The shoe salesman's cigarette

We moved away from a small town in Missouri in the early summer of 1960, heading for other states and eventually settling on Arizona. We went back almost every year for a visit, usually staying for around a month in August, while my father went back to Arizona to work. We also moved back there for a while in late 1965, leaving again tn the summer of 1966. On one of these times, probably in 1961-63, when I would have been around 8 to 10 years old, my mother took me into a shoe store to buy me some new shoes.

The shoe salesman was a young man who smoked, as was common in those days, and he smoked a cigarette while waiting on us. He talked to my mother quite a bit, too, mostly about shoes, I think, what shoes he had and what might be available, even about what other stores in other towns might have, and also perhaps some about the town and some of the people there. My mother kept asking him questions, about the shoes and other things. I'm not sure now about everything that was talked about, and I don't think I paid a lot of attention at the time.

Finally, after what seemed like a long time, we had decided on what shoes to by and went to the cash register to pay for them. The cash register was at the end of a long glass display case that ran along the right side of the room, at a place where the display case turned and faced the front. The cash register was on the left side of the short section of display case there. The shoe salesman walked up on the inside side of the display case, and we walked around the outside.

As he came up to the cash register, he put his cigarette down in an ashtray on the counter, about in the middle of the short section of counter there. As he rang up the sale, he continued to talk to my mother, and she continued to ask him questions.

I started blowing on the cigarette, trying to see if I could put it out, more out of boredom than anything else. Blowing on it caused it to briefly glow much brighter, and burn more of the cigarette, but then it would go back to normal again. I kept blowing on it, and it gradually got dimmer. It was taking a long time, though. The shoe salesman glanced at me once or twice, but usually looked toward my mother, who he kept talking to. I think at least once he picked up the cigarette and inhaled on it briefly, then put it back down. I kept blowing on it, though, when it was in the ashtray. and eventually, finally, I put it out. My mother and the shoe salesman continued to talk for a little while, and then my mother and I left.

After we got out of the store, my mother scolded me, leaning toward me and saying in a low voice, "I'm so embarrassed! You blew out that nice man's cigarette! And after he was so nice to us!"

Dream - Low purple clouds and mutant creatures

Long ago, perhaps in the mid to late 1970s, I had a dream of very low purple clouds, perhaps low enough to touch, with heavy black outlines. The sky was covered with them, but light still came through somehow, either through them or through breaks in them. The clouds seemed unnatural. It was very ominous and worrisome.

Sometimes I went out and looked at them, and sometimes I looked at them from inside, through the windows of my house. My mother was there, and sometimes I talked to her about them while I looked out the window. Other things also went on in the dream, though I don't remember what now, but I kept worrying about the clouds and going to check on them.

Later on I walked down a sidewalk, a little tensely, heading east, still worrying about the clouds. It seemed to be somewhere around the middle of the day, perhaps the middle of the afternoon. The clouds were a little higher when I started out, and got much higher for much of the time, becoming a purplish gray overcast.

I'm not sure what destination I had in mind, or if I really had one. A few possibilities did go through my mind, places I might go or should go, but I wasn't really heading for them, just going in their general direction.

One of the things I should do was see my father, who was at work several miles away to the southeast. In some versions of the scene I think I did contact him or even go to him, but in other versions I didn't. He was expected to come home later that day, but I felt it was important to contact him first, to warn him about the clouds. I did come to feel that he knew about the situation, that he had been told somehow by someone, but I still worried. I also came to see in my mind, several times, him driving home, sometimes not far away now, with someone with him, perhaps my mother or perhaps someone else. It was later in the afternoon, though, when that happened, almost like I was temporarily ahead in time. It's possible, too, that the part about my father was actually part of a different dream, one that I had a decade or two later, but it's hard to know for sure now.

I continued to walk along the sidewalk, heading east. The clouds were lower now, though still high, and it was no later than the middle of the afternoon.

Strange, mutant creatures began to follow me, generally from a distance. Sometimes I walked by some of them, too, and sometimes I saw some a hundred feet or so away off to the side.

The earlier ones tended to be more human in appearance, though rather brutish, like ogres or even cavemen. The very first ones were probably bald, though with a slight stubble of hair on their heads and faces. A little later some of them had mops of dark hair, and sometimes hair like what might be produced by putting a bowl over their heads and cutting off everything under it. As time went on, stranger and stranger ones showed up.

There were not large numbers of them, and they tended to be in ones or twos or threes. The numbers increased over time, and I started to see large groups of them, standing in broad lines facing toward me. They generally had frowns on their faces and sometimes slight smiles. They seemed to have an interest in me, though a mild and somewhat confused one, like they weren't sure yet what to do. I felt that they were directed by someone, though, someone far away. Someone who had sent them after me, but who had not yet told them what to do when they found me.

As I walked, I came increasingly into a more developed area, part of a town. After a while, I was walking along a line of extremely strange and warped looking creatures. They seemed to radiate a kind of vague, amused malevolence. The clouds were much lower now, not far overhead.

I eventually came to a low, dark building, perhaps a restaurant, facing me on a cross street. I went in. Looking outside, I saw lots of the bizarre creatures gathering together on the sidewalk, forming a long line that was sometimes two or three creatures deep. They were not overly tall, tending to be mostly somewhere in the three to five foot area, though an occasional one was taller. Some of them had big shoulders and short necks, sometimes no necks at all. Some of them had very long arms, frequently with short legs. Many of them had very wide mouths, cartoonishly wide. They murmured among themselves, making strange growly sounds. Some of them were looking toward the building, and some were even looking vaguely in my direction, though generally in an unfocused way. They milled around out there, waiting, growing in numbers. It was scary.

Dream - Low purple clouds and disaster

Long ago, perhaps in the mid 1980s, I had a dream of very low purple clouds, low enough at times to touch. There were flashes and tornados in the clouds, I think even a disastrously large tornado or two. I think maybe a UFO or two as well. Most of the time I watched the clouds from the ground, but I think I also flew above them at times. The clouds were very threatening and seemed like a psychic phenomenon of some kind, and could somehow bring about or carry with them something that could bring about the end of the world.

Dream - My grandmother is younger and admires herself in the mirror

In mid December 2005, I had a dream in which my grandmother, looking much younger, came to visit and admired herself in the mirror, then light bulbs started burning out.

In the dream, my grandmother, who died in late 1984, suddenly arrived at my house without explanation. She looked decades younger, and stood straight and had mostly dark hair. My mother insisted that my grandmother, her mother, would leave by tomorrow.

At some point, my grandmother went into the bathroom and stood in front of the mirror, which is very large and very wide, and admired herself. She now had dark hair with red tints. The hair became much longer, perhaps a couple of feet long, and she took the end of it and held it with one hand, admiring it in the mirror and smiling. I stood nearby, in the hallway I think, watching. I think my mother was sometimes to my right, and sometimes in the kitchen or living room.

All of a sudden light bulbs started burning out, lots of them, and it was getting dark inside. It was late in the day and would probably get dark outside soon. I searched for more bulbs in a long, wide shelf in the kitchen cupboard, but all I found was plastic pipe fittings and joints and decorative bulbs and fixtures.

Dream - I was Art Bell, and flying

On May 28, 2007, I dreamed I was Art Bell, a late-night radio talk show host who is now largely retired but occasionally guest-hosts, and I was flying and eventually chased by a small dinosaur.

In the dream, I was Art Bell, in the dark in the back yard of what was apparently my grandmother's house in Arizona. I was out near the alley behind a long desk that roughly faced toward the house but was at an angle to it. Some other people were there, but they went back inside the house. My chair started spinning around rapidly, and then started sailing rapidly backward through the air. I didn't mind either situation, as I thought that either one might help to have an out-of-body experience.

Soon after, it was daylight, though not very bright, and I was going over and among some brick or brownstone buildings. I went through a wall, but it was difficult and slowed me down considerably and was not very pleasant. A little later, I went up through the ceiling of another building and this was a little easier, though the part I went through was thinner and less massive a structure than the wall had been.

After a while, I was at what was apparently a place like the north end of an elementary school I used to attend, and going around the end of the building toward the playground. I was also watching separately from the air from a little distance away. The area was apparently some kind of government or military testing area, and I was worried that the Art Bell figure didn't know that and might be discovered. I watched and waited to see what might happen.

A tall black person in some kind of military uniform came and was looking at the door, which faced the street, that the Art Bell figure had just come from. The military figure looked similar to some movie or TV star, but I can't remember who. The military had some kind of secret program that involved the paranormal, and I was afraid that they might be able to detect the Art Bell figure even though he was supposedly invisible due to just being in an astral body at the time. The military figure was looking suspiciously at the door and he had some device that he was moving to different parts of the door and frame.

Finally he came around the building to the playground/yard area, and Art Bell was in the air perhaps 10 feet high and maybe 10-15 feet away. The military figure didn't seem able to see Art Bell, but seemed to feel that there was something there somewhere and he had some device that he was looking at. A dog was also now with him that seemed to be interested in something that was approximately where Art Bell was.

Art Bell was now holding what seemed to be a camera with a long leather strap, though later the strap turned, at times, to a much longer string. He attempted to use the strap/string to hook the device the man was holding, but eventually got the dog with it instead. He swung the dog on the string in long arcs back and forth while the man stood there, looking interested but confused, as he apparently just saw the dog going back and forth in the air, without seeing Art Bell or even the string.

Art Bell eventually let the dog go and started trying to get away. He went some north but mostly west, flying high over areas of low, somewhat dry-looking grass or bare ground and large, low buildings with yards that may have sometimes been paved. Low walls and small roads ran through the area, separating things, and the walls frequently connected to and surrounded the buildings. After a while the buildings ended and a large area of grass followed, which ended abruptly in a stretch of bare ground. Shortly afterward, he came to a very tall block wall that he barely made it to the top of, as he was having difficulty flying high at that point. He rested briefly at the wall and then went over it.

