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Fermius Firefly

A Dream Log, whenever I remember the dreams I've had.

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Name:
Location: San Marcos, United States

Fermius is a pen name drawn from a series of short fiction I wrote when I published the small press magazine Stellanova (on paper.) I play RPG games to escape from my daily grind as a technology wage slave for the state of California. I eat out a lot in order to do my part in supporting our increasingly service level economy. I am butler to 2 feline masters. If you ask them they will tell you I'm not very good at it, late with dinner, don't have enough hands with brushes in them, and sometimes I even lock them out of their office.

Wednesday, November 30, 2005

Waiting to Cross the Lake in Traffic

Waiting in gridlock to cross the lake bridge. I finally got frustrated and pulled the car out of line and parked it on a side street. I made my way up to the front of the line on foot. The on ramp was solidly blocked. I looked out over the bridge, it was clear, there wasn't even any traffic on the freeway leading up to the bridge. There was a large truck sitting on the on ramp blocking it. I looked up into the cab, couldn't see anyone. I climbed up into the vehicle. There was a woman sitting in the passenger seat, but no driver.
"What's up?"
"I need someone to drive us over the bridge."
"Just over the bridge?" I asked.
"Just over the bridge," she said. She then asked for my driver's license. She scanned it in something on the dashboard. "Ut-oh." She held up a five page printout of my driving history.
"Now wait a minute, I only have one ticket, how'd you get 5 pages out of that?"
She showed me the list. It had everything on it that I'd ever done to irritate any driver, the little accidents where I bumped the garage door, or scraped the bushes in the driveway. "These sorts of things are important to me."
"But there was only one ticket, and that was when I was a teenager, on a moped!"
"I see, there it is." She looked concerned about it. "I just don't know."
"It's only across the bridge, why can't you drive it."
"I'm not allowed to drive over bridges."
"Well, who is?"
"I don't know."
"Let me get another truck driver."
"The ones behind me all have worse records than yours."
"One ticket!"
"I just don't know." She looked glum.
"How about if we just roll across the bridge without going over second gear, we can put the flashers on and then park on the off ramp," I suggested.
"I'll think about it," she smiled at me.
I looked at the line of cars patiently waiting to cross the bridge, and realized that I would have to walk back across the lake to come an get my car. I was hopeful that the crowd would be thinned out by the time I could get back on the road in my own car.
"If you drive across the bridge, you have to promise to help me complete the trip, there are more bridges to cross," she said as if reading my mind.

And then there was Miranda bounding across my groin, so I don't know how it turned out. I wish I could remember what was on the side of the truck, but that detail has faded away.
--
ad astra per technica,
FF

Sunday, November 27, 2005

Car Race, Skyship

The first of the nights's activities involved a thunderous race across the desert in an old jeep-like vehicle. Our Jeep was painted bright red. My navigator and mechanic kept changing from scene to scene. At one point on the trip we were zooming across a straight hunk of road that went from the horizon behind us to the horizon ahead of us. We were passing tanker trucks at over 120 MPH. We had to slow down next to one and refuel at one point. (AH and I had a conversation a couple of weeks ago about in drive refueling for the Hummer 2.) Then we were away into the off-road part of the race. A twisting turning climb up a mountain full of rocks. There was a path, but it was very twisty. You could cut off five or six miles by going off road. At least until you neared the boulders at the top of the mountain. I drove us up the side of the hill, barely keeping us upright. We missed the entrance to the boulder field, so I went around and we doubled back since the checkpoint was closer to the exit. Then we climbed out of the rocks and shot down the side of the hill, jumping over gullies and only taking the bits of road where they were actually headed in the direction we wanted to go.

