Raven's Nest. Participating users post their stories on their own blogs.

This is my entry number 32, for Wordzzle week 88.


Ten Word Challenge:

Cute,
come with me to the Casba,
bloodhound,
respiration,
Facebook,
Canada Geese,
modern,
gravity,
spider webs,
sea shells

"Come with me to the Casba," whispered the bloodhound, in breathy respiration.

The Canadian geese listened attentively but didn't move, held down more by the spider webs than by gravity. A small dog with sea shells hanging from its ears said, "You looked much cuter on your Facebook page."

The bloodhound nodded in acknowledgement and said, "It's amazing what modern photo editing programs can do. It's a mystery to me why more folks don't use them."


Mini Challenge:

curiosity killed the cat,
charming Victorian,
railroad tracks,
tower,
salt and pepper

"Curiosity killed the cat," said the charming Victorian gentleman, as he poked at the salt and pepper gravel around the railroad tracks, "but even those who aren't the least bit curious die eventually." He turned and looked at me. "That's what happened to me, you know. I wasn't curious at all, I simply happened to fall out of a tower."

He continued to ramble on, but I was distracted by the sight of the body lying beside the tracks, a body knocked there by the recently passed train.

A body that looked very much like mine.


Mega challenge:

Cute,
come with me to the Casba,
bloodhound,
respiration,
Facebook,
Canada Geese,
modern,
gravity,
spider webs,
sea shells

curiosity killed the cat,
charming Victorian,
railroad tracks,
tower,
salt and pepper

"I used to sell sea shells by the sea shore, but someone stole them all," said the bloodhound. "You wouldn't know anything about that would you?"

"I know nothing at all about it," said the little dog, "and I got these sea shells from a perfectly reputable source."

"I was called away to try to solve a murder mystery," said the bloodhound. "Someone sprinkled salt and pepper all over the trail, though, and I lost the scent. When I returned, all my things were gone."

"It wasn't me! And I'm sorry you weren't able to find out who killed the cat!"

"Who said anything about a cat?"

"Why, er, I just assumed... Curiosity killed the cat, anyway. Everybody knows that!"

The bloodhound turned to the Canadian geese, who said, "It wasn't us! We've been stuck in the spider webs all day! And we wouldn't know a thing about a cat being thrown from a tower onto some railroad tracks!"

"Who said anything about a tower and railroad tracks?" said the bloodhound.

"I wasn't there when the cat's respiration ceased. I never saw her last breath, or any of the breaths before that," a charming Victorian gentleman said, almost invisible in the shadows of a doorway.

"Who said she was a female?" said the bloodhound.

"I just read her Facebook page," said a cute young woman dressed in modern clothes. "She didn't say anything about being dead."

"Who said anything about the cat having a Facebook page, and how could you find it without knowing who the cat was and what name she used?"

The bloodhound looked with great gravity at all of them, and they cowered away under the intensity of the look.

"Who said anything about the cat being dead?" said the cat, casually strolling in. They all turned to look at her. "Come with me to the Casba," she whispered to the bloodhound.

The bloodhound looked back at her. "I thought you'd never ask."

Toasting Them All

This is another story that I did for a message board for a thread that was normally concerned with comically constructing new words and definitions. At that time people were taking turns writing short stories containing a short list of words given by another user. The story is changed slightly here in that it is broken up into two paragraphs instead of being contained in just one.

This story was one of several that I did for my post 989 on that message board. The other stories were separate from this one, with their own lists of words. The list of words for this story: rotation, mai tai, hooker, everglades, cheerful

This story is dated 5:04 AM, November 29, 2006, Arizona time (MST).


TOASTING THEM ALL

He raised the mai tai and toasted the bar, the hooker, the everglades, and the whole state of Florida. He then toasted them all again and began weeping.

His friends looked at each other uncertainly, and one put his finger by his head and moved the finger in a slow rotation. The other friend said "You may be right. He was a lot more cheerful, though, before we started watching 'CSI: Miami.' Let's see if we can find something else."

Dream - The Oldsmobile station wagon and teddy bears

In May of 2007, probably around the 26th or 27th, I dreamed of the 1973 Oldsmobile station wagon being down by Skaggs/Osco and having something wrong with it. I went with my mother down there, taking what looked like an anti-freeze bottle but having a little bit of U.S. Chemical Z-4 Ring & Valve Free in it. It was night and we stopped at a little diner that, in the dream, was on the west side of the building. I left the Ring & Valve Free down next to the counter.

My father eventually showed up and the station wagon was somehow taken to the radiator shop on the main road. I stopped back at the diner, as my mother was worried about the Ring & Valve Free. It had apparently been a day or two, maybe even more, but it was still there, along with my black leather briefcase. I was a little surprised about the briefcase, as I had forgotten it was there. In spite of the place apparently having been cleaned, and probably more then once, they were both still there, though the briefcase was slightly moved out from the counter on one side and the expansion snap had been undone on the inside on the bottom on one side, and one of the latches may have been undone also. I took both the briefcase and the Ring & Valve Free with me.

Sometime later, I went to the shop to check on the car. It was now daytime. In the dream, the shop had recently been turned back over to my father. The station wagon was parked way in the back, near the alley, next to another car. I walked slowly toward it across the concrete that I had had poured years ago, noting the occasional clumps of dirt on it, about the size of a large shovelful, some with an occasional blade of grass sticking out. I thought of how they had let the place go, leaving stuff like that there. I walked though one of them, shoving through it with my heavy rubber boot. I was very tired and it was hard to keep walking, and too much trouble to try and lift my feet above it.

A couple of employees went out there to the back, were perhaps going out there anyway, and in any case got there before me. One of them may have been one that I knew. They talked about a bunny they had found, evidently a toy one. I was excitedly shown two triangular piles, flat on one side, of what were apparently teddy bears, not bunnies, gray with old dust. One pile was supposed to be normal teddy bears and the other an antique version that was no longer made. Then it was abruptly reduced to one of each.

The antique teddy bear had a more oval head that was very flat in front. They were excited about licensing it to toy companies, and apparently several were interested. They hoped to use the money in a legal fight against the city, and perhaps also to meet some of the new city requirements.

It seems the city was trying to do some kind of revitalization project for that area. The old shed was going to have to be torn down, and nearby businesses were also going to be affected. I think some kind of beautification was also going to be done to the whole area near the alley. Perhaps even the main building would have to be torn down at some point, I'm not sure.

I think I started asking about the car, and my father had someone move it around to the side, where they opened the hood and started working on it. Other cars were there, too.

Dream - Grandpa and the violins

In May of 2007, probably around the middle of the month, I dreamed that I was driving through the south side of Phoenix, going east, probably a little south of Jefferson St. There was a lot of bare land, just dirt, to the right, the south. I went by or through some overpasses, underpasses and crossroads. For some reason I had been drinking (I don't drink) and a few miles ahead I was going to hit someone with my car and kill them. I somehow knew this was going to happen, like it was fated or had somehow happened before. Or perhaps I was informed by some presence or entity in the dream. I know there was someone I stopped and talked to. I continued on, but somehow never made it to where I was supposed to kill someone.

The dream seemed to skip ahead a few years, though I seem to remember at least some things happening in between. Years later, though, I was at another town, the place where the dead person's family lived. Grandpa, my mother's father, who has been dead about fifty years, got off a train, along with some other people who were with him. He looked thinner and seemed more energetic, but his hair was short and white instead of gray. He had several violins in their cases sitting around him, though not directly in front of him. There might have been six or seven. Although the person I killed had been dead for several years and presumably long buried, Grandpa felt that it was only right that since he was visiting the person's hometown that he should perform some kind of memorial service. He wasn't mad or judgmental, and seemed almost cheerful. More happened after that, but I don't remember what.

Wordzzle 87 - Impractical nurse

This is my contribution to this week's Wordzzle. Wordzzle is a game in which each week word lists, used to create stories, are given on the blog Views from Raven's Nest. Participating users post their stories on their own blogs.

This is my entry number 31, for Wordzzle week 87.


Ten Word Challenge:

plumber,
autograph,
Florence Nightengale,
a chill wind’s a blowing,
watering hole,
sleek,
triplets,
backwards,
surfacetension,
parrot

"A chill wind’s a blowing," the parrot said, as we gathered around the watering hole. It tested the surface tension with one foot, sending triplets of ripples out from its claws. "You know, you really should have called a plumber."

"Plumbers cost money."

"Just give them your autograph, like you usually do. That always seems to make them happy."

"That's my signature on a check. They got paid, of course they're happy."

"It was nice having running water, though. Still, it looks like I'm going to have some nice sleek bugs to eat."

"In the water?"

"Of course in the water. You'll want to strain yours. And boil it. I hate it when I have to tend to the sick."

"Yeah, you're definitely no Florence Nightingale," I said, remembering in spite of myself, and shuddering. "I think I'll just wait until the stores open in the morning, and get some water while I'm out getting more plumbing parts and tools."

The parrot hooked a bug with a claw and flipped it backwards into its beak. "You never give up, do you?"

"Can't afford to," I said. "There's not enough money to pay for others to do it."

A gust of wind blew across the grass, sending waves through it, and more ripples across the watering hole. "It's too cold to spend the night out here," the parrot said. "If you're not going to drink anything, let's go back to the house."

"Can't. Everything's wet, and I can't sleep with all the dampness and wet-carpet smell."

"I don't see how you're going to sleep out here. I'm going to have a difficult time of it myself."

"I don't think we have much choice."

"You'll catch pneumonia out here, and as I said, I don't like to tend to the sick."

A wave of fear went through me. "Uh, I guess we could go to a motel, just for tonight."

"And you'll call a plumber tomorrow?"

"Sure. I've still got some room on a credit card."

The parrot hopped on my shoulder, its claws gripping tightly. "Let's go then. It's not getting any warmer."

"Sure, I'll stop briefly at the house to get a few things, and then we'll go find a place to stay. Just don't let them see you, not everyone likes pets."

"Yes, I know," the parrot said, "but I tolerate you anyway."


Mini Challenge:

Free estimates,
French fries,
carpet,
Braille,
silver-tongued bandit

The silver-tongued bandit ate my French fries and left strange, Braille-like ketchup stains on my carpet. He offered to repair a leak in my roof to make up for it, but he ended up taking off layers of shingles and tar paper, and finally falling through a weak spot and then through the ceiling of my living room. He said he knew a guy who gave free estimates, but the repairs were anything but free. He offered to fix the leaky faucet then, and it seemed to actually be fixed at first, but that night it basically exploded and flooded the house before we realized what was happening. I had to replace all the carpet, but at least the ketchup stains were gone.

"See, it all worked out for the best," he said. You got a new roof, a new ceiling, a new faucet, and a new carpet, the place looks great. There's really only one thing left." He walked over to the wall switch for the hall light and fiddled with it. "This switch has gotten awful stiff and doesn't always work. I'm sure I can put a new one in there pretty quick and then everything will be perfect."

"Sure," I said. "Go ahead." Why not? The house needed all the wiring replaced anyway....


Mega challenge:

plumber,
autograph,
Florence Nightengale,
a chill wind’s a blowing,
watering hole,
sleek,
triplets,
backwards,
surfacetension,
parrot

Free estimates,
French fries,
carpet,
Braille,
silver-tongued bandit

The parrot peered at the thermometer. "I have no idea what this means, but I'm sure it's not good."

"I'm sure it's just a cold," I mumbled.

"I'm sure it's the swine flu. I don't know what I'm going to do if you turn into a pig." It suddenly yanked down one of my eyelids with its claw. "Aha! Bloodshot! What does that mean?"

"That I'm tired? You know, that claw is kind of sharp..."

"Stop complaining. You brought this all on yourself. 'A chill wind’s a blowing,'" I said, "but you sat out in it soaked, and then you got soaked again the next day."

"Well, I thought I could fix some of it before the plumber got here, and maybe save some money."

"You just never learn, and here I am playing Florence Nightingale again."

I winced. "Please, not that."

"It's too late. It's too late for anything else. Now I'm stuck with it." It poked at my arm with a claw. "Is that a red spot?"

"I'm sure it is now," I groaned.

"I can't fix you chicken soup. I'm no good at opening cans. I suppose I could kill you a pigeon."

"Please, don't put yourself out."

"Maybe I'll just order some more pizza."

"Urg."

"I'll tell them no anchovies this time. Maybe no onions, too."

"It's too expensive to keep ordering pizza."

"Just give them your autograph and stop worrying about it."

"Every time I sign something, it means more money going out."

"We wouldn't be in this position if you weren't so cheap in the first place. And after getting soaked you left all the windows open..."

"I had to air out the carpet. I couldn't get all the water out of it otherwise."

"We'd have been better off pitching a tent by that watering hole."

"Tents cost money."

"Money, money, money. See where worry about money gets you." It started combing my hair with a claw. "It looks sleek. Is that a bad sign?"

"Right now, everything's a bad sign."

"They say everything comes in threes. I suppose there could be more than three. Even triplets of triplets."

"I don't think the universe needs your encouragement."

"The carpet still smells bad. I'm sure it's not good for you. I saw a man on TV offering free estimates for new carpet."

"Free estimates doesn't mean they'll replace it for free. I can't even afford to have someone clean it. They're all silver-tongued bandits anyway."

"Penny wise and pound foolish, whatever that means. Though I'm not sure you're even penny wise."

"Everybody's trying to save money these days, I'm not the only one."

"You're the only one here, if not for me. We've got to do something. If you're not going to do something for the carpet, we still need to find something for you to eat."

"I think I'll just get out the frozen French fries and throw some in the oven."

"No, you stay here, I'll just pop them in the microwave, they'll be done in no time."

"No, wait, I'll do it," I said sitting up, remembering with horror the popcorn incident. Then, in spite of myself, falling backwards onto the bed.

"You're in no condition to do anything! You're too weak to even get up!"

"No, I can do it," I mumbled. "Though I may look limp on the surface, tension is everywhere underneath."

"Delusional too, though I'm not sure that's a change from normal."

"Maybe I'll just fix one of those soup cups. All I have to do is add hot water. I can heat the water in the tea kettle, and the steam would probably do me good."

"Are they chicken?"

"Maybe a little, but they're mostly hot noodles."

"I guess that's better than nothing. I can't do the tea kettle, though."

"No, I'll do it. I'll manage somehow."

"You're too weak. Let me try some acupuncture first. I'm not an expert, but if I poke you enough places I should get the right ones just by chance."

"Ack! Ow! No! No! I'm feeling better already!" I weakly lifted the parrot off me. I was going to look like someone had written all over me in Braille with an ice pick before this was over.

"Well, if you're sure..."

I swung my feet onto the damp rug, took a deep breath, then slowly got to my feet. The parrot hopped onto my shoulder. "Don't worry, I'll be here every step of the way."

"Yes, I know it. I can't tell you have much I appreciate it."

"Finally some thanks. You're quite welcome."

"Yeah, I know I complain a lot. I don't know how you put up with me."

"It's a dirty job, but someone has to do it."

I nodded and sighed, and headed toward the kitchen.

The Sandwich

This is perhaps more a fragment of a story, as it hints at larger things, but it still forms a complete little story in itself.

This story is dated 2:59 AM, June 11, 2003, Arizona time (MST).


THE SANDWICH

I was hungry, so I picked up a sandwich at a deli along the way, and ate while driving.

After each bite, a little hand came out of the sandwich and dabbed my lips with a little handkerchief.

After the last bite, the little hand came out of my mouth and dabbed my lips again.

It was a good sandwich.

Dream - Dinosaur skeletons trying to get me

On Friday morning, June 6, 2008, I dreamed about lots of dinosaur skeletons trying to get me, clumsily milling around and bumping into me. I think it might have been in a large open lot somewhere around Las Vegas. A lot of other things happened that I don't remember, and a lot of other dreams that are also forgotten.

Dream - My brother's bed has an unseen presence, and another unseen presence is trying to take over my mind

Around August 21, 2008, in the evening, I think, I was sleeping in bed with the overhead light on. I had a dream where the room was less cluttered and my brother's bed was still there, where it had been, at a right angle to mine. I was in my bed in the dream, and the light in the room was dim and pale, yellow-orangish and thin.

Sometimes it seemed like someone was there in my brother's bed, but usually it didn't. Usually the bed was empty, though it sometimes seemed like a presence was somehow associated with it, almost like the presence was somehow back by or in the wall.

I was in bed and kept looking toward the other bed and toward the hallway. Sometimes it seemed that my mother was outside in the hallway somewhere or in one of the other rooms, maybe even the living room or kitchen, or at least her presence was. Sometimes I think I could hear a dim sound from her, a faint distant voice, saying something.

There was also another presence, ominous and frightening, somewhere high up, toward the ceiling in the direction of the closet and doorway, but spread out, diffuse. I had somehow gotten its attention by some thought I had that specifically referenced it in some way. Now I tried to reject it, to disavow the thought and think and concentrate on other things, talking to the mostly empty other bed, to the presence there that was apparently my brother, talking sometimes by voice and sometimes in my head.

I was afraid, though, somehow knew though, that this wasn't going to be enough. The diffuse presence above and to the front of the room waited, barely being kept away, waiting for a chance to get closer, waiting for me to tire and falter, for my concentration to fade. It then would move closer, and surround me and be in me, and try to take me, and make its thoughts my thoughts, and I didn't know what would happen then. I woke up, then, and found that I had only been asleep around 15 minutes.

Dream - Shaking hands with a ghost

On Thursday morning, June 12, 2008, I had a dream in which I met someone, then later shook hands with his ghost.

A lot happened earlier in the dream. At some point, I was at a mall that sometimes seemed to be a school, or partially a school.

Someone came there who I think was a former senator or representative of some kind. He was there, I think, to make a speech as part of some school event. At some point, either he or I was leaving. I shook hands with him. He was concerned more with someone else, but turned to me and shook hands. He had a firm handshake. He was perhaps around 60, with dark gray thinning hair on top and whitish hair on the sides. His face was somewhat thin and rectangular and his hair was slicked down and combed to the side.

I left and went out to the parking lot and then went back in. He was talking to someone. Other people were around coming and going. He turned slightly and looked at me and frowned a little, no doubt wondering why I was back. I'm not sure now exactly why I did go back.

He left not long afterward, getting into a car with some people that were with him, a car that had pulled up by the curb. A few days later I heard that he had a heart attack and died.

Sometime later, perhaps a week or two, maybe less, we were outside somewhere at some school function, a picnic or something like that. Some kind of game or dance started where people held hands in a circle and went around in stops and starts. A photographer was there, and now he was in the middle of the circle taking pictures. I came to realize that the person taking pictures was the dead politician. Although at first he didn't really look like him, he looked more and more like him as time went on.

I shook hands with him again. It was firm like before. He smiled at me, leaning into the handshake. The circle of people had dissipated and I was telling someone from the circle, then, a man who was a school administrator of some kind, about the photographer being the dead politician. The photographer was gone now, apparently having faded out after going a few feet to the side.

The administrator kept asking about it, going through some papers that were stapled together, trying to find who was assigned to be the photographer, asking was I sure. I took him to the camera, which was sitting on the ground now, an odd device with a broad back that had an LCD display low on it. When activated, the name of the photographer crawled across it, with some letters between them, perhaps three, that were evidently a company name. The first name was ANDY. I don't remember what the last name was, it was perhaps ten or twelve letters. It was the name of the dead politician, though, though I don't think I ever knew it before that point.

I was then going toward a car parked at the street in the city. Everything was gray. Some people were standing by it in dark clothes and long coats, talking and looking around somewhat furtively. The dead politician was there. I was seeing something that had happened earlier. He had been tainted some by association with people who had some underworld connections. I realized, though, that the situation was not as it had appeared and was not as it had been portrayed. The politician was not aware, or at least not aware much, of the underworld connections, and was just trying to do his best for the people. The dream then seemed to blend into the next part.

It was cold. I was going back toward something. A cold rain was falling, perhaps snow even. Everything was gray. I went across the road to an area where nothing was built. In the middle distance across another road was a low building with a large yard around it, a yard that extended a very large distance toward the back, blending in with the land, the land going finally toward a low rise and then back down again. Then a much smaller yard and then a row of small darkish buildings, perhaps houses or businesses, leading away from me.

Everything was shades of gray. I walked on gray grass, flattened down, wet with rain and slushy ice, and headed toward more of the same. Two figures were going from the direction of the large low building across the land behind it, heading toward the low ridge. There seemed to be a fight or struggle going on between them, as every now and then one would turn, the one slightly in the lead, and attack the other somehow. I don't think it was usually hitting with fists. I don't remember now exactly what was happening, but one was hitting the other with something, maybe a coat sometimes, though I think something else was used too, maybe the slushy ice, picked up and loosely packed together. I think the one attacking kept trying to take something the other had and was wearing, a coat or shirt, perhaps a T-shirt.

I was dragging a thick hose along with me and turned it on them when I was still quite a distance away, several hundred feet. It didn't do much to stop the fight. It rained a large quantity of cold, large, heavy drops on them with some force. I hoped to break the fight up, but it only slowed it a little. I thought it might melt the slushy ice used as ammunition, but it didn't seem to be having enough of an effect. I think the person attacking got the article of clothing he was after and the one attacked was not able to get it back and finally went down.

I reached the area past the rise in the ground. There was a bit of a dip behind the rise and then the ground rose back up to a normal level. It had stopped raining now, but everything was still wet. It was a little warmer and the slush had melted.

A man came from the small building or around there, and was talking about the fight. I told him I had the hose and could spray them with force. A person came over the ridge then and down the other side, wearing a T-shirt that was not in good shape. He was grinning and denied knowing about the fight, though he seemed to be the person from the fight.

I went back to the road or near it and went toward the big building, going by the side at a distance and around to the front. It turned out to be the radiator shop on Scottsdale Road. I think the man from the small building might have gone with me, but I'm not sure. There were a few cars out front. I went into something like a large van or maybe a trailer and was talking with someone, perhaps the man from the small building, and then someone showed up at the back grinning, evidently the man in the T-shirt. It had big holes in it and strange markings in different colors, like they had been put on with markers.

He gave various stories when pressed on where he had been. He had been somewhere else, he had been to WalMart, he had been to some other place, the story kept changing. He kept changing, too, sometimes seeming slimmer and sometimes more muscular. He pulled his shirt up, apparently trying to show us evidence of some sort. He had more markings across his stomach and chest, across his head and face even, at least one of them changing from a marking to a scar, going in a shallow zigzag across him, a scar that got bigger and raised up, a 3-D pinkish line.

I finally got out and went toward the front door, going in I think and looking around briefly and then going back out, and continuing on past the front and around to the side. Other people were around and I could hear them talking [the radio was on in real life]. My father was somewhere, perhaps inside or perhaps not. I got down by the window by the repair tanks and got inside somehow, I think maybe by peeling back a section of wall. The main worker, an Hispanic man, was somewhere nearby, but I don't think I actually saw him, or if I did it was dimly and not directly on.

I needed to make my way back and find the other guy, the one who had fallen, to see if he was alright. I needed to take someone with me, I wasn't sure what situation I would run into. I think someone was actually urging me to do that.

I went out back and got someone, a young employee who worked on cars I think, and we continued on going back and in a short while reached a building that stretched across the way. It seemed to be some kind of garage run by some rural types, a large number of people, apparently all or most related to each other, suspicious of outsiders. I had somehow acquired a third person and I think a local deputy or sheriff had somehow come and was directing the search. A somewhat paunchy middle-aged man ran the place and was showing us around, at the sheriff's continued insistence. The employees/relatives kept trying things, like going for baseball bats or crowbars and tools of some kind that were laying around, to try to attack us with them, and had to be dissuaded.

It was a big building and had divisions running across it as we went further through it, dividing it into different sections. We got finally to the last section and were looking through it.

The sheriff was still questioning the owner, the employees/relatives were still trying things. At least one time one of them slowly sneaked out from under a bed toward something on the floor. Someone stepped on his wrist, I think, and kicked him back under the bed, it might have been me. They were continually trying things and there was someone every few feet.

The sheriff was talking to the owner and there were people continually sneaking up on both sides that had to be continuously taken care of in various ways, sometimes by knocking the weapon out of their hands or their hands or arms away from the weapon, sometimes attacking them, sometimes just moving threateningly toward them.

The owner seemed unwilling to control them in any way. The owner himself picked up something from somewhere, some kind of shiny tool and was talking, looking slightly past the sheriff in a distracted way, seemingly ignoring what the sheriff was saying.

The sheriff bent down and picked up a heavy dark pencil that the employees had been trying to use and stabbed the owner in the stomach, toward his right side, pushing it all the way in, then pulling it out and stabbing him again and little way from the first, slightly more toward the center but still toward the side, and then pulled it out and stabbed him again, either this one or the one before being a little higher. It was like pushing the pencil into clay. Sometimes it seems I was the sheriff now and sometimes I was watching.

The owner fell down backwards and then got back up, still holding the tool and talking some more but glancing now toward the sheriff and then away and then back again, some concern showing on his face. The sheriff stabbed him again, this time in the center and higher, just under the breast bone.

I started to protest, thinking it was too high, that he had actually stabbed him in the heart. The owner frowned and had a "Hey!" type of expression, and his head turned down then and he folded, falling backward. He didn't get back up.

The scene jumped to a little in the future, then, and the place was full of law enforcers, federal agents I think. The various employees were under control, but they seemed to lose interest in fighting after the owner was killed. The place was being thoroughly searched. The fear was that the missing person might be hidden somewhere, perhaps still alive.

I went toward the north side. A lot of small, low, upholstered chairs were there, with burlap type cloth, set up along the walls and in rows across the narrow space of the long room. Others came with me. I was looking through the chairs, picking up the cushions and looking and feeling under them, pulling the chairs back and looking behind them, etc. Others were doing the same. A time or two some odd things were found, like a pair of children's shoes set neatly under a seat cushion, along with a belt. It might be ominous or it might not be. Finally we had them all pretty much searched. I was by a door that led back toward the front. We had to look somewhere else now, working our way toward the front.

I looked along the wall behind the chairs. It was bulging out with, I think, a thin sheet of paper-like stuff pulled across it. I pulled the furniture, low couch-like stuff, away from it and we started looking, other people doing most of the work. The paper covering was pulled away and behind it were rows and rows of record albums, staggered rows, getting thicker toward the floor and blending in with the wall about mid level, then going back inside the wall, sticking out more toward the corner. A few were found toward the corner that seemed to be homemade ones, showing pictures of a couple of the employees/relatives kissing each other with love and affection.

The sheriff looked sad and uncertain and said there was no way to know what was on them. I was beginning to worry that the owner had died for nothing, that the people here might have had nothing to do with the disappearance of the person, that they might just be strange people, it was hard to know yet and it might be that we would never know.

Dream - Repeated out-of-body experiences, and a computer on the wall shorting out

On Friday, May 30, 2008, just after 7:00 PM, I fell asleep in bed while watching television. Countdown on MSNBC was repeating its earlier show. I had two dreams, of which I eventually remembered one. It was long, surprisingly so, considering the time asleep.

In the dream, I had repeated out of body experiences or attempts at such. I was mostly just lying in bed, though, while odd things happened. I kept hearing things and thinking that my mother had come, time after time, and was in the doorway, sometimes saying that supper was ready, sometimes bringing me it, sometimes she was there for something else.

One time it seemed my feet and maybe legs left my body, and one time later on I tried to have an out of body experience and then opened my eyes and suddenly found myself looking at the blue wall perhaps a foot or so away. I think initially I thought it was the ceiling (which is white), but then realized it was the wall by my bed. I thought then that I hadn't had an OOBE after all, but thinking back on it I was actually laying facing mostly the other direction, though my head was pointed up.

Toward the end, I saw a big structure on the wall that was some kind of computer. It was maybe fifteen inches wide and a foot and a half to two feet tall, and maybe a couple of feet above the bed. It started shorting out midway up it. I was worried about a fire and tried to unplug it, but I was having trouble moving properly. I think I finally managed to do it.


My mother woke me up rapping sharply on something, possibly the filing cabinet. She was in the doorway with a paper plate of food. It turned out to be a beef pot pie and some cucumber slices. Only about 15 or 20 minutes had passed.

Dream - The tornadoes and the dinosaur tree branch

On Sunday, November 2, 2008, I had a dream about being in Nevada and then in Arizona, driving home, coming to a white building where several tornadoes came. Then I was home and saw the tornadoes had blown down a tree that had a T. rex dinosaur, that I had never finished making, carved in a branch.

In the dream, I was working in Nevada and also somehow going to school as part of work. The school was something that occurred during work. At work, my boss had said, to the Engineering group in general, that later on, a few years in the future, in a later part of the class, we would have to travel some and spend some time in Portland [Oregon]. I had protested, saying I didn't want to travel, that I wouldn't do it. He said I would have to, if I wanted to complete the class. Now the years had passed and it was time to do it, there was going to be some travel back and forth by plane to Portland with possibly weeks at a time being spent there. I didn't want to do it and I didn't want to travel by plane, wanting to drive if I was going to do it, but it was so far, so much distance added to my trip to and from Arizona, that I wasn't sure how I was going to do it.

Then, later, I was back in Arizona and driving home. I went to a low white block building, not very large, completely out in the open with nothing nearby, like it was in the middle of a field. A few other people were with me. The building had large windows and carpet on the floor. We were talking to some people there, something about an auto part I think, about trying to get one or a supply of one. One of the people started talking about the economy. It had nothing to do with what we were there for, he just started talking about it in a kind of conversational oh-by-the-way kind of tone. I was probably actually picking up something from the radio and incorporating it in my dream.

He kept talking and I wandered off a bit and looked to the side out the window to the front. I saw several, maybe five, tornadoes going this way. They were tall and narrow and a very dark bluish color, moving rapidly this way. I called out a warning to the others, repeatedly since some of them seemed to be slow to respond, then dived down near one of the walls, which was also white, almost everything inside was white or pale colored. I think I might have been beside a short section of wall, maybe between it and the main wall. I think someone dived down with me, too. The tornadoes passed over, the sky and room darkened and the building shook, but though things were falling around the building and hitting the building, and some things seemed to be falling inside, the building seemed to have survived without much damage. I had to go home then.

At home, my brother and his (former) wife were over and some other people, including a bunch of kids. His wife looked different, not like she really is. It seemed to be an earlier time, and it seemed to be some kind of special occasion, though I'm not sure what. There was a couch in front of the cabinets in the family room, near the corner by the wall with the sliding glass door. Some of the adults, particularly my brother's wife, walked around in the family room talking. Sometimes some of them sat on the couch. We, mostly not me and mostly his wife, kept talking. The subjects were odd things, not always related. I was probably still picking up something from the real-life radio. At some point most of the kids, there were quite a few of them, went out to a big wading pool, about two and a half or three feet high, that was on the carport. I occasionally looked out at them from the family room, just glancing out the window from where I happened to be. I considered whether I wanted to join them and decided not to. The talking went on...

I happened to look out at the back yard then (I think I may have even been walking around in the yard earlier, though I don't think I noticed anything at the time), and saw a very long bare branch a few inches thick that had fallen off one of the trees and was laying across the top of the swing set and extending off over the top of the fence to somewhere in the alley. I said something about a branch having fallen off one of the trees, saying it a few times. I went out with some of the others, then. I think some kids were already out there. A couple of big sections of the wooden fence were leaning out toward the alley, and most of the lattice work along the top was missing. My mouth was hanging open in surprise and wonder. I said that the tornadoes (I may have said hurricanes instead) must have passed over here, too. I looked at where the tree to the side was and it was entirely gone, there wasn't even a hole or stump left, the ground was just smooth, like a tree was never there. I guessed it must have somehow been rotten and broken off at the base and fallen over entirely into the alley.