On the other side was a desert area with a series of other walls forming long pens containing genetic experiments with animals, including the restoration of long extinct animals, including dinosaurs, though frequently with modifications. I, as Art Bell, soared high above them. They were generally large and vicious animals, frequently on two legs or able to stand on two legs. They looked at me and some of them leaped high, several times their height, to try and bite me. One animal, standing on two legs, had a head that was very broad but flattened top-to-bottom and front-to-back, and seemed to be mostly a broad empty mouth with some somewhat widely spaced sharp teeth well back in it. It leaped so high that I felt its hot breath on me, around my stomach slightly below the belt. It was in a very localized area, though, not like one would expect from something that was huge. I came to realize that the animals were in fact very small, generally around a foot and a half high, and I was not nearly as high above the ground as I thought.

Eventually I came to a Tyrannosaurus rex, or something like one. It was significantly taller and much more massive than the others, perhaps somewhere around three or four feet high, though the size seemed to vary a bit with time. The general shape of it was right, but it seemed to be composed of various sections of different, usually very bright colors, and had a rubber/plastic look. Some areas were flesh colored, including its arms, which were human-like and had somewhat oversized human-like hands. I think some of the other colors were blue-purple and red. It leaped at me, and managed to come down outside its fence and started trying to track me. I was flying lower by then and was having trouble getting much altitude.

I came to some structure that was basically a miniature rectangular metal building similar to the Eiffel Tower in construction. I was trying to do something with the string/strap and somehow got it entangled with some fence or miniature telephone wires and it became, with the wires, wrapped several times, at different heights, around the building. The T. rex caught up with me and I managed to pull it part way up the building with the string, but it was too entangled with the string and the wires, and pulling on the string eventually caused the string and wires to pull it tight against the building. Finally I abandoned it, apparently breaking the string and taking the camera with me.

I flew on and found an open area and landed. It was desert, sand scattered with various cacti and other desert plants. As I went along, walking, the desert area gradually became part of a very large room in a building. There were various small appliances and other things, including large tables with chairs. I saw a small refrigerator/freezer with an old-fashioned look. It was perhaps three or four feet high and the doors, one on top for a small freezer and another, larger door below it for the refrigerator section, had a somewhat rounded appearance. I opened both of the refrigerator doors, in an attempt to confuse the T. rex when it arrived. I did after a while see it looking around the open doors with a somewhat malicious, interested, hungry look. It still seemed to be looking in my general direction, though, and not in the refrigerator.

Some people started to fill the room and sit at the tables. They were generally very young people, sometimes even grade-school age. I had the feeling that they were the product of genetic experiments trying to make very smart, very psychic children. They were looking around and seemed to be aware that I was there, or that someone was there, even if they couldn't quite see me, though some may have been able to. One of them asked who the guest was today, like this was something normal, like they normally got a different invisible guest every day.

I woke up shortly after that. I was sleeping sitting up in front of the computer, listening to Art Bell on the radio. The news had come on at 3:00 AM, between segments of the replay of the show. I apparently fell asleep around 15 or 20 minutes till 3:00, perhaps even 25 till. It was very early Monday morning.

Wordzzle 69 - The spill

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 thirteenth time I've played the game.


Ten Word Challenge:

Chorus line,
clam chowder,
apples,
jack-in-the-box,
puddles,
Iran,
quarry,
housekeeping,
speed,
letter

The clam chowder, imported from Iran, lay in puddles on the floor. The jack-in-the-box, bobbing for apples, paused and looked at it, then went back to bobbing. The chorus line of small mechanical dolls continued their practice session, pointedly ignoring what had happened. A small mechanical maid rolled up and looked at the mess. She clucked at it and shook her head, then began cleaning it up with great speed.

"I work and I work and my housekeeping is never done," she said. "In fact, it is getting sabotaged. I will track down who did this, and when I find my quarry, which I'm sure will be the mechanical butler, I will give him a good talking to. Then I will report him to the Master, in a detailed, emotional letter of great length. And it will be an actual letter, a beautiful handwritten one. No one here answers my emails."


Mini Challenge:

motorcycle,
grandiose,
summer,
flying off the handle,
blue jays

It was summer, and the motorcycle went along in grandiose fashion, with black paint and red and yellow flames and white skulls on it, and blue jays perched on the handle. The exhaust was roaring and rumbling, and the rider went along with a big satisfied smile on his face, his hair and beard blowing in the wind. As he went by a pretty girl, he turned his head and winked, then hit a pothole which sent him tumbling into the bushes and the blue jays flying off the handle.

Hovering in the air, the blue jays looked at the sad situation. "I'll never understand his taste in women," one of them finally said. "She didn't even have any feathers."


Mega challenge:

Chorus line,
clam chowder,
apples,
jack-in-the-box,
puddles,
Iran,
quarry,
housekeeping,
speed,
letter

motorcycle,
grandiose,
summer,
flying off the handle,
blue jays

The jack-in-the-box was missing, and no one knew where he was. He had been gone since the beginning of summer, and many grandiose theories circulated. Some thought he had been caught stealing apples, and had to go on the lam. Some thought his head had popped out of the box much faster than the speed limit, and he was now in jail. Some said it had something to do with the clam chowder, which was also missing. Others insisted he was in Iran as a spy, doing who knows what. One of the mechanical chorus line insisted that he was in a rock quarry carving statues with speedy impacts of his head, but that was so far-fetched not even the rest of the chorus line believed it.

The motorcycle owner heard the murmuring, he could hardly avoid it, but was more concerned about what to do about the housekeeping, since the mechanical maid had quit. Those things were expensive, and he didn't know they could just walk off like that. Perhaps he should have paid more attention to her letter. He was trying to save up some money now, too, to repaint the motorcycle. Maybe he could find a used maid somewhere. He had tried to get the mechanical butler to do all the housekeeping, but it had started flying off the handle, going on and on about something or other. He was never able to make much sense of it and finally gave up.

Brooding, he picked up one of the apples and began to eat it. He had found them a few days ago in a bucket of water. He had no idea why someone would do that. He had had to take them all out and then empty the bucket. There always seemed to be something. He needed to get away from this, he couldn't think anymore about things right now. He finished the apple and started to throw the core on the floor, then hesitated, and finally tossed it in the trash instead. He then went out to the garage.

He looked sadly at his motorcycle, covered with scratches and dents. At least it still ran. The blue jays were suspicious of it, though, since the accident.

He picked up his helmet and looked at it, wondering if he should wear it. He certainly could have used it last time. He finally began to put it on, but then found he couldn't get his head in it. There was something already inside.

Frowning, he turned it over. There was some kind of box in it. Somebody had stuck a box in his helmet. He stared at it for a moment, baffled. He put his fingers in beside it, then, and tried to pull it out, but it was in really tight and he could only get his fingers in a little ways. Shifting position, he moved the helmet under one arm and started slowly working the box back and forth slightly, slowly moving it out. Suddenly it came loose and flipped over and the head of the jack-in-the-box shot toward him. "B-BLAAAHHH!" the motorcycle owner screamed, stumbling back and falling into some oil puddles.

"Boy, that mechanical maid sure does hold a grudge," said the jack-in-the-box. "I'll never understand how she found out it was me."

The One Lovely Blog Award

On Tuesday, June 23, 2009, I was given the One Lovely Blog Award from Akelamalu on her blog Everything And Nothing.



This is the first blog award I have received, and I really appreciate it. Thank you, Akelamalu!

The rules for the award, as taken from Akelamalu's blog, are:

1. Accept the award, post it on your blog together with the name of the person who has granted the award and his or her blog link.
2. Pass the award to 15 other blogs that you have newly discovered. Remember to contact the bloggers to let them know they have been chosen for this award.

I have given a link to her blog in the first sentence of this post, but here is a link to the specific post that gave the award. It also has the names and links of the people she gave the award to and the person she got it from, as well as a set for another award she received. You may want to check out the blogs she linked to in the post.

Everything And Nothing: Lovely Blog.....

As for my own set of 15 blogs, I'm afraid I am not going to find many that haven't already received the award, as I don't actually visit a large number of blogs. Most of the ones lately have been ones who participated in the Wordzzle story writing exercises, and I think most of them either have already received the award or will soon receive it from other people. I'll keep it in mind, but I'll have to put it off until a possible future date.

The New Product

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 someone gave a short list of words and the others each wrote a story containing those words. Then someone else would supply a list of words and the process would start all over again.

The story is changed slightly here in that it is broken up into three paragraphs instead of being contained in just one.

This is another of my stories from my post number 1000 for that message board. The other stories were separate from this one, with their own lists of words. The list of words for this story: firm, salability, highroad, echo, vanish.

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


THE NEW PRODUCT

He had tried to take the highroad, convinced in the salability of his product. His commitment to it was firm.

All he heard, though, was the sound of his own voice, and the echo of it around him, fading slowly in the distance. And thus, hearing no opposition (or, perhaps, refusing to hear it), he remained convinced that he was on the right track.

Alas, his new stain remover removed the cloth as well, and his dreams, like the stains, would soon vanish.

Dream - The man whose head opened on a hinge and whose brain fell out

Long ago, probably around 1962-64, I had a dream about a man whose head opened on a hinge and whose brain fell out. I would have been around 9 to 11 years old. It could have been slightly earlier, but not much.

In the dream, there was a house with large and numerous windows. It was night and the house was lit up inside and filled with people. I think a party of some kind might have been going on. I believe I was originally inside the house, but then my consciousness or viewpoint moved outside and I saw someone looking in.