This morning I was sailing a ship, two masts it looked like. T-Rex, a cat, was on the bow watching out over it for a place to land. I sailed over a city with all of its domes open, and castle like buildings high in the air. T found a landing spot just outside the city dome. I veered low over an ornate bulding and jumped over the gunwale, giving T instructions to stay with the ship. I had some sort of levitation belt that allowed me to land gently on the outer balcony of a large auditorium. I found from the first passerby I met that I was in a college hall dedicated to performing magic. No one was allowed in without magic abilities. "So, how did you get in?" was the question.
I'd flown in, of course. So that was how I'd answered. I followed a pretty blond woman into the amphitheater area where a couple of black haired Chinese looking 90 pound women were tied in the center of the lecture podium. The lesson was apparently to determin if one, or the other, or both, were evil. I couldn't help jumping into the conversation. I pointed out that holding these two against their will, without cause, made the question of whether they were good or evil moot. The whole situation had to be tainted with evil intent, so would cloud what ever detection magic you might use.
The professor didn't like what I had to say and asked his class to turn their detection spells on me. He's not magic I heard more than one of them say. While they were doing their incantations and zapping me with their wands to see how I would react. I made my way over to the twins. I could see now by their dark maroon irises that they were natives, (their race had lain in dormancy in a kind of suspended form, waiting for life to find them and rescue them. They were a kind of chameleons life form that was able to sample the DNA of the life forms that were smart enough to open their containers, and then to be reborn in our image, mostly. They were all able to funnel and use magic, and were able to teach a small and rare part of humanity the same ability. They were other, and different from us, making them suspect. We had eventually driven them out for "unnatural" uses of magic. I asked if they would like to get out of here.
They nodded enthusiastically, "but what if we are evil" one of them asked. I looked into her eyes. I knew immediately why they were in the position they were in. Sexual magic was considered evil. I turned to the professor. By your definition they would be considered evil. So I think I should get them out of here before they corrupt your impressionable students.
"How can you do that, you've no magic yourself."
"True, but I do have this." I drew a stun pistol, and a knife from my waistband. I cut through the silver chains binding the two elflike women. They stepped free. On of them thanked me, "that was magic, wasn't it." It was, but of the smallest variety, in fact, unless I was actively using it, no one but a master could detect it.
"Hold a moment!" the professor shouted to his students. "Who enchanted that blade for you?" he spoke to his students, still not willing to believe that someone without a magic aura could do so.
"What enchantment?" I tossed the knife hilt first to him.
He scanned it, looking through it to the members of his class who'd grown silent and slightly afraid, most of them having noticed the stunner. I felt the tug of a couple trying to disarm me. I looked at them and shook my finger at them. "Naughty, naughty." I resisted the urge to stun them.
The air pressure changed slightly. I felt a familiar ripple up my spine. I activated the belt and shot up into the sky. "Leave them alone" I sent on a silver thread of magic to the mind of the professor. Before breaking the link I felt his stunned suprise at my ability to speak to him that way. I could hear him telling his students why they couldn't tell I was magic.
I looked out over the city. In the distance I could see jet black clouds forming. I could see the zipper seems lacing them together I could hear in my mind the cloud zippers binding back the wild energies that flowed in those clouds. I also knew that my presense and the unleashing of the two captives had drawn it to this city. The planet protecting its own. I freefell to the last 20 feet then decelerated sharply. "Zipper clouds, headed for the city. Get your college under cover, you've got less time than you think. "Does any one wish to go with me?" I was really asking the former captives, who I knew would agree, but was hoping to get a couple of the cuter students to come along. Only the blond who'd first found me and the dark eyed teaching assistant volunteered. We raced out of the building. "Why don't we just fly away?" the blonde asked.
"The zipper clouds are nearly on us."
"That would draw them here faster," added one of the elfish twins. Her voice would make any mages's heart melt.
"They've enchanted you to rescue them." accused the TA. I turned to watch her bounce along as we ran.
"I planned to rescue them as soon as I saw them. You're the one's who are enchanted."
The twins gasped, wondering how I'd known that. They released their enchantments simultaneously. The women stopped running and looked back to the college. The dome was already rising over it as the campus dropped simultaneously into the red earth. A group of other citizens were running for the docks as well.
"Take us with you, we can't get back to cover." I wondered why the alarms had not sounded. Just then they did. Anyone could see the zippers beginning to rise into the sky. I shouted to T-Rex to "Heat her up, fire warnings across the other's bows." Lightning ripped from the four cannons hidden in the bow of my little ship. I accessed the radios of the twenty or so vessels preparing to bolt from the sky harbor. "You will take on passengers to your limit, or you will weather the storm on the ground." I sent to them all. A mages pleasure yacht attempted to make a break for it. I grabbed on of the rising zippers and yanked it open on myself. There were shouts from the ground, the twins leapt up into the air after my, trying to save me. Lighting poured out of the zipper, trapped in a bell shape around me, I rocket higher into the sky. The mage was standing on the back of his yacht, holding a shield. He was the only one aboard. Greedy bastard, I yelled at him, then grounded his boat and stripped away his shield. He whimpered as I floated above him lighting still arching around me in the shape of the scarlet sky dragons that would accompany the real zipper storm when it got here. The other vessels lowered their gang planks and ropes. I harnessed the lighting, instantly allowing the captains to volunteer how many they would take, and then sending guides out to the closest ones.
Many of the captains had under stated their capacity, I let them know I knew, but told them it would be enough. "I'll be leaving last, anyone who can't wait, choose another guide and go."
T-Rex started mouthing off about it. Soon everyone was loaded and the ground had released a couple more zippers. I rounded them up to me. T-Rex howled instructions to the people on board, but only the twins responded, working very hard to raise the sails and push out the lift rods. My boat climbed into the sky next to me. I bound the zipper dragons to the hull.
"Isn't that dangerous."
"Completely." I told the TA.
"I should have chosen another ship." she sat down against the wheel house and covered her head with her arms. In contrast the blonde was hanging over the rail watching the captive dragon coil angrily about the hull. Several of the other passengers joined her.
"I'd lean back here, they can take your head off still." Everyone jumped back to the center of the ship.
As we climbed into the air, the black zipper clouds began to bear down on the city. I had never seen them move so fast. The twins must have been very powerful to warrant that attention. Then I saw what was attracting them. One of the City's domes had failed a third of the way closed. The residents were frantically trying to use magic to force it closed and to set up a barrier. It was not going to work, it would cause the clouds to focus on returning the magic to its natural state.
"T-Rex, take us to the other side of the dome." He chirruped in question. "A hundred thousand of them, twelve of us." I stood out over the bowsprit as we crossed the dome.
I shot the lightning down into the dome, shattering the lifting spells, finding the problem, blasting it. There would have to be major repairs to open the dome when this was over. I used the power of the zipper dragons to tear down the protective spells, they liked that. Then told the citizens to lower the dome all the way and bring it back up again. The thirty foot thick stone dome began to drop back into the ground. "No more Magic, it draws them." My captive Zipper Dragons flashed through the sky as testament. We continued to the other side of the city, several of my passengers baled out. Trusting that the city would now be safe. The students and a couple of others stayed with me. I'm not sure why. I looked at the twins, they just shrugged their heads and signaled that it wasn't them.
T-Rex sat at the bow, hissing and growling, very unhappy about the coarse we were on. I released the Zipper Dragons with thanks. They made for a moment like they were coming back to us, but everyone had their magic shut down to almost nothing, and I still had the zipper lightning arching around me. I planned to try to distract the zipper storm from the city by making hundreds of little spell domes in the desert. I knew I couldn't get the storm to spend all of its fury on the distraction. I just hoped it would be enough to allow the dome behind us to close all the way.

