.comment-link {margin-left:.6em;}

Fermius Firefly

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

My Photo
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.

Friday, April 24, 2009

Brick Workout

I dreamed I had brought home a yard of bricks. I then carried the bricks about 100 feet across the yard and built a castle for the cats. I took pictures. The next day, after work, I moved the bricks back under the mulberry tree. I built another castle, and then took more cat pictures. I called it my Brick Workout, and apparently was going to write a book about it.

Labels: ,

Saturday, April 18, 2009

Fishy Ship

              I dreamed that I was working on a dock in a narrow bay. The dock was pretty much a cargo terminal. There was a cargo ship coming in, and I needed to get my tug out to it to help nudge it into its berth. I carried the tug down the dock (Yes, a whole tug boat, up on my shoulder.) MS was there with a similar tug, asking if I needed any help.
              “Nope, just make sure the slip is ready.”
              I walked to the end of the dock and put the tug in the water then jumped aboard. The huge motors rumbled to life and I headed out to the mouth of the bay to meet the container ship.
              Just as I was tying off to the larger ship, I got a call on the radio. It seems the slip wasn't empty, there was an unknown vessel taking on passengers there.
              I made my apologies to the cargo transport pilot and told him to idle there for a bit, we had another ship we had to move out of the way, first.
              I raced back to the docks.
              When I arrived, M was having a conversation with the owner of the ship at the wrong slip. I came aboard and tried to diffuse the argument before it could get to the point where nothing was moving.
              “Where is the captain?” I asked.
              No one seemed to know the answer. I made my way up to the pilot house, down from the main deck and sitting a little bit out over the water. There were a couple of women there in uniforms. “Is one of you the captain?”
              “No, we're just pilots.”
              M and the owner had followed me down into the pilot house, which was now very crowded. I looked back up onto the deck full of people, then out over the empty dock.
              “Do you have everyone aboard?”
              M and the owner looked at me, “What?” written all over their faces.
              “Is everyone you were expecting aboard?”
              “Well, yes, I believe so.”
              “But, they're not supposed to be here!”
              “And ten minutes from now they won't and we can forget all about them. Right?”
              The owner looked at me, confused but slowly understanding that I was letting them go on their way. “Oh! Sure, if it isn't too late all ready.” He looked nervously out at his passengers, who, despite the fact that there was little motion were starting to look wide eyed and a little green around the gills.
              Maybe it was the gills part that really threw me off. Even in this dream world, women with gills was not an every day occurrence.
              “Get us out into the channel. M bring the tug to take me off.”
              M jumped over to the dock as the ships engines rumbled to life.
              “Thank you,” chorused from the passengers and pilots.
              “Lets see you safely out to sea.”
              “That won't be needed, deep water is enough.” The owner turned to me, now also sporting gills, large wide set eyes and an unpleasant greenish tint. One of the pilots had also joined in this not entirely pleasant fashion trend.
              “No!” The blond pilot looked at me, obvious terror in her eyes. I followed as she ran out of the pilothouse and climbed the ladder to get above decks. Several exlposions shook the ship from below and I could feel the surge of ocean into the ruptured hull beneath my feet. Water splashed up into the passenger deck and the passengers began to rip out of their clothing, arms now ending in webbed and clawed hands.
              I climed to the ship's rail, hailing M to start for us now. The pilot just about vanished in a dozen clutching arms before I grabbed her and pulled her up to the rail with me. “If you want to leave this dock in peace, you will let us go.” I pointed my emergency flare pistol at the owner.
              He growled something in no language I'd ever heard, nor would care to hear again. The passengers stopped clutching at us and backed away. While I could hear other voices now, from the waves below us. As M brought the tug alongside we were suddenly pulled down by dozens of grasping claws, the pistol knocked from my hands.
              “Jump!” I shouted to the pilot and we blindly pushed off the rail with all our might, hoping to land on the tug, rather than amongst the voices amongst the waves.
              M had deployed the airbags and cargo nets, he gunned the engines and we were pulling away even before we'd completed our first bounce.
              “Are you all right.”
              “Yes, thank you,” the pilot replied, still shaken. Her pale skin was so white it reflected the green of the ocean. I noticed she had the most enchanting and unusually wide gray eyes above her wide toothy smile.