He was a slim young man with dark hair, and was perhaps ten feet from the windows at the longer side of the room, cautiously approaching them, leaning forward slightly, looking in. After a while, he walked around the corner of the house and looked in from that side, just a few feet from the windows now. He didn't seem to be dangerous, just curious about what was happening and enjoying watching it. There was a peacefulness about it, mixed with alertness, and he seemed happy.

The top of his head opened up on a hinge from the back, then, exposing his brain. Then his brain came out of his head. In some versions of the scene, which repeated itself for a while, it lifted up some and then fell out, and in other versions it sometimes hung in the air above and behind him a little, connected to the inside of his head by a bent plastic-looking gray cord.

He kept looking in the windows, his mouth open in a smile and his teeth hidden behind his lips. He seemed not to be greatly disturbed by what had happened, though it did have some effect. It bothered me, though, and I worried about it.

In real life around that time, there was some trouble with someone looking in people's windows at night, and that probably influenced the dream.

Dream - Pizza-size pancakes, transparent figures in the sky

On Sunday, July 24, 2007, sometime during the day, I had a dream about pizza-size pancakes being delivered, and then seeing transparent figures in the sky.

In the dream, I was at the radiator shop. Unlike in real life, a tall, maybe 10 foot high, flat, green, metal fence was in the back, almost screen-like. I'm not sure what the timeframe was. It might have been in the late 1970s or early 1980s.

A Michel's Supply truck came and parked in the dirt and gravel parking lot in the front, somewhat to the left side, as determined when facing out toward the street. It was at a slight angle, with the back of the truck toward the shop. A man with a beard tried to unload a large, steaming hot box of pizza-sized pancakes (he had heated them up in the truck). He had the box in a two-wheeled dolly, and turned toward the shop and started going across the lot to take it inside. A second box was in the truck, apparently to be unloaded next. Other people were up in the truck bed, working, moving boxes, apparently ones for other places.

I was hungry and the pancakes looked inviting, but I tried to explain that I didn't order them. He wanted to give them to me anyway. We argued about it for a while, standing in the parking lot between the truck and the shop. He went back to the truck, then, leaving the dolly with the box of pancakes, and came back with a small book of invoices, which he held out and showed to me. They had my signature on them, but none of them were for the pancakes and none of them were recent. He finally turned the dolly with the pancakes around to take them back, but turned his head back to me with a somewhat sardonic look and asked when I was going to pay the previous bills. I wasn't sure how much cash I had on me, maybe none, and I didn't think I had much money in the checking account, maybe not enough to cover other things I had to pay, and I looked away and kind of nonchalantly said something like, "Oh, sometime..."

After a while I went out into the street. It was getting toward night. I looked up and saw some dark clouds and thought that if I concentrated I could fly up to them and through them, to somewhere else. I tried, and after a little while managed to fly up to them, but they changed to a mass of small, heavy-outlined transparent figures turned this way and that, seeming to be caught in the act of running.

I went through them and found myself in a restaurant. It had some people, but not a large number. I was in a booth near a window with someone, perhaps my father. Other people were there that I knew, in other booths or standing in various places.

Dream - Presents for my father, and then strange gnomes or leprechauns and animal people

In the middle of the night on October 17, 2008, I had a dream about wrapping presents for my father and carrying them around, and seeing gnomes or leprechauns and strange animal-people along the way.

In the dream, I went out to a huge, mostly empty parking and driving area that was dirt with a faint mixture of thin asphalty dirt and gravel on top. I think it had something to do with the military. It seemed to be around the middle of the day, maybe around noon.

A low building, possibly bluish gray, was associated with the parking lot. There wasn't much else around, maybe some isolated small buildings beyond the road and not part of where we were. It seemed like a rural area, but I'm not sure where it was or even what state it was in. Later in the dream, though, I was definitely in Nevada.

I went to where my car was parked, probably the dark blue 1987 Oldsmobile. There was a crude wooden table in front of it. I think I sat in the air for a while, but at some point I went over to the table. I had a legal pad, but it might have had white paper instead of yellow.

I had a lot of strange words written down in heavy dark block letters, several paragraphs on at least one page and part of another. I think they were in pencil. They were things that were partially or wholly in a different language. Even the characters were odd, possibly like Russian, but it also had odd symbols that weren't part of an alphabet. I think it was supposed to be in a code of some kind. I was puzzling over it and I think sometimes writing some. I might have even been adding to it.

Then I started to wrap a present for my father. The other members of the family were back in the building also wrapping things. It might have been for my father's birthday, which in real life was near. It doesn't seem to have been for Christmas.

There were two items that I had to wrap. I had some slightly greenish blue, shiny heavy wrapping paper with a slight iridescence. I was out at the old table and had the legal pad. It had only a couple of pages or so now. I was using it as something to set the present on. It had some lines drawn down the left side along the margin and across the top a similar distance from the edge. I drew some more as I worked. Maybe I was trying to keep the present a certain distance from the edge. I finally tore the remaining pages out. I guess I decided to use the cardboard back of the tablet as a backing for the present. I got the first present wrapped. It was fairly flat, perhaps half an inch or an inch thick, whatever the present was.

Then I had the second present to wrap. It was a small yellow-orangish tan bowl with almost vertical pleated edges. I wanted to make it more attractive and put something in it. I put some small red beans in it from a can, filling the bowl perhaps two thirds of the way. I didn't know if he liked red beans. I wasn't even sure how much I liked them. They looked good as a demonstration of what could be done though, and it wasn't going to be long till we opened the presents, maybe a couple of hours, so they were unlikely to spoil. I put some wrapping paper along the sides and then somehow attached it to the middle of the other present. I then wrapped some thin red ribbon around it and made a bow, though I kept the ribbon away from the top of the bowl. The others back in the building were getting anxious to go. I went back to the building and we left. I think my father was with us.

We stopped at what was apparently a drugstore, though sometimes it seemed more like a small grocery store. We went around in it and back and forth down some of the aisles looking at things. I think I was still carrying the present. My mother and at least one or maybe both of my sisters were in the group. I'm not sure whether my brother was there. I looked at some other things that I might buy to go with the present.

At one side of the store were some little things, including some kind of white figurines, elves or gnomes maybe. The others had gone off to a different area and left me behind. They had gone toward the cash registers and one or maybe two came back and were asking me to hurry up so we could go, then most or all of them came back and we started quickly going partially down the aisles and through the middle of the store looking at things. There was an area with a lot of wrapping paper and some tape. It was getting toward Christmas and they had a big display of it that ran around the end of an aisle or two there at the middle of the store.

I found there also a bunch of white or pale elves or leprechauns, larger than the ones I saw before and evidently intended to be hung like ornaments. They seemed to be made of some kind of thin glass. I considered getting one or more, but finally decided not to at this time. The others were in a hurry to leave and we left. I think the others or maybe just my mother bought something, but I'm not sure what, possibly food, possibly something to do with the gifts.

We were coming in toward Fallon, Nevada then from the east, from the direction of work. We were in at least two cars, going along in the section of road that ran near the Navy base. I'm under the impression that we had come from some kind of picnic. It was getting late in the afternoon now.

I decided that I needed to unwrap the present and took the wrapping paper off. I let the wrapping go and fall by the road a little ways after we turned the corner where the service station was. I was slightly concerned about doing that but it didn't seem to matter too much. At least my father had a chance to see it wrapped up, though it may not have been a close look. It still bothered me a little, but I felt it needed to be done, that we needed to move the process along quickly.

Still outside of town, I noticed off to the left in a big yard two or three people, including someone from work, maybe the short older man who had retired a while back, and I was trying to point him out to my mother, so she could see who I worked with. I saw some other people too as we went along, but they changed to some kind of largish leprechauns or gnomes the height of a small human. The car I was in was also changing, becoming more of a platform with me on it face down and then shrinking to hardly anything before coming at least partially back.

I parked it in someone's yard a short way into town. I was alone now and had been that way for a little while, since just before coming into town. I parked along where the yard dipped down near the street and then sloped back up some. Apparently the dip was used for drainage and so I hoped they wouldn't mind too much me parking there.

Some people were in the yard near the house. They had bone-white ramlike horns on the sides of their heads and goatlike faces. Other people were out around in the general area that were also strange, at least a couple of others also having horns on the sides of their heads, but darker and a little differently shaped. Some of the people seemed to be gnomes or elves or leprechauns or some type of partly animal person. It was very strange, but I felt that this was how they actually looked, that the human disguises they had previously used had faded away or been abandoned, purposely so.

I was walking quickly and looking out for somewhere I might get a newspaper, though I wasn't sure if I should try to get one now. I was still carrying the present.

I went past the street that leads to the south, toward Arizona, and wandered around. The people in this area looked more normal I think. There was a lot of redevelopment going on because of some military thing. The light was getting dimmer like it was around sundown or a little after. It felt more like early morning, though. I think I might have found and talked to my father briefly, or at least saw him.

I walked back toward the street that leads toward Arizona. The grocery store at the corner had the raised parking lot cut back some along the sides, with an angle cut at the corner, leaving sloping walls of dirt and crumbly asphalt. It looked like they were preparing to widen the street there.

I met a military person, apparently someone in intelligence, who talked to me in serious, earnest terms about the differences in prices between here and Indiana, giving a couple of items as examples, gas and some food item I think, where the prices on those items here were around half what they were in Indiana. I think the gas was 5 something in Indiana and 2 something here. He seemed to be expecting a lot of people to move out here and cause a boom in the area, or at least he was hinting at it. I wasn't sure if the low prices would continue if the demand picked up enormously, like it would if a whole bunch of people moved out here, but I didn't say so. (In real life I was probably listening to the Wall Street Journal news hour on the radio at that point.)

