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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

Wordzzle 82 - Shadow people

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

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


Ten Word Challenge:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


Mini Challenge:

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

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

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

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

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


Mega challenge:

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

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

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

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

She winced and jerked back from them a bit.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"That really makes me feel good."

There was silence for a time.

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

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

"Do you really mean that?"

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

"Thanks a lot!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"You'd be surprised."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

The Weed Forest

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

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


THE WEED FOREST

My sister's back yard was full of weeds.

Weeds two, three, or four feet high.

Or even higher.

Densely packed.

She had let it go on for too long.

I began to pull weeds.

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

Pulling them out of the dry earth.

I spent days at it.

And nights.

One time, I found a body.

A body hidden in the weeds.

A dead body.

My body.

Finders keepers.

Dream - A massive engine being revved higher and higher

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

Wordzzle 81 - Under the sun

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

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


Ten Word Challenge:

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

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

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

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


Mini Challenge:

carbon,
feelers,
outright,
ballet,
fizzing

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


Mega challenge:

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

carbon,
feelers,
outright,
ballet,
fizzing

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Who are you?"

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

"Sounds like a big job."

"I get around."

"Why is this happening?"

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

"My movie?"

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

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

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

There was silence for a time.

"Can anything be done?"

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

"Until the end."

"Yes."

"What will the end be?"

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

"What will become of me?"

"You will also cease to exist."

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

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

"That doesn't sound like much."

"No, it doesn't."

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

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

There was more silence.

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

"Yes, but such things are rare."

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

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

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

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

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

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

The ground shook.

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


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

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

Finding my grandmother

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

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

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

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

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

Dream - The young blond policewoman

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

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

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

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

Dream - Flying in an old black pickup truck

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

Dream - I am in a TV reality show

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

Wordzzle 80 - The alligator people

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

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


Ten Word Challenge:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


Mini Challenge:

chisel,
worship,
suicide,
organic,
plus

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

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

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

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


Mega challenge:

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

chisel,
worship,
suicide,
organic,
plus

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

My Word Imperfect entries, Part III

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

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

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


Jargonelle:

12:47 PM 7/3/2007

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


Musette:

2:34 PM 7/3/2007

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


Tintinnabulate:

I missed adding a definition.


Lentitude:

9:57 PM 7/5/2007

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


Rotifer:

10:20 AM 7/6/2007

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

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


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


Timocracy:

4:37 AM 7/8/2007

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


Mutograph:

11:57 PM 7/9/2007

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


Vambrace:

12:36 PM 7/10/2007

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


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


Couvade:

I missed adding a definition.


Muniment:

4:03 AM 7/12/2007

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


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


Cloop

7:13 PM 7/15/2007

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


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


Velleity:

I missed adding a definition.


Teknonymy:

7:57 PM 7/17/2007

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

Dream - Gangsters, and a red blotch in the air

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dream - The mobster restaurant and the Cadillac

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wordzzle 79 - Shadows and smoke

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

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


Ten Word Challenge:

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

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

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

On a hill a few miles away, two workers paused in what they were doing. "Look at all that smoke! What's that crazy old man doing now?"

The other man studied it for a moment, then turned away. "Forget it, it's just more Spam."


Mini Challenge:

shadows,
singularity,
Florida,
caterpillars,
copy

The shadows slowly swirled against the darkness of the sky, black on black, blacker than black, looking like a caterpillar slowly rotating around a central point. I felt like I was looking into the naked singularity at the heart of a black hole, but of course such things can't actually be seen, light ends at the event horizon.

It came closer, seeming to spread out in the sky while at the same time reaching toward me. Eventually I became enveloped in its blackness. All was black for a time, if it could actually be called black when nothing exists to compare it to.

I became aware, then, that I was standing on something, and the dim shapes of walls were beginning to appear. It never got very bright, though, and I could barely see.