I heard sirens, I think, and a bunch of emergency cleanup people came, wearing yellow raincoats I think, in a big truck or two and started working in the alley. They started quickly taking down big sections of the fence. I saw one of them hitting the end of the top board in the corner with his hand or a hammer, popping it up from where it was nailed down to the post. The fence seemed to be in the way. I hoped they would put it back up when they were done. I started trying to move the long branch that had fallen, or maybe I had tried that earlier. I didn't do much with it in any case. I couldn't see what they were doing in the alley or what things looked like out there, the fence blocked the view.

I walked around looking up at the branches overhead. There were still quite a few, either from the fallen tree or the one in the middle of the yard that was presumably still standing. I was talking sometimes with the kids or other people in the yard. Still looking up, I saw a dinosaur that I had made long ago, that I had started but never finished, a huge Tyrannosaurus rex. It was made out of wood, out of part of the tree, and had fallen down some, sticking out past the swing set over the yard, several feet overhead, on its side with the branch it was part of extending behind it. It looked old now and damp, its contours softened and rounded a little. Blackened with mold and age, it almost looked burned. The head seemed to have a sinister grin, made more so by its open eye socket. I looked at it perhaps for the last time. They would take it away with the rest of the tree. I thought somewhat sadly that in this way it would finally be finished, finally be done with.

Wordzzle 86 - Past times

This is my contribution to this week's Wordzzle. Wordzzle is a game in which each week word lists, used to create stories, are given on the blog Views from Raven's Nest. Participating users post their stories on their own blogs.

This is my entry number 30, for Wordzzle week 86.


Ten Word Challenge:

Incensed,
sidewinder,
bogus,
conniption,
Haz-mat,
conniving,
customize,
perforated,
zeal,
rolling off a log

"The incensed sidewinder came at me, rolling off a log it had been hiding behind. In its zeal it was spitting venom everywhere, so much so the Haz-mat people had to come and clean up afterward. It spit so much venom that when it finally bit me, it didn't have any left, and had a conniption fit when I wouldn't die. Well, I got my staple gun and perforated it back, no critter bites me and gets away with it. I stuck it to the log with some staples, where it can be seen to this day. I had these special customized boots made in memory of the occasion, and renamed my ranch the Stapled Sidewinder.

"Now, it is only because of extreme financial difficulty that my brother and I are forced to sell this ranch. We are not even able to properly feed our animals anymore, and the roosters have stopped laying eggs and the steers have stopped giving milk. We are desperate, and are willing to take much less than market value."

"That's totally bogus, man. You people are just conniving to get my money. If you bother me again I'll call the cops."

The two watched him walk away. "Where did we slip up?"

"I told you to cover up the Made in China label on those boots."


Mini Challenge:

abstemious,
chlorophyll,
origami,
cheerleader,
dung beetle

Formerly a cheerleader for somewhat unusual notions, he became a bit more abstemious in his ways, and now gave his friends carrot cake, with cheese slices on top folded into origami animals. His friends gratefully accepted this, the memories of last year's chlorophyll and dung beetle fruitcake still fresh in their minds.


Mega challenge:

Incensed,
sidewinder,
bogus,
conniption,
Haz-mat,
conniving,
customize,
perforated,
zeal,
rolling off a log

abstemious,
chlorophyll,
origami,
cheerleader,
dung beetle

I saw her again at the fair. She was in a little booth selling plastic paperweights with dung beetles in them, and little pictures of sidewinders about to strike, and other such things. She had been a cheerleader back in high school, and I had mostly made little paper origami animals. Her father, who had a Haz-mat business, didn't think I was good enough for her. He was incensed when he caught us together in her bedroom, and threw me and my clothes out of the house. I was very grateful for my clothes, because the snow was very cold without them.

I tried to see her after that, but he had a conniption fit every time I came to the door, and I was getting awfully tired of landing in the snow. We just got to see each other at school and were conniving to sneak away together when the school year was over, and go to another state where he couldn't find us. She abruptly disappeared, though. She was there one day and gone the next. Her whole family had gone with her, moved away, no one knew where, or if they did they didn't say. I never saw her again.

I had gotten pretty wild for a while, and gone heavily into drinking and drugs, but had become much more abstemious since then. After finishing with my schooling, I went through various jobs, from selling chlorophyll drinks to customized T-shirts to bogus humorous college degrees to perforated wallboard, and more. I can't say I had much zeal for any of them, though I had to pretend to at the time.

I had pretty much given up on seeing her again, but still thought about her sometimes. I guess a part of me hadn't given up hope. Now, after all these years, here she was again, at a fair in a town I was only passing through, on the way to somewhere else.

I picked up a small drawing of a drunken cowboy rolling off a log. It was amazing that people bought these things.

"Can I help you with anything? Is there anything in particular you'd like to have?"

I picked up a small branch with a row of varnished pebbles with flat plastic eyes on them. The pupils in the eyes moved around as I tilted the branch. "I'll take this."

"That's a good choice. Lots of people are buying them." She paused. "Have we met before? You seem familiar somehow."

"I was thinking I had seen you before, too."

"My family moved around a lot when I was a teenager. I could have been here before, I guess. Or maybe not. It's hard to tell."

She put it in a bag and handed me the receipt, then looked at me again. "You really seem familiar but I just can't place you. I don't know, maybe I was thinking about somebody else."

"You look familiar, too, but I guess that's possible."

"I really feel I should know you, but I just can't think of anything. I can't think of anybody it might be. I know I sound really silly, it's probably a mistake, it must be somebody else."

"I suppose I could be mistaken, too."

"Maybe."

I picked up the bag and looked at her again. She looked back at me, her eyes searching mine.

"I guess it must have been two other people," I said, in a lighter tone than I thought I could manage, and turned and walked away with my purchase.

The Glove

This was inspired by something that was in the news back in the 1990s, though I have also worn various work gloves myself, and sometimes gloves to keep my hands warm. Although the story is told in the first person, my gloves have almost always been large enough, so the person in the story can't really be me. Like the person in the story, though, I do sometimes worry over details.

This story is dated 1:09 AM, October 14, 2004, Arizona time (MST).


THE GLOVE

I saw a glove by the road.

I thought it might be mine, but it looked too small.

I tried it on anyway.

It was tight.

Too tight.

The fingers were too short, and it did not cover my palm.

I thought it might have my fingerprints inside it.

If it didn't, it did now.

For I did get it on.

It had some stains on it, also.

That I thought I remembered.

But it did not fit.

So I left it by the roadside.

For me to find later.

My Word Imperfect entries, Part V

In June of 2007, I came across a blog called Word Imperfect, which is run by a person known as the Word Imp. At that time, the blog was normally updated every day. After quite a while when new posts were rare, the blog owner has recently resumed a new-post-every-day schedule.

Each day, the Word Imp puts up a new word and a made-up definition, and readers submit comments with their own made-up, "wacky" definitions of that word. The next day, the Word Imp reveals the real definition and chooses three finalists from the entries submitted. Readers vote (in a poll) for what they think is the best one, and the next day the Word Imp announces the winner. The only prize is the glory of being chosen.

This is the fifth group of my Word Imperfect entries. The times given are the approximate times of my posts, in Arizona time (MST), from the clock on my computer.


Fenk:

2:02 AM 8/2/2007

Fenks are comic book fans who are way too heavily into it.


Morganatic:

I missed adding a definition.


Orogenesis:

4:57 AM 8/3/2007 *** winner

Orogenesis was a religious text telling the story of the Garden of Eden from the viewpoint of the snake. It was one of the books excluded from the Bible, and now survives only in the form of extensive quotations in other documents.


My entry for orogenesis was chosen as one of the three finalists. It's allowable there to vote for yourself, and I did. And I won.

The vote count the last time I checked it:

11:56 PM 8/4/2007

Choose a winner for orogenesis
stephen 47.37%
realityjunkie 36.84%
sprite 15.79%

Total votes : 19

Word Imp:
Orogenesis is quite important. It's the process by which mountains are made. Presumably out of mole hills. Could be a useful word in an argument. Lots of word imps joined in with their invented meanings, but the winner on the poll - and one that impressed me a lot - was written by Stephen. Great work, Stephen.

The Last Seven Winners
Stephen
Raelha
Coolskoolmom
Duckman
Gypsy Queen
Maalie
Alina Escalante


Quantivalence:

12:14 AM 8/5/2007

A quantivalence is the mass of ruffles worn around the neck of some men in the late middle ages, making it appear that they had no neck at all and that they had somehow gotten themselves caught in the middle of a large, dainty wheel.


Postiche:

11:46 AM 8/5/2007

Postiche is "going postal" on a very small scale. Some possible examples would be stamping one's foot, holding one's breath, and refusing to eat one's veggies.


11:56 AM 8/5/2007

Also, thank you Word Imp for nominating me for my definition of orogenesis and for liking it so much, and thanks also to everyone who voted for me. And thanks also, everyone, for past nominations (and sometimes wins). Though I didn't say anything at the time, I did appreciate it.


Theorbo:

9:46 PM 8/6/2007

Theorbo is the worship of orbs, the floating balls of light sometimes seen by people.


Radix:

6:21 PM 8/7/2007

Radix stands for Radically Inspired eXperiment, and is a term in common use among improvisational jazz musicians.


Scaramouch:

12:25 AM 8/9/2007

A scaramouch is a type of moth with a pattern on its wings resembling a menacing face.


Estovers:

2:00 AM 8/9/2007

Estovers are estuaries that have dried up.


Grimalkin:

7:30 AM 8/10/2007

A grimalkin is a devoted fan of Grimm's Fairy Tales. Grimalkins frequently amass huge collections of memorabilia, including various editions and interpretations, recordings of TV and movie adaptations, toys and figurines, etc., and blame it on having been put under a spell.


Solidungular:

3:36 PM 8/12/2007

A solidungular is a person who designs and builds open-air prisons, such walled or fenced enclosures. The word literally means sun-dungeon-maker, and originally applied to people who made prisons that were deep outdoor pits that were open at the top.


Lampion:

12:23 AM 8/14/2007 [too late for the poll]

Lampion was a nonsense song popular in the 1940's. It switched the beginning and ending of words and then slurred the result, making for intriguing but entirely incomprehensible lyrics.


Rivage:

2:50 AM 8/14/2007

A rivage is a legal document detailing water rights to a river. Normally, the document describes how some person, corporation, or government entity can take so many cubic feet per minute at such-and-such time of the year, but it can also simply state that certain people or farms can have access to the water.


Discobolus:

11:36 PM 8/15/2007 *** finalist

A discobolus is the welt produced by being struck by a Frisbee or other such flying disc.


My entry for discobolus was chosen as one of the three finalists. It's allowable there to vote for yourself, and I did. I didn't win, though.

The vote count the last time I checked it:

Choose a winner for discobolus
stephen 100%
judi 0%
duckman 0%

Total votes : 2


Concettism:

10:58 AM 8/16/2007

Concettism is the tendency of some types of sea shells to form conch-like spirals.

Dream - Summoning the Grays

On Tuesday morning, April 14, 2009, I had a dream in which I tried to summon the Grays, a type of extraterrestrial alien, or perhaps a hyperdimensional one, thought by many to be real.

I was sitting at my computer at home and fell asleep, and dreamed I was driving. Someone was with me. I put the person in a different car as I went along, for safety. Then as a curve came up I was too tired, it was too much trouble to turn, too hard to do it, and part of the car went off the edge. There was a drop off below. Somehow I was on the passenger side looking down at it. I just let it happen and went sailing off the road. I went to the side in the car, sailing over the ground far below, maybe sixty feet or more down. I was higher, then, maybe over a hundred feet. The ground below was barren and mostly level, pale dirt and short yellow grass, slight rolls and curves with occasional small hills sticking out sharply, sometimes ending in a small flat area of just dirt, like the top of the hill had been scraped off.

Then I was in an office, I think in a multi-story building. I had been left there by someone, a woman I think, who had gone to get someone else, someone who I was supposed to see. I'm not sure now whether I had an appointment or came by myself or was just brought there.

The hall outside had low, inexpensive carpet, and the door was cheap and hollow, with thin paneling covering it. The walls had thin fake wood panels, simulating boards, with dark recessed lines simulating the space between the boards. The office also had low, cheap carpet. Perhaps ten feet away from the door was a large, inexpensive desk, covered with stuff. As I stood there, facing the door, perhaps three feet from it and a little to the left of it, about eight or ten feet to my left were large windows, almost floor to ceiling, completely covered by long pale curtains. I'm not sure of the time, but it seemed to be late, or possibly on a weekend. The building seemed almost deserted.

Realizing, I think, that I was in a dream, and needing to do something to pass the time while waiting, I decided to see if I could call up the Grays, the extraterrestrial aliens with small skinny bodies and oversized heads with big black eyes. It seemed to be a good time for that.

I concentrated and a small shadowy figure started to appear, dark gray and vague and transparent against the paneling, only a couple of feet high. I concentrated and it grew in size, stretching upward, becoming slightly less transparent, looking at me with more awareness and interest. I became scared and stopped and turned away to the left, but then decided that this was what I had been wanting, contact, and this was what happened during it, and I had to somehow get through it.

I turned back and concentrated on it again, and again it appeared, a vague shadowy presence. Before I focused my attention on it, it appeared almost uncertain and forlorn, eyes looking about in my general direction but at about the two foot level, not up at me. As I looked at it and concentrated, though, it's eyes looked up and met mine, and its attention focused more and more intensely on me, concentrating on me as I concentrated on it. It seemed to happen almost instantly. A kind of eagerness seemed to overtake it, and it rapidly grew to around four feet tall and became more solid, though still vague and transparent. It was leaning a little toward me, growing faster on top than lower down, its eyes growing, stretching upward, becoming like cartoon eyes, tall, with even a little white underneath, the white appearing as light gray, as there was no actual white on the dark gray figure. I could feel it reaching out into me, its mind filtering across the space between us and entering mine, threads of it going into me. In spite of myself I became scared, and though I tried to suppress it, I found myself drawing back and turning away, though I thought it might still be there.

I had closed my eyes as I turned away, but I could see what looked like the paneling through them, yellowish brown, the wood grain and all, though without any breaks for boards. Sometimes blotches appeared in the middle, something like the blotches sometimes seen in old movies when the scenes are ending, though larger here, a pale thin yellow in color, joined together in the middle to form something like a massive ink blot, that kept changing, flickering, going away and coming back. I thought I was somehow psychically seeing the wall through my closed eyelids, but wondered if I really was or if I was seeing something else.

After a time I realized that I was sitting down facing away from the door, with my head partly leaning back, my face pointed toward where the wall and ceiling joined. The image I was seeing looked the same, and I realized that I couldn't be seeing the actual wall, I was seeing something else. After a while I realized that I was awake, sitting in a chair with my head leaning against the back of it, but the image went on and on. After a while I finally opened my eyes and looked at the time on the computer, then leaned back and eventually went back to sleep.

Dream - Attacked by a giant Phillip from Guiding Light

On Sunday morning, March 29, 2009, I had a dream in which I was attacked by a giant Phillip from the Guiding Light TV show.

In the dream, I was in a largish one story house with some other people. A lot had already happened, but I've forgotten most of it. It seems, though, that I had gone there from somewhere else, that I had been at home earlier, and was sent there by someone, and that the family, or at least part of them, was also going to go there. It was just a temporary visit, on the way to something else, perhaps a picnic nearby, perhaps with some of the people in the house.

I did meet with some of the people in the house, and I think a few family members also showed up. I think I might have also left and returned a few times, or possibly the dream replayed the house part, with variations.

At some point, I saw that Phillip from the Guiding Light soap opera TV show had come back, after being gone for a long time, maybe years, and was talking to some of the people there. He seemed friendly, in a kind of grim-humored way. He was dangerous, though. Someone had earlier warned me about him, though it seems to have been done retroactively. I was looking at him from a little distance away, sometimes in another part of the house and sometimes maybe from outside. He may have been outside initially, too.

I saw him in another part of the house, as though I could see through walls, as he ripped the top off a double-size tall spinach can and was reaching in and eating it. He was still grinning as he ate it, and still talking to people, though perhaps more listening than talking at this point. Because of eating the spinach, he began to grow, and he got big, giant, maybe seven or eight feet tall, but proportioned normally. I ran, hoping to find some spinach myself, maybe at home, but there wasn't time.

I went to an old wooden house. It had a simple, small sliding bolt to latch the door, which had a big gap when it closed. Some panels in the door were partly broken away, too.

Phillip ambled after me, like he had all the time in the world. He was talking to me conversationally, seeming to be somewhat amused by me. He was mad at me for some reason, about something that had happened before. He was mad even before the spinach was eaten, which caused him to get much stronger and bigger, though also crazier. He looked pretty crazy while he was eating it, though, with a big smile of triumph and power. I think he was going to get my father after he was finished with me.

He was lowering his gigantic head, looking in through the openings in the door and wall as he talked, sometimes hitting the door a little, experimentally. I got a pale translucent plastic bottle, maybe 3/4 gallon, of muratic acid. It was mostly empty, but a little was left. I was afraid it wouldn't be enough.

I turned and sprayed his face with it through the opening. He yelled loudly, "AHHHHHH!!!! AHHHHHH!!!" lowering his head, putting his heads to his face, moving his head and upper body up and down. I continued to pump the trigger, continued to spray him, getting some on his neck and shoulders as well as his head, soaking him.

Finally he stopped and said, "You know, it doesn't matter," and calmly pushed his way in, his head way down low so it was probably at my chest level. His head was huge. He was calmly talking to me. I continued to try to spray him. He was right in front of me, it was extremely intimidating. I was backing away and he was slowly coming forward. He seemed to be starting to have a little trouble getting air, like the acid was starting to cause some damage. I started to weakly, fearfully, push the nozzle in his nostril and spray again, first on his right side and then the left and then back. He said, "It doesn't matter, I've got a little bit of an opening left," indicating his right nostril, and sniffed a few times, saying, "Oh. Oh. That's it," drawing some of the liquid in.

We somehow got outside, through the back I think. The house wasn't really very deep and I think part of the back walls had fallen off. We got back around to the front, maybe 50 to 100 feet in front of the house. The whole area was covered with short uneven grass, and there were a few long clothes lines, metal wire I think, strung between two metal poles.

I had found a heavy wooden pole, like a heavy closet pole maybe six feet long, and kept trying to it him with it. He kept talking to me, essentially taunting me and rubbing it in, and putting up his arms and the edges of his hands. It was like hitting a metal ridge when I hit his forearms, even making a hard tapping sound. I think I may have managed to hit his head once or twice. He was starting to look a little frazzled. I hoped the acid would work soon and that he would collapse within the next few minutes, though I wasn't sure I had that long. The only reason he hadn't won yet was because he had just been toying with me, otherwise it would have been over right away. He was still talking and I kept swinging at him and he kept raising his arms and blocking it, still bent over so that he was down to my level or lower, though sometimes he raised up to where he was nearly straight.

He was looking past me now, to the left of me, saying that he had to go to town and get my father in a few minutes, meaning that he was going to beat him up, probably kill him, like he was going to beat up and probably kill me, and meaning that he was going to finish with me soon. I hoped the acid would get him first, but it didn't look good.

Dream - Oh how high the shadow grows

On Saturday morning, September 20, 2008, I had a dream that included a naked man, a black dog, and a song with the words "Oh how high the shadow grows."

In the dream, I was in a large open mall-like area, mostly empty of people, though there were a few. Colors were pale and there seemed a starkness about everything. I was doing something before this, but I'm not sure what now. Going back and forth from the house to there was part of it. Inside the mall there was a small stairway against a wall leading to a small platform that had some low stucco walls around part of it. A door was in the wall at the platform, and maybe a window by it, though it might have had blinds or a curtain or some other covering obscuring the view to the inside.

I went up and down the stairs to the landing a few times, spending part of the time on the landing partly laying down. I seemed to be at least partly trying to hide from people, hide from being bothered by them, though for a while I called out to someone in the mall, a relative I think, maybe my mother. I held a small conversation then, but I wanted to be left alone so I could rest.

At some point some dogs came up, a large black one and two smaller pale ones, one them smaller than the other, generally all of them spaniel types I think, more or less. I was a little concerned sometimes about the big dog, though I felt also that it would probably be alright. I reached out to the big black dog and scratched and rubbed his head between his ears, first on one side and then the other. His snout was very big and his head was small, and I wondered about the size of his brain. Before, things had had a strange quality, like I was looking on the scene without my glasses. Things were much more blurry now, though, and the big dog became especially blurry. It was hard sometimes to see it much beyond its head, and its head seemed to fade at the edges into a blackness that surrounded it and that it seemed to carry with it. I worried a little bit about getting my hands dirty, touching the dog, but it seemed a necessary thing and I didn't worry too much about it. I was very tired and it was hard to move and hard to see and I wanted to rest.

I saw a man down in the mall who was just partly dressed, maybe naked at times. I'm not sure how he got that way. He was wandering around, staggering, bumping into the walls sometimes, a time or two going up and getting briefly in a niche in the wall, partly hiding, partly just resting. I was irritated that he should show up at the mall looking like that, and I went down and I guess basically harassed him for a while, knocking him about a bit, then I carried him up the stairs to the landing and put him down behind the low wall, partly hiding him. He was completely naked now. I think I might have had a part in making him naked. He was mostly out of it by this point, barely conscious.

There was some small bit of clothing on the landing, very thin material, like a piece of a Halloween costume. It was colored maybe a pale red or purple, and gathered in to a long piece of elastic, like maybe a waistband or headband, like it was either some brief shorts or some kind of turban or other headgear. I wasn't sure what to do with it. He was laying on his side partly curled up, his back to the mall. I think I finally just draped it on his shoulders.

I worried about leaving him there, but it seemed better to leave him there than down in the mall the way he was. I worried if I left him up there, though, that people who might be looking for him, maybe friends or family members, wouldn't be able to find him. He was sticking out a little past the edge of the wall, though, his rear and some of his legs. I think I might have intentionally arranged it that way so that people looking for him had a better chance of finding him, while at the same time giving him a little privacy by having him up above the mall and mostly hidden. I went down the stairs then, brushing a little against him as I went, which disturbed me.

I went home then and laid down in bed. Some people occasionally talked to me and to themselves from the hallway. They were hard to hear and sounded faint and far away. I wanted to drift off into the gray softness behind and around me. The dogs came back, coming down the hall. I scratched and rubbed behind the ears of the big black dog, as before. His head seemed even smaller than before but his snout was as big or bigger than ever, and I wondered some more about the size of his brain. He was even harder to see than before, with a deeper blackness surrounding him. I was talking to someone in the hall, a couple of people.

I started singing in a sharp, clear, somewhat high voice, "Oh how high the shadow grows, the plant life of your widow, black lace curtains brought you near, from out the plate glass window". It was a song from long ago and I wondered who had sung it. Then I somehow moved to the computer room and was sitting down, seeming to move through the wall there as the view shifted, still singing I think.

I was still looking out toward the hall, but now it became more distant and had changed to a large room, almost a stage. It had a very low wall and a huge room-spanning sheet of glass. Behind the glass a large group of people were moving, leaving, going from left to right. They were mostly young and were of a range of heights but none were very tall. One of them was talking to me. I was having trouble hearing, the voice sounded faint and far away. Sometimes it seemed to be someone in the middle and sometimes it seemed to be someone toward the left side.

I said something and then the person laughed, and looking back and forth I finally determined that the person was indeed on the left. It was a young girl. She laughed and said, "Don't you recognize me, I'm [the name of my little sister, who is now in her mid-forties]".


Later that day, I was thinking about the dream and the song and realized that I had it wrong in the dream, that it was "Oh how high the scaffold grows" not "Oh how high the shadow grows", and that I have it on an old Elton John 8-track tape. The rest of the song in the dream was accurate, as near as I can remember.

"Don't you recognize me, I'm [my sister's name]," was similar to something she actually said in early January 2008, when I couldn't recognize her voice on a cellphone that greatly distorted it. Also, one time when she was young she was in the second story of the Sears at Los Arcos Mall, and I was shopping there, looking at the trinkets on some shelves out in the floor, trying to find something for my aunt I think, and maybe my grandmother. I heard two or three young people, early teens probably, perhaps 10 or 15 feet away, giggling about something. It irritated me, as they were sort of looking in my direction and I thought there was a possibility that they could be giggling about me for some reason, though I didn't know why. Later at home I found out that one of them was her, and they were apparently giggling because I didn't know she was there. I hadn't bothered to take a good look at them, so I hadn't known one of them was her.

Wordzzle 85 - Puppetry

This is my contribution to this week's Wordzzle. Wordzzle is a game in which each week word lists, used to create stories, are given on the blog Views from Raven's Nest. Participating users post their stories on their own blogs.

This is my entry number 29, for Wordzzle week 85.


Ten Word Challenge:

early morning light,
Pinocchio,
mist,
leaves,
sandy,
coffee,
walking,
traffic,
pray,
stomach

The statue of Pinocchio stood in the early morning light, in the mist, watching the people walking by. Pigeons sat upon it, their heads bowed and wings folded, almost as if they were praying. Wet leaves lay around its base, and its feet were sandy, and beside its feet was an overturned paper cup of coffee, left behind by someone and discarded. Someone had written something on its stomach, the words difficult to read now in the dampness. Traffic went by, unheeding, occasionally splashing water on its feet and legs, adding more mud and grit. Mud that would help to glue the leaves together, so that they could not be blown away. And over time, more leaves and more trash would accumulate, adding to what was already there.

No one had bothered to do anything for the statue for a long time. No one seemed to pay much attention to it. No one thought much about it at all.

The statue stood there sadly, watching the world go by. No one knew that it, too, wanted to be a real, live boy.


Mini Challenge:

train,
art,
admirable,
cotton,
fluffy

The cotton candy train was light and fluffy, an admirable job overall, but was it art?


Mega challenge:

early morning light,
Pinocchio,
mist,
leaves,
sandy,
coffee,
walking,
traffic,
pray,
stomach

train,
art,
admirable,
cotton,
fluffy

The giant wooden puppet knelt above the town, looking at it. It looked more like a jester than like Pinocchio, more like something that should be on a playing card. It was visible through the mist, even in the early morning light, but no one seemed to notice. It watched them, looking thoughtful.

Under its gaze, the early morning traffic went by. People were walking along, sometimes stopping into places for coffee and breakfast. Trains went by, sometimes on time.

A man slipped on some wet leaves and fell, sliding into the street. The giant puppet nudged him with its finger, moving him out of the way of a car. The man got up, his eyes big, glad that the car had missed him, but not seeming to notice anything else.

Inside a building, a man was painting a portrait of a woman. It was almost done. The giant hand of the puppet came in, somehow moving through the walls without disturbing them, and nudged his arm, which jerked and caused the brush to leave a mark on the face, extending the mouth into a bizarre cockeyed grin. The man stared at his artwork in horror, then looked at it some more, tilting his head to one side. He finally nodded his approval, and went with it, incorporating it into the design.

A woman walked into a diner, her shoes sandy, her cotton clothes wet and hanging in folds. She complained loudly about the weather and tried to fluff up her damp hair. A giant wooden finger, unnoticed and unseen, turned the head of a man at the counter toward her. His face brightened and he said hello. Her face brightened also.

Outside, a man prepared to cross the street, his head down, when he felt a tap on his shoulder. He paused and turned his head, but no one was there. A car went by then, very close, splashing him all the way up to his stomach. Had he not stopped, it would have hit him.

A man walked along carrying a bag with several sandwiches in it, and doing an admirable job of eating one of them, when it somehow slipped through his fingers and fell onto the damp pavement. He stopped and stared at it. Suddenly a skinny wet dog came up and began eating it. When it was done, it turned its head up and looked at him hopefully. After a pause, he took out another sandwich and held it out, and the dog, looking a little worried, slowly reached out its head and began eating it.

In the park, the sun broke through part of the mist, and a rainbow formed. A ray of light fell on a statue there, and the birds on it raised their heads, as if finished with their prayers, and flapped their wings and flew away. In the leaves at the bottom of the statue, a cricket chirped. High above the park, wooden fingers manipulated unseen strings, and the statue bent down and picked up the cricket, then got down off its base and walked away.

My Word Imperfect entries, Part IV

In June of 2007, I came across a blog called Word Imperfect, which is run by a person known as the Word Imp. At that time, the blog was normally updated every day. After quite a while when new posts were rare, the blog owner has recently resumed a new-post-every-day schedule.

Each day, the Word Imp puts up a new word and a made-up definition, and readers submit comments with their own made-up, "wacky" definitions of that word. The next day, the Word Imp reveals the real definition and chooses three finalists from the entries submitted. Readers vote (in a poll) for what they think is the best one, and the next day the Word Imp announces the winner. The only prize is the glory of being chosen.

This is the fourth group of my Word Imperfect entries. The times given are the approximate times of my posts, in Arizona time (MST), from the clock on my computer.


Naiad:

9:00 PM 7/18/2007

A naiad is a Native American Indian Advertisement, which could be an ad about them, or featuring them, or featuring products made by them, or having one or more of them somewhere in the ad, or even just obliquely referring to them. It may seem odd to have both 'Native American' and 'Indian' in the name, but they were trying to please everyone. As it turned out, they didn't please too many, so it's probably a good thing they decided to concentrate on using the acronym and not spend too much time on defining what it meant.


Pyaemia:

11:23 PM 7/19/2007

Pyaemia is excessive fear of the number PI. Some fear is normal; only excessive fear is considered pyaemia.


Thanatoid:

8:57 AM 7/20/2007

A thanatoid is a person in a hurry, someone who "went that-a-way." The name comes from a combination of "that-a" and "toid", with the first psrt blurred into thana by usage.


Caudle:

I missed adding a definition.


Ginglymus:

8:42 AM 7/22/2007 *** finalist

Ginglymus is a game similar to polo, but played while wearing long stilts instead of riding horses. It was popular for a time in the early 17th century among the English gentry. The name is believed to have originally been something like "gangly master", a reference to the appearance of the stilt-wearing players. Ginglymus eventually fell out of favor when it was realized that the players just looked too silly, even for English gentry.


My entry for ginglymus was chosen as one of the three finalists. It's allowable there to vote for yourself, and I did. I didn't win, though.

The vote count the last time I checked it:

11:52 PM 7/23/2007

Choose a winner for ginglymus
thinks! 50%
stephen 21.43%
wunx~ 28.57%

Total votes : 14


Minacious:

11:57 PM 7/23/2007

Minacious is what fans of the late Minnie Pearl called themselves.


I don't know whether my definition of minacious was a finalist or not, as I didn't get back to the site in time to check.


Wampee:

7:47 AM 7/24/2007

Wampee is a show business term formed from the words "warm" and "pizazz", and is used to describe an actor, a show or a performance that is very noticeably less than it should be.


Duumvir:

12:31 AM 7/26/2007

Duumvir is a type of grog that was taken by Vikings on their long sea voyages. It had a distinctive flavor due to the Duum tree (a type of fir) sap that was used to line the kegs. Those who consumed too much of the liquor were said to be truly Duumed.


Pergunnah:

7:05 AM 7/26/2007

A pergunnah is an old man or woman who has little money or is having a run of bad luck. It originally referred only to old women, as the term is a corruption of "poor grandma", but as the original words became less recognizable the usage spread to include old men as well.


I don't know whether my definition of pergunnah was a finalist or not, as I didn't get back to the site in time to check.


Scissel:

I missed adding a definition.


Struthious:

11:21 AM 7/28/2007

Struthious is a term used in the building trades to refer to a floor, wall, ceiling, etc., being straight and true and not misaligned or at a slant.


I don't know whether my definition of struthious was a finalist or not, as I didn't get back to the site in time to check.


Sciolist:

I missed adding a definition.


Gimcracks:

11:44 PM 7/30/2007

Gimcracks are the fault lines along which the ancient supercontinent Pangaea split apart. They are named after Sir Roger Gimcrack, who did pioneering work in this area.