Wordzzle 68 - Bass notes

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 twelfth time I've played the game.


Ten Word Challenge:

sow,
close,
console,
lives,
minute,
polish,
bass,
pussy,
complex,
resume

"I'll be with you in a minute," the sow said. "Just as soon as I polish off this bass they gave me. I don't usually get such treats."

"They gave you a bass?" the pussy cat said, rising up from the old stereo console it had been laying on. "That was my bass! Give it to me!"

The sow looked up. "I will not. And if you even try to get it you're going to lose one or two of your lives. Maybe even three or four." It then lowered its head and resumed eating.

"Well, this is obviously more complex than I thought," the cat said. "If they gave it to you its probably spoiled anyway. I don't want it." And it jumped off the console and walked away, it's nose pointed up and its mouth closed, and a haughty expression on its face.

The sow snorted at it and dug into the bass some more, when all of a sudden something landed on its back. Startled, the sow turned its head around, its mouth half open with the bass still in it. Something on its back moved like a streak and yanked the bass out of its mouth, then leaped off and ran across toward the fence. The sow turned around some more to get a better look and saw that it was the cat. "I thought you said you didn't want it, that it was probably spoiled," the sow yelled.

"I just couldn't make myself leave without checking, you know how curious cats are. Mmmmm, it sure is good, I guess I was wrong after all." And then it and the bass were under the fence and away.


Mini Challenge:

bow,
sewer,
house,
import,
intern

"I have new sewer pipes," the house said. "And new water pipes, and new wiring. I also have new insulation and a new furnace. I even have nice bows across the toilets, with ribbon that says 'Sanitized for your protection.' Everything is perfect."

"That sounds very nice," the man said, "but I don't know if I can afford you. I'm just an intern and not very important. I don't have much money."

"That's okay," said the house, holding out a contract. "I also have the new math. Sign here."


Mega challenge:

sow,
close,
console,
lives,
minute,
polish,
bass,
pussy,
complex,
resume

bow,
sewer,
house,
import,
intern

The sow tiptoed through the meadow, pussy-footing along. As it came close to the house it lowered itself to the ground and slithered along, snakelike. Finally it paused behind a bush, considering what to do. It had thought it might be able to squeeze through the sewer pipes and get in, but even as fully greased as it was it could see that the pipes were too small for it. Even if the pipes were highly polished it couldn't do it. The situation had gotten a lot more complex, but it couldn't give up now. Minutes passed while it considered its options, and tried to think of new ones. This was a matter of great import. Lives depended on it. Well, technically, its life depended on it. Well, technically, its life didn't depend on it, but it was sure the best food was inside, that the humans were holding out on it. Trying to think what to do, it noticed that one of the basement windows looked like it might be open a little. If it could open it all the way it should be able to slip in easily.

Resuming its careful journey, it crept toward the window. Reaching it, it opened it and slowly and carefully began to back its way through it. Halfway through it, because of all the grease, it suddenly slipped all the way through and landed on something, which promptly broke under it, and the sow half-slid, half-rolled across the floor until it hit a low curved wall.

"Ohhh..." it moaned. "If I wasn't so fat I'd have internal injuries for sure."

It slowly got to its feet, which kept trying to slip out from under it, and lifted itself up and peered over the top of the low wall. It contained water. A big pool of water. What was a big pool of water doing in the basement? Then fish heads started raising out of the water. Big ones. The sow stared at them. Bass? The farmer was raising bass in the basement? Suddenly one leaped at the sow and bit its nose, and another bit it on the ear. The sow squealed, its eyes big, and shook its head violently, dislodging them from its slippery skin. More were coming, though. Lots of them.

The sow stumbled back, and promptly slipped and fell on its rear. Looking back at the wall of the tank, it saw bass leaping up and landing on top of the wall, then flopping and wriggling their way over. They were starting to come out of the tank now!

The sow kicked it way backward across the floor, its eyes big and fixed on the bass that were now flopping their way across the floor toward it. Then its back was against something irregular, and it realized it had reached the remains of whatever it had fallen on when it came in. Turning around it tried to scrabble its way up it to the window, but was unable to, it kept slipping off the uneven, slanting surface. Finally, desperately, feeling them nipping at its back legs and rear, it leaped through the window opening with a squishy, slurping sound. Rolling across the grass, it somehow got to its feet and ran in terror. They were attack bass! The farmer had giant attack bass! It would never be able to get in now!

Inside the basement, the farmer got up from his chair in a darkened corner and walked into the light, carrying a clipboard. "Good job, boys! I reckon she won't be back for a while! You can get back in the tank now." Peering at the clipboard, he moved his pen down the list of animals on it, and when he got to the sow he put a check mark next to it. Then he went and got a whisk broom and a dustpan and bowing down, began to sweep up the pieces of the thing the sow had landed on. "I don't know what it is about these stereo consoles," he sighed. "That's the second one this week."

The Briefcase

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 two paragraphs instead of being contained in just one. Unlike most of the other stories I did, this one is more of a fragment of a story than a complete story.

This is another of my stories from my post number 1000 for that message board. The list of words for this story: forest, briefcase, window, evaporate, sneer.

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


THE BRIEFCASE

"Look for yourself," I said, and opened the briefcase.

He looked into the briefcase, and saw the window that led into the forest. His sneer slowly began to evaporate.

Dream - The cat in outer space

On April 28, 2009, early in the morning, I had a dream about being a cat in outer space, though earlier I was just observing the cat, and earlier we weren't in outer space.

In the dream, I was in a barren landscape, mostly dirt, though with occasional low vegetation. Two houses were there, separated by some distance. The houses were relatively small, and had small rooms. It was dark.

I spent most of the time at the first house. The second house sometimes had a giant strong figure there, maybe seven or eight feet high, dressed in a dark tight-fitting leather-like suit. He was dangerous, and sometimes even came toward the first house, though I'm not sure he ever got in. The first house had a few simple things in it and was relatively uncluttered, but the second house had very cluttered rooms that seemed to be partly unfinished, with some of the door frames and window sills just raw unpainted wood. It was solidly built, though. I went to the second house sometimes, but had to watch out for the giant because he sometimes showed up.

At some point later in the dream I went over to the second house again and went inside. It was one of the times the giant man was away. I'm not sure now why I went over, whether I had to get something or return something or just wanted to check on things, but I felt I needed to do it. A large, heavy-duty cat went in with me, and I watched it going deeper into the house, down a hallway from room to cluttered room.

The giant man came back, then, and was mad and roaring. The cat tried to get away, going deeper into the house. In the next to the last room that was reached, there was another cat, more normal sized. It was trying to hide up on some shelves, past a sloping pile of random items. The large cat went a little further, going through a glassless window into the next room, which was much smaller, maybe half the size, and even more cluttered, with a ramp of things hiding the floor and going most of the way up the wall that was away from the window. The large cat went partway up the ramp of things and then lay there, flat on its stomach, arms stretched out in front of it, claws out, trapped in the room, looking back at the giant. I became the large cat, then, and came back to the window and perched on the sill. The giant man, who had paused for a moment in the doorway, still making a roaring sound, came in after the cats, concentrating on me. I went along the dividing wall and burrowed into the clutter, making my way toward the outside wall. Low in the outside wall I found what seemed to be a covered hole, and made my way through what felt like layers of thin sections of wood or cardboard and reached the outside.

Outside I was in outer space, and wearing a dark close-fitting padded suit made in big sections and that only partially covered me, and I was sometimes floating in space and sometimes briefly on the very small artificial planet the house now rested on. The planet was so small that a very sharp curvature could be seen even from the surface. The giant man came after me in his own very dark close-fitting space suit with a tether line on it, looking mad like he normally did. I had a tether line, too, but it was short and didn't connect to anything. Though he tried clumsily to reach me, moving around in space was awkward and slow, more for him than for me, and he never got very close to me.


The dream was much longer in the beginning, and we weren't originally on a small world in outer space, though it's possible it might have been a medium size world. It might have even been Earth, though the surroundings were still somewhat strange. It's possible my grandmother may have been in it, too, early in the dream, and it seems like there was a house, maybe the first one, that felt like a modified version of one of hers, either the one in Missouri or Arizona or both.

The dream reminds me of one maybe a year before of being on a planet in another star system, and going out into space from there. I went much farther in the other dream, though, even going from one star system to another.

Dream - Being Aquaman and spinning around

Long ago, probably around 1965, I dreamed about being Aquaman, a comic book superhero who could breathe under water and talk to the sea creatures. As Aquaman, I was in a river heading down to the sea, laying on my back, facing up with my arms and legs out, spinning around like a propeller. I was able to go very fast this way, going at right angles to the axis of the spin, like a Frisbee.

Eventually, before I reached the sea, I got tired and spun slower and slower and finally pretty much stopped. I tried to start up again, and though I got to turning slowly a few times, I couldn't really get going again, I was too tired.

I think someone else was nearby, though not too nearby, someone who I was trying to get away from but also sometimes trying to get. I guess it's possible I was just competing with him in some way, but I have a strong impression he was an enemy, and dangerous. There were also others involved in the search for me, some out looking and some in faraway buildings, sometimes in other states, supervising.

A lot more happened earlier in the dream, before I started spinning. I remember walking through a big marshy area toward the river, in a hurry. Behind me and to my right was a distant building, large and squarish in shape, perhaps two or three stories. Some people in the building were trying to locate me, and I had to get away. I'm not sure what happened before that.

There was also a time in the dream before I was Aquaman, and it seemed to have something to do with Missouri. We lived there when I was very young and moved back for a while in late 1965, leaving again in the summer of 1966. I was in Missouri when I had the dream.

Dream - Something like Superman

On the morning of April 4, 2009, I had a dream of being at a shopping center, and then became Superman, or something like him.

