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Fermius Firefly

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

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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.

Sunday, July 23, 2006

Mildly Erotic Content Warning: Silver, Redhead, Blonde and Brunette in the Hill House.


      I dreamed I was in the countryside, having broken down on a winding mountain road a couple of miles below the unattended orchards and vineyards of a large hillside home. I knocked on the front door and was greeted by a silver haired woman, who, while old, was still very attractive. We spoke for awhile, and she invited me to call S, a cute redhead, to join us rather than waiting in the car. I then called a tow company. S was worried that she wasn't going to get back to school in time for her first day of classes (Her senior year in college, she didn't want to get off on the wrong foot with any of her instructors.)
      While we were talking about renting a car to get S to the airport, the silver-haired woman suggested that I borrow her car. She hadn't been out for a ride in a couple of years and would like to see what the world looked like nowadays. We followed her out to her garage, which was a converted carriage house. There was an old square windowed dark blue automobile. I think it was a Bentley from nearly a century ago. It turned over and purred like a kitten. We drove down to the bottom of the hill and transferred S's and my luggage to the very large trunk.
      We reached our hotel, but SHW insisted we go one block further and when we arrived, the doorman rushed out to greet us. "This is my hotel," she explained, then asked if her suite was ready.
      "Yes Ma'am."
      "My nephew and his fiancee will be staying with me."
      "Yes Ma'am, I'll have the guest rooms prepared."
      S started to protest but SHW gently touched her arm to shush her.
      "Just the large guest room, modern times, modern times."
      S blushed all the way down to her elbows, he skin even darker red than her hair.
      As we rode up in the VIP elevator, SHW explained that S would have the room to herself as I would be entertaining SHW this evening. I was a little nervous about that.
      It turns out that SHW was even more attractive than I initially thought. While we were entertaining each other, she explained that she'd decided to give me her estate and business, based on the background check she'd run on me while walking up to her house. I was stunned. The conditions were simple, I had to visit her at least once a week until she passed away, and she figured that would be relatively soon. She also wanted to make sure I really married S.
      I told her that would be unlikely as I was twice her age.
      "I'm older than you by more, it didn't seem to bother you any."
      "That's a little bit different."
      "It won't be, when she finds out you own all this."
      "I don't think that's going to make any difference with her."
      "She's a woman, trust me on this, give her a year out of her college, keep seeing her, you'll see. You'll see."
      We spent most of the night with her going over her estate and holdings so I would know what was happening. She even told me which of her financial managers were ripping her off, and asked that I wait until she was gone to confront them with the evidence, she just didn't want to kick up a fuss that might become public and spoil her remaining few months.
      In the morning I drove S to the airport, explaining about the sudden windfall, that I would be taking over her home, while she stayed here in her suite. I would be able to write, either working from the Hill House, or coming into town where she actually had an office in this building on the same floor as her suite. S seemed a little bit jealous of the time I spent with SHW, an emotion I hadn't expected to see involving me. At the airport I received a much more than friendly goodbye kiss.
      I worked int he office, the commute to the hill house was much shorter than the one I'd used to make. (Or that I actually make.) I spent the night a few times a week with SHW and we actually went out on the town a couple of times. There were even a couple of photographs in the gossip section, and I flat out told them I wasn't her nephew, and we wouldn't be making changes in her business arrangements as she liked things just the way they were. Over the course of a couple of weeks every one of her CFO or CEO's had come to visit me. I assured them that they would continue to have the same authority they now enjoyed with their companies, unless they thought they deserved otherwise. I noticed a couple of the businesses seemed to be suddenly running more smoothly and more profitably. Interesting.
      SHW insisted that I spend the week of the full moon at the house, "You must see the pool and hot tub by moonlight, it is amazing."
      I was settling into a room overlooking the pool and hot tub when I saw a couple of shapes slip over the stone wall. I made a note to have the iron bars reattached to the top of the wall. I was in a robe with a towel over my shoulders, so headed down to the pool.
      I stepped around the heated waterfall and slipped into the hot tub with my two visitors.
      Girlish yelps and both of them ducked down to their chins arms across their naked breasts. "What are you doing here?" shouted the blonde woman.
      "I live here," I held up the gate keys to the pool area as a visual aid. "So what brings you here."
      "Uh..uh, UH!" the brunette was obviously orgasmic. There was a small statue of a tentacled thing in the water with jets pouring out the base of each of its tentacles. She was rubbing on one with the jet aimed at her pubic area.
      "I see." I reached over and touched the top of the statue. Instantly I felt a connection with an overpowering maleness, it flowed through me. The brunette thrashed around in an even deeper orgasm, reaching out and grabbing on to my arm.
      "What?" the blonde moved to pull the brunette's arm away, "We'll just be going."
      When her hand missed the brunette she slipped into me, we were eye to eye as she stood to right herself, revealing full but firm breasts, glistening in the moonlight. Her eyes were the palest blue I think I've ever seen. She lowered herself, but in so doing placed herself directly over a tentacle and jet. I could feel her excitement.
      "You don't have to go, you and your friend are welcome here as long as you aren't causing any damage. Just come up to the house and let me know you are here, that way you won't have to climb the walls." All the while I was talking to her I could feel the statue as though it was part of me. I moved up to her as part of the statue. She sank against me, then around me. The brunette moved off of her jet and pressed herself against me. She was slender but soft.
      "Thank you," she whispered, then reached for me under the water.
      The statue still had a connection to the blonde and I was soon making love to the brunnette, all of us connected but part of me far away wrapped in the cold water of some great depth, enjoying the warmth and energy being generated by our quartet.
      At one point I could see the being's tentacles swirl against the cold current. Both women kissing over my face brought me back to the present and I found myself in the pale eyed blonde, feeling a tentacle reaching under me and around under her. I backed up against the statue so the warm water was jetting up between us. She tightened instantly and I felt her orgasm rush through her entire body.
      "Can ... we ... come ... back, tomorrow?"
      "I wouldn't want you to miss it." I almost invited them in, but realized there would be more mystery, tension, if I didn't. I watched both of them dry and dress, and got goodbye kisses and hugs from them before letting them out of the pool area, this time by the gate.
      I swam in the pool, the temperature was nearly freezing compared to the hot tub. Again, as I dived deep, I felt the connection to the consciousness attached to the statue in the pool. A deep satisfied connection that stayed with me all the way back in the house. I noticed that the aura stayed with me even after the next two days had passed. The young man who'd come back with the girls on the second night never seemed to be affected by it, other than to decline returning on the third night. (I'd gotten the impression he might have been gay.)
      When I returned to SHW I offered to take her with me next month, but she declined, saying she really was too old for that.
      