Moquette:

12:31 PM 7/31/2007

A moquette is a person who imitates the Radio City Rockettes. The name is a cute misspelling of mockette ("mock" replacing "rock" and the result then combined with coquette), with mock in this case meaning imitation. The term generally tends to be slightly disparaging, but in a humorous fashion, and carries the implication that while the person might like to dance like a Rockette, the goal wasn't quite achieved.

Dream - Ghostly projections

On Friday, May 9, 2008, in the early evening or night, I had a dream about people making ghostly projections.

In the dream, we were in a house with large rooms. My younger sister made a ghostly projection of herself that was paler and less distinct (I had just been watching a Ghost Whisperer show that featured people making ghostly projections). I touched both of them to confirm that I could tell them apart, thinking that I would not be able to touch the ghostly one. I found, though, that I could touch both of them and they both felt physical, which was puzzling.

Then my father did the same thing and made a ghostly projection, including a ghostly pile of 8-track tapes, and I also made a ghostly projection. I joked that I could identify my father's by the 8-track tapes (though we both used to play them in real life). Our ghostly projections then went to the opposite real persons, mine to my father and his to me, and stood in front of them and held hands with them. It's possible, though, that I might be confusing another person making a projection with myself making one.

Afterward, I went outside and it was daytime, but the light wasn't very bright. There was a very old (1950s) red pickup truck, that appeared to have been roughly painted with a brush using the matte red paint used to paint some tools my father sold (though I didn't associate the paint with that paint at the time of the dream). The truck reminded me of the 1955 Cadillac for some reason, though it didn't resemble it at all. It was also very high off the ground, with lots of ground clearance. The interior was not in good shape. I was to use the truck to deliver some things somewhere, just a little bunch of small things, more in the cab than in the bed of the truck.

There was also something in the dream about my grandmother's house in Arizona, about going there.

Dream - Captured by miniature golf playing mobsters

On Thursday, September 11, 2008, very early, maybe as early as 2 AM, I had a dream in which I was captured by miniature golf playing mobsters.

In the dream it was night, and I was driving back and forth to the shopping center at Miller and Camelback Roads. A lot had already happened, but I don't remember it anymore.

Then I was driving back from the shopping center, toward my house, and someone was after me. There was a little fog, making things indistinct, hiding cars until they were only a few car lengths away. I went to the right and into and through a tall wall of foam, like some detergent-type foam, and tall bushes to a large open area associated with a mobster-type person's house, which was way back beyond it, like a house on an estate. I was worried about trying to hide there because it was so dangerous, but I was trying to elude the people who were after me. They may have in fact been associated with the mobster, but I'm not sure, it may have been something separate.

It was something like a landscaped decorated golf area. The ground was hard and was either paved or had very short grass. I went up a slight slope that was part of a slightly raised area that held a small decorative pool surrounded by a brick or concrete edge. I then laid down there by the edge and tried to be inconspicuous. The foam was fading away and the fog was thinning. It was still dark but there was a thin pale light, perhaps from a combination of moonlight and area lights.

The head mobster and other mobsters had come out and were playing miniature golf or some other game. They were slowly making their way from the house side in front of me toward the road side and then along between me and the road. I could see them and hear them talking and they somehow didn't seem to notice me. I was somewhat hopeful but it seemed unbelievable.

Then suddenly they were there behind me and he was casually talking to me, something on the order of "So, did you really think that you could hide here, that we couldn't see you?..."

I felt he could order my death at any time and it felt like guns were already pointed at me. It seemed that there might be some delay for some reason, that they might let me stay alive for a little while, under guard, but there seemed no way to escape.

Dream - The plane like a fly, and as Spider-Man I am captured and taken deep under the ground

On Thursday morning, September 11, 2008, I had a dream about a military operation involving a plane like a giant fly, and then I went through a dimensional portal and became Spider-Man, or someone like him, and was captured and taken to a place deep under the ground.

In the dream it was night, and I was in Fallon, Nevada or someplace like it. I was driving through town in the direction toward work and I got to or stopped at the Safeway (the one at the original Fallon location). It was farther from the road in the dream and down a very sharp slope from it. I parked along the road with a few other cars, above the very steep slope to the parking lot.

A plane like a giant fly, with huge diffuse lights on the front where the eyes would be and one on each wing, though one was out, came over the car and landed. It may have turned to face the car as it landed.

I walked down to the store. Girls from work showed up. They were all or mostly all people I didn't know in real life or actually worked with. Maybe some were already there, but I think some were coming in around the time I was. We started going around inside the Safeway (the one at the original Fallon location), grouped tightly together, against each other and bumping against each other and laughing. We were shopping, but I'm not sure now for what or whether anything was actually bought.

I finally thought I had to leave. The mood had changed somewhat. It seemed something was happening. I think maybe some word or indication came that the military was looking for me or perhaps looking for someone else, it might not have been for anyone we knew. I'm not sure we really knew what exactly was happening.

I went back out and went toward my car. Dark helicopters were flying and shooting down beams of light. I was with one or more of the girls still. I almost made it up the slope, but then turned back. A couple of people on foot, up near the road with flashlights, started to come in my direction. I went onto a stairway that went in long, narrow, rectangular circles down into a deep, almost bottomless rectangular room-sized pit. In some places the stairs were very narrow, only inches, though they always had railings. Though it was dark outside, the stair area was lit from somewhere. I'm not sure where the lights would be, but it was lit all the way down.

There was someplace at the very top that the stairs disappeared into, that looked almost like bulging, slightly crumpled white paper. I tried to get up to and through it at one point, but I had to stop then, because it was taking too much time and they were getting too close. I was intentionally falling down the stairs at one point, just supporting myself on the rails and swinging or jumping out past huge blocks of stairs at a time, and then actually outside the rails, just grabbing at the railings to break my fall as I fell past down the endless stairs. The people after me never seemed very far behind somehow. I think I might have then made it back to the top somehow and through the paperlike barrier and to the other side. I did get through somewhere some way.

Then I was on the other side, running and dodging among the various white rooms there and the rows of tall metal shelves in them, seeming to imagine and then see Spider-Man doing it and then quickly becoming him, or at least becoming someone acting the part.

As Spider-Man, I was trying to escape, going over and along stacks of tall metal shelves filled with things, shooting webs and swinging from them, also shooting them at people and their weapons. There always seemed to be a delay when I tried to shoot the webs out and I was a little puzzled at it, looking at my wrist and wondering why it wasn't happening. Then some device or chemical they used on me made the webs stop, my wrists just shot dampness that I couldn't see until the person I was aiming at was covered with drops and wetness. Then they stopped working completely, and my wrists shot nothing at all.

I was trapped and captured, and brought to a strange, middle-aged mutant woman with a body that had odd irregular lumps. She was apparently supposed to read my mind and also control it, to make me docile and do their bidding. The lumps on her body moved around when I pushed at them, like they were just wads of cotton. I ended up with my hand full of dark, bronze colored metal-like needles, slightly curved on one side and perhaps one and a quarter to one and a half inches long, that her body had produced as a defense. I spent some time, then, pulling them out, groups of them at a time. I pretended that she had succeeded in her attempt to control my mind, but I'm not sure how much was pretense.

I was taken far, far underground, maybe brought back to the endless flights of stairs going down, though it seems more like I might have been brought to a similar place inside the barrier. I'm not sure now. We didn't actually use the stairs, we went down through some elevator-like device or maybe even partly through some kind of dimensional portal.

I was taken down to the last few stories, and then to someplace near or on the bottom, where plants were grown to use to make purple dye for toys. At this point the dream was mostly in black and white, though some pale color was sometimes seen. I was a worker doing whatever was assigned, though new people were generally given the most menial of tasks.

I planned to escape somehow when I got the chance. I had some small device that I had picked up or was given to me by someone. The device was supposed to help me escape in some way, maybe overpower the guards (most of the people seemed to either be guards or definitely on the side of them, though), or the device may have been more to unlock a doorway out or open some other way of passage out. It seemed like I would be passing between dimensions somehow when I left. I seemed to become a little afraid to try, though, and wasn't really sure I would.

The place seemed to be mostly a field with rows of things growing in it, though people were also working on toys that were returned or that needed more work before they were sent out. There were boxes filled with them, some boxes three or four feet high and some smaller. Some of the boxes were shaped like houses. Some of the problems were just with toys being improperly colored and color had to be added. The toys were various colors, not all purple, though we were concerned with growing plants that could be used to make purple dye and maybe crushing them and extracting the dye from them.

Then I got away somehow. I got past the people and went to a somewhat higher control area. It seemed that someone else was there first, that someone had come, maybe from the other side of the barrier. They went back after showing me how, but I was now looking through things, at the white wall and the devices on it and looking at the wall behind me and the things there. Some were pipes and some were metal boxes, all painted white. I was looking for a door or some other way through, maybe activating some device or mechanism and somehow slipping through an opening or even into where the device was attached to the wall, flowing into and through it. I had forgotten how it was done. I was worried, too, about someone finding me there. I worried about them noticing I was gone and looking for me. Somehow I finally got through and to the other side.

I was above ground then, in some big building. The building had a lot of lights, but it still didn't seem brightly lit. The walls were dark. There were conveyor belts and a section at the right, from my perspective facing toward the front, with huge bins with clear plastic covers over them, like some kind of smorgasbord. Some of the bins contained identifiable food, but everything in them was kind of dark. The darkness may have been a trick of the lighting used. Workers in white protective clothing, almost like containment suits, were working at them, putting more in some of them. A grainy mudlike substance was in some of the bins and also on a big area of the wide conveyor belt, blocking it.

There was also a contest going on, something about the bins and the conveyor belt, and traveling down the conveyor belt, and people in a hurry to complete it, but I don't remember the details now (I am adding to this last section on December 2, 2008, almost three months after the dream). The high area where I was also seemed to be part of a huge theater, with lots of rows of seats leading down to the front on a downhill slope to a stage.

Wordzzle 84 - Breaking through

This is my contribution to this week's Wordzzle. Wordzzle is a game in which each week word lists, used to create stories, are given on the blog Views from Raven's Nest. Participating users post their stories on their own blogs.

This is my entry number 28, for Wordzzle week 84.


Ten Word Challenge:

plaster,
cottage cheese,
hallowed,
hard working,
food for thought,
blood drive,
broken finger,
ceiling fan,
pastry chef,
production

I'm no pastry chef, but even I know that tarts aren't supposed to have blades sticking out of them. Plaster in the cottage cheese is never a good sign either, I thought sadly, as I looked at the remains of dinner, with the fallen ceiling fan in the middle of the table.

The meal hadn't been any hallowed production, but it was all I had left in the house, and I just didn't feel in the mood right now to go get any more. Money was kind of tight, too. I'd been off work for several weeks now, because of a broken finger and the associated complications. They'd had to start a blood drive at the hospital, because I'd lost so much blood, and had an odd rare blood type. I hadn't been bleeding till they started work on me, and I still couldn't understand how I had started bleeding like that. The doctors had never been able to explain it to me in a way that I could understand. I'm not even sure they understood it. Then the finger had gotten infected, and then I'd gotten pneumonia, and then some disease I couldn't pronounce and had never heard of. At least I was back home now. Not that I felt real good about it at the moment.

A small demonic head peered out of the hole in the ceiling, followed by a small demonic body. "Enjoying your dinner?"

"Not too much at the moment, and getting steadily less."

"That's too bad, it looks pretty tasty to me." It crawled a short distance across the ceiling, then dropped to the table and began chewing on one of the fan blades. "They don't make ceiling fans like they used to," it observed. "Ceilings either. Still, it's not bad."

"I don't suppose that there's any chance you could be leaving soon."

"Not really. I'm a hard working imp, and I like to stay until the job is done."

"Well, your job was almost terminated early. I almost didn't make it out of the hospital."

"Oh, the plan was never for you to die, just to make you miserable. I think it worked out rather well." It leaped up on my head, dug its claws in, and started to lick the plaster dust off. Its tongue was long and wet and rough.

"Is there any chance you could do that somewhere else?"

"I can't very well lick the plaster off your head somewhere else, now can I? Silly." It leaned over and peered into my eyes, upside down. "Is there anything at all in there? Sometimes I wonder."

"Couldn't you please just go away?"

"Sorry, it's seven years bad luck for breaking a mirror, you know, especially for breaking that kind of mirror, and we've only just begun."

"Yes, it was an old expensive antique mirror, but I bought it after I broke it, that should have settled everything."

"I'm sure the owner was happy. I'm happy, too, for that matter. Breaking the mirror let me out."

"If you're happy, why are you punishing me?"

"Rules are rules. And, anyway, punishing you makes me even more happy. I don't know what I'm going to do with myself when the seven years are up." It leaped back onto the table and scooped up some plastery cottage cheese and began eating it. It then picked up the whole container and began pouring it into its mouth.

"Look," I said, "I glued it back together. You know I did, you watched me do it. Why won't you go back in it?"

"It hardly looks the same, now, does it? All those cracks and splits. You were pretty sloppy with the glue, too."

"It was my first time. I'm no expert."

"Obviously. Who would want to live in that thing? Not that I wanted to live in it before. I was bound within it, though, by the spell. That was broken with the mirror. You're not going to get me back in there no matter how nice you make it look."

It suddenly turned and dumped the rest of the cottage cheese on my head. "Here, have some food for thought. You need all the help you can get." Then it sat down and wrapped its arms around itself and laughed and laughed, rolling from one side to the other. I sat there and smoldered, cottage cheese dripping on my shirt. The laughter went on and on.

I suddenly got up and left the room, and came back pushing the mirror ahead of me. It was a tall oval mirror, almost full length, on a heavy wooden stand.

"Here! Get in it!"

"It isn't that easy, I told you."

I grabbed it with my good hand and jammed it against the mirror. Nothing happened. It laughed and squirmed around in my hand, then grabbed my index finger in both hands and casually broke it. "OW! Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow..."

"Silly, silly boy. Now you really need an extra hand. Good thing I'm here to help out."

"Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow..."

"You didn't even glue this thing together properly, this big piece at the top is coming loose."

"I had to get more glue, and then I couldn't get it back apart to put the glue on it. Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow..."

It pried the piece off the mirror and started poking me with the sharp end, then tried to work the point underneath the bandage on the finger I had broken earlier. I somehow grabbed the piece away from it, gritting my teeth against the pain, and held it far away, behind it. It laughed some more, the sound fading and then abruptly choking off. I looked, and saw that the demon was between the main part of the mirror and the fragment I was holding, and its horrified image was reflected back and forth between them, creating an endless series of small, receding, demons. It raised its arms, like it was trying to fend them off, then it screamed and blurred and somehow went into both sides at once. I saw it now in both of them, pale, almost transparent, writhing around. I slammed the piece I was holding against the face of the mirror and heard another scream, fainter and somewhat muffled. Wisps of smoke came up.

I carefully lowered the mirror to the floor, keeping the piece tight against it. Then I went and got the new tube of glue, put a liberal amount on the back of the piece, and fitted it back into its proper place. The image of the demon, looking very distressed, slowly flowed out into all the separate pieces, becoming more and more divided, and more and more pale and ghostly. I righted the mirror, and the images slowly slid down to the bottom in a jumbled heap, their horrified eyes, locked in pain, staring out at me. They slowly faded out, leaving just a fogged area in the glass, and then that, too, was gone.

Feeling kind of faint now, I made my way over to the phone and sat down by it. I dialed 911 and told them I needed an ambulance, and then sat there and waited for it. My finger had started to bleed again, but so far it didn't look like I would need a transfusion, so things were already looking up. Maybe I would even get to the hospital in time for dinner.


Mini Challenge:

the sky is falling,
variations on a theme,
bravery,
powder puff,
empty soda bottles

"The sky is falling!" someone screamed, and something hit me on the head. Then something else, and then they were falling all around me. They were just empty soda bottles, made of thin plastic, and didn't really hurt much, but it was annoying. Then some powder puffs started falling. Variations on a theme, I guess.

I looked up and saw a small craft flying around above me. I pointed my finger at it accusingly, then shook my fist at it. It flew around closer and then landed. A strange little being got out and stood by the craft for a minute, then slowly came toward me. It stopped about five feet away. I glowered at it. It looked back for a while, and finally, slowly, its head drooped, its eyes still looking at me. Its whole body seemed to sag. I pointed at the stuff on the ground, still glaring at it. It slowly took out a large bag, made of some shiny material, and began picking it all up. When it was done, its eyes, sad but tinged with hope, looked up at mine. I nodded and gave a grim smile, still glaring at it. It slowly turned around and made its way back to its craft, and put the bag in and got in and left. I watched it fade into the distance with smug approval.

I'm not noted for my bravery, but sometimes you just have to stand your ground.


Mega challenge:

plaster,
cottage cheese,
hallowed,
hard working,
food for thought,
blood drive,
broken finger,
ceiling fan,
pastry chef,
production

the sky is falling,
variations on a theme,
bravery,
powder puff,
empty soda bottles

"Blood drives will one day collect cottage cheese, and these hallowed walls will once again be plastered."

I had no idea what that meant, but so far it sounded good. I had driven a long way to get here, all the way to Broken Finger, Wyoming, to see the guru. I hoped it was worth it.

"You will one day be a pastry chef, and will make tarts in the shape of ceiling fans. Some will say the sky is falling, but you will know better. Never accept empty soda bottles, unless something is in them. It takes no bravery to fight powder puffs, but you will nevertheless need it. Hard working people will make much ado about something, and the production will be sold out."

There was more where that came from, variations on a theme that I couldn't quite catch. Food for thought, but it didn't really answer my question, the reason I had come out here. At least, not as far as I could tell. "This is all really interesting, but what I really want to know is if there is intelligent life elsewhere, and if it has come to visit us. Whether UFOs are real."

"I have already talked at length. Another forty dollar donation would be appreciated. Thank you. My answers float through the air, and find no safe place upon you. They lie all around us, waiting for eyes that see. Sometimes you just have to be hit on the head. That is all."

That is all? "Wait, I still don't understand..."

"Sorry, other people are waiting. Next!"

I left, feeling glum. What could all that mean? It sure wasn't likely that a UFO was going to come and hit me on the head. All that money for nothing. And I had to buy that broken mirror from him, too...

My head under me, trapped in darkness

The following incident probably happened in 1966. I was in the seventh grade, during a time when we had moved back to Missouri for less than a year.

I was tall for my age, overweight and non-athletic. I had watched smaller, thinner kids do backward rolling somersaults. They had rolled backward directly over their heads, quickly and without any problems. I wanted to be able to do it, but I wanted to try it at home, where they couldn't see my attempts.

So, one night at home I decided to try it. My mother kept telling me not to do it, that I was too heavy. I insisted on trying, though. I tried over and over, but the best I could do was to roll backwards over one shoulder. I couldn't seem to roll directly over my head. It was too uncomfortable to go directly over my head, and I kept going to one side instead.

I finally made a more determined attempt at it, to do it despite the discomfort. And I managed to do it. The results, however, were not what I had anticipated.

I was in darkness, and my chin was pressed firmly against my chest. My head felt like it was folded face-first underneath my chest, with the back of my neck severely stretched. It was a very uncomfortable position, and I couldn't seem to breathe. I felt that the front of my neck was so severely bent that it was blocking the airflow. I couldn't move, though, and had no awareness of my body much beyond my head and neck.

Perhaps six feet away, I heard my mother and my younger brother talking, but they seemed unaware of what had happened to me. I kept hoping that one of them would notice what had happened, and straighten my body up so that I could breathe again. Nobody came and helped, though, and they kept on talking. I was afraid that I might die there while they continued talking, unaware.

It seemed like such a tragic situation, for someone to die when it could easily have been prevented by some people nearby, if they had only turned to look, if they had only known. How terrible they would feel when they finally realized that something was wrong. I felt sad for them, thinking of how they would feel and of how it would bother them all the rest of their lives.

It seemed terribly tragic that such a thing should happen, that someone should die in this way. That it didn't have to happen.


Suddenly, I raised my head and got up off the floor. Everything was normal again.

I didn't try any more somersaults, though. I was saddened that other people could do it and I could not, but I didn't want to risk repeating what had happened. It wasn't worth dying over, or having a broken neck.

It was definitely one of those times when I should have listened to my mother.

Dream - Getting strange powers, running from people as a woman

On Thursday, May 15, 2008, I dreamed of me, or someone else, getting strange powers from something, some experiment or radiation or potion. It seems it was accidental in some way. The government was involved somehow. I could fade into walls and go out the other side, and was in a small store like a convenience mart.

Then it switched to someone else also getting the powers, a woman. She was sent to the store and something happened, her powers started manifesting and she ran into trouble, becoming dizzy and was falling into shelves. Someone was sympathetic, maybe the manager. The police were going to be called, though.

A couple of people went into a small side extension at the front and she followed, afraid they were going to do something. One of them had gotten a rifle or shotgun, she fought back and I think injured or killed him. She tried initially to fade into/melt into one of the walls, to try to escape, but it was a slow process. She went instead then to the back where there was a small recessed room with a man behind a desk or table, and behind him and raised up somewhat was a window with large Venetian blinds. The glass was very thick and heavy duty, and the man was some kind of clerk/guard for large amounts of money that were transferred through the window at certain times to an armored truck. I/she went to the window and started melting through the glass. It was slow but faster than the wall.

On the other side it was dark and a man was laying on his back on a raised platform, sleeping. He was holding a rifle. I was afraid he would be disturbed and wasn't sure how deeply he was sleeping or if he was actually sleeping. He did stir somewhat. I, as the woman, went to him and took the rifle barrel in both hands and carefully bent it back upon itself and then bent the end back to the original direction, pressing the sections close together. He did seem to be waking up more, seemingly aware that something was going on, but he wouldn't be able to fire at me. I left, flying away, and heard him behind me alerting people on a handheld radio.

I went into some place that was a hospital, some kind of mental ward. There were quite a few people in the halls, mental patients. They seemed friendly and tied to hide me. The people after me got to the hospital and I was going quickly down the hallway among the people. I got to a large room that had rows and aisles of big shelves, used for storage. Someone came in after me with a gun. I think that someone else intervened, and some kind of brief struggle occurred. The person after me was shot and killed, and there was a person who was an upper level supervisor for him who intervened on my behalf, who looked like the leader on the old Mission Impossible TV show. I looked for him then but he was gone.

I was talking to someone who came in, trying to find him or evidence that he had been there to show the person. I saw what looked like an irregular slightly oval scrap of paper with what appeared to be his picture on one side, like an ID badge, but closer examination showed that it was slightly curved, and made of something like thin soft light gray cardboard, almost like a scrap of an old fruit peel, like an orange or avocado. I thought then it was like some kind of prize or coupon that had to be redeemed. I found a thin tabloid newspaper with want ads and a hole in the page and thought for a minute that it might have come from there, but then I wasn't so sure. I had to leave, then. They were going to give me safe escort out.

I was on some kind of trolley-like car on a cable carrying other people. It was still dark. We were heading toward a bridge or overpass crossing the road. We had passed similar things on the way. I was informed by someone then, someone managed to get to me, perhaps it was myself as Stephen, and warned me that it was some kind of a trick, that some of the people weren't going along with the rescue and were planning to ambush me. I got up on top of the car. I seemed to be somewhat birdlike now with at least some feathers. I saw people situated at various points, in dark clothes with high powered rifles, dark figures and weapons shining in the moonlight.

I flew away, trying to take some cover with an overpass. They saw me and were firing. I think I was hit once, maybe in the leg. I flew around and to a small arched concrete section and started shaking it, rocking it back and forth a little and getting the attached roadways shaking, hoping to create a distraction. I saw the person who was shot and killed in the storage area earlier, but here he was, still alive. Apparently he hadn't been killed after all. He was lying on his back a little ways away, bandaged and held down with chains, smiling evilly at me. They were still shooting at me. I shook the arched section more and more violently, finally detaching it entirely at the ends and rapidly moving it up and down several feet, like a seesaw, shaking the man and the overpass and everything in the area.

Dream - Traveling, carrying engines, and the building in the grasslands with the old woman and the folding luggage

Sunday, May 25, 2008, sometime after midnight, I had a dream about traveling, and walking and carrying engines, and near the end having some strange folding luggage demonstrated to me by some old women in an isolated building in a grasslands.

In the dream, I was traveling back and forth to Nevada. I stopped at various places along the way for food, etc. I was driving a little car. I think I switched cars at some point. The second car was also small, though they weren't exactly the same size, and one was definitely a little larger. One of them was a much darker color, also.

I think I met my father at some point, maybe around Las Vegas somewhere, maybe somewhere else.

At some point I was going back to Arizona, going east. I started walking rather than driving. I think I had left my father not long before. It was daylight. I had a very small car and was going along a small curved lane that left the road and then curved back to meet it a short distance later. Cars were parked at places along the lane and by the main road. There was some building nearby, perhaps a rest stop. I started carrying the car on my back. I was initially carrying the whole car on my back/shoulders, but then just the engine, an aluminum four cylinder. Then I decided I should try to carry two engines on my back and not just one. I was a little doubtful, myself, at the prospect. It proved much harder to carry two engines at once. Not only was the weight burdensome, the engines took up too much room and it was hard to keep them both in place.

I walked along a road in the dark through a vast grassland. The grass was pale and dead, about a foot or so high. Occasionally I ran into mountains or other obstacles. It was similar to a way I had taken in other dreams. I was going back to Arizona but I was initially going east a long distance before intending at some point to turn south.

Going east, at some point I went through or past a building where an old woman was, a building with a big room off to the side with long tables with equipment on them, a place I had been in other dreams.

Continuing east, at some point I came to a large shopping mall. I went through it and I think I was looking for some place to get some food at while I was there. I came to the end of the mall and an entrance that faced south. I was going to go out the entrance into the parking lot and then turned east again. I was concerned and feelingly somewhat guilty about the mall, that going through it had delayed me too much.

Then the dream seemed to replay itself a little bit, and at some point before the mall the CIS Manager at the place I used to work had joined me, a man with gray-white hair and beard. Someone was with him, but I'm not sure who. Perhaps it was the short person who worked on various things in the computer department. I think I had phoned the CIS Manager from the mall or from an earlier place I had stopped.

Now we were at the end of the mall and about to leave it, when I realized that I only had one engine on my back. I must have dropped the second one somewhere along the way. I had to go back and retrace my steps to try to find it.

I was kind of sick at heart at the prospect. It was going to delay things quite a bit, and the CIS Manager and the other person would have to wait while I did it. There didn't seem to be any way out of it, though. I assured them that I would hurry, but they seemed kind of surprised and disturbed at what was happening.

I left the engine I had been carrying there at the mall and went back the way I had come, moving fast now without the weight of the engine. I didn't know how far I would have to go, maybe all the way back to when I put the engines on my shoulders.

I traveled back past the pale dead grass shining in the darkness. At some point I tried calling people with some kind of handheld device, it seemed only partially a phone. I think I got it from the CIS Manager. I might have started calling before I even left the mall. It was hard to make good contact, and the time of contact seemed to be limited. Someone on the other side was asking how to contact the people I left behind, and I said that I didn't know, maybe by the phone booth I used at the mall. I gave them the number for it, or what I thought was the number. I think it was mostly composed of 2's. I had to repeat myself, it seemed that they weren't understanding me or somehow weren't getting what I was saying. I think I talked to them more than once, but part of the time they might have called me rather than me calling them.

I ran into my mother along the way, who came after me from Arizona in a car. She was much younger than she is now. We drove around in a town or city somewhere in Arizona for a while, but at some point we were going north on a two lane unmarked road away from the city, with mostly undeveloped land around. Some kid on a bicycle came in from the right and went more or less along or by the road. I was a little worried about him, that he might get in the way of the car, but when I got to where he was he had moved far off to the side. We got to a traffic signal (I think) at a road crossing ours. Our road might even have ended at that point, meeting the other road at a slight angle or at least widening at the intersection. We turned to go east. I didn't know how far back on my path we had gotten.

We got to a place I had passed on my journey earlier, a building with a large room to the right side of the smaller front one, a building that had an old woman that looked similar to the woman landlord who (along with her husband) I rented an apartment from in Fallon. There was also a second woman who might have been a little younger than the first. She had hair that was dark gray and the first woman had light gray hair.

I had a very simple digital camera, and the first woman was interested in it and wanted to see it. I finally held it out to her on a long thin chain. I was standing in the first room, in the doorway to the large one. They were in the large one, and the floor there was lower by a few feet. I banged the camera a little on some things as I held it out toward her, including directly banging the part that held the lens. I worried a little about the camera getting damaged a little, but at the same time it seemed to be pretty sturdy and it didn't get banged very hard. They seemed more impressed by the utter simplicity and lack of options on my camera than about anything else. Their cameras were very large and very complicated. They seemed to be looking for a button on my camera that made copies, but my camera had only the simplest of controls, just enough to take pictures.

While this was happening, they were also wanting to know how to move a neoprene rubber panel from a camera or camera case to another one. It didn't seem possible to me, but I didn't say anything.

Then, while I watched, a thing that consisted of carpeted panels with sewn edges with a strip over them and sewn down was set down on a very long table that ran by in front of the door. The second woman activated a handheld device and the panels folded up, making a boxlike structure that was apparently a piece of luggage of some kind. I said that would have been scary twenty years ago, and after a brief pause the first woman agreed.

I left then through the first room and then had to go back. I had forgotten to pick up the keys on a long thin chain that I had given them to look at. A little girl was on a table that ran along the wall. The table was on both sides of the door, with a gap for the doorway, and had various objects on it, a lot of them odd devices or machines. The little girl had apparently been hiding among them and had come out after I had gone. She was to the left of the doorway.

The first woman was where she was when I left, and was surprised to see me back again. If the second woman was around, she was probably somewhere to the right and didn't say anything. I don't remember noticing her and she might not have been there.

I got my keys back and then left again through the first room. I'm not sure I ever got the camera back or even remembered it, the keys seem to have replaced the camera.

Someone was also coming out with me, a few steps behind me and a little to my right, coming to the front room from the side somewhere. It was a woman who was much younger than the other women. I don't know who she was. I was somewhat worried at first, first I think about who it was and whether they might try to do something to me, and then when I saw who it was, whether she was scared of me or if I worried her in some way, and then I was worried that the people after me would get her in the process. I tried to warn her as we came out of the building and onto a small paved courtyard with a low wall acting as a planter. It was daylight now, and as we walked I put out my right arm back toward her, trying to wave her back and saying something to her as a warning.

I went to the street, and it had cars and vehicles parked on both sides now, leaving enough room for a car to pass between them. There was some delivery van-type vehicle, maybe more than one, and a person or two was walking around. I found something, some type of coin maybe, on the sidewalk I think, and was talking about it to someone. It was an old coin, very odd and apparently valuable, though it had more importance than just money. It was not overwhelmingly important, though.

I was moving on, looking I think for where the car was parked with my mother in it, but I don't think I found it and I think she might have left to go somewhere, maybe without the car. I don't think she had gone too terribly far, though it might have been over a mile. I was just starting to go into the street, looking for my car, with some concern about the people there, when the dream ended.

Wordzzle 83 - Exit, laughing

This is my contribution to this week's Wordzzle. Wordzzle is a game in which each week word lists, used to create stories, are given on the blog Views from Raven's Nest. Participating users post their stories on their own blogs.

This is my entry number 27, for Wordzzle week 83.


Ten Word Challenge:

family,
cheese cake,
20 years ago,
refrigerator,
laugh and the world laughs with you,
bath brush,
zombies,
African violets,
butterflies,
holding hands

"Laugh and the world laughs with you, unless you're a zombie."

"What do they do then?"

"Generally scream and run away, or try to kill me or both."

"That sounds pretty bad."