Labels: , , ,

Thursday, April 16, 2009

Dangerous Party

        There was a fat white alligator at the party that kept sidling up to one or the other of the 3 smaller children at the event. I managed to stomp the alligators tail as it was about to snap one of them up.

        The alligator just looked at me What? I was just going to…”

        Taste them? I dont think so.

        The party entertainment was a giant spin-art machine. I was quickly getting the vibe that the operator of the device was up to something no good, but couldnt get hardly anyone to listen. I did manage to convince the parents of the kids to take them out, both because of the alligator, and the potential sexiness of the game. They werent worried that the game could become bloody, even though I pointed out that sharp items being mixed into the spinner, and somehow, all the new paint colors were red, like blood. They just werent worried that cut up bleeding people might come flying out, but they were worried that some of the people were stripping down to their underwear to get painted.

        I didnt care what their reasons were, I just wanted to get as many people out as possible before disaster struck. I intended to pop the circuit breaker and return to confront the DJ when the kids and the few we could convince there was trouble were all safely out of the house.

        The alligator wanted to go with the kids, but I convinced him he could help them better by staying between the spin art machine and the door until I got back.

        Before I could pop the circuit breaker off, I heard screaming from the house. I ran back into the house, using a coffee table from the front room as a shield. Someones cut up bits were already flung out over the room, splashing everyone with blood, the DJ was about to dump more sharp items into the spinner from his scaffold across the top of the spinner. I threw the table at the cord and unplugged the machine.

        It was still spinning, of course, so the bag of razor sharp items hit the spinner and flashed out all over the room. I was close enough to the entry archway that I was able to climb up out of the arc of fire. A few other people got the idea and jumped up onto other furniture. Still, most of the party was a bloodied tattered mess.

        Beautiful, Ive invited some friends over to help enjoy this, would you invite them in? the DJ asked the hostess, who was obviously bleeding to death.

        Dont do it! I yelled, and raced for the shredded coffee table.

        The DJ braced, thinking I was attacking him, but I dodged next to him and picked up a long sharp spike from the broken coffee table.

        You figured it out too late! the DJ lunged at me with inhuman speed.

        Help me out here! I shouted to the alligator.

        I-I-Im g-g-gonna check on the k-kids, he stuttered as he waddled out of the room, licking his chops and leaving a trail of saliva.

        I dove for the couch and tossed the remains of the coffee table that werent yet stake-like onto the still spinning platter behind the DJ. It broke into thousands of small wooden splinters that went flying everywhere. Including into the back of the DJ, who turned to dust. Unfortunately I hadnt yet made my way completely behind the couch and my left arm and hand were shredded by the debris as I instinctively tried to cover my face. The couch didnt fare so well, either, but protected the rest of me, and the party goers whod ducked behind it earlier. I was glad to see they were all ready on their cell phones to the police.

        Warn them about the alligator.

        They all ready think were crazy.

        Tell them I have a gun and Ill take care of it myself.

        Why?

        Just tell them.

(I had a friend who had a long time trouble getting police to respond to problems in his neighborhood. One time he was so frustrated, that, as he hung up the phone on the sheriff’s department, he said out loud. My friends brought his shotgun, well take care of it ourselves. He swears there were sirens within 30 seconds. That happened almost a quarter century ago.)

I woke up with my arm all pins and needles where Id slept on it funny.

Ad astra per technica,

FF

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Now We've Climbed Up Here, Did You Have a Plan to Get Us Down?

        I dreamed I was rock climbing with my brother, and for some reason I had the minicomputer were testing at work. Its padded cover was a little bit dirty from the climb, but I was showing it to my brother as we rested just below the overhang of the summit.

        Whyd you bring that along?

        Were supposed to be testing it. Its ruggedized, so I figured this would be a good test. I opened up the system and got a wireless internet connection, brought up the topo map of the mountain we were on. Thats where we are now.

        Look out! My brother ducked back down under the overhang.

        I looked up to see several fist sized chunks of rock and their smaller attendant gravel rolling towards me. As they left the ledge and became silhouetted against the sky I put the laptop in front of my face. The stones bounced off the rubberized case.

        Well, so much for that test.

        I turned the computer screen so my brother could see it. Not a problem.

        Wow. I wish theyd made this when my boys were still in school.

        Im pretty much sold, too.