Sunday, July 16, 2006

Cutting off Andarial's Nose, Rats on a Rail


            Dream images were short and to the point, they had to be, I only slept about 30 to 40 minutes at a time. (Too humid and hot.)
      I was part of an adventuring group, sort of the standard wizard, cleric, fighter, thief pattern. as we approached a certain mountain pass, I indicated that the critters and encounters began to look familiar somehow. Then the six armed spider queen Andarial from Diablo II boiled up out of the Abbey catecombs. "That's it, I'm out of here."
      "But she's wearing the Mask of Harn, the item you swore to recover."
      "That's fine, but I have no armor to speak of, she's got an arm with a big-ass sword for each member of the party, and two to spare. If she's really like the Andarial of 'Legend' she spits poisen and has the killer ring of BO."
      "Fall back and let's make a plan."
      "I will take my little dagger and go far away." I said.
      "That's not a plan. We need you."
      "Right." I mad jabbing motions in the air with my little dagger. By this time the dream game had become fully immersive.
      We made our way back to the Abbey and lured Andarial outside (there were some significant differences from the video game.)
      I managed to sneak around behind her, climbed up a broken statue and, while she was spitting poisen at my companions, I jumped down on her back and managed to remove the mask as well as part of her nose. Racing into the Abbey catacomb hunkered down behind the mask, she didn't dare attack for fear of damaging it, I held my breath until I was out of her cloud of poisen breath. I wriggled around the catacomb finding the smallest crevice that I could squeeze through.
      I stashed the mask under some old funeral wrappings, and made my way deeper into the catecombs, looking for another way out.

      I came across a rail in a low hallway. I couldn't quite sit all the way up, so continued to crawl prone, having switched my dagger for a small two barrelled revolver. I didn't have it when confronting Andarial, too bad. It would certainly have evened up the odds a bit. I heard an odd sparking and whining from down the hallway to my left.
      Sparks approached along the rail embedded in the floor. I leveled the pistol and when I spotted the face of a large rat riding prone on some sort of sled I fired. Like most of my dreams, the shot went off into the darkness, without effect.
      I swore, and fired the second barrel, this time at the juncture of the cart and the rail.
      Much more successful. The cart sparked and rattled and jumped the rail. The rats leapt off the cart before it tumbled into the wall in front of them. I decided that discretion was in order and retreated, unfortunately missing a turn somehow, but ending up in a room with stairs out into the sunlight, and another small corridor leading deeper into the catecombs. I heard the sounds of Andarial fighting and shouting "Die! Maggots!" so started down the other passageway, until I saw several large unlead zombies shuffle past.
      "Time to rejoin the group, I guess."
      I reloaded my pistol and ran up the stairs out into the courtyard. My companions were racing from pillar to pillar, sniping at Andarial every time she would turn to face her most recent attacker. I could see that all three of my colleagues had somehow managed to stay alive, though they all looked much worse for wear. I raised my pistol, and looked down the barrels at the back of the demoness' head. I switched to the large scimitar in her top two arms, discharging both barrels. The sword snapped in half and flew in separate directions from her hands. She now had only four weapons, one for each of us. She spun towards me.
      "Hey, I wanted that sword!" the fighter shouted at me.
      I watched Andarial rear her head back and just before she snapped a potentially lethal loogie at me rolled back down the stairs. The poisen blast went sailing over my head, colliding with the zombies in the room below. They didn't seem to be bothered by it in the least. I heard Andarial shouting behind me, apparently my colleagues used my diversion to mount a rush from behind. I raced away from the zombies, finding myself directly behind Andarial at the top of the stairs. I jumped out with my little dagger and rode he body to the ground 15 feet below.
      The group shouted with joy at their success, until the zombies started falling on us from the platform.
      All the while the cleric and fighter are attacking the zombies they kept yelling at me to get the mask.
      I really didn't want to go into the rat infested darkness, though, until I knew there were no more zombies behind me, I grabbed two of Andarial's "Knives" more like short swords to me, and started helping make zombies into zombie remains.
      They wouldn't believe me when I told them there were rats on rails, and I needed to keep one of the swords at least. Finally I got so ticked that they weren't going to let me have any of the loot except the sword that I "broke" that I just went into the catecomb, made lots of shrieking noises, then took the mask back out behind them while they shouted down after me. I climbed down the far side of the platform and made my way back to the teleport pad without them. Yep.
      I turned the mask in, then spent almost a third of the award money on upgrading my armor and weaponry, and purchasing a little supply of cheap gemstones to give the rest of the group as their share of the reward.