"Yes. And it doesn't seem to matter what I do. One time I even asked a lady very nicely if I could borrow her bath brush. She screamed and fainted and slid under the water. I had to drag her out. Then when she woke up and saw that we were holding hands, she fainted again. I tried bringing her cheese cake and African violets to make amends. It didn't make any difference."

"Why cheese cake?"

"I knew she liked it and it reminds me of, um, brains. Being soft and squishy. And delicious. Not that I'd eat hers, you understand. Or anyone else's. Really."

"Hmph. How did you know she likes cheese cake?"

"I've, um, known her from before. Before I became... zombified"

"I see."

"It was 20 years ago, and she's not getting any younger. I felt I had to do something pretty soon. You don't age after you're a zombie, but you do, um, ripen a bit."

"Yes."

"Well, I guess I've said all I need to say. I just needed someone to talk to, to listen to me. Someone I could get some opinions from, you know, pick their brains for a while. That's a zombie joke. Sorry. I'm afraid I do have to do something to you before I leave, though."

"I have a family who depends on me and who loves me very much."

"Relax, Doc. I'm just going to put the gag back. Can't have you screaming or yelling for help after I'm gone. I'm sure you'll eventually work your way out of the duct tape. If not, well, the janitor will discover you sooner or later.

"I really can't spend any more time here. I've got her waiting out in the car. In the trunk. With lots of duct tape. She's still alive, of course. I couldn't bear to kill her.

"I have to finish gathering the ingredients for the zombie potion. I have some of the ingredients stored in her refrigerator already, behind things. Then I'll force her to drink it. It's a little bitter, but not too bad. You get some butterflies in your stomach, and then you drift away. Things seem kind of dreamlike for a while, maybe for years, but then they slowly sharpen up again. You're never the same as before, though, never the same.

"Well, I really must get going. Perhaps I'll stop back and let you meet her in a few years, after things have, um, settled down. Perhaps you'll even want to join us. No? Well, think about it. Eternal life and all that. Well, life of a sort. As long as an angry villager doesn't set you ablaze or blow you to pieces. I can wait till your children are grown, and then you and your wife can join us. Still no? Well, you'll have plenty of time to think about it. Don't wait too long, though. It's better being young, even if you're a zombie. I'll check back every few years, anyway.

"It's been a fun talk. Fun for me, at least. You look like something's eating you. Sorry. Another zombie joke. You know what they say, leave 'em laughing.

"You're not laughing now, but you will later. Trust me."


Mini Challenge:

monsters in the closet,
roughly,
bowling,
menu,
Pennsylvania

The monsters in the closet were getting restless. I knew I shouldn't have taken them bowling. Now they wanted to get out and do things all the time. They had a great time at the bowling alley, gnawing on the balls and then rolling themselves down the lane to knock the pins over. The owner didn't want us back, which was just as well because none of the bowling shoes fit them. I couldn't take them back there, but any other place would probably be a one-time event, too. I could just see taking them out to dinner, and them peering intently at the menu and then eating it. I thought about stuffing them in a box and mailing them somewhere far away, maybe Pennsylvania (the Liberty Bell's already cracked, they can't blame it on them), but it would probably be deemed a suspicious package, with it vibrating and jumping around. They'd probably gnaw through it at some point, too.

The closet door shook, and I could hear a strange sound, like something being repeated over and over again. The door shook again and then flew open, and they were all around me, jostling me roughly and chanting, "Bowling alley! Bowling alley!"

"I'm sorry, boys, they won't let us in anymore."

"No! Go out! Go out!"

They started marching around me, randomly throwing themselves at me. "Go out! Go out! Go out!"

I found myself repeating them, "Go out, go out, go out..."

I became aware that I was alone. Or rather, not quite alone. From somewhere I felt their eyes looking out, watching. I picked a plate up off the table and bit off a section, then chewed it up and swallowed it. It wasn't bad at all. I giggled for a bit, then slowly composed myself. I needed to look a little more normal, this time.

I turned and headed for the door, then, grinning in spite of myself. Time to go bowling.


Mega challenge:

family,
cheese cake,
20 years ago,
refrigerator,
laugh and the world laughs with you,
bath brush,
zombies,
African violets,
butterflies,
holding hands

monsters in the closet,
roughly,
bowling,
menu,
Pennsylvania

I went to the grave and dug it up again. The family was still there, as they had been 20 years ago, and in all the times I had checked in between. They showed a surprisingly low amount of deterioration. I had long ago determined that they weren't vampires, simply by holding a small mirror up to each one and checking to see if there was a reflection. There always was. They seemed unlikely to be zombies, either, as none of them moved unless I moved them. Their eyes still looked at me, though. Not accusingly, but more like they were measuring me up. Like they were waiting. Although this was Pennsylvania and not Transylvania, I'm not sure how important location was to these things. Something sure seemed to be going on here.

I stared at them. Could something still inhabit them, some semblance of soul, perhaps? By any normal measure, they should be as dead as a stone. They felt somewhat higher, though, somewhere on the line from bowling balls to bath brushes to butterflies. If butterflies could be said to have a dark side, that is.

I continued to stare at them. I had been out here so many times. If I put them back, I knew I would be out here again, digging them up. I just couldn't stand the thought anymore. I was just too weary of it.

I finally put them all in the car. I handled them a little more roughly than I should have, and more roughly than I had intended to, but no one complained. I still felt guilty, though, and apologized for it. I felt a certain amount of understanding from them, but not necessarily forgiveness.

When I arrived at the house, I took them inside but still wasn't sure what to do with them. I finally put them in chairs around the kitchen table. I thought about arranging them so they were holding hands, but I couldn't stand the thought. It would seem like they were united against me.

I sat down at the table and stared at them. They stared back, like they were waiting for me to speak. I wasn't sure what to say in a situation like this, and I wasn't sure that words could really make it all better.

I got up and paced for a bit, while they sat there, waiting. I would probably have to do something with them, put them someplace else. I wasn't sure I wanted them watching me, and it might be awkward having company over. Not that I had much company these days.

I supposed that I could store them somewhere. They were too big for the refrigerator, and they weren't in any case something I wanted to find next to the cheese cake. I could put them in the closet. That's where I had them in the old days, before they were buried. But although I could never really forget about them, it was always a jolt to find them there, always a reminder, my own personal monsters in the closet. That's why I finally buried them in the first place.

It might be better to actually have them in the open. Maybe I could put them on the couch, next to the window with the African violets. That sounded more cheery. I could keep an eye on them there. And they could keep an eye on me.

I sat back down again and stared at them. They waited, expectantly. It was past dinner time, and I should probably offer them something. I wasn't sure I had anything they would eat, though. I couldn't think of anything on the menu I would like myself.

I almost felt like laughing, but the thought of it brought on some sadness. Laugh and the world laughs with you, but if no one laughs you can die on stage. Die too many times and it's all over.

Although I had tried to bury the dead, I had forgotten that we had all died, and so I couldn't escape the feeling that we were somehow linked. The memories from the old days also lent a kind of life-in-death to them, and perhaps also to me.

I picked one up and looked at it. It's eyes stared back at me, waiting. I put my hand in its back and made the mouth and the eyes move, and made the voice speak.

"You sure took long enough."

I looked at the others. They seemed to nod in agreement, and from an unseen audience came the sound of ancient laughter.

Sick in the South Seas

This is a story that I did for a message board, on a thread normally concerned with comically constructing new words and definitions. They were at that time doing exercises where a user gave a short list of words and other users then wrote a story containing those words. The story is changed slightly here in that it is broken up into several paragraphs instead of being contained in just one.

This is another of my stories from my post number 1000 for that message board. The list of words for this story: parrot, appendicitis, monsoon, implant, crater.

This story is dated 9:23 PM, December 1, 2006, Arizona time (MST).


SICK IN THE SOUTH SEAS

A south sea island is a bad place to get sick. Doctors can be hard to find when you need one. Especially if you really, really need one. My stomach was really hurting by the time I found him. He looked a little questionable, but by that time I felt I had no choice.

He told me to sit on the table, which I did. He poked at my stomach for awhile while I gritted my teeth and tried to break holes in the table with my fingers.

He finally said that I had appendicitis, but that I was in luck. He had some new treatment for it that he had invented himself. It was some device that he would put in my abdomen, plus some mysterious injections of some kind. Everything would be taken care of, he said, without the need for major surgery.

He began to gather his instruments, his needles, mysterious vials of liquid, and the device he was going to implant. His parrot, on a nearby table, looked at me intently. Too intently.

The doctor brought everything over and began to work. I wished he'd given me some anesthesia, but that didn't seem to be part of his mysterious injections.

Finally, he was done and stepped back. Way back. "We should know shortly," he said, "if it's going to work." If it's going to work?

Suddenly, my appendix exploded, leaving a huge crater. Blood and gore rained down all over, like some nightmarish monsoon.

The doctor stood there, covered in blood, tears streaming silently down his face. Finally he spoke, murmuring, "It worked, it worked."

The parrot hopped over and peered into the gaping wound, then stuck in a claw and said, "Does it hurt here?"

Dream - The computer message board, and what lay beyond

On Friday, December 12, 2008, probably around 1:00-3:30 AM, I had a dream about seeing an odd message on a message board, and then my mind going through it, through the computer and through the system to the computers on the other side.

In the dream, I was looking at a message board that had a white screen, with the messages in a box centered in the screen. I came across a thread, a set of messages, that was different. The box was different and was missing some columns, and the very top edge of it was cut off by a line separating it from a site/message board logo/title area at the top of the screen. Looking at the thread's only message, I deduced that it must be the first message from a new user, although the column showing the post count was missing and some things must have been left off when the user created the post, causing some glitches in the software.

I think I was going to reply to it, commenting on the situation rather than the message contents, but I ran into some trouble of some kind. I tried to go back to the original message, maybe just hitting the Back key on the browser to do so, and the screen came up showing the box for the thread but with a default colored background in the box, with the box having blue and gray diagonal smears across it instead of just the normal blank white background, and no thread contents.

I think I tried to hit the Back key again and seemed to get physically lost in the computer system on the other side, seeing and being physically present at a big aluminum cast or machined cooling fin array mixed with other things. It was so large that it seemed industrial, roomsize, but it may have just been because of my perspective. I was getting worried about things falling further apart, and I seemed to be falling further into darkness and the deeper innards of the massive computer system on the other side.

Falling deeper into it, I saw a tall refrigerator-size panel that said "Cray" on it. Evidently they used Cray supercomputers. I pressed the Esc key on my keyboard, maybe a few times. I was essentially operating blind on my keyboard, though sometimes I could see a little of it, or get a sense of it. I think I may have come back briefly to the computer screen showing the default background in the thread box, and then I was in a darkened room with various things and equipment in it, and a little boy was standing in approximately the center, apparently in front of a camera and pulling up and holding in front of him a big piece of cloth or perhaps very large sweatshirt, with just his head sticking up over it. The cloth/sweatshirt had printed on it the thread box, though apparently an empty messageless one, but without the colored background. This seemed to be a last-ditch attempt to provide a proper image, since the equipment itself seemed unable to do it.

Then I was back at my computer, which was on a table, perhaps a card table, in a large room that seemed more industrial, like possibly a garage, maybe even a commercial garage. My brother had come in and I called him over to see what they were doing, laughing a bit about it. I think the image on my screen still showed the colored background. Evidently the picture on the cloth hadn't made its way through yet, but I wanted to show my brother the little boy holding up the cloth anyway, and I drew my brother back into the computer system with me to show it to him. The little boy was there as before, finishing pulling up the cloth with the image, trying to straighten or smooth out the edges. I think someone was off somewhere in a darker area several feet to the side this time, to his left and a little to the front, maybe a girl around the same age, and they were talking a little bit about what was happening.

Dream - Finding an old schoolmate, Sally Field [not really]

On Tuesday morning, November 18, 2008, I had a dream in which I happened to find Sally Field, the actress, who in the dream was an old schoolmate, but who in real life I've never met.

In the dream, I went into a large building that seemed to contain a theater and some small shops. I think I was looking for something or someone. I had been looking in other buildings before this one, and a lot had already happened, but I no longer remember what.

The theater building had a lobby-like area inside, and an aisle that ran along the front, acting as an extension of the lobby, with small stores along on the side near the outer wall. Maybe some on the other side too, but I think they were mostly along the outer wall. I think they also had a large dining area off to the left somewhere.

After entering the building, perhaps ten or twelve feet to the left, I saw Sally Field, looking much younger than she does now, more like someone in her thirties. She was wearing a light blue gown of somewhat shiny material that came down off her shoulders in big soft folds that were secured to a seam at the waist. The skirt portion then went down almost to her ankles, widening slightly as it went. She looked beautiful.

She seemed surprised and happy to see me, and came to me and kissed me briefly on the lips.

I'm afraid I didn't really do much in the way of kissing her back. I mostly just stood there. Perhaps I was a little surprised, too.

She was there, it seems, for some kind of minor school reunion. It was evidently just an informal thing, with a few people from school getting together, though I was under the impression that they had rented part of the dining area for it. She had greeted me like that because she remembered me from school, and I dimly remembered her. In real life, of course, I did not attend school with her, and in real life she is probably about six years older than I am, but in the dream the situation was different.

We talked for a while, and walked back a bit in the direction from which she had come. A few other people were scattered around the area, but not many. Some may have been part of the reunion, but most seemed to have no connection with it and were there for other things. Although she was very happy at first, this seemed to be slowly fading, and she now seemed to want to get away from me, and for me to go away. She didn't really talk much about it, talking mostly of other things, and when I asked her why and if anything was wrong, her answers weren't very informative. She didn't seem mad, more matter of fact about it and even joking a little about it or the situation.

She went into a little gift shop and tried to hide, not very successfully, behind a circular wire rack full of little gifts, most of which were white. Almost all the gifts in the shop were colored white. I saw her from the other side of the rack, looking at her through the small holes between the gifts. We talked about the situation as she stayed on the other side of the rack from me, moving to keep the rack between me and her. She was no longer wearing the gown. At some point she had changed to just be wearing everyday clothes, with no apparent transition, unless she had somehow changed before I found her in the gift shop. Very little time had elapsed, though, and she may have even still been wearing the gown when I found her behind the rack of gifts. In any case, she was now wearing something like jeans and maybe a pale pullover sweater with something over it, an open jacket or open vest, probably also of jeans material.

She seemed a little sad now but also determined, but in a minor way, as if it was almost some kind of game, like she was going through the motions of something that she didn't really believe in. She still joked a little bit and talked about the situation in an offhand manner. She was still trying to get me to leave, but wouldn't say why. Some of what she was saying didn't really make sense, as it didn't relate at all to the discussion. I was worried that something else was going on, that something else was happening that she was afraid to tell. I was afraid that she was actually under the control of someone, that something had either been done to her mind to make her obey someone, to make her want to obey someone, or that someone was holding something over her, was threatening her in some way to make her obey, and that she dared not disobey him. She did seem to hint of someone else, someone who didn't like her doing certain things.

It didn't bother me that she might be interested romantically in someone other than me. I had not seen her for many years and had not expected to see her now. I was just afraid that she was in some kind of trouble.

She made a break for it and went perhaps eight or ten feet back toward the front of the store and got up on a tall counter that ran along part of the wall. The counter was covered in little white gifts and she seemed to be trying to hide among them. The gifts were much too small to hide her, and I was in any case watching her as she ran. I went up to her. She continued to talk to me, in a matter of fact way, slightly jokingly at times, lying on her stomach among the gifts. We continued our discussion, and she did not try to further escape. I tried to move some of the gifts away from her some, concerned that they might be damaged by her partially laying on them, though she seemed to have avoided laying on most of them, having pushed them away from under her as she was laying down. They were mostly little stuffed figures or animals with big pale ribbons, maybe some with little silk flowers also.

I finally got up on the counter with her to help her get up. I'm not sure what was going to happen after that, whether I could convince her to tell me what was really happening, and whether I would then be able to help her.

Dream - Breaking through to other dimensions, fighting evil things with love

On Sunday morning, November 16, 2008, I dreamed I used a little car to break through to another dimension, then we went to another dimension and used directed energy to fight evil things with love.

In the dream, after some traveling and discussion, I ended up in a house or a building, at a dimly lit room on one end, like a bedroom. My father and I think my mother were there. If not my mother then someone else, because there were at least two people.

I started talking about how I had discovered it, I had finally figured out how to do it, how to get the energy.

I left the room, flying or gliding swiftly forward, a foot or two off the floor, heading toward the other side of the house, showing them how it was done and hopefully showing them how they could do it, too. I raised up some as I approached the wall and went through a window-like opening in it, going into the next room. It felt like I was going through into another dimension.

Going through the other room, the situation changed to where I was now in a car going along a road that was raised off the floor, hanging in the air. The road and the car were small and toy-like, like they were representations of what was happening. The road went into a downward slope as it crossed the room, then rose smoothly as it approached the far wall, turning up near the wall into an almost vertical rise.

I distantly heard my father talking in the other room, discussing the situation with the other person. "Do you think he's going to make it? It doesn't look like he's going to make it."

I watched the little car, with me in it, rising on the little road, almost pointed straight up, near the wall and almost halfway up it. It was slowing down, but it felt like time itself was slowing down, that the process was becoming suspended in time, waiting for something to happen. Waiting for the car to break on through, with a sudden burst of bright energy and movement break on through the barrier holding it back, and break through dimensions and go through the wall into the next room.

Not sure what was happening but a little disturbed by the delay, I went over to the car. I felt that it should be able to do it, that I should have the power, but I didn't want to wait any longer. I felt that I had to break into the scene and do something.

I grabbed the car and pulled up on it, and it went up and slightly toward me, bright light pouring now from around it, a bright area in the middle with long thick rays reaching out, lighting up that side of dark room.

I turned back to the others, happy. "See? See?" I went back to them, and from the other side of the room and one by one, I pointed my finger at their heads and then their bodies. A stream of large drops, slightly glowing, shot out from my finger, getting them wet. I was giving them some of the energy I had, in the hope that they would then be able to have the power to do some of what I could do, and to give them some knowledge of the power and how to obtain it. They blinked, their eyes taking on new understanding and awareness, a new knowledge of the world and what lay behind it.


Then we went somewhere else, to some other dimension I think, to some place that seemed like a large ship. It was dark and dimly lit. We met some person who was very strange, not entirely human, and seemed to want to attack us. I said that we couldn't fight him, that it would make it worse, that we had to use love on him, that it was the only way.

We each reached out one or more arms, hands aligned with the arms, fingers pointing at him, and shot love toward him. He paused and straightened up, leaning back some, looking a little surprised. We kept it up and he started to change, some of the dark evil falling away from him. He became much more normal in appearance and stood there with a look of wonder on his face, and no longer wanted to hurt us. We left him puzzling over his new situation and moved on.

Near a railing, where the ship curved around, we came across another figure. This one was less massive and more human looking, and was taller and thinner, several inches taller than we were. We started doing the same thing to him, but he seemed to be resisting it better than the other one. I got worried and and jabbed my fingers, of my left hand I think, near his chest and then near his face, twisting my hand around as I did so, sending not love but a forceful, penetrating beam of invisible energy. It didn't work and seemingly made him madder and maybe even more powerful.

He leaned back slightly more and his face took on a more determined grimace. His right hand changed into something like a fat tube of what I felt was some kind of ointment, though I don't know what was in it. It looked like a very fat toothpaste tube, complete with a short cap. The other hand changed into something else, maybe something like pliers with large, rounded, flat, dark jaws filled with large triangular teeth. Teeth that, like pliers' teeth, were part of the jaws, but unlike most pliers' teeth didn't have sharp edges, and seemed more to grip firmly without tearing or cutting into what was being gripped.

Regretting my weakness in choosing to attack it, I again poured love into him, urging the others to do so. He fought against it, standing his ground and waving his hands around a little in a threatening manner, but finally we were able to win. He calmed down and started to change, losing his evilness, as the love took effect.

We turned then and went quickly down a hallway, into the interior of the ship. Something else was happening. At the far end of the hall was the open door of an elevator, and a figure ran to it and was tumbling into it, falling on the floor of it and twisting around to face upward and somewhat toward us. Two or three large dogs were also rushing into the elevator, black or dark brown on top with lighter brown underneath. One of them turned its head back and looked at me, seeming upset and worried and a little scared, but not really fearful, partially changing into a light brown-skinned man, or something approaching a man, as the elevator doors started to close.

Wordzzle 82 - Shadow people

This is my contribution to this week's Wordzzle. Wordzzle is a game in which each week word lists, used to create stories, are given on the blog Views from Raven's Nest. Participating users post their stories on their own blogs.

This is my entry number 26, for Wordzzle week 82.


Ten Word Challenge:

Tibetan sky,
symbols,
won’t you come home Bill Baily,
shadow figures,
brain cortex,
practice makes perfect,
life,
start of school,
lavender,
chow down

Under the arch, in its shadow, figures could be seen. They had been there for quite a while now, and he felt they were watching him. His brain cortex didn't work as well as it used to, but some things were fairly obvious.

He wondered when they were going to make their move . Maybe they were waiting for him to move first. If so, they were in for a long wait.

Finally, they began to walk toward him. Eventually they were standing there, looking down at him where he lay on the bench. He looked up at them, in their lavender suits, symbols of the smug elite.

"Won’t you come home Bill Baily?" one of them said.

"I've got better things to do, boys. It's the start of school today."

"But she's fixed your favorite, Tibetan Sky. She's sure she's got it right this time."

"The last few tasted funny. Burned my mouth, too."

"She misread the recipe. It said 'Adds life' and she thought it said 'Add lye.' She doesn't do that anymore."

"I guess practice makes perfect. Time to chow down, then."

He got up off the bench, sighing. He hated this complicated code word routine. At least he had something to do now. It looked like it was going to be an interesting mission, too.


Mini Challenge:

mental hospital,
falling leaves,
apple cider,
packing crates,
clues

The bum sat among the apple cider packing crates, half covered by falling leaves, and watched the world go by. He had a bottle with him, but it wasn't apple cider. He used to tell people that he had been in a mental hospital, and was put out on the street. He had hoped it would lead to more donations, but people shied away from him. Now he just held out his hand, when he had the energy and when he remembered. He left few clues about where he was from, or what he had been. Sometimes he talked about the military and fighting the enemy, so some thought he must have been in a war, but no one was sure which one. He wasn't a young man anymore, and there were several to choose from.

Suddenly a black limousine pulled up, and men dressed in dark suits and dark glasses got out. One talked briefly into a radio, while two others headed for him and gently pulled him to his feet.

"You've got to stop slipping away from us like this, sir."

"You almost lost me this time, didn't you?" he laughed. "One day I'll work out the proper 'strategery,' and then I'll really be gone..."


Mega challenge:

Tibetan sky,
symbols,
won’t you come home Bill Baily,
shadow figures,
brain cortex,
practice makes perfect,
life,
start of school,
lavender,
chow down

mental hospital,
falling leaves,
apple cider,
packing crates,
clues

"Isn't there something you can do to get rid of those shadow figures?" she said.

"Oh, they're not so bad. They just like to watch. Sometimes they like to touch, too. That's when it really gets creepy."

She winced and jerked back from them a bit.

"But why are they here? I never see them anywhere but here."

"I didn't see them until I'd been here for a while. I think they're kind of shy. That's probably why they're not normally seen other places. That, and people just don't pay attention. Probably some people don't have their brain cortices wired right either, and couldn't see them anyway."

"I feel like my brain cortex is being seriously altered."

"Well, there you go! Maybe you'll start to see them more places, then."

"Oh great. I'd really rather just see them here. Or, rather, not see them here."

"But you are seeing them. And you know what they say, practice makes perfect."

"I don't think I need this kind of practice."

"Would you rather they be there watching you, and you not know it?"

"No! That is, I'd rather they not be there at all. But if they are there, I suppose I'd rather see them. Now I'm going to wonder if they're there if I don't see them."

"Just remember, no matter what you do or where you are, God is always watching."

"That really makes me feel good."

There was silence for a time.

"I feel like I should commit myself to a mental hospital for just having this conversation," she finally said.

"If you did, I'd have to join you."

"Do you really mean that?"

"Well, I'd at least visit you there."

"Thanks a lot!"

Some shadows of falling leaves fell across the table where they sat.

"Are they really people, or just shadows of people?" she said.

"They do seem to cling to surfaces. I've even seen them on packing crates, going over the top and down the side. But if they are just shadows, I don't know what the light source would be. I don't see them when it's completely dark, though. That doesn't necessarily mean they're not there."

"So you're saying they could still be there and I wouldn't know it. I think I'll sleep with a light on from now on." She shuddered. "I wish we had something stronger than this apple cider."

"Another thing to think about is, if they're just shadows, where are they really? Where is the invisible person that makes the visible shadow?"

"Now you're saying that if we see them we still don't know where they are!"

"I'm just speculating. I really don't know. There aren't many clues to go by."

"I don't know if I can ever get to sleep again. I dread the thought of going home and being alone."

"You could try singing to them. 'Won’t you come home Bill Baily, won’t you come home.'"

"No! I don't want them to come with me! I'm afraid I'll be alone and they'll be there!"

"But then you wouldn't be alone. If you don't like that song, we could try another. 'Under the Tibetan sky, shadow people spy...'"

"Stop that! I said I don't want them! Besides, you're a lousy singer."

"I'm hurt. I guess practice makes perfect, though, so I better start practicing."

"Practice somewhere else. Not now! Don't leave me!"

"I'm not. Think of this as like the start of school. Everything is new to you, but after a while, it all seems normal and routine."

"I'm not sure it will ever seem routine."

"You'd be surprised."

"You don't understand. This can't be right. Maybe they're here to eat us, or eat our souls, or, or, something."

"Now that you mention it, I have been a little tired, lately. Maybe they've already chowed down."

"See? See? You've got to get rid of them!"

"Well, you know, life exists by feeding on other life. That's just, um, life."

"But we don't have to volunteer!" She picked up the apple cider bottle and refilled her glass, her hand shaking a bit. She took a sip and then another.

"This stuff isn't strong enough to help. Even the apple on the label is lavender instead of red. I need something with alcohol in it."

"Alcohol won't help. They'll be there whether you're drunk or not. Wouldn't you really rather be fully aware of it?"

"Not really." She wrung her hands together, looking miserable.


The figures stared at the shadows of a man and woman sitting at a table.

"Look what she's doing with her hands. She's put them together and keeps moving them over and over. Do you think it's a symbol for something?"

"I don't know," another of the figures said. "I just wish they'd go away."

The Weed Forest

This is, as they say, based on a true story. Most of it, in fact, is true. I'm afraid the only really disturbing things I found, though, were a few dead birds.

This story is dated 3:34 PM, June 8, 2003, Arizona time (MST).


THE WEED FOREST

My sister's back yard was full of weeds.

Weeds two, three, or four feet high.

Or even higher.

Densely packed.

She had let it go on for too long.

I began to pull weeds.

Sometimes handfuls, sometimes just a single weed, depending on the difficulty.

Pulling them out of the dry earth.

I spent days at it.

And nights.

One time, I found a body.

A body hidden in the weeds.

A dead body.

My body.

Finders keepers.

Dream - A massive engine being revved higher and higher

On Monday morning, December 29, 2008, I dreamed about a massive engine being revved higher and higher, with Jeffry from Guiding Light shifting the gears.

In the dream, I was in a small town-type place. A lot happened there, but most of it is forgotten.

Eventually, near some houses in a neighborhood, someone activated a room sized engine and transmission. It was literally in a room, but one without a ceiling. Someone else was called to shift the gears to control the engine. It was someone who looked like the Jeffry character on the TV soap opera Guiding Light, and may in fact have been that character. I think he had also been in the dream earlier. He seemed a little surprised at the size of the task given him, but seemed to believe he could handle it. Indeed, the reason the maker of the device chose him was that he had a lot of prior experience in things like this, and was famous for it.

A long, jointed, slightly bent metal bar, perhaps ten feet long, stuck out of the device at an angle, reaching high into the air. It was used to shift gears. Jeffry reached up and grasped it. The maker of the device was running the engine, making it go faster and faster, and Jeffry would shift to another gear every little bit. No clutch was used, it was just forced into the next gear. Jeffry seemed to know what he was doing, to know just when and how to jam it into the next gear. I was impressed, and somewhat in awe.

The maker kept revving the engine higher and higher, with a kind of maniacal delight on his face. Jeffry got into the spirit too, jamming it into the next gear with tense excitement. The sound of the engine kept getting higher, a kind of massive, deep, highness, and I was getting concerned about the safety of it. Huge chunks of it were flying off, sometimes hundreds of feet. The maker kept winding up the engine, higher and higher, and Jeffry kept shifting the gears. I didn't know how many gears it had, but there seemed to be an awful lot of them.

Dream - In a large building, going through things left by my grandmother

On Saturday, January 3, 2009, I dreamed I was accessing iWon.com after a long time away, then wandering around a huge building that was apparently left to us by my grandmother, seeing dusty piles of old stuff there.

I was sleeping in bed. I dreamed I was in a small room, smaller than a bathroom, that had an opening to each side to much larger rooms. They were very large, especially the one to my left. The one to my right might have been as big, but my awareness was on it much less and I'm not really sure. It did seem to have a lot more in it. The one on the left was pretty sparsely furnished. I was sitting in a chair between the two large doorways, facing the interior of the small room, using a computer that was resting on a deep shelf that ran between the walls. There was another computer, at least one, somewhere in the room to the left. I seemed to be somewhat younger than in real life, perhaps in my late thirties, and slimmer.

I decided to try to access iWon.com. I had not been there in years. I wondered if it would still know me. Of course I wasn't even at my normal computer, so there wouldn't even be a cookie for it to look at.

At first the screen changed to a cloudy coarse gray, white at the edges, then it changed to an irregular globe of the world, done in soft inflatable plastic, with red continents bulging out of a white ocean. It was facing the wrong direction, though, and America wasn't showing. Then it slowly started to turn around, and as America came into view the screen abruptly changed, I think starting to rush toward the surface of the continent and then suddenly fading to something else. I was finally at the site then, and was looking at things. I was also looking at the message boards, I believe.

A woman came in from the room to my left, looking concerned. I was naked, I had been intending to take a shower earlier I believe, and someone was coming now, about something related to her work I think, and she didn't want him to see me naked. I was sitting sideways with relation to the door, and had a big foam rubber bed pillow, I guess I had been sitting on it or had it behind me, and took it and put it beside me. I was sitting in a large but somewhat utilitarian office chair. It could roll and swivel and it had arms on it, but the arms were open structures. I hoped the pillow would hide a lot of my body, so that I wouldn't immediately appear naked unless really looked at. Looking in the room, I could see her talking to him over near the far wall. They were both bent over a little looking at some object on a low table.

Then I was in a huge square building across the street. It was three or four stories. The whole surrounding area didn't have much in it, and I think the street between the buildings might have been dirt. The whole land around was mostly dirt, but the road had lots of tire tracks in it, distinguishing it from the other dirt. I had the feeling the big building was something left to us, that it used to belong to my grandmother, and was passed on to us after she died. It was huge inside, with huge and mostly open rooms. It was dusty and somewhat musty smelling. Old things were stored there, generally in groups and piles. There were a lot of them.

I was walking around the place going to different stories in it, looking at and through some of the groups of stuff. Someone was with me part of the time, perhaps the woman from before, perhaps someone else.

In one of the groups of things, I found an old cardboard 8-track tower, still partly covered in the clear plastic wrap it came in. I remembered years ago being given it as a gift, perhaps at Christmas. I had left the plastic around it so that it would better contain the tapes, without them falling out of the tall slot that ran along the front of it. I was going to take the tapes out at the top or bottom, where I had made openings in the plastic. I think I had gotten a Neal Diamond tape at that time, at least the tower was somehow associated with it.