I was in a small room, possibly gray, though it may have looked different fully lit. It didn't seem to have any furniture. A few feet in front of me was a doorway, leading to a narrow hallway, across which I could see the doorway of another room, and through the doorway another doorway beyond that, and one beyond that. I turned around and looked at the other side of the room and found it also had another doorway, and doorways beyond that. I turned back and faced the direction I had originally been facing. It seemed important somehow. Time seemed to pass, but I had no frame of reference for it. It could have been a long time, or it could have been fairly short.

Eventually I saw, in the dimness, two figures approaching, coming through the series of doorways. They moved slowly and solemnly, or so it seemed, though I had no way of knowing if they were actually solemn or not. After a while, they stood before me. One was about my height, which is tall, and the other was several inches taller. They wore dark robes with hoods, and their faces were hidden in shadow. I still could not see who they were. One of them spoke then, I'm not sure which. "Why did you come?"

I stared at them, not understanding for a moment, then finally said, "I did not come. Something like a shadow came out of the sky and put me here."

"That is incorrect. You summoned it."

"I didn't summon it. I have no idea how to do that, and I don't even know what it is."

"And yet, you are here."

"I am here."

There was a pause as the shadowed figures stood there, facing me, apparently watching me. After a time, one of them said, "We are waiting."

"Waiting for what?"

"Waiting for you to tell us why we were summoned."

This didn't seem to be getting anywhere. "Could you at least tell me where we are?"

"We are here and you are there."

"Where is there?"

An image of the earth appeared, floating in the darkness.

"We're on earth?"

"No. You are."

"But where are you, then?" This was getting confusing.

"We are on the ship. You are not. What seems to be your body is just a pale copy of it, barely physical, to be used while your attention is here. It will fade away when your attention departs."

"It seems real."

"They always do, to those that are in them."

"Why am I here, though?"

"We are waiting for you to tell us."

"But I don't know why I'm here! I've never been here before! I don't know anything about it."

"You have been here many times. You were here before you were there."

"I don't remember any of it."

There was another pause, possibly long, but I didn't really know. I was getting afraid that we were going to be locked here forever in a circular discussion when one of them spoke. "If you do not remember, then it may not be time after all. But then, why did you summon us?"

"I didn't summon you! I didn't do anything! You came to me!"

"We obviously did not. We are here and you are there."

"This is getting nowhere! Look, couldn't you just take me home?"

"Your attention is already home. Do you wish your body to be home as well?"

I stared at him blankly, then finally said, "This ship or whatever it is is not my home. My home is on earth."

"Your home is not on earth."

"It is too! It's on earth in a place called Florida!"

Something seemed to shift. Something in reality itself. The surroundings became blurred, then fell into focus again, more clear than before.

"You have said Florida, the word that was agreed upon. The signal. The plan will be executed. Has been executed." They turned away and started to go.

"Wait! What about me?"

They turned partly back around, hooded heads pointed at me. "It is not necessary for you to come with us."

"No! I want to go to, to earth, back to where I was."

"The plan has been executed. You are no longer there."

"I know I'm not there! I'm here!"

"Only your attention is on the ship. Your body is on earth, but not where it was."

"Why? What happened to it?"

"The plan was executed."

"But what does that mean?"

"Your body was moved to a place of safety, most likely to a specially fortified room, perhaps underground. We do not know where."

"But why would it need to be moved to a safe place?"

"Because the plan was executed."

"But what was the plan!"

"The timeline was adjusted. Earth now had an atomic war in 1983, caused by malfunctioning Russian equipment. Most of the northern hemisphere is destroyed, with large areas still radioactive. Without support from the north, the southern hemisphere is in chaos, with mass starvation, made worse by refugees streaming in from the north. A third of the population was killed in the war, and the population is still dropping rapidly. We expect it to stabilize at around 100 million."

I couldn't think of anything to say for a minute. Could it be real? "Why? Why was it done?"

"It was the plan chosen by you. You must look within yourself for the reason."

"But, but, I didn't..." Something hit me then. "You mean there are other plans?"

"There are many plans, but none of them can be executed without invalidating the current plan."

"That's okay! I'm don't want the current plan! Get rid of it!"

"What plan would you like instead?"

"I don't know! I don't have a name! I don't know any of their names!"