      The dream shifted back to the tabletop, my fellow players were miffed at me, but the GM ruled that they had no way of knowing how much the award actually was, so had no basis for complaining about what they had from me. I hadn't claimed that I had gotten the mask by myself, though the GM pointed out that in fact, I had. So the whole group shared in the camp's festivities, and my companions made far more out of the small gems I'd shared with them than they would have anywhere else.
      I was smart enough to only show up in my new armor after we left for the next town.

Saturday, July 15, 2006

Antihistamine Dreams, Icy Fall, Atmosphere Baked Chicken, RV on a Train, ComicCon Moment


      While I seem to have more intense dreams when I have an antihistamine night, they aren't always the most coherent dreams. Last night was one of those evenings where everything I dreamed was in surround sound, technicolor and feel-around. In no particular order I remember the following bits:
      Falling down an icy embankment and leaping out into the slushy snow at the bottom, flat-footed in an attempt to "ski" over the wet slushy mess. I ended up buried to my knees is soggy wet snow.
      I replayed the conversation I had with SCV about Chinese restaurant already being established on the moon by the next time we send astronauts in that direction. I think I was refine my idea about lunar delivery.
      Atmosphere baked chicken, guaranteed delivery* within 90 minutes and 90 meters, or it's FREE!
      (*Not responsible for damaged roofing or autocars, customer is responsible for giving appropriate GPS coordinates for touchdown zone. Caution beware: Delivery bowl will be hot, please for allow cool time.)
      Another SCV segment, SCV, Myself and our wives were in the back of an RV having lunch when I suddenly asked, "Who's driving?" Every one jumped up to run to the front of the RV. The front windshield was missing and we were actually being carried on the back of a flatbed truck with a forklift strapped down in front of us. "How come we didn't notice that before?" I asked.
      "It's convertible," SCV replied, "See, the window just tucks in to this slot here." He pointed to the sunroof.
      "I meant the truck were riding on."
      "Oh. I don't know. I must have got here while we were sleeping."
      I opened the driver's side door and looked out. The truck was on a railroad car, and we were on a trestle bridge across a very deep canyon. N went and sat back down in the middle of the RV as far away from any windows as she could get. The rest of us were leaning out trying to figure out what was going on, or at least where we were. All I know is the trees in the canyon were a mix of temperate conifers and elms, maples and birches. There was also a river flowing at the bottom of the canyon, but well below the high water marks along its banks. I commented that I'd never seen it before, "And I've read a lot of 'National Geographics'."
      I dreamed of a skinny girl in a bright pink wig, she was singing, in an irritating falsetto, a Japanese song. People were shouting "Rock! Rock! Rock!" and all I could think was "One does not simply rock into Mordor." I found myself wondering why I'd allowed myself to be talked into attending the ComicCon Masquerade again.