Now the tower had been on its side, with stuff haphazardly piled on and around it, the cardboard bent and twisted, and the clear plastic partly torn away. I fiddled with it for a bit. I wondered if I should go ahead and just take the plastic off, there didn't seem to be much I could do with it now. The cardboard of the tower was so bent and twisted it was going to be hard to do anything with it, too. It seemed that the tapes would just want to fall out the front of it, that the cardboard would just try to twist back and shove them out. I wasn't sure if I could straighten it enough to work. It seemed a shame.

The whole thing felt kind of sad, going through the old things, seeing them there. Not all were in bad shape, a lot of stuff was just a little dusty. Earlier, in a different pile, I saw some low shelves that looked pretty good, standing upright, just a little dusty and cobwebby. It was sad though, to think of how things had been in the old days, and weren't any longer.

I was still naked, or at least naked from the waist down, I'm not sure. I didn't seem to have bothered to get dressed yet, and it was starting to disturb me a little.

I was in a big room on an upper story, then, at least three stories up. Someone came, a man, and opened the door. He saw that I was naked and was going to come back another time, but I said to stay. I came out and walked around a bit and we talked. At some point I looked different than I had earlier, like a different person, thin and somewhat shorter, with a kind of middle-aged look.

I went out to the side of the building. There was a small balcony out there. I'm not sure I actually went out on it, but I was looking at it, maybe from a window, maybe from the doorway. The balcony had a railing with closely spaced wooden poles or slats. Looking out from where I was, perhaps in the doorway or perhaps out on the balcony some, I saw another large building across the street, set well back from the road, and to the left a cross street went by. There were occasional other buildings around, but not many. Around the buildings were large yards of dirt with scattered areas of low grass. The area had a mostly empty feel. Not many people or cars were around.

In front of me, far down on the ground by the road, I saw a couple of people standing, turned toward each other and apparently talking, looking small in the distance. I wondered if they could see well enough to see I was naked, though they wouldn't actually be able to really see much below my waist, if that far, because of things in the way. If they had even looked up, that is, and I'm not sure they had. I turned away from the balcony and went back in, though, not wanting them to know I was naked and not wanting to take the chance that they might, even if they couldn't actually see anything significant.

Inside, there was a stairway that came up from the floor, ending toward the left, away from me. There was a railing all the way around the rectangular opening, with lathed wooden poles supporting it. A woman and a girl were on the stairs, with the woman being farther up. The woman was probably in her forties and the girl was probably in her late teens, perhaps close to twenty. They were both dark-haired, though the woman's hair had a slightly faded look, like it might have grayed a little. The woman's hair was pulled back, but the girl's wasn't.

The man who had come up earlier went toward them and was trying to distract them and to some extent get between them and me, though he went past that point and to the other side, and was trying to get them to come back later. They went down a step or two but then stopped, while he continued talking to them. Their eyes were lowered a little and they had a bit of a sly little smile on their faces, like they had seen something and were aware of the situation, and were not only not bothered by it but were in no great hurry to leave.

Dream - Writing exercises that affected reality, and the way station to another world

On Tuesday, December 30, 2008, around 1:00-3:30 AM, I dreamed I was with a group of people who were doing increasingly negative writing exercises that seemed to affect reality, and then I went out into the night to a way station to another world.

In the dream, I was in a group that had writing exercises about end-of-the-world scenarios. Life was getting rougher and seemed to be heading toward such a thing. In the weeks ahead it seemed likely to go drastically more downhill, to really desperate times.

The exercises didn't start out as really end-of-the-world things. They were different ways things could go wrong, such as one thing or another going wrong that had a major effect on the economy, or some major disease causing an epidemic, or some war starting somewhere. People were supposed to come up with things on their own, to choose something that could have a major negative effect if it happened and then write about it. Then a new assignment would be given, to find something else, something worse, and write about that. And so the students wrote about more and more grave scenarios and outcomes, heading toward those that were more and more apocalyptic, heading toward those that would essentially destroy the fabric of civilization and perhaps send us back to some kind of dark ages or even worse.

Then the people were told to do one final exercise, writing about a possible end of the world (not that everyone would necessarily die, though that was possible, but that civilization would collapse and we would retreat, those who were left, into some kind of dark ages). The writing seemed in some way to have the ability to influence what would happen, and it seemed to have already had some kind of influence. It could not totally control what would happen. Everyone was, after all, writing their own version of things. But it seemed to have some kind of influence, pushing things in certain directions, and certain elements written about might actually happen.

Then I had to go out for some reason. It was dark and dangerous and I really didn't want to do it. I think one or two others were also going, maybe even all of them, though we were not together as a group and did not all leave at the same time. I was going north down Scottsdale Road toward McDowell. I may have initially been in a car, or maybe someone else was, but now I was on foot. A lot of other people were on foot, too. I was in the right hand lane. Cars were slowly going by on the other lanes. Initially I had had my left arm stretched out, my hand stretched toward and lightly touching a car going along beside me, perhaps partly going through an open side window of the car. In the car was someone I knew, perhaps from the group, though it could have been a family member, perhaps my father.

Ahead a little ways, a cop had stopped a car and was writing someone a ticket, evidently for speeding. On the sidewalk, closer to me, some toughs were occasionally hassling some people. They didn't seem concerned about the police stopping them. I went cautiously ahead, not wanting to get too close to the sidewalk. I thought the cop, when I got there, could provide some protection by his presence, but I wasn't entirely sure about him either. It seemed unlikely he would give me a ticket though, at least if I moved slow. I had no doubt if I walked too fast I was in danger of getting one.

I crossed McDowell with a lot of other people, moving slowly. The Don't Walk sign was flashing or perhaps was past that point, shining steadily. I went forward anyway, not wishing to take the chance of remaining behind. A short woman in late middle age and evidently without much money was in the middle of the crosswalk, moving very slowly. I hurried past her and many other people, though I tried not to move too fast, still concerned about getting a ticket. I saw a policeman on the other side of the street. It began to occur to me that he could give me a ticket for crossing against the sign, maybe even against the light. I hurried even more, trying to get to the other side and out of the crosswalk, but he was involved with some other people and didn't take any notice of me.

Across the street, I went into some small business that was right on the corner. It was well lit inside and some other people were going in there too. I think a policeman came in at some point too, but I don't know if it was the one I had seen earlier. The people were generally moving on deeper into the building, to other rooms. I thought they would continue and eventually come out somewhere else.

I thought this was someplace to get supplies, but it was also a place of safety. It was not the final destination, though, at least not for some people. For others, perhaps most, it was just a way station along the way to someplace else, to a destination that was a lot better place than where we had come from. It led to a better, mostly empty world, currently bathed in soft daylight, like early morning, a kind of frontier where people could start over. It was a happy place, with much hope in it.

Almost everyone that came in went on through to the back, eventually, I believe, going on to the other world. I think even the policeman did. The building that I was in, though, was the place I had been intending to be going. I'm not sure whether I, personally, would be going any farther than that.


In real life, the radio was on, tuned to Coast to Coast AM. The host was talking with someone about various apocalyptic scenarios, and that probably heavily influenced the dream. Then in a replay of the first hour, probably at 2:00, they were talking about something else, perhaps the economy.

Wordzzle 81 - Under the sun

This is my contribution to this week's Wordzzle. Wordzzle is a game in which each week word lists, used to create stories, are given on the blog Views from Raven's Nest. Participating users post their stories on their own blogs.

This is my entry number 25, for Wordzzle week 81.


Ten Word Challenge:

dangerous,
engine,
sullenly,
bespoke,
evergreen,
bauble,
medicine,
freight,
destined,
tinsel

An evergreen, left over from last Christmas and brown and brittle now, rolled along in the wind, leaving strings of tinsel and an occasional bauble in its wake. The wind blew sand over train tracks, rusted and twisted and half buried. Once trains came through here, carrying their freight and passengers, but no more. The sun sat sullenly in the morning sky, with a heat that bespoke of the greater heat to come, and of days that were destined to be much like this one.

An old narrow road ran through the barren land, totally empty of traffic. Beside the road was a solitary wooden building, with a couple of dilapidated gas pumps out front. On the building was a sign saying "Engines of all types repaired here." There seemed to be no customers today.

Inside the building, an old man sat, surrounded by electric fans and medicine bottles, listening to the radio. It spoke of the drought, and how it had reached dangerous levels, and of more deaths. The old man shook his head and spat on the floor. "I told them what would happen if they elected them fellers."


Mini Challenge:

carbon,
feelers,
outright,
ballet,
fizzing

The frenetic alien's fizzing feelers, black as carbon, danced a fantastic ballet across the floor, but one of the judges fainted outright and it was only awarded 8.5 out of 10.


Mega challenge:

dangerous,
engine,
sullenly,
bespoke,
evergreen,
bauble,
medicine,
freight,
destined,
tinsel

carbon,
feelers,
outright,
ballet,
fizzing

The freight train roared by, an evergreen tree at the controls. He could swear it turned and looked at him just as it passed. He gripped the steering wheel tighter and gritted his teeth. It was happening again.

The train finally passed, and he pushed on the gas, wanting to get out of there quickly. The engine made a strange clucking sound and a bunch of feathers flew out, some settling on the windshield. The car drifted forward for a while, and gradually slowed to a stop. He got out and began to walk. He heard a fizzing sound behind him, then a keening. He paused, but didn't look back, and began walking again, faster.

Ahead of him, in the distance, he saw what appeared to be large sauropod dinosaurs attempting to do a ballet, and doing it badly. He supposed that it should be wonderful that they should try it at all, but he didn't feel that appreciative right now.

There was a chance that they might be dangerous, but he continued walking toward them. By the time he got there, they would probably have either changed to something else or outright disappeared.

A medicine man suddenly rose out of the sand beside the road, and came toward him. The medicine man walked all around him, staring at him, then took a bauble on a string out of a small leather bag and held it out in front of him and circled him again. Then he took the man's hand and put the bauble in it, pressing his hand against the man's palm and wrapping his fingers around it. A sort of rigid handshaking exercise went on for a moment, and then the medicine man's hand suddenly broke off. He stared at his wrist for a moment, examining it in wonder, then he changed into dust and sank to the ground, and was blown away by the wind.

The severed hand then seemed to turn to carbon, like a piece of wood that has been burned into charcoal, then it changed to a large black beetle and began to crawl up his arm, its feelers waving frantically. He grabbed it and threw it away. The beetle changed into a bird that turned around and swooped back at him, then exploded in a burst of feathers that turned into strands of tinsel, that wriggled and writhed as they fell to the ground, finally burrowing into the sand and out of sight.

The man slowly sank down onto the pavement and sat there, hands at the sides of his head. An eye formed in the pavement and stared at him sullenly. He stared back and after a while it blinked a few times, and slowly faded away.

Why was this happening? What did this mean? Were these signs and omens? If so, what did they signify? Nothing, it seemed. Oddness bespoke of more oddness, and nothing else. Was that all his life was destined to be from now on, just more of this? It sure looked like it. Not having anything better to do, he began to weep, and continued at it for some time.

After a while, he became aware of someone sitting beside him. He raised his head and saw a ghostly figure, dressed in cowboy clothes.

"Who are you?"

"I am the ghost of movies past, and present, and future."

"Sounds like a big job."

"I get around."

"Why is this happening?"

"Your movie, your reality, is being intruded upon by things from other places and other possibilities."

"My movie?"

"You're a character in a movie. In this movie."

"I don't feel like I'm a character in a movie."

"They usually don't. It destroys the illusion."

There was silence for a time.

"Can anything be done?"

"Technically yes, but in reality almost certainly not. It won't get any better, and will probably get worse, until the end."

"Until the end."

"Yes."

"What will the end be?"

"Total destruction. Your world, your movie, will cease to exist."

"What will become of me?"

"You will also cease to exist."

That sounded as bad as anything could be. "Will nothing of me remain?"

"Something always remains, even if its only a memory, or a memory of a memory."

"That doesn't sound like much."

"No, it doesn't."

"Are the memories conscious? Do they know what they are? What they were?"

"Sometimes, though it may not always be enough for full understanding."

There was more silence.

"And yet you are a ghost, and much more than just a memory. You seem to be able to travel around and do things, and know what you're doing."

"Yes, but such things are rare."

"I don't want to be just a memory. I want to be a person. I want to be me."

"There are some that are greater than me, but they are relatively few. Some can even assume all the appearances of reality, but they are fewer still. The more difficult it is, the fewer make it there. Most do not even try, or do not try very much. They accept their fate, and sink into it."

"I don't want that. I want to be me."

"We have to take what we can, from the possibilities that are open to us. The more we try, though, the more the possibilities may open up. Take my hand."

The ghost held out his hand and the man took it. It felt solid, despite its appearance.

"I can't promise that you will be a ghost like me. Or even a ghost at all. We can try, though. It largely depends on your determination."

The ground shook.

"It won't be long now," the ghost said.


The boy sat in front of the computer, frowning. "I can't get the movie to play anymore. It keeps saying the file is corrupted."

"Just delete it and download another copy," his friend said. "That always works for me."

Finding my grandmother

When my grandmother got older she liked to walk a lot, and apparently walked all over the neighborhood, even stopping in at a store sometimes and buying something. As the years passed, though, she eventually reached a state where she became increasingly confused and frequently became lost. There was also a concern that she might wander onto a major road. My mother tried to look in on her now and then, and then go looking for her if she wasn't there, but my mother had a lot of things to do and couldn't stay with her constantly.

One day after work, probably somewhere around 1980-82 (my grandmother passed on in late '84), I drove home past the street where I live, and almost but not quite to the street where my grandmother lived. I had a feeling, and had had it for some time, that she would be out walking right now. I decided that she would be on this particular street, and turned onto the street and drove down a few houses until I found her sitting on a fence in front of a house, sweating.

She seemed happy to see me and asked if someone had called me. (I believe there was a woman looking out of the house at her, or maybe it was a neighboring house. This may or may not have had anything to do with what my grandmother said. I don't know if the woman had said anything to her.) I said no, and my grandmother looked at me kind of strangely, perhaps wondering how I found her or why I should even be looking.

I helped her into the car, a 1970 Cadillac I had owned for a long time, and took her back to my house. The house was empty for the moment, as my mother was on an errand somewhere. I gave my grandmother a glass of water, which she thanked me for, and my mother came home a little later. She was surprised to see us both there, and I explained what had happened.

My grandmother stayed a few more minutes, perhaps even half an hour, but soon wanted to go back to her own house. She became a little anxious if she stayed away too long, and so my mother took her back.

Dream - The young blond policewoman

On Sunday, March 1, 2009, I dreamed I parked my car in a large parking lot, and a young, slim, tall, blondish policewoman, her hair pulled back into a loose ponytail and wearing dark glasses, parked a couple of places away from me, on the passenger side. She was looking over at me, and got out of the car and came toward me holding a ticket book. She bent down, looking in at me, and rapped sharply on the passenger side door.

I wearily and suspiciously reached across the car to open it. The window mechanism no longer worked, but it seemed she wanted the door opened anyway. I didn't know what this was about, but I was afraid that it was some kind of a setup, that somebody had put her up to it.

It turned out that it wasn't quite that way, though. She wasn't there to try to give me a ticket or reprimand me about something, instead she was friendly and had been sent by someone, some family member I think, to find me and give me a message. I think I woke up before I found out what the message was, though.

Some more happened earlier that I don't remember, though I think I had been in my house with some members of my family.

Dream - Flying in an old black pickup truck

On Sunday, January 18, 2009, I had a dream about flying in an old black pickup truck with several other people.

In the dream, I was at the radiator shop. It was night. Several people were there with me. I think some of them were relatives, but not all of them. I'm not sure what we were originally doing there, late at night. I don't think it was radiator work. We seemed to be having some kind of get-together and were discussing things. There was a little bit of tension involved, some anxiousness, and a feeling that time was short, that we had to get things figured out soon. I think we might have been eating there also, and one or two of the rooms may have been set up for sleeping. For some reason I seemed not to have any pants on, and this was starting to increasingly bother me.

I went out the front and around to the side entrance, gliding through the air I think. In the dream the side entrance went directly to a large bathroom, but my younger brother, who had not been there earlier, arrived and got there first. He went in and closed the door. I didn't linger. As I saw him going in I continued forward, going toward the alley as if that had been my destination. I was already a ways out, maybe ten or fifteen feet, from the side of the building so it didn't necessarily seem as if I had been going to the bathroom. I'm not sure he even saw me, though he looked s little somewhat in my direction.

Out by the alley it was much darker. The area around the shop had been brightly lit. After drifting around out by the alley for a while, I went back. My brother was just getting out of the bathroom, and went around toward the front. I went and got inside an old black pickup truck that was parked on the pavement beside the shop. I still didn't want it to look like I was trying to get in the bathroom. I was also becoming more bothered by my lack of pants and didn't really want my brother to see me this way. The truck was out a ways from the wall, maybe enough to park a small car beside it. It was pointed toward the alley, away from the street. I'm not sure it was there on my way by the first time, but it was now.

I sat there in the truck considering what to do. I finally decided that I would have to go home and use the bathroom there. Several people came out from the shop, rushed out really, and got in. They were apparently employees, though some of them may have been used for something other than radiator work. I didn't really know any of them, though I guess I knew enough to know they weren't strangers.

Both side windows were down, and I reached out and grabbed the window sills on both sides of the truck, and, gathering my strength, pulled the truck up into the air with me. I flew up and toward the back a little, but the overhead lines got in the way as I tried to go up. I went back down at least some and then back up a bit and tried to go south down Scottsdale Road and then go up higher again, but lines were still in the way. I turned and crossed the road and tried to get up again, and lines were still in the way. There were band after band of them, some bands going across diagonally. Some of the bands had wires that weren't very thick, like they were used for some purpose other than telephone or power. I was thinking perhaps cable. (In reality a lot of those are thick, and some telephone lines are thin, but I didn't think of that in the dream.) When I got past one set of wires there was another set going some way or the other, a little ways higher.

I went back across the road to the shop. I had to get up somehow, there had to be some way, I couldn't just give up. I pulled up on the truck again, spiraling upward, the nose of the truck pointed straight up. I wandered around in the path I was taking, trying to get past the wires, the truck still pointed up, and ended up slightly south near the neighborhood street, trying to work my way around the lines there also. There seemed to always be more going some direction or other.

Finally I was past the last bit, a set of regular heavy black lines, but then I saw more above that, a layer that seemed to cover everything. It looked like little sections of thin grating two to four inches long and an inch to an inch and a half wide, turned this way and that. There seemed to be no way around it, but I felt that we couldn't be stopped, we couldn't allow ourselves to be stopped now.

I had kind of a feeling, and, still wondering if something might happen, if I might get zapped, I reached up with my hand and pushed at them. They separated, moving aside, and with my fingers sticking out past them I pushed at them with my hand, moving it back and forth and to the side, moving them around. They were just a layer of debris of some sort, things that had floated up from the wires and associated devices below, floating on the surface of the water.

I moved the truck up through them, taking it up nose first and then leveling off with it floating half in the water. Water was rushing out of the truck, pouring out. The back of the truck, a dark metal boxlike structure, stayed tilted back, like the bed of a dump truck. A man was still in it. I pulled on it, trying to right it. The man said no, to leave him. I objected and kept trying, but he insisted, saying that he would be alright, so I prepared to leave him floating there with the boxlike bed of the truck, and fly on toward home with the others.


Much more happened earlier at the shop, but I wrote down the dream the following night and had forgotten the earlier part by that time, though some remained for a few hours after the dream.

Dream - I am in a TV reality show

On Saturday morning, January 17, 2009, I had a dream about being in a contest. It was part of a game for TV, some kind of reality thing. A total of at least three people, and maybe four or even five, were in it.

At first we were staying at a place in a neighborhood, at some house, apparently between McDowell and Thomas Roads, maybe between Oak Street and Thomas. We were going through the streets completing the first part of the game, trying to find or do something and get to the goal first, which was some house in the neighborhood. I think we had to bring what was found there, though identifying which house may have been part of the goal. Cameramen were around, recording everything.

Then it was the next day I think, at night, We were doing the third and last part, going through rooms in a big, low building. It was being filmed live. We occasionally went past the host, to at least within a few feet of him. He was standing watching in a hallway or something like that, turning as necessary to keep track of us, though we were not aways together.

We found some small things with wax paper wrappers around them. They were fairly flat and around an inch by an inch and a half, and seemed to be some kind of chewing or bubble gum. The wrappers had printing on them and we thought part of it was a clue to how to complete the game. Somewhere in the jostling and running back and forth I had lost my glasses, and was holding the wrapper and looking at it in different directions in different lights, trying to read it. Though I could read the letters, the light never seemed to be bright enough to easily do so.

Then I was told that the game was over. I had to be told it, I didn't realize it had happened. I thought, "Well, it's over, then, and I didn't win, that's that." I left without my glasses.

I was picked up by my mother and her sister, my aunt. My aunt was in the car in the parking lot, waiting. We were apparently around McKellips and Scottsdale Roads, maybe a little farther south.

I went back the next day and had them look for my glasses. It was not where the game was held, but in a different place on the northeast side of McKellips and Scottsdale Roads. It seemed I was supposed to be there anyway. They were filming a kind of postscript follow-up to the show, and the host was going to have a short interview with me. I'm not sure I actually knew about that part before I got there, but they were expecting me. I think they had already done some of the other contestants.

The room was relatively small, living room size, and the host was sitting on a tall stool in the middle of it, with a cameraman or two around him. When I mentioned my glasses, he sent some people to check to see if someone had found them, and to look for them if they hadn't been.

When he was done with the interview, he referred me to a woman standing on the other side of a counter back toward the door. I went to her and she sent someone off to look. I guess they were basically asking around or maybe going through a lost and found section. The person came back then, and I think they might have found the glasses and given them to me but they needed to be fixed, I think something was wrong with an earpiece, or maybe something other than the glasses needed to be fixed. Could it have been my watch? My billfold? Maybe two things? Whatever it was, it had to be dropped off at a place near McKellips and then I had to go back to get it, and I think something else at a nearby place.


Somewhere in there, maybe earlier, I was going through a big department store at the northeast corner of McKellips and Scottsdale Roads, through door after door, starting from the east side. I eventually got to a big center section with rows of seats and some vending machines, where I couldn't find a door that went forward.

At the southwest corner of the room was a window opening with a woman behind a small counter, apparently both selling tickets and acting as a monitor to keep people out. Apparently the section where she was also opened as a door.

On the north side the room opened up into a big viewing section, like for movies or theater, with lots of more rows of seats, some of them in elevated roundish platforms, vaguely lima bean shaped, suspended above the floor at different heights. The seats were pointed toward the north, and the floor in that section had a gradual downward slant. I think the rows of seats in the room itself might have pointed in a different direction, maybe toward the west.

None of the doors I could find led forward, or if they did were blocked to me in some way. Sometimes when I opened one it was filled in on the other side with wood, other times access was restricted and I was either forbidden or the door had a lock, possibly a combination one, and though I saw other people able to go through it, I couldn't. I had to go back through the door I came through and go around. I finally got to the front. I think maybe that's where I met the TV people again for the interview and where I asked about my glasses.

Wordzzle 80 - The alligator people

This is my contribution to this week's Wordzzle. Wordzzle is a game in which each week word lists, used to create stories, are given on the blog Views from Raven's Nest. Participating users post their stories on their own blogs.

This is my entry number 24, for Wordzzle week 80.


Ten Word Challenge:

Charitable,
alligator,
tribute,
drunk,
slave,
preparation,
carrots,
mountainside,
propeller,
lark

He looked at his meal of alligator and carrots, and wondered again about the recipe. He normally wasn't a slave to such things, or for cooking in general, but he had felt a special affinity for this cookbook. It was a tribute to his will that he had gotten this far, though. He lived on a mountainside, and had gone through a great deal of trouble to get the alligator. That part about killing it with a propeller had been the most awkward, and the hardest. He didn't understand it at all, but it was what the recipe called for.

It had to have its mouth propped open and a lark in it, too. Feathers and all. He hoped it was just a decoration. He supposed he should have gotten the lark first. He had had to buy a large freezer to store the alligator in until he could get the lark. Then he had to dig a huge pit to cook the alligator in.

He had never been able to find a place that sold dead larks, so he had to buy a live one, then kill it himself. He hated to do that. It was harder in a way than killing the alligator. He finally drove out to a chicken farm and paid one of the workers to do it. He had boiled the lark, then, as called for in the recipe, trying not to damage the feathers too much.

He found in the end that he had eaten most of the carrots, waiting for the rest of the meal to be done, and had to go buy more. He was getting a little drunk, too, taking increasing sips of the wine that was supposed to go with it, as the project just kept getting longer and longer.

It was finally done, though. The alligator was laid out on the long table, specially purchased for this occasion, with the lark in its mouth and the carrots around it. To say that it had taken an awful lot of preparation was being charitable, but at least it was done. All done. Finally. Or was it?

He checked in the cookbook again to be sure. Hmmm. It said continued on the next page. He turned the page and read: "For those who have gotten this far, and completed everything according to the directions, congratulations! Dig in. For those who have simply read this far without doing anything, relax. It was just a joke. The real recipe is below..."


Mini Challenge:

chisel,
worship,
suicide,
organic,
plus

The chisel slowly committed suicide as he beat on it, trying to carve the stone. He finally had to stop again and grind a new edge on it. He had gotten a whole box of them very cheaply, from a man who was selling them from his trunk. Too bad the steel was so soft, but he guessed they had to cut corners somewhere for a price like that.

He had gotten some surprisingly inexpensive organic food from the man, too, a bunch of cans and microwave dinners. Too bad it turned out to have a lot of organic bugs in it, plus the occasional twig, but the price made it worth it. Art sales were slow now, and he really had to keep costs down.

Well, it looked like the chisel was sharp enough now. Time to get back to work. He paused and stared at the mostly completed statue with something akin to worship. This was going to be one of his better ones. He hadn't been able to afford a model, but things were turning out nicely anyway.

He was about to start again when he heard a groan. He quickly stepped forward and bopped the man again with the hammer, then carefully propped him back in position. Then he returned to the statue, and began to work again.


Mega challenge:

Charitable,
alligator,
tribute,
drunk,
slave,
preparation,
carrots,
mountainside,
propeller,
lark

chisel,
worship,
suicide,
organic,
plus

The excavation of the site of the alligator cult had been going on for years before they found the well with the fire pit at the bottom. It was covered with a heavy layer of decaying organic matter, and under that dirt. At the bottom of the pit they found a layer of ash several feet thick, mixed with human bones, the remains of the sacrifices.

An argument went on as to whether they were forced to jump into the fire, perhaps even being pushed, maybe even bound and thrown in, and whether they had been slaves, perhaps captured in a war, or, in a slightly more charitable interpretation, whether they had gone willingly, committing suicide. A large number of wine vessels were in the area, and perhaps they had fortified themselves with that, maybe even being thoroughly drunk. No one remained who knew of the cult, so it was hard to tell for sure what went on in it.

It was a difficult place to get to, high on a mountainside, and no one had even known it existed until ten years ago. It was not some place one went to on a lark, and it had been found purely by accident. A survey was being done back then of the plants in the area, and one of the people had tripped over a paving stone. Archeologists had eventually been brought out, but they didn't immediately realize the immensity of the find. Too much was hidden by the jungle. Even now, they just knew the outlines of it.

The discovery of the alligator statues and then the fire pit had been great finds, and had really stimulated interest in the area. They had also eventually found tunnels leading down to the fire pit, at the bottom of the well. They were probably for tending the fire and bringing in air to it, as well as cleaning it out afterwards. The cult-people had apparently been a little behind in their cleaning, which was good for the archeologists.

Whatever other rites and tributes might have occurred in the worship of the gods was largely unknown, though carrots were featured prominently in the stone carvings in the area, plus a few instances of a strange propeller-like design. Perhaps the ceremonies had something to do with the harvest, bloodthirsty alligator gods that had to be appeased for everything to turn out right.

A lot of research was being done now in preparation for a book on it, and eventually a TV special. A whole team of people were out there, not only archeologists but photographers and cameramen.

The head archeologist, who was also the writer of the upcoming book and an executive producer of the TV special, was sweeping away the dirt over a nearby stone walk, when he found that an inscription had been chiseled into it. The language was close enough to an ancient language that he knew that he could read most of it.

It said that the place was used for funerals, and cremations, and that the alligator statues were there because of memories of a time when the people used to live in a different area, near the ocean. The people actually worshipped carrots, instead. The propeller-like design was simply a representation of the odd furrows they used for the ceremonial plantings.

This was going to be a much less interesting book, and TV special. He looked around. No one had seen him. He quickly swept some dirt back over it. He would put something heavier over it later, maybe some of the paving stones. Maybe he would reveal it in another ten years, after he had gotten all the money he could out of the first story. Or maybe he would leave it to be found by later generations. Who knows, he might be able to work out some movie deals for a fictional adventurer/archeologist finding some of the alligator-cult people still living hidden in the forest, and the money might never end.

The truth was only what people thought it was anyway, at any given moment, and for many moments to come this truth would be only his.

My Word Imperfect entries, Part III

In June of 2007, I came across a blog called Word Imperfect, which is run by a person known as the Word Imp. At that time, the blog was normally updated every day, but for quite a while now new posts have been rare, due to the blog owner being busy with other things.

Originally, each day the Word Imp put up a new word and a made-up definition, and readers submitted comments with their own made-up, "wacky" definitions of that word. The next day, the Word Imp revealed the real definition and chose three finalists from the entries submitted. Readers voted (in a poll) for what they thought was the best one, and the next day the Word Imp announced the winner. The only prize was the glory of being chosen.

This is the third group of my Word Imperfect entries. The times given are the approximate times of my posts, in Arizona time(MST), from the clock on my computer.


Jargonelle:

12:47 PM 7/3/2007

A jargonelle is a machine used in the food industry to fill and seal jars.


Musette:

2:34 PM 7/3/2007

A musette is a short musical composition, frequently less than a minute long and seldom over two. Popular during the 17th and 18th centuries, it appears today primarily in plays, movies, and advertisements.


Tintinnabulate:

I missed adding a definition.


Lentitude:

9:57 PM 7/5/2007

Lentitude is a combination of length and attitude, and refers to the smug, superior attitude sometimes adopted by people driving cars with extremely long hoods. Lentitude is found less often today than in the past, and has been partially replaced with tankitude, the attitude of some people driving SUV's.


Rotifer:

10:20 AM 7/6/2007

A rotifer was originally a person who was employed at or frequently attended the Rotifington Theatre in London, a place once known for its bizarre and humorous plays. Eventually the term came to be applied to any person who liked that type of humor, or even to any practical joker.

Example: "Well, the kitchen sink is full of frogs again, I wish I could find the rotifer who keeps doing this."


I don't know whether my definition of rotifer was a finalist or not.


Timocracy:

4:37 AM 7/8/2007

Timocracy is the complete takeover of an ecosystem by any one species of plant or animal. The name is a combination of the first letters of "Tyranny In Major" (TIM) and cracy (meaning rule by).


Mutograph:

11:57 PM 7/9/2007

A mutograph is any graph in which the middle and higher values are suppressed in favor of the lower values, making whatever is shown to appear to be less than it is. An example of this would be using only the lower cost projections in figuring future expenses for a project, thus making the project appear less costly.


Vambrace:

12:36 PM 7/10/2007

A vambrace is a device to firmly hold the mouth of a vampire open while dental work is being performed. Like other people, vampires do sometimes need dental work, although they would prefer that this not be known. Unlike other people (well, most other people), vampires cannot resist the temptation to bite the dentist's fingers, and so the vambrace is absolutely required.


I don't know whether my definition of vambrace was a finalist or not.


Couvade:

I missed adding a definition.