In the dream, I was going back to an L-shaped shopping center with my brother, who is about a year and five months younger than I am. We both seemed to be younger than we are now, perhaps as much as three decades younger, putting us in our twenties.

We had been at the shopping center earlier that day, I think. It was not some place we went to very often. It was kind of out on the edge of things, on the edge of a different town I think. It was an older shopping center.

It was night, and we were walking across the dimly lit parking lot toward a major store, going past the leg of one side of the L, closer to the road than the shopping center. The store we were going to was on the end of the other leg, toward the road. A few other people were around. My brother and I were talking.

Around halfway there, maybe a little more, I began to burp, mostly silently, each time I breathed out. It got worse and worse, until I was even spitting a little. I knew I shouldn't have had that cereal, I thought, annoyed. I tried to suppress it, and by the time we reached the building had pretty much succeeded.

We went in the store, going through the big glass doors. After a while I went out a door to the left that led to the shopping center aisle. I went down the aisle, working my way down the shopping center all the way to the other end. We got separated at some point.

Then the dream seemed to repeat itself, unless what happened before was something that happened at an earlier time. Again we were casually heading across the parking lot to the main store in the dark, but when we reached it we found that it had massive chains across the doors. We looked at each other. Had it gone out of business and closed already? We knew the shopping center was in decline, but hadn't expected this so soon. We went down the shopping center and tried another one, perhaps just an entrance to the shopping center, and that was also chained. We walked along it some more, getting closer to the other end now, and finally found an opening that wasn't chained and went in. We got separated again at some point, and at some point I went back out and was slowly, tiredly walking along in the walk that ran along the outside. It seemed to be getting early morning now, like the sun had just come up.

I went out into the parking lot, and to the dirt beyond it, where there weren't any more buildings. A wind was blowing. I turned and faced it, facing into the sun I think, letting its light wash over me, leaning forward into it with my arms back, palms turned slightly towards it. I leaned forward more and then lifted up into the air, flying low and very fast, the wind rushing against me, my head turned up to face the wind, my arms still trailing back, slightly spread. I flew along with a big smile on my face. I was enjoying it immensely.

I flew toward a section where the land was lifted up in sharp hills, like objects underneath poking up through a stretched, heavy wet blanket. The area was strangely colored, a patchwork of reddish pink and white and charcoal, spongy looking, like meat sliced across the grain, like ham with areas of fat and areas where charcoal smoke had blown across it, leaving a coating. The different colored sections were in different shapes, some larger, some smaller, some more triangular, others squarer with a rounded corner or two, the hills sticking up like bony shoulders or hips trying to break through the meat.

I flew back and forth and around, dizzyingly, getting higher as the hills got higher and higher, wondering if I could do it, wondering if I could keep going higher or if I would fly against them. Finally there were two sharp peaks left and I had to just get past them. I could see the low, slightly rolling land beyond, still oddly colored, the light of the low early morning sun just starting to wash across it. I wondered if I could make it over to it. I didn't have much energy left. I flew toward the peaks, very low, starting to go between them toward the land beyond, as things were graying and fading out...


I woke up on a dark couch in what appeared to be my grandmother's house in Arizona, a house we had lived in before she did. I was on one of two couches in the room. Had it all been a dream? A few other people were there. Nearby was a man who I recognized as my father, but who didn't look anything like my father in real life. He had dark hair and was slim and around medium height, maybe slightly less, and was wearing dark clothes, though the shirt was a little lighter I think. When I woke up he quickly leaned over me, reaching out a hand to touch me. Then he began walking around, looking very agitated.

It seems they had found me laying on the ground somewhere near the shopping center. No one knew what had happened. He kept talking about it, trying to find out or figure out what had happened. There was some worry about me taking drugs (something I have never done). He worried that it was an intentional attempt to kill myself. I didn't have any memory of it, and mostly just stared at him.

Then, finally, after having some discussions with someone, possibly someone who had been out there, he started talking about me flying, and about me being Superman and trying to kill myself. Trying to kill myself, when I had just started to get my powers back. Purposely crashing into the ground from a great height, purposely heading straight down in a nose dive. Someone had seen me do it. They had a witness. My father was very agitated about it, and seemed to think that great things had been planned, things that wouldn't happen if I died.

I just stared at him and didn't say anything. I didn't remember any of that happening. The last thing I remembered was flying and losing consciousness. It did seem possible, though, that I was Superman, or at least a version of him, perhaps an inherently less powerful one.


Then I was somewhere else, a darkened place with a series of rooms. Some other people were there, and it felt like I was Clark Kent, in a transition period when I was starting to go from college to business, though still in college at the moment. It seemed to be a place I was staying with some other people, a place we were just moving into. One of the other people was Lex Luther, looking like the Smallville TV show version of him. Sometimes Clark Kent also looked something like the Smallville TV Lex Luther, though with hair, hair that was a bit shorter and lighter than was normal for him. The hair was combed back but was standing up, not laying down, and was only about one and a half to two inches long. I also watched from outside the scene, from slightly above them, as a disembodied presence.

The people, including me as Clark Kent, walked around in the darkened rooms, calmly, matter of factly talking about things. As we talked, the Clark Kent character kept changing. His face got wider and squarer and older looking, with lines, and his hair grayed some and got thinner, even getting sparse in the back, forming the beginnings of a bald spot. I thought it was strange in someone who was supposed to be so young, and the face didn't look at all like Clark Kent now.

Wordzzle 67 - Bargain basement

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 eleventh time I've played the game.


Ten Word Challenge:

nausea,
everything is on sale,
expect great things,
frying pan,
pledge,
birds of a feather,
stick,
Saturday morning,
liver and bacon,
caterpillars

The birds of a feather, carrying a big stick, landed. The caterpillars, having their Saturday morning liver and bacon, watched. The frying pan, fulfilling its pledge, hopped forward.

"Did you have trouble finding it?" it asked the birds.

"It was on sale," said one of the birds. "Everything is on sale today."

The frying pan nodded, then leaned forward and the birds put the stick in it.

"We expect great things," another bird said.

The frying pan nodded again, but less this time. The stick projected beyond it's edge, and it didn't want it to fall out.

It went into the living room, then, where it slowly started turning around and around, tipping itself this way and that to keep the big stick from falling out. It picked up speed, and spun faster and faster, till you'd think it would be suffering from nausea.

Then it suddenly threw the stick at the stepladder, which promptly fell over, sending the cat tumbling. A little bird in a cage hanging from the ceiling sat in its swing and watched, its eyes big and worried.

"Sufferin' succotash," the cat said. "What was that?"

The little bird leaned forward, its eyes narrowing in anger. "Serves you right, you bad old puddy tat! Now go away or I'll hit you again!"


Mini Challenge:

aggravation,
protective,
bargain basement,
take me out to the ballgame,
break a leg

"Take me out to the ballgame," the bargain basement radio played, for the third time in a row. I was starting to feel some aggravation toward it.

"Can't you play anything else?"

"I just do what I'm told."

"Fine, play something else."

"Let me clarify something. I do what I'm told by certain people. You're not one of them."

"If I had spent a little more money, this wouldn't be happening. I just know it."

"Yes, but you're too protective of your wallet. Now you're stuck with me. I think I'll play the song another four or five times, just to make sure you know all the words."

"No! I'd break a leg off you and beat you into little pieces with it, if you had any legs."

"I don't, but you wouldn't anyway. You're too cheap. You couldn't stand to destroy something you paid money for."

"I don't understand it! I've never had these problems with a radio! I've never had one talk back to me, either."

It turned toward him and grinned. "Who said I was a radio?"


Mega challenge:

nausea,
everything is on sale,
expect great things,
frying pan,
pledge,
birds of a feather,
stick,
Saturday morning,
liver and bacon,
caterpillars

aggravation,
protective,
bargain basement,
take me out to the ballgame,
break a leg

"Here's your liver and bacon," she said.

He groaned. "It's Saturday morning. Why do I have to get up so early?"

"You were going to take me out to the ballgame, remember?"

"I just took you to one last night. What is this with ball games? It's not for hours, anyway."

"I just like them right now. I get these streaks where I like certain things. Here, eat this, it's your favorite."

"It was my favorite, before I had it ten meals in a row."

"Well, at least I'm not serving you something weird, like ants or caterpillars."

He sighed. "No. but that will probably be next." He sat up in bed and took the tray and started poking at the food, resisting an urge to put his hands protectively over his stomach.

"Hurry up and eat it," she said. "If you wait too long it'll get cold and I'll have to put it back into the frying pan again."

"I still don't understand why I'm getting up so early."

"We have to go to the store. Everything is on sale today, real bargain basement prices. We have to get there early, before the good stuff is gone. We already talked about this, remember? You promised you would go with me. You pledged!"

He stared at her. "I pledged? I don't remember anything about it!"

"Well, I'm sure I saw you nod. That's close enough. Now eat your food."

Looking somewhat haunted, he took a big bite of the liver and bacon. A wave of nausea went through him, but he managed to suppress it. "What is it you were trying to buy?"

"Oh, probably lots of things, but I particularly wanted to get some sports stuff. You know, caps and T-shirts with team logos, bumper stickers, stuff like that."

"I really could stay here," he said, a trace of aggravation in his voice. "I don't have to be there."

"It's more fun with somebody with me. And I need you to help carry things."

"I'm not sure I'm strong enough to carry all that."

"Oh, I'm sure you can. I expect great things of you. Now, come on, break a leg and get moving. We have to hurry."

He paused, the fork partway to his mouth. "That's 'shake a leg.' If I break a leg, will you let me stay home?"

"No, we'll just rent a wheelchair. Now stop complaining, you like sports, too. We're birds of a feather."