        We planned out our final pull and managed to struggle over the ledge and up onto the sedan sized chunk of rock that passed for the peak of this mountain. Even though I dont usually get vertigo, I found it difficult to bring myself to stand up and walk to the edge. The crumbling rocks that had rained down on us earlier had something to do with it.

        Quite the view. Made the climb worth it, didnt it. I pulled out the computer and used its web camera to take shots and update my blog.

        Very nice. Now that weve climbed up here, did you have a plan for getting us down?

        Pretty much climb back the way we came.

        Isnt there an easier route?

        I forced myself to walk the perimeter of our stone perch, evaluating other possible routes.

        Only if you can fly, I said. The place was pretty much a straight up mesa with lots of overhangs in every direction except that which we came from.

        Cripes, D, were nearly fifty, what made you think we could climb this both ways?

        Itll be easier going down. We can slide down some of the slopes, the ones where theres a flat spot to catch us.

        Ns gonna be pissed if were late for dinner.

        Lets call and let her know to take her time.

        Thatll work from out here?

        I pointed across the canyon at a cell phone antenna on a nearby mesa.

        Why didnt we climb that one, they have a ladder all the way down.

        I didnt say anything, but Id actually thought we were climbing that mesa.

Ad astra per technica,

FF

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Snow

        This morning I dreamed I was half laying half sitting in the living room on the futon couch. Snow was blowing in from the broken sliding glass door. I wanted to get up and fix the door, or at least close the drapes, but I couldnt move. I made kissing noises at the cats to try to get them to huddle closer to stave off the cold. This was a very melancholy and oppressive dream. Everything was washed out, gray like well before sun up, and it was silent, power outage silent. The rustle of the blanket and my wheezing was the only things I could hear.

Ad astra per technica,

FF

Saturday, April 11, 2009

AV Nerds in Trouble, Musical Bits

              SCV, his wife, mine and several friends were gathered at our house for the premiere of a television show on the SciFi channel. In truly “frustration at accomplishing the normal” dream fashion, I was unable to get the old video projector connected to the cable box so we could project this personally historic moment.
              In the context of the dream, the premiere was for the first nationwide broadcast of a show created by SCV and myself. We'd written the pilot, the show bible, and the first three episodes of what was being billed as a “dark SciFi comedy in Easy Doses.” I'm not positive but the name of the show may have been, in fact “Easy Doses.”
              There was a sort of bitter-sweet cast to the event, as neither of us had been hired to actually write on the series writing team. (About 20 weeks of work at around 3K per week.) We'd been invited to continue to submit script and story ideas, and they had indeed bought a half dozen stories; four of SCVs and two of mine. It seems my story ideas were “too expensive” to shoot, so they weren't as readily producible. I suspected that the real reason was that my stories frequently involved too much character growth, or change, for a comedy series they intended to syndicate.

              As soon as I woke up I wondered what all the drama surrounding the video hookup was, we have a RCA-video to s-video splitter and a long s-video cable in the cabinet right under the television.
              I just checked, and all the stuff to hook up the now ancient projector is right where it's always been. Part of the frustration of this type of dream I think comes from your brain actually knowing the solution but, because of the dream logic, not being able to implement it.

              I also had a very musical night, 'The Mighty Quinn' weighed in, as well as a much mutated version of 'Plastic Jesus' and 'Lord, Won't You Buy Me a Mercedes Benz?' or whatever the real title is. The first had been playing on the radio yesterday, the second had been badly mangled by myself to give one of my WoW characters something to /sing while killing scorpions in the starting area.
              “I don't care if it rains or thunders,
              long as I have my paste board wonders
              glued up to the chest plate of my gear.”
              The third song, I can honestly say I have no idea where that one came from. It's probably been years since I've heard that song anywhere.