Muniment:

4:03 AM 7/12/2007

A muniment is when a person forgets what he or she had been talking about, and unable to regain the memory, finally begins talking again about some other, often unrelated, subject. Muniment takes its name from Mrs. Muni, a teacher who sometimes became lost in thought during her lectures, and when she again came to realize where she was she usually could not remember what it was she had been talking about. She always plunged ahead gamely, though, often sending the lecture into new and unexpected directions. Her students invented the term "Mrs. Muni moment" for this, eventually shortening it to "muniment". In time, muniment came to be applied to any similar moment of confusion suffered by anyone.


I don't know whether my definition of muniment was a finalist or not.


Cloop

7:13 PM 7/15/2007

A cloop is a collection of chicken coops. You might wonder why people would want to collect chicken coops, but that just means you're not a chicken farmer.


I don't know whether my definition of cloop was a finalist or not.


Velleity:

I missed adding a definition.


Teknonymy:

7:57 PM 7/17/2007

Teknonymy is the use of technology for evil purposes. The technology itself may or may not be evil. In the Star Wars movies, for example, light sabers can be wielded by both the forces of good and the forces of darkness.

Dream - Gangsters, and a red blotch in the air

On Sunday morning, March 29, 2009, I had a dream involving gangsters, and later a strange red blotch in the air.

The earlier part of the dream is forgotten, but at some point I incurred the wrath of gangsters. I was in the back lot behind a business, perhaps the radiator shop. Most of the lot was dirt, but I was on a concrete portion. One or two of the gangsters left, leaving one behind with a gun pointed at me.

I was told to get in my car, which was parked at an angle on the concrete, with the front pointed to the southwest, partly toward the alley. The car was an old Cadillac, I think. It was a little small for a Cadillac, and was probably built after they started downsizing them. It was not a car I ever owned in real life.

Before I got in, I had to put the driver's side front inner fender back on the car. I had removed it or loosened it earlier for theft protection. It was falling down now as I tried to get it secured, including some black plastic panels and pieces along part of the front.

I was somewhat bemused, but the gangster person was a little impatient. I think someone dangerous was on the way and he wanted me gone before he got here. He sent someone into the shop to get the keys, a shop employee, I think. A couple of them came back out, looking uncertain and a little scared, holding a bunch of keys on a ring. Someone was going to start the car, then, but looking through the keys found ones that looked like Chrysler ones. The person was going to try them anyway.

I was in the back seat of the car, having been told to get in, then suddenly I was holding the keys, startled. The other person was going swiftly out the passenger door, leaving the place by a different car I guess. I was still in back, but was going to drive in that position anyway. I reached forward and put the key in the ignition. It seemed to go in anyway, despite being apparently the wrong key. I seemed not to be myself now, and was someone younger and smaller instead.

I drove to a counter somewhere, somehow drifting to the driver's seat along the way. I seemed to be a different person, with a different history, though I felt much like myself. Still in the car, I talked to someone behind the counter, and then the car faded away and I was standing there, still talking to the person. The person warned in a mild way that when such things are done they don't forget, talking about the gangsters. I'm not sure what things the person was referring to, though I seemed to have an inkling in the dream.

I went through some large rooms, then, and came to a smaller one off to the side. The room was still of reasonable size, perhaps twelve by eight feet, but was small in comparison to the others. Some other people were in the room, also.

While in the room, at some point, I saw a red area in the air against the light gray of the walls, hanging in the air like a vision. It was perhaps a couple of feet or so wide and twelve or fifteen inches high, and was about five feet above the floor and a similar distance from me, and a little to my right. I worried at first that some problem had happened with my eyes, since it looked something like blood, though a little lighter, some type of crimson. An area thinned out in the middle of it and whirling and turning thin lines formed in various patterns, sometimes like something a toy Spirograph would make, other times more like a turning horizontal wire spring.

It was beautiful and enjoyable to watch, though at the same time I was listening to other people in the room talk, or trying to, which was very distracting. It was a slow conversation and my eyes kept going back to the patterns, looking mostly at them, but it was ending now, slowing down, tending to fade some into indistinctness. I couldn't seem to bring it back, though the red remained, though a little duller and smaller.

I was looking back and forth from the red area to the people. I found I was reluctantly paying more attention to them, and a feeling of greater reality was settling in. I had to leave soon. There was a doorway to my right that sunlight was pouring through, a doorway that led out into the day, and I started to turn toward it and woke up.

Dream - The mobster restaurant and the Cadillac

On Friday morning, May 22, 2009, I had a dream where I drove my 1970 Cadillac down an alley and eventually came to a mob restaurant, a place where there had been some trouble in the recent past.

In the earliest part of the dream that I can remember, I was with some other people. We were outside and one of them was giving a talk on something. There were maybe six people or so, including me. We were behind some business, maybe near the radiator shop, maybe slightly south of it. It seemed to be sometime during the day.

Then the leader wanted to show us something. I didn't really like the idea, but went with them anyway. I had the 1970 Cadillac, and apparently some of them went with me in it. The remaining ones, if any, either walked or took another car. We went south past several businesses, going along near the alley. We stopped some place that sometimes seemed to be still in Scottsdale, perhaps somewhere between McDowell Rd. and Oak St., though sometimes it seemed to be around University Dr. in Tempe.

The alley had changed to a broad sandy area. The sand was deep and rose slightly as it headed away from the alley area. At the other side, on the west, was a long block wall. Perhaps homes were on the other side, but I'm not sure. It was evening now.

We got out of the car and I went to get something out of the trunk, or perhaps put something in it, I'm not sure. This was just a temporary stop before continuing on, a break for refreshments. For some reason I took off my shoes. I then walked over toward the block wall. It had some trash cans in various places along it. There were two or three of them where we were, and some dark things were piled by them. The leader continued talking.

I walked in the deep sand by the trash cans, looking at things. Something had run out of something there, making dark, dirty green pools, like old thick antifreeze, and I walked in it before I realized it was there. I was just wearing socks, and quickly walked in the sand afterwards trying to clean some of it off. The sand soaked some of it up, but there was still quite a bit left, and I didn't want to put my shoes back on while my socks, especially one of them, had a big soaked area with whatever the chemical was, plus the sand caked on it.

We went away from the alley and toward the road that ran parallel to it, toward where a restaurant was. Between the restaurant and the broad sandy area was a concrete wall that began about where we were, and between it and the sandy area may have been a long trash bin, then between the concrete wall and the business was a long parking area that was partially paved with old thin sandy asphalt.

The restaurant was kind of a fast food place, with ice cream. It appeared to be owned by some short Italian people with mob connections. Toward the front, it had a fairly large area to eat inside. It had some hamburgers that looked good, but I didn't have much money with me and decided to just get a blocky rectangular ice cream bar, chocolate covered with a few colored sprinkles. I also asked for some water, and they gave me a big paper cup of it with a little bit of ice in it.

The eating place was divided for some reason, like for smoking and non-smoking, but I'm not sure that was the reason. The other area seemed more for people who ate more expensive dinners and/or for more favored patrons, and was fairly full. It seemed to occupy most of the restaurant, leaving a relatively small area along the side and some toward the cashier.

I walked about two thirds of the length of the restaurant, going away from the cashier and toward the road, and sat down at a table, facing away from the road, with the area for favored patrons to my left. I ate my ice cream bar and looked at the menu, back at the counter where the cashier was, and watched the people around me.

I wasn't sure if I should be this close to the other section, or even near it at all. I could see some of the people there looking at me. One or two of the people I was with were nearby, but the others went somewhere, out to the back I think, probably looking for a restroom. There was a bit of tenseness. I was told by someone about some kind of mob trouble that had happened recently. I worried some that we might be associated with it in the minds of the people there. We were strangers and seemed to be looked at by some of the people with suspicion.

I finally left, and as I was going out the door in the side, near where people ordered the food, I met one of the owners, a short skinny guy, who was coming in. He looked up at me solemnly and slightly irritated, though his expression became more neutral. I think someone told him that we didn't have anything to do with the earlier trouble.

I went out toward the broad sandy area. I was worried about leaving my car out there for so long. I hadn't intended for it to be this long, I thought it was just going to be a quick stop.

I discovered that someone had covered the car in a coating of an oily substance and then set it on fire. I was afraid it had been destroyed. It seemed it had burned off quickly, though. The outside of the car was kind of sooty and still a little oily. Evidently it had been done when they still thought we might be some kind of enemy, or have some kind of connections to one, or maybe they just didn't like it parked there. The police were there and a big flatbed tow truck, ready to take my car away, apparently to the junkyard. The interior seemed to be okay and it would probably still work alright, but I accepted that they were going to take it. I hoped that I could get it back later.

I went back north, on foot. It changed to daylight again as I went. I began to glide in the air in short bits, going from object to object, going along down the alley.

As I got close to Thomas Rd., I met up with the others. We crossed Thomas and went to an area a ways on the other side. There were rows of long pale buildings containing businesses and shops, with old broken concrete parking lots, with some areas dirt and some areas asphalt.

The leader took us to a small doctor's office in the middle of one of the buildings at the northern edge of the area, talking about how we should stop in quick and get some particular thing checked, that it was a good idea to have it done. He seemed to be using it as a teaching exercise, showing us that this particular test, or it might have even been a couple of them, was something that was important to be done, and something important to have done after exercising, as we had been doing walking around.

The waiting area was very small. A few people sat in it, waiting. At least one looked up at us. There was a short, slightly curved line of people that led to a door and through it. Apparently the doctor was somewhere on the other side. We got in the line. A few other people were ahead of us, but I didn't know how far the line extended on the other side. Presumably the tests were something that could be done quickly. This was just a brief stop and then the leader was going to continue on, showing us things.

He kept happily talking while we waited in line, but I became increasing disturbed. I hadn't intended to see a doctor. We had been out all this time, and I was kind of sweaty and had been wearing the same clothes for a while, and didn't really feel presentable. I finally asked if we were really going to see the doctor. The leader happily said that we were. I said that I didn't want to and started to leave. The leader looked disappointed, and said "Awwww" and tried to talk me out of it. One or two of the others also briefly tried to, but I left anyway.

I went back to an earlier row of the buildings and stopped in a little shop of some kind, run by an older woman, then went toward Scottsdale Rd. I started flying and gliding from object to object, heading south. Sometimes I got fairly high. Some of the people along the way looked at me funny. I got across Thomas Rd., sailing high above the pavement. It was late afternoon, and the light was somewhat dim. It was cloudy, sometimes raining.

I eventually made it to the edge of the neighborhood where I lived. I met my mother there. She had walked out there, to one of the neighborhood streets, and was near Scottsdale Rd. She was having some kind of trouble with her health, and the medication or the device she had been given had not been working right. She was having some kind of odd breathing problem, and was taking long, not very forceful breaths, almost constantly. Someone from a nearby business had noticed her problem and had helped her with it. I think maybe two or three people had come to help, maybe from more than one place. A doctor or ambulance had apparently been called, but nothing had shown up, and it had been going on for hours.

I took her back home, which seemed to be the place we normally lived, though the appearance was quite a bit different, and the house was quite a bit bigger in the north-south direction. I finally got the device or medication to work better, I figured it out somehow, though it was just temporary and her doctor still had to look at it, if for no other reason than to confirm that it was doing all it could.

Wordzzle 79 - Shadows and smoke

This is my contribution to this week's Wordzzle. Wordzzle is a game in which each week word lists, used to create stories, are given on the blog Views from Raven's Nest. Participating users post their stories on their own blogs.

This is my entry number 23, for Wordzzle week 79.


Ten Word Challenge:

Spam,
perpetual motion,
sprinkle,
telephone pole,
stains,
alphabetical,
surgery,
flattery,
liberty,
preservation

I performed careful surgery on the Spam, cutting it in very thin, narrow slices, each one as identical as I could make it. I worked steadily, like a perpetual motion machine. When I had it finished I opened another can and began slicing that, and then another and another. Finally, I had done six cans. That should be enough. The thin slices were piled high on the cheap paper plate, the grease seeping out into it, making a widening stain. I would have to carry the plate with both hands under it, and then it would be iffy. I carefully carried it outside, and put it by the fire pit. I looked up and studied the sky, then looked in all directions. The line of telephone poles was still there, as before. It was not like the old days. I had never known the old days, but I could still say that.

I built up the fire, and when it was burning nicely, I took a slice of Spam and sprinkled it with powder that I had made according to the old ways, then tossed it into the fire. A puff of smoke exploded from the fire and went boiling upward, assuming strange shapes. I took another slice and did the same, and then another, watching the strange shapes the smoke assumed, in a language that was symbolic instead of alphabetical. I saw images of liberty and of proudness, of standing firm, and of preservation of the old ways. I threw in more slices and more powder. It spoke in flattery now. Perhaps I had used too much powder. Some flattery is good, only a little. I threw in some more slices and powder, and more and more, watching the visions in the smoke, becoming transfixed by them.

On a hill a few miles away, two workers paused in what they were doing. "Look at all that smoke! What's that crazy old man doing now?"

The other man studied it for a moment, then turned away. "Forget it, it's just more Spam."


Mini Challenge:

shadows,
singularity,
Florida,
caterpillars,
copy

The shadows slowly swirled against the darkness of the sky, black on black, blacker than black, looking like a caterpillar slowly rotating around a central point. I felt like I was looking into the naked singularity at the heart of a black hole, but of course such things can't actually be seen, light ends at the event horizon.

It came closer, seeming to spread out in the sky while at the same time reaching toward me. Eventually I became enveloped in its blackness. All was black for a time, if it could actually be called black when nothing exists to compare it to.

I became aware, then, that I was standing on something, and the dim shapes of walls were beginning to appear. It never got very bright, though, and I could barely see.

I was in a small room, possibly gray, though it may have looked different fully lit. It didn't seem to have any furniture. A few feet in front of me was a doorway, leading to a narrow hallway, across which I could see the doorway of another room, and through the doorway another doorway beyond that, and one beyond that. I turned around and looked at the other side of the room and found it also had another doorway, and doorways beyond that. I turned back and faced the direction I had originally been facing. It seemed important somehow. Time seemed to pass, but I had no frame of reference for it. It could have been a long time, or it could have been fairly short.

Eventually I saw, in the dimness, two figures approaching, coming through the series of doorways. They moved slowly and solemnly, or so it seemed, though I had no way of knowing if they were actually solemn or not. After a while, they stood before me. One was about my height, which is tall, and the other was several inches taller. They wore dark robes with hoods, and their faces were hidden in shadow. I still could not see who they were. One of them spoke then, I'm not sure which. "Why did you come?"

I stared at them, not understanding for a moment, then finally said, "I did not come. Something like a shadow came out of the sky and put me here."

"That is incorrect. You summoned it."

"I didn't summon it. I have no idea how to do that, and I don't even know what it is."

"And yet, you are here."

"I am here."

There was a pause as the shadowed figures stood there, facing me, apparently watching me. After a time, one of them said, "We are waiting."

"Waiting for what?"

"Waiting for you to tell us why we were summoned."

This didn't seem to be getting anywhere. "Could you at least tell me where we are?"

"We are here and you are there."

"Where is there?"

An image of the earth appeared, floating in the darkness.

"We're on earth?"

"No. You are."

"But where are you, then?" This was getting confusing.

"We are on the ship. You are not. What seems to be your body is just a pale copy of it, barely physical, to be used while your attention is here. It will fade away when your attention departs."

"It seems real."

"They always do, to those that are in them."

"Why am I here, though?"

"We are waiting for you to tell us."

"But I don't know why I'm here! I've never been here before! I don't know anything about it."

"You have been here many times. You were here before you were there."

"I don't remember any of it."

There was another pause, possibly long, but I didn't really know. I was getting afraid that we were going to be locked here forever in a circular discussion when one of them spoke. "If you do not remember, then it may not be time after all. But then, why did you summon us?"

"I didn't summon you! I didn't do anything! You came to me!"

"We obviously did not. We are here and you are there."

"This is getting nowhere! Look, couldn't you just take me home?"

"Your attention is already home. Do you wish your body to be home as well?"

I stared at him blankly, then finally said, "This ship or whatever it is is not my home. My home is on earth."

"Your home is not on earth."

"It is too! It's on earth in a place called Florida!"

Something seemed to shift. Something in reality itself. The surroundings became blurred, then fell into focus again, more clear than before.

"You have said Florida, the word that was agreed upon. The signal. The plan will be executed. Has been executed." They turned away and started to go.

"Wait! What about me?"

They turned partly back around, hooded heads pointed at me. "It is not necessary for you to come with us."

"No! I want to go to, to earth, back to where I was."

"The plan has been executed. You are no longer there."

"I know I'm not there! I'm here!"

"Only your attention is on the ship. Your body is on earth, but not where it was."

"Why? What happened to it?"

"The plan was executed."

"But what does that mean?"

"Your body was moved to a place of safety, most likely to a specially fortified room, perhaps underground. We do not know where."

"But why would it need to be moved to a safe place?"

"Because the plan was executed."

"But what was the plan!"

"The timeline was adjusted. Earth now had an atomic war in 1983, caused by malfunctioning Russian equipment. Most of the northern hemisphere is destroyed, with large areas still radioactive. Without support from the north, the southern hemisphere is in chaos, with mass starvation, made worse by refugees streaming in from the north. A third of the population was killed in the war, and the population is still dropping rapidly. We expect it to stabilize at around 100 million."

I couldn't think of anything to say for a minute. Could it be real? "Why? Why was it done?"

"It was the plan chosen by you. You must look within yourself for the reason."

"But, but, I didn't..." Something hit me then. "You mean there are other plans?"

"There are many plans, but none of them can be executed without invalidating the current plan."

"That's okay! I'm don't want the current plan! Get rid of it!"

"What plan would you like instead?"

"I don't know! I don't have a name! I don't know any of their names!"

"We must have a name. We cannot proceed without it."

"I don't have one! Isn't there anything you can do? I feel like I'm talking to a robot! Can't you please just undo what was done? Just dump it?"

"Very well. We will execute plan Dum-Pit, as requested."

"What? Wait, I don't know what that plan is..." They were fading into blackness. "What's happening?"

"Your attention is returning to there," I heard faintly out of the darkness, almost a fading memory of words.

I opened my eyes and saw a swirling blackness in the sky, rapidly receding. I looked around. I was on a hillside somewhere, with a large city below, several miles away. I wasn't where I was before, but everything else felt normal. Even more normal, somehow, than it had before I left. It felt like it was for the better, though I didn't know what had changed and wouldn't know for some time.

I paused. Why did I think that? I couldn't be sure now. Oh well, plenty of time to think about it later.

I made my way down the hill toward the city.


Mega challenge:

Spam,
perpetual motion,
sprinkle,
telephone pole,
stains,
alphabetical,
surgery,
flattery,
liberty,
preservation

shadows,
singularity,
Florida,
caterpillars,
copy

I took another bite of the Spam sandwich, and watched the shadows lengthen. This was taking a lot longer than expected. I had already been here a week. Spam was good once in a while, but I was getting real tired of it. The cans were handy to take on trips, but once opened they were no longer in a state of preservation, and had to be eaten fairly quickly. I had already gained ten pounds, or at least it felt like it. I would have gained more, but I found myself eating less often. Which might not be a bad thing, as the food wouldn't last forever. I would be out of the bread soon, and then I would have to start on the crackers. I would be out of the real Spam tomorrow, and then I would start on the store-brand copy. I doubted it would taste any better.

I took another bite. In desperation, I opened one of the small boxes of raisins and opened up the sandwich and sprinkled some on the meat. I closed up the sandwich and took another bite. It did seem to be better. At least it changed the taste. I finished the sandwich and wiped my hands on my already stained shirt.

I looked up. The buzzards were still circling, seemingly in perpetual motion. There was a time when I had tried to name them alphabetically, like hurricanes, but I couldn't tell them apart, and it no longer seemed important.

I had been on vacation, hiking, when a pack of wolves had started following me, then chasing me. I was running across a meadow, heading for the lone tree in it. It went straight up, like a telephone pole, with the first real branches about twelve feet above the ground. I don't know how I climbed it, but I did.

The wolves left after a few days, but I found I couldn't get down. I had gone pretty high to find some good, comfortable branches, and to be well away from the wolves, but I found I couldn't climb down much without getting stumped. I had tried several times, but I just couldn't do it. Below a certain point, I couldn't find any proper place to put my feet, and there was little to hang onto. If I fell, I would probably need major surgery, assuming I didn't die right away. I wasn't going to get any surgery out here, though. Just the buzzards, unless the wolves came back and fought them off.

I had tried my cell phone over and over, but there was never any signal. I was trapped here on the tree, in the middle of the meadow. It felt like I was on the singularity in the center of a black hole, a place from which nothing can escape.

I had packed a lot of supplies, but the food would be gone in a few days. I didn't know what I'd do then. Lose the ten pounds, probably. That and a lot more.

I had run out of water long ago, and would be in big trouble now if it hadn't been raining so much. I used a small frying pan and a cup to catch the rain, and then refill the water bottles. The rain probably wasn't too clean, coming down off the leaves like it was, and sometimes it included a few caterpillars, which I fished out. I was starting to think I should have stayed in Florida.

It was getting late, and soon I would have to tie myself to the tree again, to make sure I didn't fall off while I slept. I didn't have any rope, but I had managed to use the straps from the backpack instead. I used one strap to secure the backpack to the tree, and then put the other one around my waist. It was uncomfortable when I ended up hanging from it, but it beat the alternative.

I watched the caterpillars crawl along the leaves and branches for a while. I wasn't ready to eat them yet, but there might come a time.

I looked up. The buzzards were still there. I had yelled at them, trying to scare them away, but it didn't work. Flattery didn't either. I had even asked them what it would take to get them to leave, but none of them seemed at liberty to say. One of them landed, now, on a branch a few feet above me. I wondered how it would taste with raisins.

Yet more posts about posts

In 2007 and 2008, I posted collections of posts I made to a message board I visit frequently. This is the fourth collection of these posts.

On that message board, new threads crowd out old ones, old in this case meaning oldest last update. Threads can persist for a long time, however, if they are posted to frequently enough so that they stay comfortably away from the bottom of the list.

I help to keep some of the threads going, by posting to them when it seems that a new post might be needed. On threads about writing or poems, I have sometimes posted poems. Most of these poems refer to posts or posting in some manner, and most of them are short, sometimes very short, though a few are fairly long.

As originally posted they did not have titles, but I have given them titles here. The times shown are in Arizona time (MST), not the time on the message board, which uses Eastern time.


PLACE YOUR POEM
2:33 PM 3/25/2007

Place your poem
Within this place
So this thread
Won't be erased



POST YOUR POEMS
3:15 PM 5/15/2007

Post your poems
So that we may know 'ems



GIVE ME SOME WORDS
1:30 PM 9/6/2007

Give me some words
Sane or absurds
Short or long
Story or song
Prose or rhyme
Now's the time



A POST TO FILL
3:15 AM 9/22/2007

I write this down,
A post to fill,
So this thread
Won't be nil.



NOW'S THE TIME
3:35 AM 12/4/2007

Now's the time
To make a post
Whether it be
Least or most



A LITTLE NUDGE
3:36 PM 2/20/2008

There are days
When posts come fast
But those days
Don't seem to last

And so I give
A little nudge
To this thread
To make it budge

Other posts
Are welcome, too
Perhaps a post
will come from you

Make a post
If you can
And give this thread
A helping hand

Dream - The new timeline and the psychic lecturer

Tuesday, April 21, 2009, in the middle of the night or early morning, I had a strange dream about getting killed and then the timeline changing so that I was alive again.

In the dream, I was driving in Nevada. I had traveled there from Arizona. Earlier in the dream, there had been some time at home, and something about packing the suitcases, in my bedroom I think, and talking about the trip. In this trip, I went far to the north of where I usually go. This was intentional, and I had a specific place I was going to. I think it was something I had talked about with my father, some place he had business dealings. It was a little town in a relatively high area, probably 4000-5000 feet or more, with mountains around it. I had gotten in the general area, but still quite a ways from it.

It was late at night, approaching morning I think, and I was very tired and it was hard to drive. I was going along in an area where the road had been cut out from some little mountains, going fairly straight, with broad areas of loose dirt on each side for shoulders. There were places beyond the shoulder where the cutout area of the mountains could be seen, a sloping wall of hard dirt, and also some places between them where the dirt had been used to fill in gaps to make the shoulder. I was going west now, and had just turned off onto the road a little ways back. I had been going north. I was driving slower here, looking for a good place to pull off and sleep for a while. Traffic was very light.

Then I was waking up, sitting in the car, parked in the soft dirt, several feet from the road. It was very early morning, around sun up or maybe just before. I had the strangest feeling, that something had happened that night, and then things had been completely changed. It felt like I had actually been killed, hit by another car going the other way, either when I had been going slower, looking for a place to pull off or after I had pulled off and was slowly going along the shoulder for a ways, deciding where I wanted to stop, and that then it had been redone, and I was moved to a timeline where it didn't happen. I think it was partly done by myself, but a great deal of it, maybe most of it, was done by outside agencies, perhaps angels, though I'm not sure. It could have been UFO-type people, or people who were from alternate timelines or other universes, or even time travelers. It was the strangest feeling. I felt kind of airy and light-headed.

I continued on to where I had been going. I had actually been going, intentionally and temporarily, in the wrong direction earlier, looking for some place to pull off and sleep. It was an area I had been in a few times before, in dreams, so I knew generally what it was like.

Now I turned around and headed east. Traffic had picked up a bit. I think I went to a little town where some small businesses were, garages or service stations, to talk to some people there. I think my father joined up with me. He may have been driving a large white pickup truck.

Someone was visiting there, passing through, giving brief talks. I think it may have been a route he regularly traveled, but months passed before he returned to a particular place. He talked about psychic stuff and the paranormal. (In real life, the radio was playing and the Coast to Coast AM show was on. That night, Bruce Goldberg was a guest. I'm not sure if he was still on when the dream happened. It might have been when the show was replaying the first hour of his time, or the dream might have happened afterward. In any case, the person seems to have been based on him and sounded like him, and was a fast talker.)

I think I had been wanting to see him, and although I was already in the area for something else, I think I particularly went to this place at this time to try and catch up with him. I got to talk to him briefly as he was heading for the door after his talk, and continued to talk to him briefly outside. He seemed interested and agreed that what I thought happened could have happened, and even talked a little about such things, but seemed to be in a hurry and I didn't feel that what had happened to me was really properly sinking in to him. He left then and drove off to the next place in some other little town. I felt I had to try to catch up with him again, either in the next place or somewhere else in his tour.

I went off with my father to the next town he was going to be at, I think after finishing up our business where we were. It was a some place to the east, some distance away apparently. It was late at night when we got there, not far from morning. We parked outside of town and made our way forward on foot. I'm not sure why. I think we may have been worried for some reason about being trapped or caught there, like we felt it wasn't quite safe.

Going west, we made our way along on the south side of the road, going along by some businesses. For a while on this side of the road the area was elevated a bit, rising up maybe ten feet or more in places, with the road cut through it. The places on the other side of the road were more level, though sometimes were also elevated a little.

We came to a place, well above the road, that seemed to be used for storage for things that were delivered. The ceiling was fairly low and it was open all along the front, and we were on a raised up area in it, kind of almost like an open attic or loft. A bunch of little cans were there, most of them tuna cans I think, though a few cans held something else. We were talking about taking some with us to eat, not so much to eat now as when we got finished and left. At times it seemed the other person was more like my younger brother now instead of my father, and at times it seemed like a different person entirely.

It was getting lighter now as we made our way along. We soon crossed the street to the other side, cautiously going along, keeping close to businesses, away from the road, though the businesses went alongside next to the road. Hardly anyone was out now, and the road was practically empty. A lot of the businesses were elevated six to eight feet up, but it varied as we went, going up and down, and some were fairly close to the road in height. I didn't know if we were in time, or would have to catch him in one of the other towns. I was under the impression, though, that somehow this little town was a major base stop on his tour, that he had some kind of connections here.

We did manage to get to the place he was at. He was still there. We talked to some of the people there before we found him. We still had to search a bit. One of the people was a black woman, probably in her thirties, full-figured but not heavy, who was very attractive. She had a kind of easy-going, amused smile, and helped us some in our search. She was one of the people who worked in the place that he had kind of a base at, and I guess one of the places in town where he was going to be talking or had been talking. She didn't go with us, though we kept coming back in our search and running into her. Apparently the person we were looking for was moving around quite a bit and it was hard to catch him.

Finally, toward night, we managed to catch up with him. He was about to go someplace else again, another town on his tour. I got to talk to him for a little while. While we walked, the black woman went with us for a ways, and maybe another person or two, then we said goodbye to them, until next time, and continued on with the person I had been trying to find. As we talked, he remarked after a bit how nice looking the black woman was, in kind of an aside, a smile on his face. It was dark now. We were approaching the end of town again, the same end we had come in on. The person had to go on and we said goodbye to each other.

I went back to the place with the cans, along with the person I had come with, whoever it was now, and we were going through the cans, which were stacked up in a broad area along the edge of the loft, out toward the road. The stacks weren't very high and were just a few cans deep, and were partly turned over and scattered, especially after we had been through them. We were going through them again now. I was trying to collect a few cans of tuna. The other person wanted something else too, and said he really wanted to find some salmon. He was having trouble finding it, though. I said in kind of a loud sharp voice that he was looking at the wrong ones, that they were in these little tiny cans, showing him some that were really small, maybe half-size, like some gourmet cat food cans are.

The cans were just sitting out there, not locked up, and we had been considering just taking a bunch of them, but we started to wonder now whether we should make some effort about paying for them. The black woman had come back, still across the street and still maybe fifty feet away, and still with a big smile. She suggested that we could send the money to her and she would pass it along, so we decided that we would go through what we had gotten later, and either send her the money or send her a letter telling her what we had gotten, and she would tell us how much it was.

Later that morning, probably around 6:00-7:00, I had another dream about driving, in Arizona I think. I don't remember now what was happening in it, but I woke up with the same airy, light-headed feeling, somewhat a feeling of wonder, as I had in the dream after the timeline had been changed.

Wordzzle 78 - The wall

This is my contribution to this week's Wordzzle. Wordzzle is a game in which each week word lists, used to create stories, are given on the blog Views from Raven's Nest. Participating users post their stories on their own blogs.

This is my entry number 22, for Wordzzle week 78.

Ten Word Challenge:

records,
impulsive,
really cool,
bread crumbs,
angels,
Sponge Bob,
magical moment,
back and forth,
suffering,
good fences make good neighbors

I'd like to say it was a magical moment, and really cool, but all the suffering got in the way. I crawled along on my stomach, hugging the line in the road like it was a trail of bread crumbs left by angels. I could see the end, not far away now. It lay like an invisible fence, separating what was here from what was there. I've heard that good fences make good neighbors, but it didn't much matter in this case. I hoped to never be here again.

I tried to gather my strength, to stand, to somehow walk to the end, to go out like a man, but I swayed back and forth and then fell to my knees, and then on my face. Through a haze of pain I saw a little boy wearing a Sponge Bob T-shirt, looking down at me.

"Are you all right, mister?"

I tried to say something, but couldn't. I finally nodded, or I think I did, and began crawling on. Maybe I inspired the kid. I hoped not. Why would I want anyone to end up like this? Oh, what an impulsive thing I had done, that led me to end up here. If I could only take back that moment. But it was too late now. Too late for anything.

The end was close now. I could feel it more than see it, as the light seemed to be fading rapidly.

Then, almost as a surprise, I was somehow crossing it, slowly inching my way forward, a growing roar filling my ears, filling my head. And then it was done. It was over. I hadn't set any records, except maybe for slowest finisher, but the marathon race was done.


Mini Challenge:

side effects are generally mild,
clingy,
rooster,
samples,
curiosity

"'Side effects are generally mild,'" I said, reading from the package of samples the doctor had given me. "'Some people may experience goose bumps and reddening of the skin, and sticky sweat, occasionally heavy.'"