Thursday, July 13, 2006

Nightmares On the Beach


      Nightmares, mostly of missing limbs, strange hairy wet creatures rising from their kelp covered slumber and lumbering up on to the beach while I was trying to roll up our sleeping bags and blankets. For some reason I couldn't just leave everything and run up the concrete stairs to the bluffs above.
      I dodged the creatures while carrying one bag rolled up under my arm and the other by the string closure was slung over my shoulder. It kept dropping off and swinging around to smack me in the thigh and get in the way while I was trying to fold the blanket. (Which looked like our old King sized bedspread had been quilted to a thicker under layer.)
      The creatures smelled like rotting fish and rancid cat food. I was struck in the back and tumbled into the bedspread, momentarily becoming tangled. The tide was coming in and the bottom of the blanket got wet, making it nearly impossible to fold.
      There were dozens of people on the bluffs overlooking the beach, all of them were screaming. The creatures were distracted by the noise and shambled to the bottom of the cliffs and howled up at the people on the bluffs above them. I tried to make as little noise as possible while making the final folds of the wet blanket. I wrung as much water out as I could and picked the soggy mess up and shouldered it along the waterline around the beach to the stairs.
      As I climbed the stairs I thought about how the nightmare part of the dream was over and it could only get better. M was about halfway up the stairs. His family had gone ahead and he was wrestling with his wheelchair to get up the last 20 steps or so alone. He was complaining loudly about the problems with his numb feet and having to walk up because no one was strong enough to push him. I tried to get him to quiet down a little bit, but he insisted on yelling up after his family. I put the two sleeping bags in his wheelchair. The shambling furry, seaweed covered beasts had honed in on his shouting and were shambling up the stairs behind us.
      I made my way down towards them and swung the wet blanket out like a floppy club. They didn't even try to dodge my blows. The wet blanket struck with my full swing and its own considerable weight. The first of the shamblers toppled down the stairs. It was too bad the stairway was so wide that it missed all of its followers. I stepped down and over, wound up to take the next one out. That one ducked. At least it wasn't advancing. I wound up and swung again, this time making a full circle and catching it as it stood back up. With a loud wet "smack!" it tumbled down after the first.
      I ran over to the next one, it ducked, twice. I realized I was going to have to do something different to stop each one, and there were still five of them coming up the stairs. I didn't know that the ones I'd knocked down would stay down. I swirled the blanket around in the other direction. It didn't seem to even see it coming that time and down the stairs it bounced squishing and gurgling at is rolled. The next shambler went down to the circle trick after ducking the initial blow. All I could think of for the next on was a double swing. It ducked twice, and sure enough my third pass struck it smack in the face, leaving a green ooze all over the blanket. It went tumbling down, but I knew that stain was going to be hard to remove. I advanced on the next across the stairs. Spinning in the opposite direction I managed to take it out also on the third pass.
      I was already dizzy, and had almost tumbled after that shambler, so paused to climb back up a half dozen of the wide steps. I looked down at he base of the stairs. The one I'd knocked down last had taken two of its fellows with it. There were only a couple left on the stairs, so I moved to be directly in front of their advance. The stopped, looking at me, thinking.
      When they moved to my left I moved with them. They stopped and thought again. The one further back stepping up closer, but the closest not advancing. They moved to the right.
      I moved with them. Again the one behind advanced to the step directly below its predecessor. I hefted the blanket into a circle and stepped down towards them. The first one ducked, but the second one took a full swing to the head and toppled over. The rolled up blanket dropped on top of the ducked shambler. It grabbed on. I tugged to the right, and then the left, but the shambler would not let go, and would not be moved. It was so heavy I wondered how I'd been able to knock any of them down. It pulled on the blanket, but rather than resisting I shot towards it, using the blanket like a battering ram (crash pillow?) and body checked the soggy mass. It dropped on its butt with a fish scented "floomp!" then tumbled backwards down the remaining steps. Taking my blanket with it the first couple of rolls. I raced after to recover the blanket, not so much now because N would be angry if I returned without it, but because blanket fu had been successful and I really didn't' want to try hitting them without it.