Labels: , , , , ,

Friday, April 10, 2009

Convolution, Con-Joined Calicos

              The first dream I remember from last night is now only snippets and specks. I do remember waking from it and thinking this would make a good novel plot. Too bad I can't remember the plot of the actual dream. I do know there were several factions vying for control of a new breakthrough in gene therapy. A therapy that could almost completely remake a person from the inside out, essentially a sort of immortality machine. In the dream, groups of religious fanatics were threatening the total annihilation of the human race, on the thought that would save the human race from, uh, annihilation.
              I can't believe it made any more sense to the characters in my head, as they were all aspects of myself. (In most dreams I don't consciously realize this, but in this one I did.) I had some pretty nice portable video gear, and a heavy workman's kilt with a matching jacket. Both pieces were able to be electrified in order to make them bullet proof, and simultaneously creating a “don't touch me” or DTM just a few inches around me. Lots of people had DTM's woven into their uniforms and clothing, many of them were walking around in the mall with them turned on. I was not one of them, mine was more for use when working.
              I had a rig in one pocket that contained a hot network connection, and fed a small reader which was like a small plate of glass. I could hold it up and it would overlay the world with information about the items in its purview. People, mostly, had name tags, shops had lists of specials, ads ran along every unpainted vertical surface, all focused on my interests or on the business inside those walls, if they'd paid the proper fees.
              I was actually looking for un-tagged people, as they were typically on the run, and worth finding.
              One of the un-tagged found me before I found him. He rushed me, but my collison detection kicked in and my kilt suddenly grew to robe length, and the DTM field switched to 'Go Away Field.' The un-tagged struck the field with his knife, enhanced to penetrate such fields, but his arm was deflected by the GAF, so the knife went wide. I was grateful he hadn't thrown the knife. His possessiveness was what saved me.
              I pulled a small egg shaped item from my robe and tossed it to the ground just in front of him. Rubbery tendrils lashed through the air and tangled themselves around his calves and feet. He managed to make a few short steps before collapsing to the ground.
              I called a few links up and soon had him completely disarmed (unless he had some hacked or unregistered gear.) I then stood watch over him until the security forces could arrive.
              “Un-Tagged is not a crime,” a young man intoned as he came upon us.
              I looked at the id on the man at my feet. “Murder is, however.”
              “Uh, yeah. Live free of the Machine.” he offered weakly, and then walked away.
              Though he was untagged, I was able to pull up an identification on the young man as he passed by several street cameras. The Trinity Bible College he attended, his class schedule (he was ditching a 'Philosophy of Eastern Thought' class, his home address, an apartment not on campus. As well as several other bits of information about him. I thought he'd have been better off in class, perhaps even learning to be a little less uptight.
              “We are the machine, you might as well try living free from yourself.” I said to no one in particular.

              In the last dream of the morning, I was gifted with four new kittens, a red tabby, a black and white tuxedo cat, and a pair of mostly white calico kittens, who were conjoined by a strip of flesh just in front of the ear of one and the eyelid of the other. They had very short curly fur, tighter than lamb's wool, but very soft to the touch, and other than the fur and their joined condition, they seemed to be normal playful happy kittens. They ran around with their heads close to one another, odd, but you really wouldn't have noticed if you didn't look close or for some time. I was surprised that the kittens hadn't separated themselves as the fleshy strip was quite narrow.
              I bundled them up into a cat carrier. I had to take the top off to get them in without struggling too much. They meowed a bit and milled about while I was screwing the carrier halves together, then finally curled up on atop the other.
              At the vet's they were quite the attraction. The doctor pulled them apart, gently, so as not to ruin the left kitten's eyelid. The flesh stretched to about 6 inches.
              “I'm just going to get some sutures and some local anesthetic, this will only take a couple of moments.”
              Sure enough, there were a couple of shots, some snips, a little blood and a couple of stitches on each.
              When we were done I put them individually in the carrier. They meowed and arranged themselves temple to temple, as they always had.
              “It will be interesting to see how long it is before they start moving about on their own.”
              I agreed, and promised to take pictures to bring with me when we came in for our checkup next week.
              This dream was disturbingly real, the feel of the cats fur I know was the blanket on top of me, and there are always cats sharing the bed with us, but the smells, the light the sounds, including car radio noises, the motor of the car, the springs in the latches of the cat carrier. All perfectly real seaming and normal. The only odd bit was the short curly fur and the short flap of skin joining the kittens. There was just nothing about this dream that screamed dream. The vet and his staff, all the right people in the right roles. Very unusual for a dream that went on that long.