"Goose bumps, huh? You look more like a chicken than a goose. With that red face. more specifically a rooster. Does it say anything about the feathers?"

"No, it doesn't mention feathers. The feathers are from that truck full of chickens that passed us, I'm sure. They're just stuck to me because of my sweat. It makes my skin real clingy."

"Well don't come in the house like that. We'll have to wash you off with the hose."

"With the hose! But I've already got goose bumps!"

"Yeah, but they're meaningless. It's over 100 degrees out here. You'll be lucky if the water from the hose doesn't burn you. Now hold still."

"Ahhh! Ahhh! It burns! My goose bumps are getting worse! I'm sweating more! I'm got feathers in my mouth!"

"Well, spit them out. You don't know where they've been."

"Oh, this is just awful, I can still taste them!"

"Well, you won't be kissing me for a while."

"I'm here suffering, and all you can think about is yourself? Have you no pity?"

"I drove you home, didn't I? Drove you there, too."

"Yes, but you could be a little nicer about it. Especially with the shape I'm in."

"You look in better shape than your clothes. We're going to have a terrible time getting all the feathers off of them."

"They wouldn't be there if you hadn't washed them off my face and neck, and hands. Some of them have gone down my neck. I can feel them inside my clothes. It's awful. I think some things are crawling around on me, too."

"Maybe they were on the feathers. Or it could be all in your head."

"Let me check the box again. It's all wet! My glasses are, too. I can hardly see it. Let me see... It says something about possible mild hallucinations and delusions."

"Uh huh. You should have shown a little more curiosity before you took them."

"Well, they were essentially free, the doctor was giving them out, they were something the drug company gave him. If they worked he said he would write me a prescription for some more."

"You might not want to get that prescription," a strange voice said. "In fact, you might not want to take any more."

I turned and saw a woman on the sidewalk, looking at me funny. She had slowed to almost a stop, but she speeded up now and walked away quickly, sometimes looking back over her shoulder at me.

I looked down at the small poodle holding the hose. "That sure was odd, wasn't it?"

She nodded and hit me again with the water.


Mega challenge:

records,
impulsive,
really cool,
bread crumbs,
angels,
Sponge Bob,
magical moment,
back and forth,
suffering,
good fences make good neighbors

side effects are generally mild,
clingy,
rooster,
samples,
curiosity

"Good fences make good neighbors," the sign said, but there were no fences and no neighbors, just the barren land. I guess that was the point. No fences, therefor no neighbors. If I constructed a fence, would neighbors appear? I didn't know. I walked on. A little later I saw another sign. It said, "If you build it, they will come." It sounded like an answer to my question, though I couldn't be sure. In any case, there wasn't anything around to build anything with, and I didn't have the time to cart building materials out here.

After a while, I came to a solid wall, painted white, ten feet high, that ran from horizon to horizon. This looked like a pretty good fence, one for the record books. I still didn't see any neighbors. Maybe because it wasn't really a fence, just a wall. I guess that made sense.

I saw two doors in it. One said "Fools" and the other said "Angels." I wasn't sure what to expect on the other side, seeing that the other signs hadn't been too helpful.

I knew more about fools than I did about angels, so I finally decided to open the door marked "Fools" first. I didn't know how many might be inside, or how friendly they might be, so I opened the door slowly and carefully. Inside I saw a dilapidated wooden bridge crossing a deep canyon. The bridge was creaking and shifting, and seemed about to collapse. A sign beside it said, "Cross here." I decided I wasn't that big of a fool, so I backed out and went to the other door.

I opened it and saw the same canyon, only without the bridge. A sign said, "Cross here." I didn't have any angel wings with me, so I couldn't cross here, either. I went back out and closed the door, unsure what to do now.

Then I noticed that the signs on the doors had changed. The signs now said "Really cool" and "Impulsive." I opened the "Really cool" door and found a bridge of ice going across the canyon. It looked pretty slippery, so I closed the door and went to the other one.

When I opened it, I saw a path leading to a bridge, with giant toad statues lining and facing the path. I stared at the scene for a while. The bridge appeared to be sturdy, but something didn't feel right. I started to turn back, but then on impulse I started down the path. The toads jumped toward each other, slamming into each other with loud smacking sounds. I was almost hit, but leaped out of the way just in time. I could see now that they weren't statues at all, they had just seemed that way because of their size and stillness. They were now erratically jumping in all directions, seemingly on impulse. I couldn't tell which way any of them would jump, and some of them almost hit me again. I finally managed to get out and close the door.

I saw then that the signs on the doors had again changed. One said "Clingy" and the other said "Curiosity." I opened the "Clingy" door and saw the canyon again, with no bridge. A giant frog wearing a saddle crawled up over the edge, using its sticky feet to cling to the rock. It looked at me and its tongue shot out, hitting the wall five feet from me, then shot back into its mouth, holding some small animal. I backed out and shut the door.

I opened the other one and saw a long concrete pipe, about four feet wide, forming a tunnel over the canyon. The ground around it was littered with the bones of small animals. Over the end of the tunnel was a grate of heavy steel. On a pole beside it was a plaque with a large red button. I went over and read the plaque. It said "Push this." I peered into the tunnel, but couldn't see the other end. Something seemed to be blocking the way. I finally pushed the button, not knowing what else to do, and curious about what might happen. The grate started to lift, clearing the way into the tunnel, and from inside the tunnel I heard a rapid scurrying, coming this way. I ran for the door, got through it and slammed it closed, as I felt something heavy smack into the other side.

I spent quite a bit of time at the doors, going back and forth between them, opening them and going in, but no matter what the signs changed to, I couldn't find a way to get over the canyon. At least not one I felt safe using. Finally, the signs said "Suffering" and "Bread crumbs."

I decided to try the "Bread crumbs" first. When I opened the door, I saw a sturdy bridge heavily carpeted in bread crumbs. The path leading to it was the same way. I started to walk forward, and hordes of birds swooped down and started eating the bread crumbs. They were all around, and smacking against me. I put up my arms, trying to fend them off. With my head down and arms waving, I tried to slowly walk forward, but the birds were everywhere, and I could hardly find a place to put my feet. Eventually I stepped on one, whereupon the others all turned on me and started flying at me and pecking me. I turned and ran back out through the door, slamming it behind me, hearing a rain of thuds on it.

I went to the other door and stood in front of it for a while. "Suffering" did not sound too promising, but the signs wouldn't change until I tried both doors. I finally opened it and saw a sturdy bridge. Nothing unusual seemed to be around. I slowly walked toward it, expecting something to happen at any minute, but nothing did. I slowly and carefully walked across the bridge. I made it to the other side, and still nothing happened. I looked back at the bridge, and everything still looked normal. Where was the suffering? Then I remembered that one of the meanings of suffer was permit. So suffering could mean permitting. Perhaps that was it. At least I hoped so.

I turned away from the bridge and continued my journey. The path led into the hills. I saw no more signs. The way got rougher and steeper, and eventually I was going up the side of a mountain. Then the path led into an opening in the rock, into a cave. I paused outside it for a minute, considering what to do, and finally went in.

Inside was a huge room, dimly lit by widely spaced torches. Directly in front of me, wide steps were cut out of the rock, leading down to a broad flat floor, perhaps ten feet below. Overhead, far above, I could see a distant ceiling, littered with stalactites. The room stretched to vast distances on either side of me. Ahead, perhaps two hundred feet away, were more steps, leading up to another level area, beyond which was the far wall. A little ways in front of the far wall was a giant throne, made of rock. On the throne sat a giant rooster.

I walked down the steps and across the floor, and up the other steps, until I stood in front of the throne and the rooster. This close, I could see that he was enormous, probably seven or eight feet tall when standing.

The rooster looked down at me. "You have completed the tests. You have earned the prize. Now you must choose it."

It swept its left wing up in a majestic gesture, and I saw the wall now had narrow shelves lined with Sponge Bob lunchboxes. It was a magical moment.

I walked up to them. They all looked the same. "Does it matter which one I choose?"

"Yes, it does."

"What will happen if I choose the wrong one?"

"The side effects are generally mild, but the primary effects will gather all your attention."

That sounded pretty bad. I walked up and down in front of them, looking them over. I couldn't tell any difference in any of them. I finally turned to the rooster and said, "I choose the one you would choose."

"A wise decision."

It got up and walked over and picked up one with its beak. Holding it by its handle, it turned and held it out to me. I reached forward somewhat uneasily, suddenly acutely aware of the bird's size. I took the lunch box and held it lovingly in my hands, then opened it. Inside it was, of course, full of golden sponge cakes. I took one out. Another appeared in its place. It held an unending supply. I took a bite. It was delicious, heavenly.

"May I have a sample?"

I started to say yes, but then stopped, a wave of fear going through me. For all I knew, I might look even more tasty than what was in the lunchbox. "A sample of what?" I finally said.

"You have passed the test. I offer you my kingdom and everything in it, if you will accept it."

I thought for a minute. Normally an offer like that would be pretty attractive, but his kingdom seemed pretty forbidding, with its wall or fence that kept out almost everyone. I didn't think I would really like being cooped up in the cave all alone either, perhaps for all eternity, unless I could eventually trick some other person into taking my place. "You're very kind, but I'm afraid I can't accept it. I'll just stick with the lunchbox."

"Very well. The way out is over here," it said, indicating a large white door set into the wall.

I went over and opened it. Light poured out from it, then light was everywhere. I stood there blinking, then saw my wife over by the light switch. I was standing in front of the refrigerator, holding the door open with one hand, and eating something with the other.

"What are you doing? You know you're supposed to be on a diet! And what is the lunchbox doing open on the table?"

"Does it, er, have any sponge cake in it?"

"Not anymore, everything's gone, I'll have to repack it before he goes to school. And you're still eating! Put down that chicken leg."

I stared at it. "Don't worry," I said. "I only, er, took a sample."

The Wombat and the Pudding

This is a story that I did for a message board, on a thread normally concerned with comically constructing new words and definitions. They were at that time doing exercises where a user gave a short list of words and other users then wrote a story containing those words.

This is another of my stories from my post number 1000 for that message board. The list of words for this story: prickly, pudding, marbles, wombat, braids.

This story is dated 9:23 PM, December 1, 2006, Arizona time (MST).


THE WOMBAT AND THE PUDDING

The wombat, missing a few marbles, made braids out of the pudding and put the result on its head. "Blame it on the prickly heat, that's what I say," it exclaimed.

Dream - The auction of the lion-thing

On Sunday morning, April 19, 2009, I had a dream about being at a place where something partly hidden was being auctioned, something that looked something like a lion.

In the dream, I was in a place with long white tables or counters, that occasionally had computers on them. The main area was a very large room, but it had smaller offshoots. I wandered around, sometimes fiddling with the computers. Sometimes a few people were there, and sometimes not. Time passed. My mood was glum.

Then an auction started in the middle of the room, in the rows of white tables or counters. I went forward and looked at what was happening. The thing being bid on was mostly hidden behind a white curtain or sheet, but the curtain was pulled back a bit and a little of the object showed. It seemed to be something at least partly like a lion, very large and probably life-size, with its mane showing, but with a long narrow structure extending upward from the area of the neck. I'm not sure what the lion-thing was made of. It was colored a bright shiny reddish color, tending toward blue in some places, with the color looking like part of the material and almost translucent. It looked like it might be some type of fiberglass or plastic, but a fairly heavy kind. I wondered about its age. It didn't really seem like it could be too ancient if it was made out of that, though I supposed it could date from the early 1900s.

I wondered what the bidding would be, and if it would go fairly cheap. It started out, though, around 600 or 650 dollars I think. Then someone bid 1500, but the auctioneer didn't seem to be acting on it. He was still referring to the earlier bid when asking for a higher one, and someone bid 750, which he accepted and then started trying for more. I was getting really confused. Why wasn't the other bid being recognized? I heard, then, some people referring to it, but they treated it as less than the other bids, that it was somehow something like 150. But the man had said fifteen-hundred, could fifteen hundred be less than seven hundred and fifty? I was getting more and more confused and couldn't make it work.

Finally the curtain was pulled back and the whole thing was revealed. To my surprise it seemed to be some kind of ostrich, and instead of a mane it had the round body with its wings and feathers, and also a pale, faintly violet series of large drooping panels around its neck and over the top of its back, apparently for riders to sit on.


At the time I had the dream, the Wordzzle game for next week involved the term "auction block," and I had been working on the stories. That's probably where the auction concept came from. I didn't have any lions or ostriches in them, though, just polar bears.

Dream - My grandmother is voted president of a club

Sunday, February 1, 2009, I had a dream in which I was traveling with the rest of the family, and then I went to a place where a small election was held.

In the dream, in the first part I can remember, I was in a bathroom, with another, larger, room of some kind attached to the back. It was a white wooden structure with a concrete floor, outside away from things. It had a big dirt area around it with patches of short grass. No other building was close. I was trying to clean the toilet some. I think my father had left me or brought me there. The whole family was traveling, me with them. The rest of the family, and my father, were in another place right now, perhaps at least partly separately, some place in the town.

I went to a place in town, then, apparently where we were going to meet. It was composed mostly of a very large, open room, maybe around a hundred feet on a side, with a long room at the back with rows of people like a smallish movie theater, or like the inside of a large airplane. I think it was an eating place, though it may have sold some things, too. The attached big building was entirely open, with just pillars holding it up. It was white painted stucco, with low walls in various places, including along the edges, and some areas were different levels. It was landscaped inside and out, and had some eating areas inside and out.

We had to vote, then, in a place in the big room. It seemed mostly the people in the place who were voting, though perhaps some others also went in there to vote, too. A woman was taking the votes out of the ballot box and reading them. Other women were gathered around her, watching. The votes were just little pieces of paper, maybe three by five inches.

She was also happily saying something about a code that was used or was now being used. It was three or four letters long, the first part of a much longer word, which she also gave. I don't remember now what they were. I wasn't sure what importance it really had, it just seemed to be a handy word that was associated with their business or business goals in some way, and that they were now using the first part of the word as a code to put on a lot of things and communications, as a kind of reminder.

When she got to my votes, I had put in a few, this was evidently allowed, she looked up and starting kidding about my ballots. Evidently people had their own names on their ballots too, along with the person they had voted for, identifying themselves. She was saying something about how she knew these were mine, that the 3's had fancy curlicues.

I was standing about twenty feet away, and frowned as she was saying this. I didn't know exactly what she was talking about. I didn't remember writing a 3, and could only assume that she was referring to the letter E, my middle initial, which looks something like a backward 3 when written, though I don't make any fancy curlicues on it. I guessed she was trying in some way to kid me about it looking like a backward 3, which didn't make much sense to me since that was what it was supposed to look like.

When all the votes were counted, my grandmother was elected, apparently as president of a club, or something like that. I'm not sure exactly what it was. In real life, she died in late 1984.

Wordzzle 77 - The silent majority

This is my contribution to this week's Wordzzle. Wordzzle is a game in which each week word lists, used to create stories, are given on the blog Views from Raven's Nest. Participating users post their stories on their own blogs.

This is my entry number 21, for Wordzzle week 77.


Ten Word Challenge:

blind panic,
apartment,
fleas,
soap operas,
cajun cooking,
free and easy,
legal,
sangria,
public school,
new

It wasn't a public school, but it was a fenced-in institution. People were put there who had special problems. Very special problems. They were getting a lot of new residents, too. It was not free and easy to get in there, and in many cases not even entirely legal, but many people were put there by concerned family members, moved out of their house and apartments, sometimes with little or no warning.

It wasn't the usual problems or phobias, not fear of dirt or germs or fleas or even Cajun cooking or sangria. Still the people arrived, often in a blind panic. They were difficult cases, too, and some who came never left. Sometimes when a person's favorite soap opera went off the air, there just wasn't much you could do.


Mini Challenge:

class,
calendar,
keeping secrets,
boring,
fashion

I checked the calendar again, but it had no appointments for me. No classes either. I looked at the next week and the next month, and finally at the whole year, but nothing was there anywhere. Unless the calendar was keeping secrets from me (and they sometimes do, boy have I been surprised) it looked like it was going to be one boring year.

I finally started looking at the pictures on it. They were all of fashion models. Well, no wonder, what do they know. With disgust, I put the calendar back on the shelf and picked up another one. Hmm. This one had cats on it. Maybe it would be better. Cats seem to know everything.


Mega challenge:

blind panic,
apartment,
fleas,
soap operas,
cajun cooking,
free and easy,
legal,
sangria,
public school,
new

class,
calendar,
keeping secrets,
boring,
fashion

Walking along, I passed by what used to be a public school. There were no classes on the calendar today, though. The neighborhood had changed, and there weren't enough kids and it was shut down. It was going to be torn down and something new put up, but money had run out, and now it simply lay in ruins, partially demolished.

Some people were camping out in it, probably vagrants. The smells of Cajun cooking drifted toward me. As I got closer, I could see them roasting something over a fire, and they were drinking something that might have been sangria, though it was hard to tell for sure. It looked like they were getting pretty drunk already, though they remained strangely silent. I crossed the street to the other side and continued on.

As I passed some apartments, a dog came out, fleas jumping all over it. I was afraid it might want to transfer some of them to me, but it acted like it was behind an invisible wall, and didn't try to jump up on me.

I passed a store with TVs in the window, heavily discounted. Good luck with that. Everything was reruns now, even soap operas, and it had just gotten too boring for most people. Too depressing, too.

I came up to a supermarket. Its windows were boarded up, but it was still open. A long line of people stood in front of it. The owner was just letting in a few at a time, so he could keep a better eye on them. This was getting common, and I had seen it in other places. Things had gotten to the point that people no longer cared as much what was legal and what was not, and were doing more shoplifting than paying. What they regarded as free and easy, though, the shop owners did not, and so the present setup evolved.

I watched as the owner took in a few people, than put his hand up to indicate that the others had to wait. Some in the front assumed exaggerated pleading postures, but he shook his head. One of the people halfway back along the line leaned out and formed his hand into an imitation of a gun and pretended to shoot at the shop owner. The shop owner pretended to shoot back, and the man in line clutched his chest and went into an overly dramatic death that took several minutes. One of the other people pretended to go into a blind panic, running around and jumping up and down and pointing at the "dead" man. I had seen similar things before, far too many times, but it never seemed to go out of fashion.

A real policeman came by and saw the situation and got into the spirit of things, pointing at the body and looking accusingly at the crowd, finally going up to one person after another, glaring intimidatingly at them. But they were real good at keeping secrets, and no one said anything. I shook my head at what was happening and moved on.

I had hoped that things would get better, but they just kept sliding downhill. I saw this type of stuff over and over, day after day, and the whole structure of the city, and of life in it, was slowly falling apart. Presumably it was the same way elsewhere, too, but it was hard to know these days.

I continued to walk through the silent city, sometimes stepping around invisible walls, sometimes seeing other people do the same. It just seemed to never end. The epidemic itself had largely passed, but the effects remained. The epidemic that would in later generations be called the mime flu.

Nobody called it that now, though, or said anything at all.

The Inspirational Blog Award

On Monday, August 17, 2009, I was given the One Lovely Blog Award from Akelamalu on her blog Everything And Nothing. Thank you, Akelamalu!



This is the fourth blog award I have received.

The award came with several rules, including passing it on to ten other people, but I'm only going to be able to comply with the part about linking back to the blog where I received it. I have already given the link to the blog, in the first paragraph, but below is the link to the specific post:

Everything And Nothing: Partytime............

200th post

This is the 200th post on this blog. It came a lot faster than the 100th post.

Coincidentally, the four year anniversary of this blog falls on August 22, 2009. I managed to get 200 posts in time for it, but that wasn't a goal, they just happened to come together. For several months I've been posting a lot more than usual, at several times the previous rate in fact. A couple of months ago, it looked like I might hit 200 posts before the end of the year, but as I neared August it became apparent that it was going to be sometime in August. I thought that I had started the blog around that month, but I had to check to see what date it was. It looked for a while like the 200th post might come significantly earlier than August 22nd, but I had to devote more time to other things the last couple of weeks or so, and the number of blog posts dropped a bit. Originally I hadn't planned to mention the anniversary, then began to think I might make a post about it. They were now so close together, though, that I decided to put them both in the same post.

Besides the increased number of posts per month during this hundred posts, the addition of the Wordzzle posts is probably the biggest change. The other posts are generally of the type I've had on before, though dreams may be a slightly bigger proportion of them than previously.

I also started getting my first blog awards. So far, they are just in the posts where I mentioned them, but I'll have to get around to modifying the template, something I rarely do, and put them in along the side.

Another change is the addition of a Table of Contents for Stephen's Thoughts, in another blog linked to from this one. Though I suspect it's rarely used, I wanted to show what was available, and make it easy to get to any particular post. It's probably good that I did it, since the link at the bottom of the blog to older posts has recently disappeared. I've noticed that it's not on some other blogs either. Perhaps they still use the older format template, as I do, and for some reason some features are being dropped.

Comics art imitating life

Several times over the years I've had some cases of deja vu while seeing images on television. I was able to place them fairly quickly, though, in some cases instantly, as things I had seen in comic books long ago.

One time, several years ago, I saw an old clip of some disaster in some other country, with the announcer in the foreground talking into a microphone and dirt and debris behind him, and an old man kept coming into view a few feet back. The old man had his mouth open wide in an expression of despair, the mouth a tall rectangle with a few ragged teeth showing and a lot of them gone. He kept coming back on camera, evidently wanting to be part of the broadcast, always with the same expression, always looking the same. I was astonished. It was the same figure I had seen in the comics, drawn by Jack Kirby probably, probably in the 1960s or early '70s. I had thought it was terribly exaggerated when I saw it in the comic book, the mouth open far beyond anything in real life, with lots of artistic license, but here was the original for it, what must have been the original, and it looked just like it.

There was also a case where I saw, again several years ago, a scene in a movie in which some people were sitting down with their backs to each other, maybe tied up but I'm not sure now, with the tops of their legs seeming unusually long and sticking out too far. I had seen the same image, with Sgt. Fury and some of his commandos I think, tied up in a circle with their backs to something, back in the mid 1960s. I had thought at the time that the legs were much too long, that their length was terribly exaggerated, but they looked the same in real life.

Another time, several years ago but perhaps a little more recent than the others, I saw a replay of an Elvis Presley concert, from the late '60s probably, or maybe a little earlier. In one scene, his arms were stretching out in opposite directions, and his hand was reaching out toward the camera, fingers spread, his face turned and looking up toward the camera imploringly as he sang. The cloth of his sleeve was covered in wrinkles because of the arm stretching out and upward like that, and the fingers large and foreshortened, the fingertips looking square and seeming to form an arc with the thumb. I realized with wonder that I had seen the same thing years ago, in a comic where the Human Torch was having trouble with his powers and trying to light up without much success. It had seemed exaggerated again, the extreme foreshortening and the large hand with the squarish fingers in an arc, and the extreme wrinkling of the sleeve, an unusual thing for a superhero costume and it seemed a vastly overdone effect. Even the anguished face was there.

Then, a few years ago, I saw part of an outdoor concert from the mid '60s, with Peter, Paul and Mary among the performers there. The camera tended to stay on Mary as she sang, looking up at her face, which was in the sunlight. Her face had dark shadows in places, and because of the angle of viewing looked more squarish. The wind was blowing, blowing strands of blond hair across her face as she sang, the hair making more shadows, strands of shadows on her face. I realized, again with astonishment, that I had seen the same image in the comics, probably for Sue Storm, the Invisible Woman, another member of the Fantastic Four.

I'm not suggesting that there's anything wrong with doing this. It's common for artists to use models, and common for artists to take inspiration from real life and from what they see around them. It's just interesting to know what the artist(s) in these cases used, and that the extra effort was put forth, even when a comic was involved. And also that, though some of the drawings seemed exaggerated, they were in fact drawn from life.

Dream - The creatures in the basement

On April 7 or 8, 2009, I had a dream in which I apparently killed something that turned out to be a baby dragon, and when I tried to escape I went into a basement filled with strange creatures.

The first part of the dream, except for some vague impressions of driving back and forth doing pickup and delivery, is largely forgotten.

Then, at some point, I came to a place like the front parts counter of a local Chevrolet dealer, as it was back in the 1970s and '80s. There was someone behind the counter and also someone outside it. There were also a few other people nearby. It was sometime in the morning.

After a while, my mother showed up. I think she went there to tell me something, perhaps to remind me to come home for lunch, though I'm not sure. I talked to her for a while, and sometimes to a person or two in the area. We started slowly drawing away, then, preparing to leave, but though she took a step or two away, my mother kept on talking to someone at or near the counter, her body turned partly back toward them. I waited, not saying much myself, and getting a little impatient.

While waiting, I noticed a dark, roundish, hazy-looking thing, like a large bug, near the counter along where a small side wall was, where the floor met the wall. It looked like a small dustball, with a long, thin, neck-like structure sticking out of it. I threw something at it, breaking the neck-like structure off. It was brittle, like a thin piece of meat that had been burned almost to ashes. My mother objected, too late, saying, "Ohh!...," disappointed. It was going to grow up into a dragon. Well, too late now.

There was some question about the dragons getting mad, and something else was happening where the thing was, something growing out of the dustball, a small totally black dragon, looking two-dimensional, like a dark, impenetrable shadow, except for an eye, like a cutout in the shadow, looking mad.

Some things were coming, somewhere out there, somewhere to the west. Someone came and told us and some others. Looking out, you could sense them, feel them coming, though nothing was visible yet. The day seemed darker, as faint clouds partially obscured the sun, which seemed to be getting low in the sky. A faint, slightly cool wind blew in from the west, the direction from which they were coming. I'm not sure exactly what they were, but we were told that the dragons were notifying a lot of the other strange, fantastical (and generally large) animals, which had then notified others, etc. They were now headed our way, converging on us. We had to get away before they got here.

There was a narrow doorway beside the counter, with old chipped paint on the door frame and short hallway beyond, light blue paint showing though the white outer paint so much that it was mostly blue. It led down some old grimy short steps to a dark sunken room, maybe six to eight feet down. Some boxes and things were in the room, mostly near the walls. Strange things hid among the boxes, fantastic creatures.

I went a little down the stairs. A wizard, standing outside near the doorway, told us we needed to hide, to go to our secret places as planned, as we had rehearsed. A bunch of people, some outside and some inside, did as instructed, disappearing, going under the layers of reality, like burrowing under layers of cardboard, disappearing like bugs scurrying away from the light, and the place was suddenly almost empty. I went away too, going through layers that were like stacked cardboard, reaching a place beyond like a little niche.

The creatures were surprised, puzzled, not sure what to make of the sudden activity and then the emptiness. I came out, though, and went through the darkened sunken room, the things watching from the shadows, interested but still slow to move, slightly cautious after the strange happenings. They were generally not very large, probably mostly in the two to four foot high area, but they tended to be on the thick side, particularly their upper bodies and heads, and could be very dangerous. They started to get a bit more bold, slowly coming out of their hiding places.

I went up the stairs on the other side of the room and out to the back yard, which appeared to be the back yard of my grandmother's house in Arizona, although her house there didn't have a basement. There were more strange creatures out there, different from and not connected with the creatures inside, like they each had their own dimension or universe. There were various objects in the yard and back by the house. It was night now, out back, though when I had killed, or apparently killed, the bug creature it had been morning, perhaps near lunchtime. Now, out back, it was late at night, perhaps ten or eleven, and the creatures were sleeping, not expecting anything. Someone came up the stairs after me, perhaps my mother or maybe another relative, I'm not sure now. Some of the creatures from inside were starting to follow us, heading for the stairs to come up after us.

I went to the right around a corner, to where part of the house was set back a bit. There was a stack of the creatures there, sleeping. I woke them up. They were a little slow to wake, and puzzled at what was happening, surprised too. Some of the things from inside were getting in the yard now. There was an old round piece of cardboard, like an oversized plate, that I half tossed, half pushed toward a creature or two. There was also a largish crumpled ball of old cardboard that I rolled and tossed.

The creatures were slowly murmuring to each other and milling around, dim forms in the darkness. We all started playing with each other, like children, a kind of slow motion playing, and the mood became happier and lighter.

Wordzzle 76 - Masks

This is my contribution to this week's Wordzzle. Wordzzle is a game in which each week word lists, used to create stories, are given on the blog Views from Raven's Nest. Participating users post their stories on their own blogs.

This is the twentieth time I've played the game.


Ten Word Challenge:

superlative,
flea market,
falling leaves,
disinformation,
who was that masked man?,
keeping kids out of trouble,
I'm a believer,
bonnet in the attic,
staff,
generation

Falling leaves blew through the deserted flea market. Before it had been a flea market it had been an amusement park, and before that a place for circuses and fairs. It had been one thing after another, for generation after generation. Right now it seemed to be between incarnations, haunted by the ghost of its former self and without any indications of what might come next. I walked through it, looking at the remains of what it had been.

Eventually I became aware of someone walking beside me. We talked for a bit, about various things. When I turned to look at him, he was wearing a clown mask and a clown costume. It seemed odd, but I didn't say anything about it. We continued walking.

"Too bad this place is closed again," I said. "It used to be popular, but the owner ran out of money."

"Yes, times are hard, many places have closed. This one will reopen eventually, as something else. It always does." He wore a cowboy mask and a cowboy outfit now.

"There's not many places for kids to go, now," I said. "Not many jobs for them either. I'm afraid a lot of them are going to get into trouble."

"I'm a believer in keeping kids out of trouble," he said, dressed like a ringmaster now and wearing a mask with a long curly mustache.

"You seem to have a lot of costumes," I said.

"I also have a bonnet in the attic."

"Oh? Which attic is that?"

"I have many bonnets, in many attics. Some are quite nice, but I wouldn't mind being seen dead in any of them," he said, wearing a leprechaun mask and costume.

"I have no idea how you do it, but you do the best job of switching costumes I've ever seen."

"I accept your compliment, but there's no need for superlatives. It's easier than it seems, and not entirely what it appears," he said, looking like a magician.

"You're speaking in riddles."

"Perhaps, but I speak as I think. Misunderstanding may induce misdirection, but I give out no disinformation," he said, looking like an old wizard carrying a staff.

We had reached the other edge of the flea market. He turned to me, looking like trapeze artist. "I have to go now."

"What shall I say when people ask 'who was that masked man?'"

"We all wear masks. Tell them what you like."

"I don't wear a mask."

"Then here, take one of mine."

Then he handed me a mask that looked like me.


Mini Challenge:

deep in the forest,
government,
charming,
heirlooms,
flabbergasted

Deep in the forest, away from the cities, away from the government, away from anyone who knew him and anyone he knew, he found an old trunk. He stood there looking at it, wondering why someone had left it there, in the forest. He felt he should probably open it, but it wasn't his, and though it had apparently been abandoned, it might not be. He rubbed his upper lip with his finger, a nervous habit of his. He couldn't just go away and not see what was in it. There might be something valuable, something that shouldn't be left out here and lost.

When he opened it, he saw that it had a wide tray across the inside, formed into sections for holding different things. The tray held a variety of items, old letters and keepsakes and heirlooms, some charming and some not. He lifted the tray out, and saw that underneath it the bottom of the trunk was gone, and the ground under it as well. A wooden ladder led downward, changing into a steep staircase as it went. He heard distant sounds, distorted, and caught glimpses of bright pinpoints, like eyes reflecting light.

He stared, flabbergasted, then suddenly put the tray back over it and stood there leaning on the edges of the trunk, trying to catch his breath. Then, trembling a little, he slowly took the tray back off. The trunk was now filled with a variety of items. There were old shoes and old dolls, and pieces of dolls, and old boots and old gloves.