Oh, Yeah, and this:

Friday, November 18, 2005

Former Girlfriend Turns into Night Terror

I was visiting Mom and Dad when the neighbors came up and invited us
all over for a barbecue. As we were headed over there TSK called and
asked if she could talk with me. I asked Nan if that would be OK, I
hadn't seen her in almost 30 years.
I drove over to pick up TSK at her old house. I thought that was a
little bit odd, as her mother and sister had moved out of Poway
shortly after I had last seen TSK.
As I drove through the old neighborhood, a large black dog ran right
in front of the car. I was prepared for that, though. That had
happened to me enough times while TSK and I had been dating, that it
had become a running joke with us. The dog was not healthy looking.
It's longest three ribs were visible through its flesh, the white bone
glistening against the black dull matted fur. One eye was grey and
sunken looking. He fixed his gaze on me, shook all over, and continued
on his way.
TSK was waiting at he end of the driveway of her former home. She had
a small bag with her, but no sign of a car or other transport. The
driveway and the street were both empty. TSK was looking a little
heavier, but 30 years can add a couple of pounds to a person's frame,
or 50 if you look at me. She was still pretty good looking in that
slender round bottomed way that drives me to distraction. Her lips
were a little thinner, like she didn't smile enough, and her eyes,
while still that delightful sparkling brown, were somewhat sadder than
I remember. She seemed a little disoriented, she'd been expecting me
to pick her up in the satellite. I told her we had sold it only
recently, and it had been difficult (for me) to let go. I held open
the door for her and she got in. I asked how her family were doing.
Her response seemed a bit random. Mostly OK, but she was going to see
her mother and R.
We drove back to my folk's house.The conversation was mostly catching
up, but every so often TSK didn't make a whole lot of sense. I asked
her if her kids made their own parades like she used to do. That made
her smile, but she didn't actually answer.
There's a hot tub? she asked.
"Yes, but I don't know if they've got it up and running. They had
plants in it the last time I was there."
"Oh, OK." I got out of the car and went around to open the door for
her. In the time I had made my way around the back of the car, she had
changed into a bathing suit and sarong. I could see her C-Section scar
just peeking over the sarong as she adjusted it to cover. She was
still very small breasted, but her nipples were larger. (I'm such a
boy, what can I say.)
We went down to the neighbors and I introduced her around. The
neighbor's dogs sniffed at her and then went and laid down under the
lawn furniture. N looked at her then at me, concerned and worried. I
thought she would be jealous, but she wasn't at all. TSK was looking
very hot in her sarong and halter over the bathing suit.
Still, N was the picture of civility, offered her a drink, which TSK
politely declined.
Mom and Dad were nice and they chatted about my Sister and her
friends, who was still around, who was moved far away. (My sister
amongst the latter.) During the conversation things went weird when
TSK began to insist that "Wichita is in Minnesota or Wisconsin, but
certainly not Kansas." over and over again. We would be able to bring
the conversation around to other topics for a few sentences, but then
TSK would blurt that out again. TSK stepped out onto the patio to
check out the hot tub.
TSK excused herself for a bit when she discovered the Hot Tub was out
of commission. After we started eating and TSK hadn't returned, N went
to look for her. N showed up a moment later, pale, told me I'd better
go talk to her.
I went into the bedroom. She was looking bruised about the face and
shoulders. N poked her head in, I looked at her, "Not me" she
whispered. I offered to take her home or where she was staying. She
asked if she could visit our home, meet the cats, she'd not had a cat
since before she went to college. N and I exchanged looks.
"I have my car, I'll be fine."
N didn't look fine. I gave TSK my sweater and helped her out to the car.
The trip was quiet, especially for TSK. When she started talking about
her two children, she brightened up a bit, the bruises even seemed to
vanish. "We came up here to see Ragtime, I never did see that."
"Neither did I" I admitted. She had fallen asleep while we were
waiting in line to get in to the 9:30 showing. I'd taken her home, her
mom and I had tucked her in bed and talked for a couple of hours
afterwards. TSK had accused me of liking her mom better. In
retrospect, we probably would have been a better match.
While talking about the past, all of her bruises and tiredness vanished.
We arrived, TR, a mostly black cat, shot across the street in front of
the car. I'd been prepared (like earlier.) But TSK screamed in alarm.
"He always does stuff like that," I explained. TR dropped and rolled
for us. I introduced her to the cats that would come around. TR stayed
close to us. CL was very kind to her, mostly for the curiosity factor,
and she seemed particularly taken by PTL, who loved the attention.
We ended up sitting in bed. TSK's sarong fell open revealing a long
waxy looking
wound with dried flesh curled up from the edge of the 6 inch gash.
There was no blood, and the would seemed to be open. She covered it up
and tried to continue our conversation.
I asked what happened. She started in on the Kansas thing again. I
interrupted her, gently as I could. N walked by, blanched and hurried
out. TSK started trying to coax the cats back, but they were wary,
even a little frightened.
"Can you kiss me?" TSK asked.
"Of course," I leaned in and kissed her. It was not like I remembered
it, but still very nice. When I pulled back I could see the sadness in
her eyes had returned.
N came back into the room and left two tubes at the foot of the bed.
Anti-biotic ointment and KY Jelly. "I'll just be in my office,
writing." She hurried out again, not with a jealous look, just very
concerned, and frightened. I took a nail trimmer and gently trimmed
the dried flesh and applied some ointment. The pleasant smell of her
arousal startled me, aroused me at the same time.
TSK said "Thank you," started to say "we never made", then stopped
suddenly. She sobbed.
I put my arm around her. Her appearance continued to deteriorate. I
realized, in mounting fear, that her wounds were deeper than I thought
at first. There was still no blood. A long plug of what I can only
describe as mortician's wax fell from the wound in her leg and I
noticed similar plugs along her shoulders and neck. My arousal was
replaced by a queasy fluttering in my stomach.
"You never tried to change me." TSK whispered.
"I never wanted to." I held her closer, despite my growing unease.
"Turns out no one could anyway."
I realized I was holding on to a corpse, animated by some great need,
and drawn to me. "I will always be fond of you," was the only thing I
could think to say. Her flesh began to become soft under my grasp. Her
youthful delightful smell changed in a flood to something more
antiseptic, but hiding a deep un-wholesome undertone.
"Could you have loved me for real?" Her voice was much stronger than I
would have thought, hand shaped bruises I could see spreading across
her throat, darkening, clotting, turning black.
"Oh, yes," I realized I meant it, "I'm not sure I've ever stopped
loving anyone. We just weren't a real match."
"Sucks to be me."
She started to melt out of my arms. The cats who'd stuck it out this
long bolted from the bed. The unpleasant undertone overtook the
antiseptic and washed over my sadness. I was quaking as I tried to
hold her together, and not get her on me at the same time. I wanted to
bolt myself, but couldn't abandon her as long as her now random
babbling voice held out. It held out for a long time.