Saturday, July 08, 2006

Air Crash, Meeting Norman Spinrad


      I dreamed that N and I were changing planes in Chicago for a trip to New York. However, when we got there, the airline had a problem. Even though I had tickets, the airline didn't have seats for both of us. There was one seat available on the flight we were scheduled for, and one for the flight leaving 15 minutes later. After much grumbling, they agreed to give us refunds on both legs of the flight. I hurried N to her gate, and then rushed back to my own so I wouldn't be bumped again as a no-show.
      Then next thing I remember is intense pain in my feet and the feeling that I shouldn't be enjoying the cool breeze on my face. It seems the plane had run into some trouble on takeoff and I was now strapped to the middle seat of three, by myself, half buried in sand overlooking a small river or stream. I looked around.
      There was wreckage, seats, clothing, bodies, everywhere along the river bed. I unbuckled myself with some difficulty and pulled my legs out of the sand. I could hear sirens in the distance. There was a woman crying nearby. My feet pulled out of the sand, and I could feel bits of bone grinding along the tops of my feet. I nearly passed out. I managed to get clear of the wrecked seats, and wrapped my feet in some loose clothing that was lying around. I crawled over to where the crying was coming from.
      The woman was trapped in her twisted seat, she'd also been in the middle seat of the middle of the plane, just a couple of rows ahead of me, I recognized her Victorian costume. I helped her unbuckle the belt. Her dress and feet were also buried in the dune we'd been wedged into. I managed to get her out after much digging around, she wouldn't simple remove the dress and bustle. It seemed easier to dig than to argue with her. Finally free she stood up and looked up the river bed.
      I followed her gaze. Much of the aircraft was actually in the river, somehow we'd been thrown clear and the soft dunes had allowed us to survive, though I was quite sure both my legs were broken and my feet were pretty crushed. The stream was shallow and fast, but the river bed was at least ten times the height and width of the water rushing along its bottom. I thought the stream looked like it was swelling, rising towards us. Another survivor was a couple of hundred feet further up river from where we were. He was shouting at us.
      Although I couldn't make out what he was saying, she could. The river was rising, there'd been an explosion at the dam.
      "We need to climb out of the river bed." I could see that the river curved a few hundred feet further up from where we were, and that there was a levee or retaining wall, at least above the dunes caught in the curve. She shouted my observations to the other survivor and he began to trudge up the dunes towards the levee wall.
      I crawled along behind the woman and her silly bustle. It kept skewing over to one side, I was sure it was broken. The long dress, because the bustle was no longer doing its job, dragged through the sand and saw grass. She finally stopped and took the bustle off, then continued up the dunes holding her long skirt.
      I really couldn't walk so managed to pull myself from tuft of grass to tuft of grass. As I reached the top of a small dune I was able to see further up river. The dam had cracked and a large central part of it had collapsed. A wall of water was racing down the river channel. It reached the bend and banked off the retaining wall, slowing and churning against itself before bouncing to the other side out of view. I crawled faster, somehow managing to pass the woman in her bulky costume. I turned back and offered her a hand up the steep slope of the last dune before what I thought was the levee wall.
      The water rose below us, scouring most of the dunes away with it. We began to slide back down, but stopped after a few feet. The levee wall was actually below us, I could see the edge sticking out from the wet sand. The flood roared past, twelve feet or so below our position, well below the levee wall. The body of our aircraft was lifted and washed back out of sight, but I heard it grinding and groaning against the water. I hoped that the emergency crews had gotten any other survivors out of the plane. It was only at that point that I really noticed the flashing lights and helicopters in the sky. They finally seemed to have noticed us at the same time.
      The woman, still complaining finally looked down at me, thinking me rude for not standing with her, until she saw the condition of my feet and legs. My makeshift bandages were soaked in blood. My pants shredded and my calves looked more like sand covered slabs of meat. She fainted away and fell across my legs, causing me to pass out as well.
      I awoke in a hospital room. I was sharing it with a man who had many visitors. One of those visitors looked familiar, so I asked him his name.
      It was Norman Spinrad.
      I told him I'd been on my way with my wife to New York, to attend a Science Fiction writer's conference, and was looking forward to seeing him there. He didn't think it looked like I was going to be going anywhere. I had both feet and calves cast up to the knee. However, my doctor said there really was no reason why I couldn't be released, now that they were certain I didn't have but a minor concussion and no other internal injuries.
      I took a call from N, she was very worried and was still trying to get a flight back, but was not sure she wanted to fly. Norman suggested that she stay put, we would come to her. I raised and eyebrow.
      "I have a friend who's loaning me a stepvan to make the trip to New York. Not sure how I'm going to get it back to him, though."
      "N or I could drive it back for you, we have to catch our flight back to California from here."
      "You're going to fly again?"
      "Sure, what are the odds of being on two crashed planes?"
      So I found myself released, in the company of Victorian Woman and Norman Spinrad, turns out she was also heading to the Science Fiction Convention. They got me to the back of the step van, and I used a walker to get out of the wheelchair. She tossed the chair in the back of the van and I used my arms to pull myself up to the passenger bench just behind the door of the stepvan. I wasn't supposed to be putting any weight on my feet yet.
      We drove to New York, Victorian Woman and Norman Spinrad taking turns at the wheel while I navigated. We also talked about different story ideas, and Spinrad seemed to like the themes I'd come up with for "Final Symptom." I told him I'd love to see his version of it.
      I talked to N on VW's cell phone and she met us outside Buffalo. I really didn't want to know what the cab fare for that had been, but it turned out the airline paid for it. The airline had also paid for my luggage, even though the bags were loaded on N's flight. We couldn't get the adjustor to understand that I hadn't lost any luggage except my carry-on bag, which just had a sweater, my notebook-- a new empty one-- and some Mega M&Ms.)