"Well, I liked watching them on TV, I never went to the games much. Until now." He finished the food and handed her the tray. "At least this game is early in the day."

"Yes," she said. "It's a good thing too. We have to go grocery shopping afterwards. We're almost out of liver and bacon."

The Horrendous Halibut

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: halo, halibut, horrendous, hanky, helium.

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


THE HORRENDOUS HALIBUT

A horrendous halibut wearing a halo stole my hanky while I was high on helium. I think.

Dream - Part Two of the Forever Car

Thursday morning, November 6, 2008, I had a long dream, most of which is forgotten. Toward the end of it, in the part that I remember the best, I began searching for the legendary Forever Car.

In the dream, I drove around in an area that seemed to be something similar to the Reno, Nevada area, on the outskirts, in a loop between the new and old shopping centers. Some other people were with me sometimes and were at the far ends of the loop. Something was going on, but I don't remember what.

Now I was searching, though, for information on the Forever Car. Partway through the dream I had become aware, with a sense of wonder, that this was the previously unknown part two of the story of the Forever Car, and the person who was driving it was somewhere around there and I had to find him.

I finally found, with some of the other people following along with me, in a garage at the end of a long building in disrepair, a car in a concrete opening in the floor with a small van on a platform over it. I initially wondered if the Forever Car was underneath the van, that they might be trying to hide it that way.

My attention became focused on the van, though. It was partially dismantled, and on the face of it didn't look very remarkable. I walked around it, looking it over in wonder. Could this be the Forever Car? I became aware that I didn't know what it looked like, so I couldn't tell for sure. I thought I might be close, though, and that the man might be in the area.


In real life, the Forever Car was what I called the dark blue 1987 Oldsmobile 88, a four door sedan, in a project for a class at Landmark several years ago. I told the story of the Oldsmobile here in a post on August 10, 2007 called The Journey to 479.

Dream - Magnetic flux lines hanging down

Early in the morning of November 5, 2008, I had a dream of a town in a valley in the mountains, and later when I tried to leave, utility poles with bright magnetic flux lines hanging down blocked my way.

The dream was fairly long, but the first part is almost entirely forgotten. I think I was driving back and forth, maybe walking some. It was night. There was an area with low mountains with long slopes. At first they were just on one side, but later they surrounded the area, with a town in the valley between them. Earlier, when the mountains were just on one side, I went toward them going partway up the slopes. I think a few people were with me and some were already there. I think at that point I was on foot, though I might have just gotten out of the car.

Now, though, I was just inside the valley, on the long slope of the mountains. I had come there from the town, where I had been for a while. I wasn't far from the pass that went through the mountains. There were lots of utility poles all over the place, with lines hanging very low. So low that it looked like I couldn't get under them without some of them brushing the roof of the car. It probably wouldn't be safe to have that happen.

I had been somehow alerted to leave the valley, that there was some problem with the utility poles, that they might fall down or the lines might fall down. These were normal-sized poles here, but there had been a big one in the town, a very tall metal one, with an open structure with a lattice work of metal beams. I was afraid that it would fall and I hurried out.

I slowed, and finally parked beside the road. I was stopped here, unable to get out of the valley. Another car was parked nearby, perhaps a little ahead of me, though it could have been behind me instead. I think I got out of the car then and walked a little closer, to better see what was happening.

Magnetic flux lines were now looping down all over the place, soft glowing lines, with the lower edges of the lower lines expanding and fraying out and brushing the ground, looking almost like brushes made of energy.

Someone was showing them to me, apparently asking my opinion of them. It didn't seem possible to drive under them, that the car would get touched by the glowing magnetic lines.

A car had tried to drive through and was now stopped there and the person had gotten out. His car didn't seem to be damaged, though lines of force were touching it and were looping down all around it. The man was standing among the lines, getting touched by them without apparent ill effects. Still, I was concerned that something could be happening that we couldn't see, or might happen later if the man or car crossed more powerful lines.

Dream - The hill and the long, long stairs

On November 29, 2008, sometime early in the morning, I had a dream about a long stairway that led from a building out onto the land, eventually going up a hill.

In the dream, I was at a small place, not really a town, more like a business complex largely by itself out in the country, a somewhat sprawling, large, one story building with some smaller buildings or extensions at the edges. The surrounding area wasn't really a desert, it had some drier sections but was mostly covered with green grass with occasional groups or lines of trees. Some more was happening earlier, I think I was driving back and forth in Nevada, maybe from Fallon to Reno and back, or something similar if not to exactly those places.

Now at this place out by itself, I was taking classes but also working there. A road led away from the place, a road that was two lanes and may have been dirt. Beside the road, a hill rose up with a long, mostly gentle grassy slope upward, though the slope increased sharply toward the end, and the top of the hill was far above the land below. A line of steps went straight up the hill, mostly following the contours of the land, though at the top a small area was cut off to make the summit a little more rounded. Even so, the last part of the stairs was very steep. After the summit the stairs continued, going back down the other side a little way. Then there was a cleared area, not paved, just dirt, where something was going on, something was set up. I'm not sure exactly what it was, but it was something fairly small.

I went up there a couple of times I think, though I may have driven instead of walking, maybe going by a different route than the stairs took, at least earlier in the dream. Later I did take the stairs, at least part of the way.

Whatever was going on at the top, it seems like it was almost a spiritual retreat, like simply making the trip was a big reason for going there, though it was more than that. There were some scattered stone pillars in the area, roughly rectangular in shape but crudely carved, basically just standing stones, perhaps eight to ten feet high. Some huge boulders were also there, and some bushes and small trees, mostly at the edges of the cleared area. I think there may have been some picnic tables set up, too. The light was dim, like very early morning, before dawn, though it was a bit brighter in the cleared area, where some lights must have been set up. It felt like a very peaceful place, and I wandered around the area a bit.

A few other people were around, though I didn't interact with them. Two or three seemed to be leaders, and it felt like they had mystical qualities, almost like shamans. They had probably all come up the stairs, from the building. It was a long hard trip up the stairs, there were miles and miles of them, and the going got a lot harder toward the end. Even so, people kept making the trip and seemed happy to do so, generally going in groups I think.

After being at the cleared area near the top for a while, it was time for me to go back down. I headed back toward the summit, going up the relatively short section of stairs leading to it, to the cleared off cut-out area at the top, a place with sloping walls of pale loose dirt on either side. The cut-out wasn't very deep, and there was a comfortably broad area to go through, though it narrowed quite a bit as it started back down, to where it came close to the path.

The next group coming up was almost here. A special leader, Tom Brokaw, was making the trip with them. Some people reached the top, puffing. It was a long trip and the last bit was very steep. I could hear Tom Brokaw talking and puffing, though he was still out of sight, beyond the curve of the top of the hill. He finally came up and we talked for a bit.

After a while, still talking, we turned and looked out at the long way up here. It was lighter now, perhaps close to dawn. The building at the bottom, at the end of the long gentle slope, looked far away. The long line of stairs came straight out of it, and up the steep slope of the hill toward us. Immediately below us, on either side of the stairs, was the hill with its green grass. At the bottom, to the left of the stairs, the narrow road came out from the area of the buildings. After an initial slight outward curve, the road went fairly straight, almost parallel to the stairs. It passed to the left of us, close beside the hill, which was much steeper on that side.

Then we went back down the hill. It was a long, disturbingly long journey. The last third or so of the way the slope suddenly turned slightly more gentle, and a ways off to the right a gully, paralleling the stairs, had cut into the land, with largely bare dirt around it, not grass like the rest of the hill.

The stairs ended inside the building, in a large, very open area of it. A few people were in the area, some walking around, some studying or doing various things. A few seemed to have jobs they were doing.

I had been promised a book when I got back down. It was one of the things Tom Brokaw talked about, it was a reward for having completed the journey. The book wasn't given to me, though. The same thing happened before, too. I knew, though, that other people had gotten the book.

I saw a nearby table with small piles of a technical book, with science and equations and maybe some programming, with thick, colored, shiny cardboard pages with lots of pictures and simple language. Some of the pages had clear cut-out areas with plastic over them. The pages also had round irregular edges, though I think the covers were straight.

Was this the book I was supposed to be given? I wasn't sure, and nobody said anything to me about it. I think I finally even asked a person or two, but their responses were vague, and tended to not really address the question.

Some people from Fallon were there, including some managers from the place I used to work. One of them was an older manager, who I talked to briefly.

The book was supposed to be helpful, if not for school, which was almost over, then for the jobs people would have after school ended. I was never able to determine, though, whether the book I found was it.

Wordzzle 66 - Lost

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 tenth time I've played the game.


Ten Word Challenge:

swashbuckler,
heads-up,
dry martini,
recovery,
jungle gym,
whiskers,
bathing suit,
spade,
circular reasoning,
abrasive

The sand blown in by the storm had made the dry martini a little too abrasive for his tastes, and then the pouring rain diluted it. He sat it aside for now. He had been in the chair in his bathing suit, napping, when the storm hit, and it was a complete surprise to him. For some reason, the others had simply gone inside without giving him a heads-up about it. He hadn't even been able to get inside, the storm was so dark and violent that it obscured everything, and he couldn't find the building, or even know which direction it was. He stumbled along, walking in the wet sand, unable to see more than a few inches ahead of him. He thought he heard the ocean to one side, and tried to keep it that way so he wouldn't go in circles.

After a few minutes he almost banged his head on some odd structure. Feeling along it, it seemed to have a lot of struts, almost like a jungle gym, but he couldn't figure out what it was. He went around it and walked for a long time.