I awoke from this dream drenched and shaking. It was an hour before I
could even get back into bed.

--
ad astra per technica,
FF

Thursday, November 17, 2005

Back to School

College classes on the balcony of an amphitheater type area. This is a recurring location that I have a great deal of trouble describing after waking for some reason. I will have to lay out the thing in a drawing or plans, though it might have a dreamlike 4d quality to it that is difficult to even illustrate. Each lecture area has a large glass wall overlooking the stage/performance area. The walls that separate the lecture halls are soundproof, but there is no ceiling but the amphitheater dome, so there is always a little sound leakage from other events. The lights for each lecture area dangle from 40 ft cables, and seem to be retractable. The sound system is also variable.

We were trying to get the lecture to simulcast in three different meeting rooms on the balcony, but skip others. The control panel was laid out with green and amber LEDs, in the same pattern as the schedule filter I saw yesterday for our High School's lab days. Funny what gets recycled in my brain.

This morning I was sitting outside the amphitheater talking to a woman who had a copy of Richard Adams' Watership Down. It was an illustrated edition that I had never seen before. While I was really trying to see how interested she might be in hooking up with me, I really found the book interesting, and knew I had her when I opened the book to the publisher's page and Jotted the information down in my journal.
"I thought you were just hitting on me!" She said.
 I was, but a great edition of a book is still a great edition of a book. "There's more to life than hitting on good looking brunettes. Not much more, but some, like redheads, and blondes."

--
ad astra per technica,
FF

Monday, November 14, 2005

Star Wars Republic Dream

No Jedi though. :(
 I was running a small cargo freighter with a stash of blaster ammunition disguised as power cells for remote controlled racing pods (and they worked for that, extra long life though about 1000 hours instead of 100.)
 I found myself on the inspection deck of a Republic Star Destroyer. I managed to get a tour of the TIE fighter launch bays while they were doing the "Safety Inspection" on my ship. I ended up giving a pair of the racing pods to the captain for his troopers to use as , and he gave me a couple of shot up TIE fighters they were going to trash. Just the Ion drive panels and the cockpit. The sensors and weapons systems had been surveyed out. The things might be repairable to fly though. I thought it was a good trade, I could at least make it look like I had a republic escort when I got to my destination.
 In flying away from the Star Destroyer I got the distinct impression that the Captain actually knew what I was transporting, and just thought it was OK that settlers on the Rim worlds might need more Blaster ammunition than could be had through official channels.
 At my destination the client knew about the TIE fighters, and offered me enough cash  to retire. So now I knew the Captain had known all along everything I was doing. That felt weird, I'd been turned down for Republic Scout work, and now here I was doing undercover work. I made the deal, and loaned my engineers to the reconstruction effort. The colony now had Republic picket ships. The Garrison commander wanted me to take more payment for the re-construction help, but I told him I was just glad to finally be of service to the Republic.
 That's when the other shoe dropped. I was offered the opportunity to take a couple of prisoners back to the core worlds, where I would again be inspected and they would be replaced with droids. I was then to put up a convincing fight but let "Pirates" take the droid copies and good luck surviving. Rogue Squadron would jump in in time to save us from being blasted. Or would pick up our lifeboats if we got shot up anyway. I left most of my crew behind on the Star Destroyer Liberator, just to keep them safe. Unfortunately I awoke before I could tell how the dream came out.