Thursday, July 06, 2006

Alien Powers


      This morning's dream started with a murder. Not mine, thankfully, but one I witnessed.
      I was in the front yard of my home, not the one I have now, but a wonderful two story thing, working on taking out a few mustard plants and some large thistles. Even though I liked them, I knew that my neighbors wouldn't. The first because it was a "weed" native plant in a no longer native habitat, and the second because when it went to seed the whole neighborhood would be thistles if I didn't take the flowers off in time. My wife, not N in this dream, would enjoy the cut thistles, and the little yellow mustard flowers would make a nice contrasting filler both for the complementary color and size difference. A very Yin-Yang sort of arrangement was forming in my head.
      My visualization was interrupted by a large Asian man who floated down out of the sky and landed on the hydrangea bush. I though for a second that he's somehow jumped from the old playroom balcony, but a quick glance showed the balcony doors closed. The man looked angry, and his anger like himself, was larger than average. I dropped my trowel, a small part of me thinking I had just disarmed myself, a larger part registering that it wouldn't matter.
      He had an unusual tube in his arms, the tube had a very dark interior, darker than would be expected for what looked like a piece of translucent plexiglass tubing. Along the outside of the tube were several breadboards, attached with screws and standoffs, all wired together with carnival colored wires. The whole construction was about ten inches around and slightly over a yard long. As the open end of the tube swung by me, I was hit by a swirling double helix of prismatic light. I felt the pull of the beam, the oddness and alieness of it. The fact that it was way out of place, and now something had been triggered in my head that made me feel out of place. Something in the core of the tube pulsed, and I knew the next blast would be different, dangerous, though not deadly.
      I also knew I didn't have to worry about it, mostly because it wasn't going to hit me at all. The big Asian man turned the tube opening onto himself. He seemed to inhale the beam as well as soaked it into his face. I sensed that he knew I'd been struck with the more benevolent outpouring. For some reason this angered him.
      Paving stones from my front walk ripped out of the ground and hovered for a second at waist level. I knew what was coming next so dove behind a hedge just as the stones ripped through the brush seeking to crush my head. The Hibiscus bushes thickened and stopped the paving stones.
      Before the giant could launch a second attack, he'd dropped the tube and was ripping a post out from the covered walkway, another man appeared. He was tall and thin, with curly short brown hair and sharp hazel eyes that spoke of madness and pain. He spoke a single word to the giant in a language I didn't know, but somehow understood.
      "Time."
      There suddenly seemed to be tons of it. I wasn't sure, but I think everything outside the three of us slowed. I looked at the neighbor's yard, no one was looking at us, a car was about to turn down the street towards us, but the occupant was looking the other way for oncoming traffic. I drew further back towards the corner of the house. There was almost no sound from the cracking branches as I pushed past the brush. Everything was quiet, save for the thin crackle of the tube on the ground, and the voices of men in conflict.
      In a straight hand to hand conflict, I would not have given the thin man odds, but he was carrying a cane, which when he swung it, seemed to connect like a tire iron. The giant Asian's head crumpled on contact. The thin man guided the body down to the ground behind a pile of brush I'd already removed.
      While he was kneeling he retrieved the tube, then before I could think to move he was beside me, with an iron grip on my upper arm. His hands were warm, warmer than being in the sun could account for, warmer than his activity or any level of fever would account for. He dragged me into the house. Although I could easily have made an argument for me killing the man in the front yard as self defense, witness the thrown paving stones and the ripped out support post, what this man had done looked more like hunting. Somehow, even though everything had slowed, I knew that there were witnesses, and I knew that they saw me hitting the man on the head, not this killer. Up close I could see his eyes contained the same double helix coils of prismatic color swirling in the tube, which he managed to somehow close with his free hand.
      In my head I could feel that he was trying to alter my thoughts, erase his part of this, make it seem that I merely defended myself. I could tell he's already altered the neighbor's perceptions, that's how I knew what they though they were seeing, and how I had immediately thought of the self defense argument. Or at least had started to think that.
      The fact that he couldn't change my perceptions struck home. His demeanor, up to now a sort of gruff determination and urgent but calm action turned cold and hard, almost as though a switch had been thrown.
      "Did you see the pulse."
      "No, there was something wrong about it, I turned away." I knew that my response to his question was somehow going to determine whether there were going to be two murders today. Or perhaps three. My wife had just entered the room. My heart raced, she was in danger, I could feel it, but I could also feel, somehow, a way around it. My heart also raced because I could sense the immediate attraction between her and this man.
      My wife was still very attractive even after raising two daughters to adulthood (or nearly, our youngest was 17 and visiting with friends, the oldest 20 and away in college.) She had managed to maintain a full but real waistline and had a classic hourglass figure.
      "Who is this?"
      "An engineer, he came to ask about something in one of my articles."
      "I'm Carl, pleasure to meet you." He did something with his prismatic double helix that made her sit with a thump in a nearby chair.
      "I'd love to go back to your shop to see more, perhaps there is some sort of test."
      He looked at me, thought for a moment, then stood. "I would be grateful if you would come and witness a test. That would answer my question satisfactorily."
      "What about the yard."
      "If you give your husband up for a bit, I'll make sure there is help with the yard."
      "Oh, thank you! I look forward to seeing you this afternoon then."
      I could tell she was looking way to forward to seeing him this afternoon, but I couldn't tell if it was really her feeling that, or if he'd pushed somehow.
      I did feel him push her towards the pol in the back of the house with suggestions for making lemonade and tuna salad. Those activities would keep her out of the front room for quite some time. I wanted to warn him that we were scheduled to have a housefull of guests this afternoon, friends of my wife, writers and artists, mostly. he was working very hard to make me come along with him, which was odd, because I was willing to go, just because, again, for no particular reason, I knew that getting to his shop and testing would solve this part of the problem. I couldn't figure out how to deal with the body in my front yard, though. My leaving and not calling the police was going to be trouble. I could also feel that that was a natural worry, not a "Knowing" worry. I began to wonder what had happened to me.
      With a hand on my arm and one on my back the Thin Man walked me out to my car. It appeared that he didn't' have a vehicle, in fact, neither of them did.
      There was a whoosh and I found myself queasy stomached and floating in a tightly packed low G environment. Through some scratched and thin quartz windows, I could see the earth floating in space, wheeling freely outside the station. Even though the pace was cramped, it was not as cramped as the international space station photos. It was also obviously not entirely human construction. It looked a bit like something from a Sci-Fi channel special, only it smelled musty and spicy at the same time. I looked around. There were some other technicians around. They looked at me, all of them with prismatic double helix spirals in their irises.
      "Exposed?"
      "Yes, but I can't tell where in the cycle."
      "Ronny"
      "I had to kill him." The Thin Man sounded remorseful for the first time.
      "Did you see a pulse?" directed at me.
      I decided to tell them the whole incident as I recalled it. Pulse and all. Including the bit about knowing that the burst after the pulse would be bad, but that their colleague had turned the tube to take that full in the face.
      "But you saw the pulse?"
      "I saw a pulse, just before a burst."
      "Quick, review Ronny's tapes." the lead researcher ordered two white jump-suited fellows, then to me "come with me, I want you to take some tests."
      I started after her, difficult in the low gravity, but I managed far better than I had any right. I noticed the Thin Man had taken a syringe from one of the other staffers and was following not far behind us.
      What followed was a series of tests and attempts to exhibit just about every classical parapsychology talent ever tested.
      "Are you sure you saw the pulse?"