"We must have a name. We cannot proceed without it."

"I don't have one! Isn't there anything you can do? I feel like I'm talking to a robot! Can't you please just undo what was done? Just dump it?"

"Very well. We will execute plan Dum-Pit, as requested."

"What? Wait, I don't know what that plan is..." They were fading into blackness. "What's happening?"

"Your attention is returning to there," I heard faintly out of the darkness, almost a fading memory of words.

I opened my eyes and saw a swirling blackness in the sky, rapidly receding. I looked around. I was on a hillside somewhere, with a large city below, several miles away. I wasn't where I was before, but everything else felt normal. Even more normal, somehow, than it had before I left. It felt like it was for the better, though I didn't know what had changed and wouldn't know for some time.

I paused. Why did I think that? I couldn't be sure now. Oh well, plenty of time to think about it later.

I made my way down the hill toward the city.


Mega challenge:

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

shadows,
singularity,
Florida,
caterpillars,
copy

I took another bite of the Spam sandwich, and watched the shadows lengthen. This was taking a lot longer than expected. I had already been here a week. Spam was good once in a while, but I was getting real tired of it. The cans were handy to take on trips, but once opened they were no longer in a state of preservation, and had to be eaten fairly quickly. I had already gained ten pounds, or at least it felt like it. I would have gained more, but I found myself eating less often. Which might not be a bad thing, as the food wouldn't last forever. I would be out of the bread soon, and then I would have to start on the crackers. I would be out of the real Spam tomorrow, and then I would start on the store-brand copy. I doubted it would taste any better.

I took another bite. In desperation, I opened one of the small boxes of raisins and opened up the sandwich and sprinkled some on the meat. I closed up the sandwich and took another bite. It did seem to be better. At least it changed the taste. I finished the sandwich and wiped my hands on my already stained shirt.

I looked up. The buzzards were still circling, seemingly in perpetual motion. There was a time when I had tried to name them alphabetically, like hurricanes, but I couldn't tell them apart, and it no longer seemed important.

I had been on vacation, hiking, when a pack of wolves had started following me, then chasing me. I was running across a meadow, heading for the lone tree in it. It went straight up, like a telephone pole, with the first real branches about twelve feet above the ground. I don't know how I climbed it, but I did.

The wolves left after a few days, but I found I couldn't get down. I had gone pretty high to find some good, comfortable branches, and to be well away from the wolves, but I found I couldn't climb down much without getting stumped. I had tried several times, but I just couldn't do it. Below a certain point, I couldn't find any proper place to put my feet, and there was little to hang onto. If I fell, I would probably need major surgery, assuming I didn't die right away. I wasn't going to get any surgery out here, though. Just the buzzards, unless the wolves came back and fought them off.

I had tried my cell phone over and over, but there was never any signal. I was trapped here on the tree, in the middle of the meadow. It felt like I was on the singularity in the center of a black hole, a place from which nothing can escape.

I had packed a lot of supplies, but the food would be gone in a few days. I didn't know what I'd do then. Lose the ten pounds, probably. That and a lot more.

I had run out of water long ago, and would be in big trouble now if it hadn't been raining so much. I used a small frying pan and a cup to catch the rain, and then refill the water bottles. The rain probably wasn't too clean, coming down off the leaves like it was, and sometimes it included a few caterpillars, which I fished out. I was starting to think I should have stayed in Florida.

It was getting late, and soon I would have to tie myself to the tree again, to make sure I didn't fall off while I slept. I didn't have any rope, but I had managed to use the straps from the backpack instead. I used one strap to secure the backpack to the tree, and then put the other one around my waist. It was uncomfortable when I ended up hanging from it, but it beat the alternative.

I watched the caterpillars crawl along the leaves and branches for a while. I wasn't ready to eat them yet, but there might come a time.

I looked up. The buzzards were still there. I had yelled at them, trying to scare them away, but it didn't work. Flattery didn't either. I had even asked them what it would take to get them to leave, but none of them seemed at liberty to say. One of them landed, now, on a branch a few feet above me. I wondered how it would taste with raisins.