--
ad astra per technica,
FF

Sunday, November 13, 2005

Abstract Dream and Alien Acrobats

I was looking at a plane, it had a black empty squiggle through a field of dark green so dark as to almost be black. Along what might be described as the shore of the pitch black river, twisting through the plain were spots of greenscreen green lights. I moved closer to the shore of the darkness and could make out small dashes of green, where they overlapped and reinforced themselves they were brighter. Along the shore there were grids and random patterns of the dashes that almost looked like the lights of a city from the air, except they were all dashes and green. There were some islands of light in the river of darkness, they were more congested and thus brighter than the places along the shore. I felt the program start. I was a small "A" shaped set of dashes in the stream, SP was a "0-=" shaped set of dashes. I am not sure how I knew it was SP, but I did. We were patrolling for pirates. As the simulation ran I found one of the islands rushing towards the shore. I tried to find a way to slow them down, they turned and crashed into the shore. Dashes flared and dimmed as they moved randomly everywhere. I noticed the shimmering as the structure broke up and the individual dashes swept out across the plane. I zoomed out and saw a similar thing happening everywhere along the river. Especially where SP and I had tried to intervene. The simulation was reset, and run again. We tried even harder to get things to run smoothly, at one point we came across a "Y" and "X" shaped pirate swarm, they were shooting at one of the islands. We swarmed down on them in a scene reminiscent of the old Space Wars video game. Our ammunition seemed to be tiny bright dots, the only shape in the simulation that wasn't a dash, until I realized the dots were the intersection of an "*" of dashes that whirled madly as they approached their target. On striking the target broke up and became ineffective. SP was struck by the pirates and lost half of her '=' suddenly she couldn't move as fast. I told her to hit "S" even though there didn't seem to be a keyboard involved for me. A glowing circle of intertwined dashes appeared around her icon. The pirate "*"s whirled off of her shield, shattering into their dim components. Each strike took a few dashes out of her shield. The pirates defeated, I zoomed out. Again, every island we'd attempted to influence and therefore all of the shore lines were disrupted. The simulation was reset again. This time we focused on just taking out the pirates, before they could attack an island cluster (I was starting to think of them as cargo or colony ships.) The Islands moved very slowly with no interference from us or the pirates. They turned gracefully and altered their shapes at the last moment to dock perfectly with the city like shore features. After mopping up pirates, SP and I also were able to successfully dock with a shore line city, where all of our damage was repaired. After a few minutes, the newly reconfigured Islands launched themselves into the dark river, and began to move up and down stream towards far shores, where I somehow knew they would be starting new shoreline features and sending dashes into the dark but not completely black interior. I found that SP and I could escort some of the island caravans for some sort of profit. We were not the only guardian vessels in the simulation. There were many others like us, but typically they stayed with their own fleets. We were the only mixed flight in the simulation. As we pulled back to scan for pirates, I noticed that I had a display of slightly over 100 dashes, they were replenishing about 6 a second, and I used about 12 a second at full thrust. It looked like a shot cost 4 dashes and the shield was a full 36 dashes. I think I had Power, Thrust, Hull, Weapons, Shield, Generators. The Generators added Dashes to the Power store, the Thrust, Weapon and Shield areas funneled those power dashes into usable form, and the Hull was the shape holding all of the components together. Despite the linear nature of the record and how it reminded me of a spaceship simulation, there was the feeling of organic control, almost like it was a personal projection into this nearly two dimensional world. SP and I got the bright idea to merge our two avatars. We were successful and able to create the dreaded double shot which was 6 dashes, and spinning at twice the speed. It tore apart pirate "X" and "Y" fighters in a single hit, as well as making short work of the pirate mother ship when we finally discovered it. It was sort of like a computer virus, spitting out little Pirate fighters in every direction. There was no real sign of intelligence in the motor ship or the small fighters.