      "Yes, I'm sure. Maybe the circuit boards were faulty, or some connections were missing?"
      The doctor looked at me like I was an idiot. "That was just our monitoring equipment, it was all broken and ripped apart. Look here. She led me to another part of the station, very alien here, obviously not made for the passage of large human beings, now I know why most of the staff were slender. I wondered how Ronny had gotten in to take the thing. He was larger than Me by at least half again.
      There was a series of holes along the curved reddish brown walls of the narrow tunnel, all of them but one had plexiglass tubes connected to detectors and bundles of wires running out of the area into a nearby chamber, one large enough for several technicians to monitor even more screens of data.
      "Three of us were exposed when we first investigated this place. Ronny, Eric and myself. Eric and I noticed something right away and I ordered the tubes covered until we could learn more. I didn't see a pulse and the effects were temporary." I could hear the regret in her voice.
      "Eric saw a pulse, and was out for three days. When he came back to us, he was, changed." I could hear real regret in that comment. There was something else there as well, pride, fear, I couldn't quite make it out at first, then it hit me all at once, sex. I had to take a drift back from her to avoid being overwhelmed. I don't think the effects on her were temporary, but didn't want to spoil her lecture by mentioning it.
      "Eric can do, with some effort, every single psychic effect we've ever heard of and I suspect some we haven't."
      "Like teleporting us up to orbit?"
      "He just called the locator beam to you, that's a bit of alien tech, it is sort of a wormhole elevator, not really a transporter. Eric is limited to what energy his biology can supply, that's why he's so thin."
      "Ronny was different." She anticipated my question. "He claimed there were no effects, but Eric was suspicious. We watched him. Watched him grow fat over the last six months. He spent a lot of time at the windows, watching the earth. Finally we managed to get it out of him that he'd been able to see remotely since the incident. What he didn't tell us was that there was something wrong. We were about to confront him when he took the transport beam and dropped into your front yard. We found tapes, tapes of your family, uh, sunning around your pool. He seems to have become fixated...."
      "You can see into our back yard?"
      "Not with technology, camera tech is good, but not good enough to see through trees and roofs. No, somehow Ronny figured out how to put his remote viewing images on disk."
      Eric handed her a disk, "I don't know how he did it, it's one of the things I can't do."
      The disk played. It was a combination of internet websites, my youngest daughter posing provocatively in photos on her web site, mixed with remote viewing of my home, the girls sunbathing out by the pool, playing in the pool, nude by the pool, my wife and I in our bedroom. "Enough, I'd like to remind you that my daughter is still minor."
      "You don't think the top will come off on her website in a few months?"
      I sighed. I knew all about my daughter's web site, that she was an exhibitionist, and yes, I was sure she would be populating a "Members Only" section with more intimate photos. She didn't know I knew, and that was enough for now. I made a note to talk to her about keeping as much of her personal and private information personal and private, just to keep the stalkers to a minimum.
      "That's still a few months away. So, he took one of the prismatic things and took off to make good on stalking my family. I should be glad you stopped him."
      "Yes, well, the problem is, we couldn't find anything in his tests either."
      "So you think the prismatic thing makes people evil?"
      "Not really, but it may give huge powers beyond our ability to control or handle. We just don't know. The fact that you were exposed to the same energy as Ronny does have us worried."
      "So you want to kill me, too?"
      Eric chimed in, "No, I'm quite convinced that although you were exposed, your power level is either the highest we've seen yet and you are keeping us from detecting it, or your level is the lowest we've seen yet. I can get absolutely no malice, save in defense of yourfamily, and that is a good thing, I think. You do seem to have an uncanny ability to say or do just the right thing to smooth things along in your favor, but that seemed to start in your front yard, even before you were exposed. I'm quite sure Ronny intended to land on you and kill you outright."
      "Are you sure these prismatic Helixes aren't alive? Maybe they're controlling the effects."
      They looked at one another. Finally the director smoothed her jumpsuit and spoke, "I think they're alive but in some sort of stasis. But I'm the minority view on that one. I thought my exposure was more of a conversation... Just a hallucination most likely."
      "I think we should bring back the one Ronny stole, then."
      Everyone became silent. Then there was a burst of activity.
      "Oh, Lord! How could you have forgotten to bring the container back with you?"
      Eric had no answer, but I did. I knew the prismatic being was, in fact, a being. I knew it was in my house surrounded by many highly intellectual guests, and I knew that it was not in stasis any more, it was dying, it was looking for hosts for its eggs or children. I explained that as we rushed to the elevator. I also knew that it wasn't Ronny that was infatuated with my family, it was the prismatic Helix.
      We arrived in my driveway next to the car. There was a cement truck in the front, pouring concrete in the place of my front yard garden. I took a moment to be angry at Eric for ruining my home. He indicated that it wasn't him.
      Inside the house, our party had turned into an orgy. My wife was waiting for me with the tube, she stared into it for a moment, then declared that we could not stop her. I could see the tendrils of the Helix as it encouraged our guests to mate, it combining its energy DNA Helixes with those of our guests. I knew that nearly every couple here would conceive a child that would be more than a normal human child. There was something faulty in the containment of the prismatic Helix. Its energy was occasionally altered such that the controlled and balanced energy that Eric and the director displayed was corrupted and altered, enabling a problem like Ronny to occur. I could feel the twist coming on, my wife was waiting for it, having already had a dose.
      I started after her, she leapt up to the second floor balcony, skimming over an embracing couple on the stairs. "I will be able to do anything, you will all have to do as I say."
      I could feel the Helix warning about the upcoming blast of energy, not promoting it, but warning about it. It couldn't control it, but it was warning us about it. That is how I'd avoided it before. Ronny had found it a siren song, just as my wife did. She aimed the tube at me. I stepped up into the air climbing as though on invisible steps.
      "No, you can't, you haven't had...."
      I reached my wife and aimed the tube into the floor, feeling the burst, the corrupt pulse pour into the floor and through it into the earth below. Fortunately there was no one beneath us.
      The tube was quiet. I turned to look into my wife's Prismatic Helix filled eyes, she'd taken a full lump of Off center energy. She grabbed the tube and stared into its depths. The Helix responded, giving its last energy to balance the energies flowing through my wife. Not enough, though, and it faded into nothingness. Eric and my wife were drawn to one another like magnets. Eric had Helix energy from a different Helix, I could see that now, so did the director. I found her suddenly very attractive. I stepped over my oldest daughter and her boyfriend to get to her. We then levitated up to the master bedroom to join Eric and my wife.
      Photos were somehow taken, and made their way on to my daughter's web site a few months later. We had a long talk about that. The photos were removed, but she got to keep her site (She was 18 by then, so i couldn't really have made her quit.)
      Every woman at the party had a very unusual gestation, 9 new Helixes were born/produced, after only a few months. The babies seemed to be solar powered, and very lightweight. I knew they would stay with us for a decade or so , then metamorphosize into the same form as their elders whom they would go and recover from stasis. Interestingly, we all seemed to have no trouble keeping the secret from the government, even though the government was funding the research on the alien satellite. These Helixes were our children, and they loved us as children love parents, but part of them was alien to us and always would be.
      Aside from the one time walking on air, I never did exhibit any other showy "psychic" abilities. I did seem to know what to say or do, or where to go to make things go my way. Where to be to make sure our kids stayed out of trouble. My wife needed some fairly long sessions with other Helix exposed to recover and maintain her equilibrium.
      My younger daughter made enough with her website to put herself through college; though often invited, her older sister wouldn't have anything to do with it.
      