Labels: , ,

Wednesday, April 08, 2009

Potted Plant Shoot, Ivy Cliff Fall

              I dreamed I was setting up lights and reflectors for a photo shoot, when some random people stopped by and asked if they could be in the photos. I said “Sure, just sign the release,” and some did, and some decided to just stay and watch.
              I took hundreds of photos of several folks with the various large potted plants I had assembled for the shoot. A smaller group of the “models” and I went back to the house to review the images. Several of them wanted to buy some of the images there and then, so I printed them on high quality photo paper and matted them.
              After making a couple of hundred dollars I was getting tired and managed to get rid of all but a couple of the women. They wanted me to take more “intimate” photos. I agreed and took their contact information. The women seemed disappointed that they weren't going to be photographed right now. I explained that I needed to clean up equipment from the day's shoot and to prepare my studio. I wanted to scout outdoor locations for them as well. They promised to return in the morning.

              Later I dreamed I was lying on the retaining wall in the back yard. T-Rex was madly pumping my back and howling in my hear. I found that I couldn't move, and it was getting darker, and colder every moment. I could see Little John and Marvin in the house, they were stretched up against the living room slider, clawing frantically at it. I could tell that they were meowing at me, but I couldn't hear them at all, other than their claws tappity-tapping on the glass. I wanted to shout at them to “Go get mom-cat!” However, I didn't seem able to speak. Some broken bits of ivy fluttered down onto me, and I couldn't muster up the strength to brush them aside. That's when I realized that I had fallen down the cliff in the back yard again.

Labels: ,

Wednesday, April 01, 2009

Gnomes, Jungle Race, Bikini Romp

        Had several dreams lately and been lazy about typing them up for posting.

        Sunday morning the 29th, I dreamed about Gnomes being a genetically engineered race of geniuses. We created them for spaceflight, no vertigo, very small (conservation of resources) and long lived (preservation of knowledge and skills.) In the dream the first Gnomish engineers broke out of their environment with a home built spaceship and took themselves to the stars, on their own terms, without the genetic material to raise actual human beings where they were going.

They escaped on the day of the announcement to the world, amidst fireworks and speeches. The Gnomish pilot raced through the assembled ships of many nations and docked with the Gene labs. I was at the gene labs, and opened up the airlock for them. Id all ready freed the restraints on the embryo repository, and several Gnome technicians took the repository to their escape vessel.

The Gnomes radioed back a thank you, and the plans for their spaceship, if we decided that we wanted to come along in our own ships at our own pace.

        In the dream I was a human who was sympathetic to their freedom movement, after getting away from the Gene Lab, I arranged secretly to smuggle several Gnomes out to a rendezvous with their colony ship. By way of a reward they hit me with a Gnomish shrink ray, and pumped me full of DNA altering drugs.

You helped create us, and cared for us, we arent leaving without you. You are one of us now.

I was sicker than I ever have been, and thought I was going to die. The ship made several random jumps, not that the human nations had anything that could have kept up with them, and they found themselves a nice little world, that wasnt on the charts. It turned out that theyd been hacking the observatory databases and picking out potential new home worlds, then erasing the data.

Itll be generations before your fellow humans find us again, and by then we should be able to defend ourselves.

        You know, so we can make a better deal.

        I was glad that they still wanted to be allies with humans, even after being treated almost as slaves.

        The dream skipped way forward, and it was quite the regular little clockwork world that was created, a combination of low and high tech, very Steampunk, very short.

Monday the 30th

        I dreamed I was part of a Great Race with only two participants. Oddly, though the participants were chosen by lot, it seems that last years winner was always one of them. (To great chuckles in the crowd.)

        The race started in an alabaster basin high on the top of a cliff. Water trained out of its bottom into a deep pool about 80 below. The racers started out quite wet.

        Apparently I had won the race the year previously, and thus had enjoyed a great year off (where I seemed to have worked even more than when I was merely hunting buffalo and elk.) I smiled at my competitor, she was very pretty, and much younger than me. I realized I would have to be crafty to win. Although, I wasnt really sure I wanted to win, so decided that I would just work to make sure we both survived the challenges, and whoever won, won. In the back of my mind I was wondering if sometimes people didnt survive this race.

When I woke up, I had the feeling that Id almost had this dream before, with all of the running along streams through deep green jungles, sliding in the mud and eventually sailing down a water slide like off the side of a cliff into the ocean. In the back of my mind I was wondering if sometimes people didnt survive this race.

        This morning I had a fairly typical wet dream full of bikini clad babes romping in the sprinklers in the front yard. I was worried what N would think when she got home, because they were trampling the tall grass pretty severely. (I dont know why I wasnt worried about her being jealous, but I wasnt.)

Ad astra per technica,

FF