I was part of a performance troupe that had become stranded on a small world when our theater engagement fell through. The theater had burned down. We were trying to make some money by performing on the street, but kept getting rousted by the local constabulary. Eventually we met a group of four armed long Blue-chalky-fur covered aliens. Their mouths were just above their stomachs, and they had an incredible sense of balance. They were also stranded. They were originally a singing group, although their music sounded like Kodo drumming. We taught them some of our acrobatics, and made drums for some of our members. They really liked the funny clicking noises we could make and so we combined our act. First job was at a human owned circus. The aliens in the crowd went wild when we came on and started drumming with the songs, and then when we started making pyramids and tumbling down from a six alien high tower then thrown from level to level back to the top, all the while drumming, juggling and adding human song, the humans in the crowd went crazy as well. We had a multi species standing ovation. Ed Sullivan was in the audience. He made his way back stage to our tent, and started a bidding war with the Circus owner and The Welk Show (not Mr. Welk himself, he'd dead.) The eight foot tall alien band leader and myself listening and weighing the arguments. The alien band leader had trouble taking me seriously, as I sounded like a baby to him. I tried to explain that he sounded like thunder. He had no idea what thunder was. That is what convinced him to go with the Welk show, he wanted to come to earth and hear thunder.

Friday, November 11, 2005

Elemental Powers

Dreamed I was running around a hilly plain in giant clown shoes with super sticky racing soles. I was running so fast I was making the bottom of the shoes all melty. I came to a tower in a low valley, I zoomed around a crowd to get close to see what it was.
ZZZZZT! lightning shot out of the tower through me. I was well insulated so only got a little bit of a jolt. I ran away from the tower as a flight of small gryphon type creatures burst from it and began chasing everyone around. I was able to lead them away from the escaping crowd, and looped back towards the tower. As they converged on me I farted, stomped my clown shoes on the ground and a blast of flames swept them away. I ran back to the crowd to let them know they were safe. They all cowered from me. At least that's what I thought at first.
I turned around to see a huge wall of water climbing up into the sky and then breaking directly overhead. I farted again, and the wave was blown back up into the sky, dissipating into thick cloud cover.
I didn't stay around, somehow I didn't think a farting superhero power would be really popular, even if I did just save everyone. Besides the air reeked of sewer gasses.

Thursday, November 10, 2005

Journalism Conference

I was with a small group of writers and radio journalists at a party after a seminar or conference of some sort. We were hanging out with Ted Leitner, local sports commentator. His limo, a fat white caddy, came to take us all back to the hotel. I had an MP3 recorder, so asked if he would answer some questions on the record. He agreed and I conducted an interview that included a couple of tough questions about his time as a political commentator/activist. When I was done he congratulated me on an excellent interview. He felt it was tough but fair, and that I didn't try to spin anything he had to say. I explained that I was really trying to bring some real reporting skills and journalism skills to my little online empire. He liked the SNNS policy of making the original interview material available as well as the written "good parts" portion.
A couple of the folks with us asked if I had job openings in SNNS. Ted jokingly asked if he could come in a do some interviews for us. I said of course he was more than welcome, I'd even make a special place for him. Then I realized he wasn't really joking. Very cool.

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FF

Wednesday, November 09, 2005

Fluffy Greycloud and the Rocket of DOOM!

Large Grey and White Tuxedo cat was the ringleader of a strange cult that built a giant rocket of DOOM and were preparing the launch it against the capital in a bid to cow us into submission. I was working with a double agent and when she decided it was time to strike, I held her back, just enjoying for the moment the idea of getting to elect an all new congress, senate and replace the current top third of the beaurocracy. Then I realized that there were a million and a half regular folks, going from home to work to home who weren't culpable for the mess we were in. As we made our way to the rocket control center we were captured in true James Bond fashion and taken to the top of the rocket to be fried as it lifted off past us.
I managed to snag the fluffy dictator's cape on the way up and dragged him to the top of the platform then threw him off. Being a cat, with, effectively, a giant silk parachute, he bounced off the walls and girders, landing with a loud thud on all fours at the bottom of the tower.
"Hand me that gun," I shouted to the guard next to us. The double agent girl grabbed the soldier's rifle and handed it to me.
Like in most of my dreams, the darned thing was empty. I remember mentioning that to her as we raced down the stairs of the launch tower, looking for a place to escape the inevitable blast. The guard was running down the tower with us, as he realized he was going to be sacraficed as well.

Tuesday, November 08, 2005

Four Random Scenes

I was walking along a hillside, trying to remain undetected. I noticed that the entire hillside was covered with robots and androids from every science fiction film I'd ever seen. When the bad guy's airship came over the horizon, I scrambled to find a group of broken down humanoid looking robots, and pulled my left arm into my jacket and stuck some wires and such out of the sleeve. When I laid down to pretend I was also broken a couple of the robots started talking to me.

I was at my parent's house looking out over the back fence. There were Chinese fighter bombers being chased through the sky by our Marine Interceptor, and giant helicopters. Both were racing after giant cigar shaped craft with five or six rows of porthole like windows. Smaller flying saucers were circling around the cigar shaped craft and occasionally chasing off the Marine and Chinese aircraft.

Again at my parent's house, I heard a loud mechanical noise out in front and stepped out the front door to see a tow truck unloading a large beige vehicle. Cecil (My old plymouth satellite) I thought. But when I made my way around Mom's white EUV I saw a large commercial style pickup truck with a nasty bowling ball crushed in spot on the driver's side passenger door. I flagged down the driver. "This isn't ours!" I shouted. He didn't want to hear it. I made him stop and show me the towing order, It wasn't even for the same numerical address. He was pissed and drove off. I took the number from the side of the truck and called the company up and told them what happened. The same driver was dispatched to tow the vehicle out of our driveway. He was really ticked off then.

