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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.

Saturday, June 26, 2010

A Passel of Plagues

              I dreamed that I was about 12 years old, living in a steam-punk universe, very Edwardian but with airships, robots and ray-guns, none of which were particularly reliable. The dream started with me being out on the streets late at night, having snuck out of the barracks like building with AH so that we could visit his girlfriend, in this dream played by his wife. As we made our way across town, the air-raid sirens went off.
              As bombs began to fall on the edge of town, the lights were quickly being turned off or snuffed out. We ran along a narrow river road, taking turns climbing on one another's shoulders to turn off the gas lamps as we ran. Soon we came across a police man doing the same, but from another direction.
              “Thanks, lads, now get yerselves t'cover!” he pointed over to a warehouse like building nearby with a large yellow arrow that pointed to a cellar door.
              “Raid Shelter 104,” was printed in four inch high letters on the base of the arrow and in eight inch high letters on the doors.
              “I have t'see to the Century Street Landing. Mind now!” he hollered as he ran off.
              AH and I looked at one another, “I have to get to C,” he ran off down the nearly pitch black street, “it's only a dozen more blocks.”
              I hesitated, eyes adjusting to the scattered starlight. It was easy enough to pick out the road from the river wherein was reflected the partly cloudy sky and its myriad stars between. Still, I ran carefully, keeping myself away from the river and following AH's uneven sounding footfalls. I lifted my feet a little higher than I would have if it had been daylight, or even if the streetlights were on.
              I heard AH tumble and shout in front of me, so slowed just in time to see him rolling on the street, clutching his foot. “Stubbed my toes on that!”
              Where he pointed was a steel box with several lit grills on its surface. As I approached I realized that the grills were glowing from within, the airship shaped grill was red, fading to amber even as I watched. There were seven stencil like grills in total. Of the three on top, one was the airship, the next one, which was a dark amber but brightening and turning red, looked like a dinosaur, the third grill was no shape I recognized, but was completely dark. There was one in the middle, which I interpreted to be the re-animation ray. The Bottom row of three were also dark, but one was an Orbital Mind Control Laser, the second a Wave and the last one was Fire.
              I wiped my hand across the OMCL grill, which lit bluish green. Lasers cut through the clouds causing them to light up like lightning, and the lasers cut into the dirigibles at the edge of the city, soon the sound of bombs going off faded to nothing. It seems the OMCL was more “Persuasion” than “Control.”
              I was pulled up to my feet, “C'mon, stop fooling with that, you'll get us ki...” AH's hand relaxed as he stopped talking. His other hand pointed towards the mouth of the river. I glanced down at the steel box, the Dinosaur was glowing brightly, as were the Wave and Fire stencils. “Wha...?”
              I looked up. At the mouth of the river a giant Dinosaur, much the size of Godzilla was climbing out of the sea. Water pushed ahead of him, surging up the river, it's crest visible as a line of darkness in the reflected milky way of the otherwise calm river.
              “High ground!” I shouted and grabbed AH's sleeve to pull him back up the street to the last bridge we passed. Our side of the river, and into the warehouse district, was flat and only a dozen feet or so above the height of the river itself. The high ground, what little of it there was, was across the river. The Cemetery, Mortuary and Crematorium were at the end of a long uphill winding road overlooking the town from across the river. We ran.
              Crossing the 98th street bridge I looked out to see a huge wave blocking the Godzilla-like monsters hips and legs, but his head swept across the city, shooting out a ray that hit the ground in a swath about a hundred feet wide, and everything it touched was bathed in flames. We ran harder.
              From half way up the hill, low trees and headstones all around us, I saw that the monster was not lighting the whole city on fire, instead laying out a pattern of stripes that created a sort of maze, the only exit of which, was at his feet.
              “It followed us!” AH blurted, panting.
              I looked at his feet. There was the steel box with it's backlit stencil like cutouts. I'd touched the OMCL grill before, and it had stopped the airship bombardment. (Or was a coincidence, but I wasn't so sure. It had glowed blue green where the others were amber and red.) I tried it again, but it remained dark.
              “Maybe you can only use it once,” I said.
              “Maybe it wasn't you at all,” AH added.
              “Well, here's one that hasn't been used yet.” I swept my fingers over the very odd looking last symbol on the top row. It glowed blue and then green. The Monster, Wave and Fire glyphs began to fade.
              The monstrous roaring stopped. I watched, stunned, as the creature turned and waded back into the ocean.
              I whooped, and turned to see that AH had started up the hill to the mortuary, calling out to C, who for some reason was at the top of the hill near the entrance.
              That didn't add up for me and I hurried after him, barely noting that the Reanimation stencil had begun to glow amber.
              As we made our way up the hill we grew, our youthful stick figures filling out to the size and shape of our current adult hood. There was a part of me that was sad about this. AH reached the top of the hill, and the small robot, which is what I now knew it to be, grabbed him and dragged him into the building, tossing him down some stairs.
              As I crossed the threshold, completely against my will, my instinct was to run, I once again found myself to be a young boy.
              The robot looked at me, its disguise shifting, trying to find something enticing. “Actually, I've always thought robots were pretty cool.” I said.
              The robot stopped in a half woman half robot phase and smiled at me. It was a predatory smile, but it didn't last.
              “What does the Reanimation Stencil do?” I asked.
              The change in demeanor of the robot was instant. “Help me shut all the doors. Now!”
The robot clattered off, closing and barring doors, sliding the ceiling and floor bolts closed, and then starting to slide furniture in front of the large front windows. Outside, the townspeople were making their way up the hill to the building.
              I thought they might want shelter from whatever was coming and asked if I should let them in.
              The robot shouted “No!” and let out a girlish shriek. As the people began to pound on the doors I realized that they were dead, and had pulled themselves out of the ground.
              “What about the people in the cellar,” I asked.
              The robot shrieked again, then ran down the hall to secure the cellar door. I ran upstairs and out onto a balcony. It was a short six foot jump to a nearby tree, and I climbed down the hill behind the mortuary, relying on my speed to avoid the reanimated remains. As I crossed out of the cemetery I noticed that there were machines along the road moving by themselves as well. The Reanimation Ray must also work as an Animation ray. I hoped that AH would be all right, but couldn't think of a way to get back and save him. Interestingly, the undead seemed to have no interest in me, instead it looked like there was sort of a conflict brewing between the robots and the zombies.
              I made it to the fair grounds, where I snuck into a large tent, not yet fully erected, and hid under the tarps along the upper bleachers. I was soon discovered, as people began to fill in the seats and they pulled back the tarps to complete the tent walls. The carnies all leered at me, but didn't say anything to me. I tried to sit as far away from them as possible.
              The show began, instead of animals, though, there were all sorts of animated machines, robots and other constructs. The talk was of dismantling the town to create more, and from there to take over the world....
              And in the middle of the center ring, was the steel box, it's stencils dim save for the one in the center. I knew that if I could get to the thing and wipe my fingers across the stencil I could turn that red to blue and then green, and the animation ray would work for me. The mechanical and one-legged trapeze artist were in the way, though.