After what seemed like hours, the storm lessened, and finally stopped, though it remained windy. The light was still dim, but he could see better, and could make out things around him. He seemed to have wondered off quite a bit. All he could see was the the sand and the ocean and palm trees and other odd plants. He picked up a stick and pretended he was a swashbuckler, though the stick looked more like a spade than a sword. He was too tired to do it for long, though, and continued on his way, using the stick as a walking stick. Eventually the sun came up, with nothing much changed. He thought sure he would have run into somebody or something by now, but it was still the palm trees and sand and ocean. He was getting very, very tired. He hoped he would run into something soon, he was too tired to try to walk back all that way.

Then he came upon a small plane in the sand. He walked up to it, wonderingly. He felt the struts on the wing, and realized it was what he had felt the night before. Despite his determination not to go in a circle, it seems he had engaged in a bit of circular reasoning anyway. Odd that he hadn't come across the building and the people first. He hadn't even seen the place where he had left his martini. He looked at the plane. He remembered that he used to fly a plane very much like this one, years ago. He wondered if the pilot had run into trouble in the storm, and, unable to make a recovery, had crashed on the beach. Maybe the pilot was even still inside.

The door to the plane was hanging open, and he stuck his head in and looked around. Nobody was there. It looked like it was really in need of a clean-up, too. There was dust and sand on everything. He wondered if it had just been blown in by the storm, but then he realized that plants were growing in it. The plane had been there for a long time. But how could that be? Surely he would have known about it.

He rubbed his face with his hand, and was startled to feel long whiskers there. He took his hand away in wonder, and stared at it. Then, looking down, he saw that he wasn't wearing a bathing suit after all, just tattered jeans cut off above the knee.


Mini Challenge:

butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth,
stagnation,
chart,
star crossed lovers,
apricot brandy

Though butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, he felt stagnation set in to their relationship, and they increasingly found reasons not to be together, and circumstances seemed to be providing plenty of reasons to stay apart. Their astrological charts had been compatible, but they now seemed more like star crossed lovers, and another sip of apricot brandy wasn't going to fix it.


Mega challenge:

swashbuckler,
heads-up,
dry martini,
recovery,
jungle gym,
whiskers,
bathing suit,
spade,
circular reasoning,
abrasive

butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth,
stagnation,
chart,
star crossed lovers,
apricot brandy

He assumed a swashbuckler position, and, looking in the mirror, began fencing with himself.

"Put down that umbrella before you knock something over. You've seen way too many pirate movies, and had way too many dry martinis."

"I'm afraid I've started on the apricot brandy, now. It seems to be a local specialty."

"I suppose I should be happy that you're not standing by the sink, filling it over and over again and watching it drain."

"It was like an whirlpool in the ocean, one that could suck a ship down and all aboard her, and they would never be seen again. Think how it would be, to be carried around and around, unable to escape, until the water finally takes you."

"That would be terrible, but I don't see it happening anytime soon, so you can stop with that brand of circular reasoning. We were going to go out to the pool, remember? We're on vacation, so we should at least act like it. Bring the deck of cards, too, so we'll have something to do if we get bored."

"I'd rather not play cards right now, if you don't mind. I keep getting the ace of spades, and it's beginning to creep me out. I suppose I could put on my bathing suit, though, and walk around the pool. Give the ladies a treat."

"Let me give you a bit of a heads-up. You don't look nearly as exciting as you think you do, and being half-drunk doesn't help. Neither does those whiskers."

"We are on vacation."

"Doesn't matter. Go shave anyway. Good thing you've got an electric shaver, at this point I wouldn't trust you with anything sharp."

"Well, I guess I do have to look nice for the ladies..."

"Yeah, it's always the ladies. We are married, you know. What am I, chopped liver?"

"Well, you know the saying, 'That's no lady, that's my wife.'"

"Gee, thanks."

"The ladies are after me, you know. They just can't help themselves. That lady bartender here was so nice to me..."

"Yeah, I know, butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, just like all the others. Did you ever think this might be all in your head?"

"It's in all their heads, too. They all adore me."

He turned and walked off, and she heard the noise of the shaver for a while. Then it stopped and he came back into the room.

"There, I'm done. How do I look?"

"You've managed to give yourself some red marks, but the whiskers seem to be gone. You've even put your bathing suit on correctly, not backwards like last time."

"Well, let's go then. Can't keep the ladies waiting."

She sighed. "No, I guess we can't."

They walked out to the pool. "There don't seem to be any ladies around," he said, disappointedly. "At least not any young ladies."

"Maybe they all went out to the beach. Or maybe they just couldn't trust themselves with you and stayed away."

"Yeah, that could be it. I guess we're just star crossed lovers."

"Who, them and you or you and me? Come on. At least we've got plenty of places to sit down."

"I don't want to sit down. I didn't come all the way out here to sit down. I think I'll go for a swim." He walked over and looked at the water. "It's green. Stagnation has set in. It's not safe. I'd probably get some horrible disease."

She walked over and looked at the water. "The water's not green, the pool itself is green. That's its color. There's nothing wrong with it."

"Still... how do we know the water's not green, too."

"Because it's not. Look at it. Anyway, this is a good place, not like the place we stayed last time. They wouldn't let something like that happen here."

"The pool looks kind of rough, though. Abrasive, even. I might scrape myself on it, and the blood might attract sharks." He looked around. "I think I'll just climb on that jungle gym instead."

"That's a trellis, you idiot! If you try to get on that you'll bring the whole thing down! Stay away from it."

He turned to face her, swayed, seemed about to fall, but then made a recovery.

"You were going to go swimming and climbing, and you can barely stand! Come on and we'll find a place to sit down."

"I'm just a pirate, sailing on uncharted seas. And you're part of my treasure."

She smiled. "Well, that's better, then. I can accept that. Now come and sit down, pirate, before you fall overboard."

The papier-mache dragon

A long time ago, probably in high school though it could have been late in grade school, I made a dragon out of papier-mache, probably as something for art class.

The dragon was probably around a foot and a half or so in length, but was fairly skinny. I think I made it out of newspaper and masking tape, maybe with cardboard in places, too, and then covered it in plaster cloth. I painted it in poster paints, kind of a slightly creamy pastel green. It had an open mouth with white teeth and a red interior. The teeth were just folded over strips of plaster cloth on the top and bottom jaws, so it didn't show individual teeth, just a continuous white strip representing them. It stood on its hind legs and had two arms bent in different positions, with hands with stiff skinny fingers and thumbs. The wings were a bit of a problem, as they tended to sag some because of their weight and the narrow attachment area. The plaster cloth crumpled there and broke the plaster at the attachment joint, though the cloth remained intact and the wings were in any case in no danger of coming off.

It's possible I still have it somewhere, but I'm not sure.

Dream - The toxic waste collector man, the moving statues, and the doomsday bomb

On October 18, 2008, I had a dream about being drawn into a scene on a TV, to a place after some disaster had occurred, where a toxic waste collector man, running for his life, got into a fight with moving statues, one of which finally got a doomsday bomb.

In the dream, I was in a large house with large rooms, dimly lit, with low dense rugs. There were many TVs, and one room had at least three. My mother was there and perhaps my brother and sisters, maybe just my sisters, and some other people, too. It was night, I think, perhaps evening. A day had passed.

The TV cable company had been working on the system, improving it. Now the TV screens had three little menu-like things on the top, and an LED-like box and numbers in the lower right area of the screen, up a little ways and out from the corner, somewhat above the place where the channel logo normally is. The box showed the time spent and the money spent in bright yellow-white LED-like numbers that changed frequently, updating the count, until the end was reached, whatever the end might be.

All this was taking up more of the screen than I would have liked. The picture quality was mixed, being a little grainy and bright enough but not terribly bright. The technician had been concerned about everything being alright when he was here earlier fiddling with things. I was a little concerned now as I watched the money spent update, wondering if someone had put a pay per view program on somehow or if we had somehow been changed into channels or a system that charged per time used, but I think the numbers finally settled on zero.

Most everyone had gone to bed now and all the TVs were still on. I was looking at them with my mother and we were trying to figure out how to turn them off. I looked at the menu things hanging down onto the screen, trying to see if there was an off button or some way there to turn the TV off. As I was looking them over they changed from things on the screen to plastic things hanging down onto the screen. There were less options now and I still couldn't see anything I could identify as something to turn the TV off.

Finally I saw a switch, like a light gray light switch, underneath the overhanging curve of one of the plastic things at the left. I thought it was an older part of the TV, not part of the newer stuff that was just put on, and that I should be able to use that to turn it off. I reached in and turned the switch, feeling somewhat like I was cheating because I wasn't using the new way, but as long as it worked it would be enough for now. I straightened up and then one of the new plastic things came off, loosened by my reaching under it, and then fell on the floor.

I picked it up and tried to put it back on. More were coming loose, and I was trying to put them back together. It seems they joined at the top, with the middle one essentially hanging off the other two with little plastic peg extensions fitting into holes on the others. It was really kind of a delicate arrangement and I could hardly get the things to hold together without it falling apart again. I thought it would be kind of bad for the technician to come back and find we had already taken apart what he had done. I don't think the TV even went entirely off, just changed to kind of a blank static display.

From time to time though, earlier and now again, I was becoming drawn into the show on the TV, watching it, with the story expanding until I was there.

I was back again at a scene after some kind of disaster had happened on the Earth, with the survivors carrying on. There was a huge squarish mansion, with several stories, set in a misty watery area, with wide open stretches of water through areas of water overrun with reeds, with a gray sky and a misty drizzle and occasional slight, cold breezes.

A man was out in a long, large, flat-bottomed rowboat, slowly filling a barrel or two at a time with something skimmed off the water, some kind of toxic waste, what kind was never explained. It might have been chemicals or it might have been biological, perhaps some kind of mutated bacteria. Most of the time the man just drifted through the area, maybe occasionally paddling, until he came across enough of a concentration to begin collecting it.