I was outside of my parent's house, again. I saw a strange filmy material stretched over the west side of the roof out to the bushes in the front. (The bushes have been gone for nearly 20 years.) I stepped out and found the material was very stretchy and tough. I could however, rip it easily once I cut through an edge. I started winding the sheet up on an old broom. It was like an aerogel version of pallett wrap. As I was winding it from around the bushes and had just started up the driveway the neighbor's grandkids came out to see what I was doing. I kept winding until I was standing in the driveway. I gave the panel a shake trying to dislodge it from the roof. The wave curled through the material up over the roof then I felt a tug as it cleared the back of the roof out of sight. Suddenly a 5 foot diameter roll of the stuff shot into the air and arched towards me. It was attached to my little one inch roll by a 50 foot span of the material. I started rolling the broomstick madly trying to take up the slack. The kids shouted because it looked like it was going to crush me. Then the wind took it like a kite and swept it out to the east over the garage. I stopped pulling and allowed it to settle on the roof. It barely made a noise. The pressure of the wind almost kept it from rolling down into my arms, but it did as though it was in slow motion. I caught it. It weighed a couple of pounds at the most. Very strange, like a giant ball of cobwebs.

I also had one of my hypnopompic hallucinations this morning. I smelled the smell of rotting flesh, and had the feeling of being paralyzed. Then a robed figure with skeletal hands passed through the room. I felt all of the cats press in tight around me and they all stopped purring at once. The death figure continued through the house, finally leaving out through the garage door. When I struggled awake, four of the cats did have me pinned in place. The room had gotten a little chilly over night, and neither Midge or I had turned on our electric blanket (king size with separate controls for each of us. She's a 10, I rarely ever put the thing above L which is actually below 1.)
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Fermius

Sunday, November 06, 2005

Interstellar Space and a New Race

I was part of a crew of a couple of dozen on the maintenance staff of a giant colony transport. We were headed to a far off world that was undergoing terraforming. Our journey was expected to take about 240 years or more. We were provisioned to keep our 120,000 or so sleepers alive for about 500 years, so had some room for error.
The twelve of us were mostly idiot savants, tech talented people who'd been converted into cyborgs. Only about 4 of were of the more fully mentally functioning sort, but psychologically we'd been the only ones who'd passed the battery of tests to determine that we would be able to live the day in and day out exitance for half a millennium or more. The trip was pretty much looking at the blinking lights and then taking care of whatever had caused the sensors to trip. We kept most of the maintenance crew in near sleep, linked into a VR utopia for stimulation, waking them with a slow transfer to meat space when we needed their special skills for maintenance or repair tasks. Many of the kids, as I thought of them, were able to work hundreds of days in a row on routine tasks with little or no supervision. There were a couple of them who's VR environment looked remarkably like their day to day existence.
About 114 years into the trip, two VR lifetimes for most of our charges, we were using a previously thought to be planetless sun to provide some free acceleration onto the final leg of our journey. The 100 ships in the fleet began to coordinate our observations of the system and then fall into line to swing through. We were then contacted by a tight beamed radio communication. I started as a pulse, then four pulses then four pulses, a negative pulse, and four more pulses, then more increasing sizes finally up to 1025, etc. I figured out the pulses were defining a square frame, and we sent back a similar frame 1024 square. Then we received an image. Almost photographic of a pair of wasp like aliens. We sent back a photo of a pair of humans. Over the course of our 7 month swing through their system they stayed in contact with us and even managed to mount an uncrewed mission to get a closer look at our ships and selves.

Friday, November 04, 2005

Other Universe Day

Went through an entire work day, but I was not performing my usual work, I was meeting all day with vender/suppliers looking at finding a more effective way of getting systems into the field. When there were problems I wanted replacement systems and parts on my shelves for configuration and repair. I was managing a maintenance department with the goal of 30 minute turn around on hardware, and two hours on software. Not all of my suppliers could meet our demands so we were trying to make a deal about keeping certain stock levels at the shop in exchange for some of the venders shop being co-hosted, as it were, in our facility. It was such a realistic dream it ended with my coming home and laying down for a nap. I didn't wake up thinking I had dreamt, until I started trying to remember what I had dreamed.
--
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FF

Thursday, November 03, 2005

Only One Image

Although it is a lovely image. In the living room, I was moving the furniture. Midge was in a corset and shorts, waiting with the vacuum cleaner.