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Tuesday, June 08, 2010

The Author and the Aunt

        I dreamed I had just celebrated my 60th birthday and was celebrating by taking a charter plane to New York City to do some Television interviews. I was on the plane at the last second, sort of as human ballast, I think. Everyone on board had the same black carryall case with the pull up handle. The only difference was that all of the cases but mine had little zipper pulls on them.

        I met a boy, about eight or so, who told me he was an orphan. He introduced me to his aunt, a pretty Japanese woman in her forties. I said the appropriate commiserations and our chat turned to other, happier topics. He was going to live with his aunt. He noticed that my bag didnt have a zipper pull, so dug into his own luggage to find one for me. I gave him a copy of my book, (It had a picture of Meteorus on the front and Myself on the back.) I told the aunt that he might want to wait a couple of years before digging into it.

        There was some sort of tussle in the front of the plane, and suddenly the door next to me was flung open. A black case sailed past me and slammed into the hatch. Dangling by a strap. I reached over and buckled the kid in place. Several men came down the aisle and after a very brief struggle, strapped something to me and tossed me out of the plane, knocking the bag loose in the process.

        I was falling next to the case, which had come open. There were huge wads of cash all along the route of my fall; they had obviously fallen out of the case. I grabbed them as I dove after the bag. I stuffed them into the bag when I caught up to it. Held it tight and started looking for a rip cord, assuming that it was a parachute that had been strapped to me.

        No such luck. It was an inflatable life vest. At least I was out over the water.  I wondered if the case could provide any cushion for my landing.

        I heard a yelp behind me and the aunt dove towards me. She grabbed the bag , which I had wrapped my arms through the carrying straps. She started kicking me, trying to get me to let go. I held on as her parachute opened. It was a para-glider type chute, and we spun out of control towards the city. It was obvious that I was way too heavy and in an awkward position for controlling the parachutes descent properly. We spun around a building that was under construction, it was all wrapped in plastic tarps. As we swung up level with an open area the aunt lost her grip on the bag, and me. I plummeted through the plastic and swung down through the new glass windows of the building. Oddly, that was enough to cushion my fall. I felt bruised all over the place and wondered if I was now going to bleed to death from the glass.

I lay there, out of breath and thankful to be alive. I noticed that I didnt seem to be bleeding.