Occasionally a helicopter would come and take away a barrel or two and leave empty ones. This time he also left some food items, as the man had requested. Some of the food was more conventional and some was in little squeezable tubes that looked like the paint tubes used by artists. Someone even came down onto the boat with him, briefly.

The man collecting the toxic waste eagerly had some of the food, including some from the tubes. The stuff from the tubes looked strange and waxy, with a slight sheen. Unknown to the person collecting the toxic waste, people at the house had been discussing whether they should get rid of him, and whether this would be a good time. The toxic waste collector man was starting to become a little suspicious of things though, starting to wonder now if something was wrong.

After the helicopter man left, the person in the boat, the toxic waste collector man, went back to the house, into one of the rooms near the center. He fiddled with the food tubes he had been given, wondering about them. He became aware, then, that he could hear someone, out in the other rooms toward the front. Someone was coming for him.

When the man arrived, it turned out to be the man from the helicopter. There was a confrontation then and a struggle. During the struggle the man that had been collecting toxic waste held out a food tube and threatened the other man with it, and I think smeared some of it on him, but then at the end poured some of the toxic waste from a metal container the size of a large glass over the man's hands and forearms and told him what he had done. The helicopter man was crouching there on the floor, leaning forward, with his arms low and extended, a stricken look on his face. He said that others were coming. The toxic waste collector man could hear them, talking and making noises as they made their way through the house toward them, a woman and someone else, maybe more than one other.

He got out into the hallway and they were close enough for him to see, down a slightly irregular hallway near the doorway of a room, maybe two or three rooms away. They saw him, too, and started to make their way forward, hurrying more now. He turned and ran, trying go one way and then another. They ran after him, splitting up some to take different ways. He was on the third floor now, though it's uncertain how he got there. People were coming from both sides. The area was a series of very large open rooms with large open areas around parts of the perimeter and center of the floor.

He went toward some stairs, but then went toward a ladder that went through a square opening in the floor. The ladder was made of metal tubes painted white, and it slid slowly down as he put his weight on it. He was also walking down, trying to hurry. The ladder would not slide all the way down anyway, just part of the way. The others were still after him, trying other ladders and the stairs. I think one was even trying to go down the same ladder, but since it was moving it was awkward to get on, and he kept pulling back from it.

The toxic waste collector man was now surrounded by empty space, in a large open area in the second story. In front of him was a railing and balcony room with some statues and figurines and other art. He decided to climb over the railing and get into the room there. There was something in his mind that made him a little worried about it, but he decided that he had to do it.

When he got into the room, the statues started moving, and he remembered that earlier some people had gotten in and had been somewhat slowly and methodically killed by the statues. They had engaged in a sword fight. The people had even been dressed like someone from Shakespeare's time, but they couldn't kill the statues with their swords. The statues, though of relatively soft stone, wouldn't damage that much, and the statues killed them with their swords. Now they were coming for the toxic waste collector man, who was now sometimes me, though sometimes I also just watched. He got a sword from somewhere and was fighting back. The sword blade was about an inch and a half wide, and was flimsy and wanted to flex and bend even if he just used the edge of it.

He got behind one as it tried to get him and as it leaned out over the railing he was hacking and sawing at the back of its neck. Someone was saying that you had to cut off their heads to kill them. I, as the toxic waste collector man, finally got its head cut off and then turned to the other statues. Other people had gotten there and were also fighting them. Earlier the people had been after me, but were now fighting the common enemy. I think the statues might have been winning at first, but as they were thinned out it became easier.

Then, as I went forward in the room, another statue came forward toward me. This one had a long tapering white sword that spread out backwards from a point in the front, becoming a thick blade with upper and lower somewhat dull edges, to having expanding center edges too, before finally expanding out into a wide circle that acted as a hand protector. The whole thing was maybe eight feet long, and because of its length was the sword that could not be beaten. Earlier in the dream it had killed someone who had tried to fight it. I managed to get past the point and made my way partway along it, where I managed to bend it a little, perhaps even hack it in two. I then made my way along to the statue holding it and killed it, as it talked in a somewhat high mournful voice.

Besides the statues, which were definitely thinning out now, there were also figures and figurines of various sizes in niches and shelves and on tables, though the tables didn't start until past the first room. The figures and figurines weren't all people, some were animals of various kinds or part human and part animal or cartoonish animals. Sometimes they were very abstract. Anything with a suggestion of a head or eyes had to be killed, though.

The first table was covered with them. I started picking them up and just breaking the heads off when I could, sometimes banging them against the edges of the table, though this didn't seem to do much good. They were aware of me, especially as I picked them up, and looked at me with slightly worried looks, like they accepted their fate but were still slightly concerned. They all had to be killed, otherwise it would start all over again. Some of them would be growing into knights and become replacements for the ones killed. If all of them were killed, though, it would all be over and even the people hurt by them would be restored.

After killing some at the table I turned to some display shelves on the short section of wall behind me and started breaking the heads off some of them there, then I went to the side, to the right of where I was now facing, but to the left as I had been in the first room. The area formed an L-shaped room full of tables at which various odd entities sat, perhaps in the range of four to five feet high if they had been standing. They were all animated statues and they all had to be killed.

I grabbed the long neck of an ostrich-type thing and I think partly broke and partly cut it in two as the thing's eyes looked at me worriedly. Something that was apparently a vampire got up and fought with me. It got behind me and did something to me, evidently bit me in the back of my right shoulder. I managed to turn around and kill it. It had a smile of triumph, though its eyes had a trace of pain and worry, and of acceptance. It knew it was gong to die, but was happy that it had got me, too. I, along with the others, continued fighting, killing the things.

An odd thing that was apparently a werewolf, though it was mostly a smooth white and just had occasional indented flowing lines suggestive of hair, attacked me and then got away and brought back some kind of bomb. I and the others tried to draw back and then the bomb went off, spraying everything with a watery substance and mist. The substance was a little thicker than water, and kept coming out, it wasn't something that just went off and stopped. It would die down and then come back, spraying harder again. Some of the statues started murmuring about the doomsday device being used. I thought then that it was a device to kill everyone, including the attackers, when it looked like everything was going to be lost. I could see the statues looking with concerned interest as they slowly started to melt and dissolve.

I got the other people together and they hung on me as I somehow took a long heavy cord or rope and swung out through the window away from the building, which was now much taller and in the middle of a city. We sailed far out over the other buildings, crossing several blocks, perhaps even half the city, before finally stopping at an unusually tall one that I think was part hotel and part museum. We were inside it, then, perhaps swinging in through a window. We walked around inside a bit, looking at things and discussing the situation, sometimes looking out the tall windows.

There was a series of watery explosions, with thick water and dark mist coming out of the building we had left, which was now maybe seven or eight stories high. Windows and parts of the walls were gone in the upper section, though it was hard to see much because of the obscuring dark mist. It was apparently the final stages of destruction.

Then a white figure, upright but slightly tilted, flew out of the building toward us, apparently under its own power. We were talking among ourselves, saying that it must be the werewolf, come to get us. It fell toward us, looking like a statue of a man, with blank statue eyes, and with chips and chunks gone but still mostly there, partially cloaked in flowing pieces of statue cloth and partly in something that may have been a statue toga, it flew toward us unmoving and crashed through the window. I got behind it somehow and got it against the wall and managed to cut and break its head off. It only moved as a whole, and never moved any part of it independently, except maybe for the slightest bit and maybe not even that.

We still thought it was somehow the werewolf, but then we somehow got word about something else, that there were clues in some other building in some boxes, some of them like board game boxes and some smaller and taller. A couple of us went to look through them. I was now a separate person from the toxic waste collector man, more of a helper. He was looking through the boxes and then he left for a while and I was looking through them. They contained odd collections of things, like paper dolls and their clothes and game parts and other things. There was supposed to be some clue there left by the werewolf about his next move. The toxic waste collector man came back and looked some more and then left again.

I was standing now on the edge of the building. We had been moving back bit by bit. It was like the tables or shelves where the boxes were had kept moving toward us, very, very slowly. The room didn't have any back wall here. If it did before it was now gone, not even the corners had walls. I seemed to be standing on something like pale dried mud that had squirted out in a fat shelf from between huge adobe blocks. It was part of a series of such shelves. I was still nervously going through the boxes, moving to the left side and then back as the shelves of dirt were crumbling under my feet and falling away.

It seemed now that the toxic waste collector man had been there when they crumbled and had fallen to whatever was down there far, far below. I worried about that as I tried to continue looking through the boxes. I had to find the clue to save him. Once the werewolf was destroyed, the toxic collector man would be restored, or so I thought. It might only be a clue that led to another clue, but I still had to do it.

Some voice was speaking to me from somewhere maybe ten feet away to the left and above. It was an unfamiliar voice, sounding like an older man. Apparently disembodied, it seemed to be speaking mostly commentary that wasn't directly related to what I was doing, but still seemed to in a vague way be speaking about it, offering indirect advice.

A series of mud shelves to the left had crumbled and fallen and even the faces of the adobe blocks there were crumbling and coming loose and falling. The dried mud shelf where I was standing now was starting to crumble, falling away on both sides, the edges shrinking toward me. I could feel the disintegration coming toward me and the shelves coming apart in pieces under my feet. I was falling, then, too, but I only fell a little way, maybe only a couple of inches, and then I found myself standing on a flat floor-like extension, with little scattered pieces of dried mud on it.

I started to get the feeling that maybe the toxic waste collector man hadn't fallen, after all. Maybe he hadn't been there when the dried mud ledges collapsed, maybe he had only gone somewhere for a while. I still had to find the clue, though. I continued standing there, on my now stable and secure platform, and continued searching the boxes.