Wednesday, November 02, 2005

Cars and Babes

Black Humvee
Driver's seat and controls swiveled around so you could drive it backwards as fast as forwards. I referred to it as the "French" model.
Something Else
Involving cats and road trips.
Theater Conference
At a conference for Theater Writers and directors, there was a performing troupe of dancers who were all in green leotards and filmy skirts. On one of the patios there was a redhead with ankle length hair, she was having her hair plaited with fan pine like hair inserts, giving the impression that her plaits were held in by a green and gold basket. I continued around the building as the troupe was getting ready to dance through the assembled guests. A couple of them stopped to talk to me, they had been students at the Middle School and High School where I had worked. They were quite grown up now, no real way I could have recognized them. They were excited to find out that my show was on right after theirs, they promised that they would convince the rest of the "Witches Brew" to come and watch the 'Pupperal and EdgerAllentry Show." Witches Brew was the name of their dance company. The other was my brain's dream riddle for "Doggeral and Poetry Show."
Bank Robbers
I was staying in a hotel along the coast. I was out on the private beach talking with a woman who looked a lot like Bernadette Peters, only a little taller and younger. She was being kind of coy about her own background, but that was OK, I was just enjoying her company. We heard a bang up from the area of our rooms. She suddenly looked very concerned. There were shouts and cursing from the room next to mine. Then sirens in the distance. Two guys burst out onto the patio, covered in hot pink phosphoresent dye. "Come on, we've got to get out of here!" they shouted at the girl.
"My Clothes!" she indicated her bikini clad body.
They waved her away and ran around to the parking lot.
"You bastards!" she started up the beach after them.
I raced after her, shouting, "Get your things, they have to drive back around this way." I stopped in the road outside our rooms and she raced into her room to grab her bag. The car came screeching around the corner. I waved them to slow down. They did and flung the driver's side back passenger door open. She flung her back into the back seat, and they sped off, leaving her.
She raced after the car, I ran after also, "Drop her bag at least!" but they didn't, clearing the driveway and shooting out into traffic just in front of a police car. They stopped. The girl was right behind me "Oh, shit!"
"They just took my girl's bag!" I shouted at them. They looked at one another and then called into the radio before pulling out after them.
I took off my shirt and handed it to the girl. "I better not regret this."
We went back to the rooms. I poked my head into their room, there was a suitcase full of dye covered money. I stepped in, carefull not to touch anything with dye on it. I got the rest of the woman's bags and brought them to my room. She rapidly got dressed. "They're going to want to have descriptions and know what they took." I'm going to have to have some clue. I suppose the police are going to know what you look like?"
"No, I was just in the car in back, laying down, I didn't want to be a part of this. I knew it would go bad. The bastards took my purse. I should have just taken the car and left them at the bank."
"Why didn't you?" I was already regretting being in the middle of this.
"Bobby is my brother. Damn it! They took my purse, my life savings was in there! Over three thousand dollars. I got to get out of here."
"No, lets tell them exactly what happened as it happened. You got ripped of, too. Did you know they were going to rob the bank?"
"NO! See, I can't even convince you." She plopped down on the bed. "I didn't even unpack, I was planning on calling a cab after they went to sleep and getting out of here. Shit, shit, shit!" She dropped her head into her hands crying.
"I don't think you'll have too much trouble, especially if they catch your brother and your friend."
"My brother's boyfriend, I always hated him. Damn it! I knew they were up to something, lets just go to the beach for the weekend! We'll help you move out. Shit!" She was really angry. "I was going to rent a place and just stay here! These bags are everything I own except the futon."
"I don't think you have all that much to worry about. It is going to be open and shut against those two, you've already gotten your stuff out of their possession, except your purse, which they ripped off. You will get that back in a few hours if you just tell the truth, and it checks out." I could tell my last comment hurt a bit, but I didn't want to make it seem like this was going to be easy. "I'd better extend the room for another couple of days, are you staying." I meant until the police arrive, I figured they would take here in for a day or so.
"I..." she looked at me thinking she just wanted to run out of here. Then she wiped her tears, making a decision that caused her to square her shoulders. "Sure, but you don't have to do that. I can get my own room."
"When you get your purse back. Until then I figure I'll just stay around an extra couple of days, it's nice here."
The police knocked on our door. "The truth," I whispered to her.
They separated us to ask us questions, and they did take her bags and her to the station. I answered their questions. The police officer doubted that she'd be out any time soon. I suggested that they wait until they had her brother's story before the arraignment decided that.
"If they catch them."
"Helicopter, license plate, full descriptions, photos, dye a half dozen police cruisers..." I shrugged. "Look at me, Who'd expect me to be caught up in something like this, it has to happen to someone. The beach is nice, I think she's worth waiting for a day or two." I smiled at her. "Besides, you might think of something you might want to ask me later. There's a cute little bar on the beach here if you think of something."
She rolled her eyes and shook her head. She walked away talking into her radio, I went back out to the beach, watching the forensics crew sweep the hotel room for evidence. I had a good feeling that I might see one or both of the ladies I'd met this evening.

Tuesday, November 01, 2005

Vehicle Showroom

I was in a vehicle showroom. There were parts of a new 3 wheeled hybrid all over the showroom. The idea was to show the customer how unique you could make your vehicle. There were two or three frames, a dozen or more seating choices, a couple of different cargo choices, and more than twenty possible color schemes to chose from. In addition there was a nifty set of three body parts each with 3 to 4 choices of styling so there were over 100 possible body combinations. I told them this was all exciting, but asked what was the actual gas mileage on the most efficient combination I could put together. 34 MPG was the answer, and they bravely asked what mileage I was getting. I pointed out to the red hybrid in their parking lot and I could see the sales girl slump. "Just over 50 in traffic, better when I can get out of the stop and go."
I still thought their "build your own" approach was very cool and told them so. I also pointed out that if they used the ten year old technology that was in my car, because of how much lighter their vehicle was, they would have much better mileage numbers.