I dont know how long I was there, but long enough for some very angry Japanese men to show up. It didnt take too long to figure out what they were angry about. The only money in the bag was what I had picked up during the fall. The rest of the bag was an eight year olds traveling clothes and toys, and the book Id just given him. They tossed everything back in the bag and left it there to focus on me.

        Just when it looked like I was about to be tortured (like I could hurt any more than I currently did) the aunt showed up. She swept into the room and knocked a rifle out of one guards hands, a cell phone out of another. Then she dropped them both with a couple of swift hand movements. The rifle slid across the floor hitting me in the face. I discovered that there were still places that hadnt been hurt yet.

The aunt kicked the legs out from another and as she fought with a third.  One came running up the stairs into the area, drawing a pistol as he ran. Soon others joined the fight and they had her pinned. On top of me. Im sure I would have enjoyed it if everything didnt hurt. Could we try this another time, maybe.

One approached her, unzipping as he did. I picked up the rifle and shot the one who had a gun, then the one with his member hanging out. It was enough of a distraction for the aunt to get free.

Wait! I shouted after her, tossing the boys bag, including all the money, to her. Hell miss his toys, and hes all ready lost enough. I turned the rifle back on the few remaining thugs.

The aunt grabbed my arm, causing me to shoot one of the thugs. Sorry! I shouted.

The aunt yelled something in Japanese, which I could only interpret as lets go!

It was only as we were running up the stairs, and then sliding down a thin cord that I realized she was covered head to toe in a black form fitting outfit with some sort of thin armor plates, and the traditional ninja mask. It was also obvious that although she was in great shape, she was a little soft in the curves.

Thats a nice look for you.

Haircut, shave next, you too obvious.

My pictures on the back of ten thousand new books. A haircut and shave arent really going to fix that.

We landed and she did something that turned her outfit into a classy looking black dress with leggings and a hood. She looked at me as she waved down a taxi, judging. Airport, pick up Jeru, she thrust the childs backpack into my hands. Ill find you.

I climbed into the cab and when I turned to ask her name, she slipped into the crowd, holding my book. I hadnt even seen her pull it out of the bag.

Ad astra per technica,

FF

Sunday, June 06, 2010

Nostalgia, Beach Encounter

              I dreamed that my brother and I were at Mom and Dad's sorting through stuff in our old room. There were two poly filled winter sleeping bags, one red and one blue. My memory is that we both had red bags, so in the dream I assumed that the blue bag was my brother's.
              We opened them up and the red bag was just a sleeping bag. The poly fill, from having been crushed all these years, had completely lost its "fluff." The blue bag was in similar shape, but inside the bag was a small collection of game cards and parts from a magnetic fox and hounds travel game. My brother didn't seem to recognize them, nor did I. I looked at the game cards, they were the sort of cards one would see in a trading card game from more modern times. Neither of us could come up with an explanation so gave the games to his kids.
             
              In a later dream I was walking with my brother and sister and their youngest kids on a beach. We passed under the pier so we could use the ramp rather than climb the stairs. As we stepped out into the sun my eyes locked with a dark-haired woman with deep brown eyes and pale skin. She was in a black bikini that showed off her pleasant curves. We both started, as though we knew one another. In the dream I had just turned 50 and she looked like she was in her early twenties, certainly under 30. I asked if she'd been one of my drama students, but the answer was no. We couldn't figure out how we knew one another.
              I followed my siblings up the ramp after a moment and heard the woman telling her friends that they had to have something to write with, she wasn't letting me get away this time. I stopped and leaned over the rail of the ramp. I had an old expired Zoological society card in my wallet. I dropped it to her, saying she could contact me through Facebook.
              Even as she was tucking it into her bathing suit top, I realized that probably wouldn't work, as people can rarely read properly in a dream.

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Saturday, June 05, 2010

Apartment Visit, Carnival

              I dreamed that N and I drove up to LA and, once there, strolled up to one of her friend's apartments. As we went, I realized that G lived in the same complex, so we stopped in for a bit to say hello. He was discombobulated and looking for parts of a costume for a pirate faire he was supposed to be performing at, so we didn't stay long.
              Once we were back on our way, I discovered another of N's friends by seeing her through an open door. Again, we stopped and visited for a bit. N said we were early and the person we were visiting didn't seem to know that the woman lived in the same complex, so she agreed to walk over with us.
             
              Later, I dreamed I was watching a sort of carnival being hosted by a bunch of parents for their students. A couple of the moms were in short skirts and bathing suits, so I was being entertained watching them work the "Leg Power Meter" where kids tried to push hard enough on a leg lift device to ring a bell. Every time the kid had the lift at the far end, the women were bent over fairly far, from the front there was plenty of cleavage, from behind, plenty of thigh and bottom.

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