He also came across an old wallet, very old. He opened it up and looked inside. It didn't have any money or credit cards, but it had a driver's license. The driver's license had his name and his signature, but the wrong address. It also had his picture, but not the one he had on his license. It was a poor picture, and faded, but he seemed to be older in it.

He finally put it back, and put the tray back in and closed the lid. He leaned on the lid for a while, trying to absorb what he had found and what had happened. He couldn't make it work, though. Nothing fit in, nothing made any sense.

He straightened up and stared at the trunk. It shouldn't even be here. What would a trunk be doing in the middle of a forest? He felt he should leave, really felt he should leave, but somehow couldn't bear to. He couldn't leave like this, with everything making no sense.

Finally, he hesitatingly opened it up again, and slowly took the tray out, almost afraid to look. As he took the tray out, he could see that what was inside had changed again. He held the edge of the tray against his stomach and peered over it. The trunk now held a body. It was on its back with its knees by its face. The eyes were staring outward, the mouth slack, the face blank and expressionless. It looked much like him, but instead of being clean-shaven, it had a long mustache that curled up at the edges.

Suddenly the eyes turned toward him and winked. He screamed and dropped the tray back down on it and backed up a few steps. He stared at it, his eyes big, his face in a grimace. Then he went toward it and quickly closed the lid and moved the clips into place to latch it. Then he backed up again and stared at it, breathing hard, a shudder running through him.

Something tapped him on the shoulder. He recoiled and turned away from it and ran mindlessly through the woods. Suddenly something big was right in front of him and he tumbled over it, hitting his head on a rock on the ground. Dazed, he dimly saw the trunk again, beside him, and heard voices talking around him. They all sounded alike and it was hard to follow the conversation. Consciousness faded, then, and his sleep was troubled by strange dreams.

He finally awakened, late in the day, and sat up and held his head and groaned. Beside him on the ground was the massive trunk of an old tree. A squirrel came out on top of it and scolded him. He stared back at it, then began to move slowly closer, softly talking to it. The squirrel ran along the trunk to the base, where the tree spread out in a tangle of broken roots, and ran over the edge into them and disappeared.

The man got up and followed it and found that the tree was hollow. Deep inside it he saw two eyes shining in the darkness, looking back at him. He wondered if squirrels' eyes were supposed to shine in the dark. It didn't seem right, but he wasn't sure. It was hard to think with his head hurting like this. He started to move in closer, to stick his head inside the tree, but then he paused, and finally drew back. The eyes looked back for a while, but then were gone. He started to go into the tree then, without even thinking about it.

He crawled in on his hands and knees into the darkness, his head and back scraping the top of the tunnel, the air full of the smell of rotting wood. Then suddenly the space seemed to open up quite a bit. He could feel the change in the air and in the way sounds came to him. He seemed to be close to the edge of a vast underground area, though he couldn't see much in the darkness, just occasional distant pairs of pinpoints that could have been eyes. He paused, unsure what to do or whether it was safe to go on.

Suddenly, something grabbed his hand. He screamed and tried to pull his hand away, but it wouldn't let go. He screeched and pulled and pulled, and finally yanked his hand away and hastily backed out. Standing up, he backed away from the trunk, staring at the hole, breathing hard. This was a very strange place. Whatever was in there, he really didn't want any part of it.

He twirled the end of his long mustache, a nervous habit he had, then turned and walked quickly away.


Mega challenge:

superlative,
flea market,
falling leaves,
disinformation,
who was that masked man?,
keeping kids out of trouble,
I'm a believer,
bonnet in the attic,
staff,
generation

deep in the forest,
government,
charming,
heirlooms,
flabbergasted

"Are you a believer?" a voice said. "Are you a believer?"

"I'm a believer in some things," I said. I was deep in the forest, and no one was around, but it didn't seem important somehow.

"Are you a believer in me? Are you a believer in us?"

"I don't know who you are or what you want me to believe in, but I guess I can say that I believe I'm hearing you."

A tiny woman flew out from among the trees, on long dragonfly-like wings. "Perhaps that will be close enough," she said.

I suppose I should have been flabbergasted, but I was only a little surprised. It seemed strangely normal. "You look quite charming," I said.

"Thank you," she said. "You said the same thing the last time, but it's always appreciated."

"I saw you before? I don't remember it."

"Yes, humans are frequently like that."

"If I saw you before, why did you have to ask if I believed?"

"It helped to put you in the proper state of mind. Humans sometimes need prompting."

"I suppose I should ask you to take me to your leader."

"We do have leaders, but not governments as you think of them. However, it is not necessary to see one at this time."

"Do you have cities, then, or something else you can show me?"

"We do not have cities. What would we do with them? We live in homes in the forest, in trees or under rocks or behind waterfalls, and whatever other place that we may like."

"Can you take me to your home?"

"Yes, but it will be a more difficult journey than you think."

"Let's go, then. I want to see it."

She turned, then, and led me on a winding journey through the trees and underbrush. Things got more dense and tangled as we went, and soon I was fighting my way through branches, with falling leaves hitting me on the head and shoulders. "Is it going to be much longer?"

She turned and looked at me, hovering in the air. "Do you believe?"

"I guess so. I'm here aren't I?"

"Then let's continue. We still have a little ways to go."

Soon I was finding the path through the branches easier, as they grew mostly above me, but I was having trouble with tree roots, as they seemed to be increasingly in the way and of enormous size. After a while I was actually having to climb over them.

"Here we are," she said, landing by a hole in the base of a tree. "This is where I live."

I walked up. "Can I go in?"

She turned to me, and I realized that I was now her size. "Yes, you can. For a while."

We went into the tree, into a little room that had been carved out of it. Giant spoons hung on the walls. In the middle was a little wooden table with thimbles around it to sit on.

"You don't sit on mushrooms?"

"We sit on whatever's convenient. Sometimes it happens to be a mushroom, but usually it's something else. Not everything is as it is in fairy tales. There's a lot of disinformation out there."

"Do you live here alone?"

"I have some children, but they're not here now."

"What about your husband?"

"Our customs are not your customs. The father sometimes visits and sometimes not. He was here more often in the early days."

"I see, I guess. What do your children do? Where are they? Are they in school?"

"We don't have schools, though we have teachers. Perhaps the children are being taught something now. I don't know. We don't have schedules."

"You just let them learn when they feel like it?"

"We let them learn when they are ready."

"I would think that if left to themselves, they would more often choose not to, and would spend most of their time playing and maybe getting into trouble. Discipline is a big part of keeping kids out of trouble, and there doesn't seem to be much discipline in what you describe."

"We do not have much of a problem with them getting into trouble. Our definitions of trouble differ, though."

I walked up to the walls and looked at the spoons. They were evidently made by humans, for the use of humans.

"We like to collect things," she said. "The things in here have been collected over many generations. We tend to regard them all as heirlooms, even the newer ones. We do not regard time as you do."

"What else have you collected? Can you show me?"

She led me deeper in the tree, through winding corridors to other rooms, and sometimes up stairs carved into the wood. Many things had been collected, of a wide variety. Much of it seemed like flea market or garage sale type of stuff, but not all of it.

"You don't seem very interested in collecting the best or the greatest or the most valuable."

"We tend not to think in superlatives, thinking more of what is needed, of what will work or may work, and of what we like or may like. Sometimes this does result in collecting something valuable, such as jewels or something in silver or gold, especially if the item is very pretty. Usually our needs are filled with lesser items, though."

We continued our tour. After a while I came across a giant black band hanging on a wall, with huge eye holes in it, like a mask for Zorro or maybe the Lone Ranger. I went behind it and put my head through one of the eye holes. "Who was that masked man?" I said.

"Who do you believe that he is?"

I blinked. "Does my belief make a difference?"

"You are here and you can still say that?"

We continued on. In one room I saw a long wooden rod hanging on hooks on the wall. "What's this?"

"It's a staff, a walking stick."

"You mean like a cane? I didn't think you people needed such things."

"We usually don't, but this one has special significance."

She didn't say anything more about it, and I moved on, looking at the other things. Finally, after looking in a far room that contained a collection of giant shoelaces and king and queen playing cards, I sat down on a giant spool of thread there and rested for a while.

"You have quite a bit of stuff."

"Yes, and there's even more. We have underground rooms, too. They can wait for another time. There's a bonnet in the attic that you might be interested in seeing now, though."

She took me up some more stairs, which wound around and around and finally ended in a large room. It was mostly empty, but contained a few things. She led me over to what was apparently a small jewelry box, looking very large here. I had no idea how they managed to get it in here, or up the stairs. She opened it and took out a small, fairy-size green derby hat, and handed it to me. I looked it over. Inside I saw a name on the band. It was my name. I looked at her, then put it on. It fit perfectly.

"I guess this is my hat."

"Yes. You have worn it many times."

"I'd look at myself in it, but I don't remember seeing any mirrors."

"We sometimes find pieces of mirrors that we can use, but the ones I have are all in the underground rooms. They don't always show what you would expect, though."

"I see. Well, it's been a fascinating experience and I'd like to stay longer, but it must be getting late. I wouldn't want to have to go through the forest in the dark, so I'd better get going."

"Time works differently here, and doesn't always correspond to what is happening in the outside world, but yes, it's probably time to go."

"Can I keep the hat?"

She looked at me. "Do you believe?"

"Do I believe? In the hat? In the experience? It all seems real. I guess so."

She led me down, and through the rooms and the other stairs, until finally we were in the first room. I looked around it, looking at everything, trying to fix it all in memory. I was starting to feel a little light-headed for some reason. Perhaps it was all that going up and down the stairs, though it wasn't as tiring as I would have thought.

"We should go now," she said.

She led me out and I followed, as if in a dream. Outside, the wind had picked up a bit. Giant leaves blew across the ground in front of me. Beyond the tops of the trees, far above me, the sun passed behind a cloud. Things suddenly felt more threatening, ominous. I shivered. She urged me on, back across the giant roots that grew smaller as I went, and back through the tangle of branches. Finally, we seemed to be back somewhere in a more normal part of the woods, though I didn't recognize where I was. I guess one part of the woods looks too much like another.

I noticed that she was small again, and the trees seemed normal size to me. I reached up and felt my hat. It was still there, and still fit me. I was feeling funny, though, and disconnected from things. I wasn't sure I could find my way out of the woods from here. I looked at her. She hovered in a beam of sunlight, looking back at me. She looked as she had when I first saw her, but she seemed different somehow, more distant and unreal.

"Will I see you again?" I asked.

"You always do. Just remember to believe."

A wind slowly swept through the trees, making a growing roar. I heard a hooting sound, and turned my head and saw on a branch nearby an owl looking at me. I shivered, and a wave of fear went through me. I turned back and looked at the unfamiliar forest. Why had I stayed out so late? I felt I had to leave, to get out of here, but I wasn't sure which way to go. I scratched my head and something fell, something like a tiny hat. Something swooped in and caught it, something like a strange oversized dragonfly, and was gone.

I stared at the empty air unbelievingly, open-mouthed. I had never seen a bug that big. And where did that little hat come from? Well, I would have to think about it later. I needed to find my way out of the forest before it got dark, or before something else happened.

Whatever that meant.

My Word Imperfect entries, Part II

A little over two years ago, I came across a blog called Word Imperfect, which is run by a person known as the Word Imp. At that time, the blog was normally updated every day, but for quite a while now new posts have been rare, due to the blog owner being busy with other things.

Originally, each day the Word Imp put up a new word and a made-up definition, and readers submitted comments with their own made-up, "wacky" definitions of that word. The next day, the Word Imp revealed the real definition and chose three finalists from the entries submitted. Readers voted (in a poll) for what they thought was the best one, and the next day the Word Imp announced the winner. The only prize was the glory of being chosen.

This is the second group of my Word Imperfect entries. The times given are the approximate times of my posts, in Arizona time(MST), from the clock on my computer.


Squacco:

1:18 PM 6/21/2007

A squacco is a stool pigeon, an informer, but one who makes no attempt to hide this and actually brags about it. The usefulness of such people is not as great as it could be, as they tend to suddenly disappear or meet with an unfortunate accident before being able to testify.


Limbate:

12:10 AM 6/23/2007

A limbate is a thicket so overgrown with branches (limbs) that a person cannot get through it. The word is a combination of "limb" and "hate."


Tortile:

3:59 AM 6/23/2007

A tortile is a general term for any item that goes into or on a tortilla.

Example: He was greatly enjoying the tortilla when several tortiles fell on his shirt.


Crambo:

11:54 PM 6/24/2007

A crambo is a type of machine used in the dairy industry for separating cream from milk. The word comes from a combination of cream and boy.


Holothurian:

11:06 AM 6/25/2007 *** finalist

The Holothurian is a subdivision of geologic time within the Eocene epoch. During the Holothurian, a short period of cooling occurred that lasted approximately 1.5 million years. Numerous plants and animals disappeared during this period, but it is considered only a minor extinction event. The Holothurian began 38 million years ago, and ended with a worldwide return to warmer temperatures.


My entry for holothurian was chosen as one of the three finalists. It's allowable there to vote for yourself, and I did. I didn't win, though.

The vote count the last time I checked it:

8:02 PM 6/26/2007

Choose a winner for holothurian
Brian O Vretanos 47.06%
Stephen 17.65%
Gregg Mattocks 35.29%

Total votes : 17


Moxa:

8:31 PM 6/26/2007

Moxa is the plural of moxie, and is used when referring to a group of people who all have moxie.

Example: The mountain climbers were full of moxa.


I don't know whether my definition of moxa was a finalist or not, as I didn't get back to the site in time to check.


Incubus:

3:57 AM 6/28/2007

An incubus is someone who is really into doing Rubik's cubes.


Aboulia:

12:45 AM 6/30/2007

Aboulia is an abnormal fascination with ghoulish films.


Eudiometer:

3:05 AM 6/30/2007 *** winner

A eudiometer is a device for measuring yodeling. It records variations in loudness, the frequency range used, the speed and intelligibility of syllables, and the tolerance level for the average non-Swiss listener.


My entry for eudiometer was chosen as one of the three finalists. It's allowable there to vote for yourself, and I did. I ended up the winner.

The vote count the last time I checked it:

8:29 AM 7/1/2007
Choose a winner for eudiometer
Stephen 100%
Shari 0%
K 0%

Total votes : 6


Crankle:

5:32 AM 7/1/2007

A crankle is a group of cranky people. They may be cranky about the same things or different things, and some may be cranky about many things. Some or all of them may also be cranky with each other. Approach a crankle with caution, as its affliction can be contagious.

Dream - Chased through a forest of giant stalks into another dimension by the robot

A few years ago, perhaps in 2006 or 2007, I had a long dream that seemed interesting and important, but I didn't write it down until a year or two later. By that time, I had forgotten most of the beginning and the rest had become somewhat condensed.

In the dream, it was daytime. I went down into a low, wide place, something like a dry sunken riverbed. The surface was mostly dirt, mostly firm but a little soft, perhaps looking like a mostly dry mud flow, mostly flat but a little uneven, a little wavy. It was filled with tall pole-like plants. They each had at most a couple of stalks, six to ten inches thick, narrowing slightly as they rose. The stalks had occasional large leaves, perhaps a foot or a foot and a half long, set close to them. I crossed the riverbed to the other side and climbed back out onto normal land.

On this side were some old abandoned wooden buildings in disrepair, perhaps two or three of them. I walked slowly among them for a while, looking at things. A time or two I kicked the debris around them a little with my foot, just nudging it a bit. I may have briefly gone inside one or more of them, but I'm not sure. At least one or two of them seemed to be places I had known in the past, places that had been owned by my parents or had been in the family somehow, though they didn't exactly correspond to anything from real life. I think someone may have been with me for a little while, perhaps my brother. If so, he came separately, and possibly from a different direction.

Earlier, on the other side, the side I had come from, I had been with a few people, but I don't remember what was happening then. I had some concern about someone there who was trying to get me, some concern that he might realize I was here and come over, or send someone over. I think I might have come over the dry riverbed, past the tall pole-like plants, to escape. It was a distant concern now, though, a worry, something to be aware of. I seemed safe here for the moment.

After what seemed like a few hours, I could see out in the riverbed the distant figure of someone coming after me. He was sent by the person who was trying to get me.

He made it across to the buildings, and there was a period of time when I tried to escape him there, going back and forth and hiding behind the buildings and other things. I may have also sometimes gone inside the buildings.

At some point I went back into the broad, dry, sunken riverbed with the stalks, to try to get away. I think I made it most of the way to the other side, but I couldn't get away from him, and I turned back at an angle. He may have been around fifty or sixty feet behind me, though the distance varied somewhat, and he tended to get closer over time. Trying to better escape, I went up the plant stalks, getting perhaps thirty or forty feet up, and then went directly from plant to plant. Unfortunately, the person chasing me also climbed the plant stalks. I was also now distantly followed by a second person, who also climbed the stalks.

I went back across the riverbed to the side where the old buildings were and then back down in the riverbed, going along it, still going from stalk to stalk. They continued to follow me. The riverbed eventually became an actual river. The first person fell behind and the second continued.

I eventually turned to the left, to a small side channel at right angles to the main one, and landed at a small dock or pier, where it turned out I had crossed to another dimension. There was green grass, and beyond that a ways was a house. I met a few people at the dock. Some children were playing there, and one or two adults were standing there, though they seemed unconnected with the children. They were all dressed in old fashioned clothes, like from the 19th century, though the adults were dressed somewhat formally, wearing greenish brown pants and vest with perhaps a slightly lighter shirt.

The children took me to the house, where some more people were outside, and a few more came out to join them. The adults here were dressed more casually, in frontier style clothes. The children who had brought me and the people at the house were related to me somehow, or perhaps most of them were. The people were glad to see me, though a little surprised. I think I might have originally come from there, long ago, or at least that was my impression.

I had some adventures there, including at a nearby small town, but I kept worrying about the people chasing me and if they would catch me. I thought they might have a hard time finding me in the other dimension, though.

Finally I had to leave, even if they were still out there. I'm not sure now why I had to leave. It may have been some trouble that had happened to me there, perhaps somebody there chasing me now. The family members were sad to see me go.

I went back through into my dimension, and was in the water in the middle of the river, it seemed without anything to float with or on. There was someone in front of me a ways off, but he seemed harmless, somebody who had gotten in from the other side. He seemed happy, and there was a feeling that I knew him from somewhere, or that he knew me or knew about me. To the left side, in the distance, I saw the second figure that had been chasing me. He was on a small raft of some kind, maybe a rubber raft. He had passed the entrance to the other dimension and had now turned around and was coming back toward me, rowing.

The second figure was now clearly the robot with the fixed smile, a figure that has appeared in other dreams, and I had the feeling it was on my side now after all. In this dream it was normal sized, although in some dreams the robot was giant.

Wordzzle 75 - In their image

This is my contribution to this week's Wordzzle. Wordzzle is a game in which each week word lists, used to create stories, are given on the blog Views from Raven's Nest. Participating users post their stories on their own blogs.

This is the nineteenth time I've played the game.


Ten Word Challenge:

reluctant,
sacrilege,
territory,
humiliating,
master of ceremonies,
gesture,
dirty deed,
crumbling,
thaw,
token

The dirty deed was done, but not quite finished. He walked through the ancient concert hall, a reluctant master of ceremonies to an empty house. He put a hand out to a crumbling pillar and felt it. It still seemed strong, but soon it wouldn't matter.

He sat down in one of the seats and ran his hands along the arms. One of the arms came off. He stared at it, turning it over in his hands. It seemed almost a sacrilege. He carefully put it back as best he could. It was only a token gesture, he knew, but he had to do it.

He got up and slowly walked up the aisle, over the dusty, decaying carpet, and finally reached the outside.

He looked at the almost deserted streets, and pulled his coat closer about him, trying to keep out the cold wind. He looked at the buildings of the city, and the darkened windows, some broken, the pieces hanging at odd angles. It seemed an humiliating mockery of the city he knew, set in a foreign territory. He turned and looked at the wall of ice, only half a mile away now. He would not live long enough to see it thaw. Neither would his children, or grandchildren.

He turned and sadly walked away, joining the others, the few who were still left, walking through the icy, snow-covered streets, away from the city.


Mini Challenge:

official portrait,
personal bank account,
shoulder bone,
unbearable,
widow

"This is the official portrait of my shoulder bone," he said sadly. "The X-ray almost cleaned out my personal bank account. The insurance wouldn't pay for it."

"What's that white thing?"

"That's the implant the aliens put in me."

"It looks like a screw. Did you ever have your shoulder bone broken?"

"Yes, but that was long ago. I'm sure this is an implant. No one will believe me, though. Not even my wife. I just know they are going to come and take me away and no one will ever see me again. Maybe she'll believe me when she's a widow." A tear rolled down his face.

"Come on, it's not that bad. I'm sure it's just a screw that was used to hold your shoulder bone together."

"No! The aliens did it! See? No one believes me, not even my best friend. It's simply unbearable. You'll all be sorry when I'm gone."

"Look, relax, relax. Even if what you say is true, if the aliens did put an implant in you, that just means they're monitoring you, keeping track of you. It doesn't mean they'll come and take you away."

"They wouldn't monitor me for no reason. They must have something in mind. They must have something planned for me. I just know they do, and it's going to happen soon."

"Just relax, I'll get us some more drinks, and maybe something to snack on. We'll watch something on TV. After a while you'll feel better." He tossed the remote control to him and turned around and walked toward the kitchen. As he neared it, he saw light patterns on the walls from the TV and heard sounds and voices. He was glad that his friend had decided to go along with his suggestion.

When he came back from the kitchen with the food and drinks, however, he found he was alone, and the TV set was off.


Mega challenge:

reluctant,
sacrilege,
territory,
humiliating,
master of ceremonies,
gesture,
dirty deed,
crumbling,
thaw,
token

official portrait,
personal bank account,
shoulder bone,
unbearable,
widow

I ran my hand along the crumbling shoulder bone of the pharaoh, and wondered if there could possibly be any usable DNA in there, or in any of the other bones. If we could do it with a neanderthal, we should be able to do it with a pharaoh, even one over 5,000 years old. There were never any guarantees, though. An awful lot of the attempts failed, or were only partially successful.

We had developed techniques where we could put together the complete DNA for a person by combining DNA from the remains of lots of his cells, so we didn't have to find a cell that had everything, though it was easier if we did. If we had to, we could also fill in generic sections from DNA taken from other people. When we had the complete DNA, or had recreated it, we attempted to clone the person. Some of the attempts succeeded, but most of them failed, either not living at all, or dying long before birth. Then there were those that got to be three or four years old before we realized that they weren't quite right. We were getting quite a collection of them and I wasn't sure what to do with them yet.

The clones didn't have any memories of the people they had been, of course. They were just like other babies, and as they grew up they learned to speak English, even the neanderthal, though he sounded a little odd.

I had also managed to clone some people from the strangely shaped skulls found in the Mediterranean area. I had been curious as to whether the skull shape had been induced by some form of head binding or grew naturally. It turned out that it was natural, and the people were definitely different, enough so that I was a little concerned about them, afraid that they might be dangerous in the future.

So far all the clones were made from DNA that was from bones or tissue, or partially fossilized bones. We hadn't been able to obtain enough DNA yet from completely fossilized bones, but we were hoping to be able to refine the process enough to make it work. We had also recently gotten some samples from a body that was found frozen on a mountain. The body was only a few thousand years old and didn't seem to be anyone important, but we had never done it yet with material that had been frozen for that length of time and then thawed, and we just wanted the challenge.

There had been some hope initially that memory might somehow be encoded in the DNA, and we could find out what life was like when the original people lived. That hope had now faded somewhat. If DNA memory existed, we had so far failed to find it or decode it. It was too bad, really. We could have learned a lot of things.

The Abraham Lincoln clone was in its teens, now, and was a pretty homely kid and was depressed a lot. He liked to read and study, though, and there was some chance he might be destined for greatness. He had no idea who he was, of course. None of them did.

Not even the neanderthal kid. He was by far the ugliest of the lot, and covered in coarse hair. He was old enough now to worry about such things. We told him it ran in his family. He was then asking about his parents, of course. We told him they were both dead, which was, of course, true. He then wanted to know how they died and if they loved him, and we had to make something up.

Making stuff up wasn't a problem, as long as everyone told the same lies. We had extensive fictional histories of all of them in the computers, now. A couple of kids got confused in the early days, before we started keeping track of such things. They were told two or three different stories by different people, and in one case different stories by the same person. We got together after that and settled on particular stories, and then pushed that at them. They seemed to accept it, though their eyes looked a little unsure. It's been a long time since then. They don't ask about the earlier stuff anymore, and hopefully don't think about it.

In the earliest days it had been hard scraping up the money, particularly since we were kind of operating outside of things. It was hard to even gain access to things. No one would normally let you take samples of Abraham Lincoln or even a pharaoh, not for cloning purposes. We couldn't officially clone any human, there was too much of a stigma attached. A lot of people would simply call it sacrilege. I had to sneak around, getting my samples, pretending it was for other things, sometimes grabbing things when no one was looking. It was a lot harder now, with all the cameras watching, but it was hard enough then.

Part of the money I siphoned off of other projects, and part of it even came from our personal bank accounts. It was not nearly enough, though, to do what we needed to do, and we began to locate, by friends of friends of friends, shady people who would invest in us. It felt humiliating at first, for a scientist to have to do this. The first few times it was almost unbearable. Then I began to feel differently about it. I began to feel that it was something owed to us, and something owed to me. Let these strange people pour their money into it. It was probably all crooked money anyway. At least I was putting it to good purposes.

Several years ago we had gotten especially lucky, securing a mystery investor who provided enormous sums. I had never met him, but I would today. We had a meeting scheduled for this afternoon. He had asked for it, not me, and I didn't know what was coming, or why he had finally decided to reveal himself. That's something that kept bothering me. Why now? What did he want? I put the pharaoh's bone down and went to my office. I had to think about things, and try to prepare myself for anything he might ask about.

It was finally time for the meeting, then, and the secretary showed him in. He turned out to be a tall man in late middle age, with hair that was gray on top and white on the sides. He was wearing, of course, a very expensive suit, much more expensive than mine, as I still had modest tastes in that area.

"So, I finally get to meet the master of ceremonies for dirty deeds," he said, extending his hand.

"Well, that's one way to put it," I said, rising up to take his hand. "It's good to meet you, too, though I'm afraid I still don't know your name."

"That's intentional. I'm not ready to give that out yet. By the way, I noticed that picture of da Vinci out in the hall. Have you cloned him yet?"

"No, but we did do his widow."

"His widow? How odd. Why?"

"I'm just kidding. We haven't done any gods either, despite the statue of Apollo out in the courtyard."

He looked at me blankly for a moment, seemingly caught in mid-thought, then got jubilant again and tossed me a penny. "Have you shown Honest Abe his official portrait yet?"

I picked up the penny and looked at it. "He's still young and probably wouldn't notice any resemblance, especially with an image that small. Though he may have seen better pictures in some history books."

"Possibly so. And I'm sure there are others you've cloned, no I know there are others, famous leaders, artists, writers, musicians, etc., of which we also have pictures."

"Yes, though some are fairly obscure, and others would normally be found only in history books. And as with Abe, they're too young yet to really look like the normal pictures of them."

There was a little bit of a pause in the conversation then, as the topic seemed to have run it's course. I finally broke the silence. "Well, what is it that brings you here today, then? Is there something you wanted to see? Is there some aspect of it that you're particularly interested in?"

"As a matter of fact there is. It's come to my attention that you're scaling back the research into genetic memory."

"Yes. We're not making any progress in it right now. There may not even be anything to it. I'm only keeping it going at all because I think there's still a slight possibly of something happening, some kind of breakthrough that would let us move forward. I've come to doubt, though, that there's anything to find at all."

"There's got to be something to find. That, along with the cloning, is why I'm funding this thing."

"Hmph. Well, I can increase the funding some, but I'm not sure it will have any effect. Right now we're not making any progress at all in that area."

"You don't understand. You've got to make the progress. You're not getting this money out of altruism. You have to get the job done."

I stared at him. This had suddenly gotten a lot more complicated. "Is there a pet you're trying to bring back, or perhaps a family member? You understand, don't you, that even if they have the same memories, they won't be the same? They will just be copies that have the same memories."

"Yes, I understand. But I still want you to do it. I still have to have you do it."

"Who is it we are talking about, if I may ask."

"It's my great-grandfather. I only saw him a few times before he died. I'd like to have the opportunity to spend some more time with him."

"You barely knew him, yet you want him back instead of people that you really knew and loved, who have passed on?"

"Yes. I had time with them already. I didn't have any time to speak of with him."

I stared at him some more. Something didn't seem right. "You understand, don't you, that he won't look like he did when you knew him? He will be younger than you, much younger. In fact, he will start out as a baby, and by the time he's an adult you will be an old man." A really old man, I thought, assuming you're even still alive. "And that's if we were able to start now, which we're not. It's likely to be several years before we have any kind of success at getting back the memories, if we ever do."

"You've got to! You've simply got to! And it's got to be soon!"

"What is it really, Mr., um, X? What is it that you're really trying to do? It's got to be more than you've said."

There was a pause. He leaned back in his chair, looking nervous and upset, his head turning to the side, one hand rubbing his mouth. He finally turned back to me and said, "Look, it's got to be done. There are high stakes involved. My great-grandfather knew things, important things. I didn't know about it until much later, long after he had died. I came across a diary where it was hinted at, where he gave just enough that if you could read between the lines you knew what he was saying, but didn't dare really say. You've got to bring him and his memories back."

I looked at him, trying to digest what he had said. It still didn't seem to make any sense. "Whatever it was, it doesn't seem like you really need it. You're obviously wealthy, and it wasn't anything like immortality, because he wasn't able to save his own life."

"What you say is true, but it's more than that, it's, it's..."

"It's more than wealth and immortality?"

"Yes."

"But you can't tell me?"

"No. Not Yet. Maybe never."

"I see. Well, I'll increase the focus on the DNA memory. We'll do all we can in that area. If it turns out to be a dead end, we'll try something else, get the memories a different way."

"A different way? How?"

"I don't know yet. We'll think of something."

"Thank you! I knew I could count on you!" he said, rising out of his chair to shake my hand again. Then, as he was leaving he turned around and said, "I'm donating another 25 million. Make sure it's well spent."

"Oh I will, I will. Thank you."

He nodded, and turned and left, leaving me alone with my thoughts. It still didn't seem to be the complete story, even leaving out the fact that he had admittedly not told all of it. It might not even be the real story. I had wondered if perhaps he might be wanting to clone himself. Even knowing that the clone is not really you might not be enough to prevent the longing for something to survive, even if it's only a copy. But why not tell me, if that's all he wanted? He must have known that I wouldn't consider it an unusual request. What could it be, that would be so outrageous, or so dangerous, that he couldn't mention it to me? There wasn't much I was reluctant to do, if I thought it could be done. And if it couldn't be done, I was willing to spend the money to find out.

I picked up the penny he had left. I hadn't really thought about any problems that might occur with the clones seeing images of the originals. If they noticed a resemblance, they would have to assume it was just a coincidence. What else could it be? It's possible they might gain inspiration from the resemblance, and try to make their lives match up to the inspiration, even if they didn't actually end up playing the same roles in society.

Although a lot of them, almost all of them in fact, had shown themselves to be very similar to the originals, having similar tastes, and similar likes and dislikes. It wasn't quite the same as genetic memory, though it did show that a lot was encoded in the genes. If memory was encoded in the genes, what would be the purpose of it, if we couldn't access it except as a family history of likes and dislikes? If it was there, surely there must be a greater evolutionary purpose than that.

Many things were passed along, eye color, hair color, height, build, etc. Some of these could also be affected by environment, and sometimes it took generations for a change in environment to totally change people to the maximum extent. It could be a change for the better, like better nutrition making successively healthier, taller generations, until the maximum amount was reached. Or it could be something detriment