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

Flying, or Falling with Style, RVing, and Flying again

I dreamed of Flying in a C130 and being tossed out the back without a parachute. I had some sort of funky sailboat thing I was attached to, I managed to get aboard it and open the sail, but I was still falling much faster than I thought safe.

 

I then dreamed I was in an RV of some sort with N, we were touring the country and going through someplace damp and heavily forested. We were being eaten alive by insects. I wanted to close up the RV and turn on the high capacity air chiller, hoping to filter the flying bugs out of the air.

 

Later I was flying again, this time in an ultra light. My legs didn't work, both were completely numb. I was flying all over the place and I refused to land, flying low over a field and picking up a fuel bottle and a lunch bag at the same time. The fuel would last 18 hours or longer, if I spent a lot of the time gliding. There were some people on the ground who were a little upset with me, because I wouldn't come down and visit them. For some reason I didn't want to be stuck in the wheelchair. I wanted to never stop flying. I was able to visit over the radio and to even act as Game master via my tablet PC.

            That just wasn't enough for some of them though. I was really afraid that I wouldn't be able to take off again if I landed.

 

Ad astra per technica,

FF

 

Sunday, July 02, 2006

Flood and Ant Swarm


      I dreamed of watching cars moving along a flooded road. We were prepared, though, our building didn't even have doors on the bottom floor. All of the windows were sealed and there were pumps in the drains just in case. My only concern was that if there was too much water, our building would float off of its foundation.
      I needn't have worried. The water level stopped at about four feet above the roadway, it was barely 6 inches over the height of the window sills. We only had a couple of leaky windows, not even enough was getting through to have to turn on the pumps. I knew I was going to get in trouble for that, I'm the one who'd insisted that we have two pumps. On the other hand, I figured that I might be able to sell one to someone in the neighborhood who hadn't been as prepared. I went upstairs to my computer to make a list and make some phone calls. On the way up I noticed a car dealership nearby had all of its workers up on the roof of their building with their computers and file boxes. I made a note to call them first.

      I dreamed I was playing with the outside cats, sitting in the tall grass of the back yard, being bitten by hundreds of ants. I had the hose, but couldn't seem to wash them off. I really hate swarming bug nightmares.

Meteors and Domino Returns

33.143N
117.165W

      Four flaming meteors ripped across the sky. (Inspired by a night of Star Gazing, I'm certain.) The second one looked like it was going to strike not too far from the coast. The fourth one looked like it was headed for the hill behind S's house. All of them were very large and ripped all the way through the atmosphere and back into space, except for parts of the fourth meteor, which exploded just out of view behind the hill. The sound of the explosion was delayed by almost 40 seconds, so it was quite far away.
      After the first fireball S went and got his camera. We shot the last three with his camera, I tried to follow one with the telescope, but the scope wouldn't turn fast enough.

      Dreamed we'd adopted a new harlequin kitten. He was playing under the headboard, with Domino's ghost. Domino wouldn't let me pet him though. He just wanted to play with the new kitten. I felt melancholy after that dream.