Fever Dreams with Robots and...

The fever dream started like any other dream, a nice normal seeming classroom of ten year olds taking my "Robotic Programming" class. I was working a two hour a day shift at a private elementary school, teaching the very fun class with robots and then supervising the playground in the afterschool hour while waiting for parents to come get their students. All in all a very good gig. It was paying the bills while I used my pension to make board games. It was one of those classes where I had as many parents in the room helping as I had kids.

One afternoon, as the classroom began to empty out, the Principal arrived to tell me that they were cutting the class. I pointed to the parents still straightening up the room and kids still excitedly reviewing what they'd accomplished. I didn't understand the decision. She reassured me it didn't have anything to do with my teaching or my class, it was that the board had decided to purchase a new turnkey curriculum and my course couldn't be fit into the new system. She handed me an envelope with my current pay and two weeks extra. I said thank you, but pointed out that I had a contract for the full school year that would have to be bought out. "Unless we can find you another position, which we're trying to do."

I was still mighty unhappy about the situation, but resolved to deal with it another day. I stuffed my anger down and went back to helping clear out my classroom. One of the moms was a labor attorney, she handed me her business card, "just in case you decide you need me." I thanked her and went out into the playground to fulfill my after school supervision. Kids eventually got picked up. Several of the other teachers had stayed behind and we all went into the school, having to duck between the movers who were packing up everyone's classroom in neatly labeled boxes, even taking apart the school's furniture. We watched in disbelief as box after box with our class names on them went out of the building to be loaded up on big trucks. The Principal arrived to let us know that the board had agreed to let us teachers go through the materials from our classrooms to keep what was ours and any thing else they weren't using before it was all sold at auction. A couple of my colleagues were shouting and upset that the movers were packing up their private stuff, including one who's purse and car keys (thus her way home) had already been packed. We managed to intercept the box from her room before it got put on the truck and rescued her personal belongings. I went to my room and grabbed my hat and coat as well as my computer bag, figuring I had the time to go get anything else later.

Saddened by the state of things, I asked why the Board hadn't retrained their current staff, and she started to tell me that there was no robotics... I cut her off, and asked about all of the basic education teachers, some who'd been at the school for decades, weren't re-trained.

"That doesn't concern you."

I put on my coat and hat and stepped out into the stormy afternoon. The weather had changed to match my mood, dark threatening clouds, hints of thunder in the distance, the thick smell of pent up rain. I walked out into the public park.

A row of Thundermen appeared and gathered in front of me, grey fedoras, beige trench-coats, black shoes with wide white spats, immaculately tied ties over white shirts. They stopped my progress. They lined up behind the leader, and a row of apparently meaningful gestures began to form behind him. While I couldn't make out what they were trying to signal I mimicked the gestures as best I could. My Beige trench-coat and fedora (green instead of grey) seemed to confuse them a bit. Finally, after exchanging some pleasantries, and commenting on the delightful lightning and thunder that had begun in the sky behind the school, the leader of the thundermen told me I could be locked in the bathroom until the storm passed, or I could re-enter the school through J-3. I had no desire to be locked in the public restrooms, so entered the classroom, which was still having its desks assembled, oddly, in the desks that were already put together, there were students, or some sort of simulacra of students already seated and working on their lessons. I had a very uneasy feeling, the teacher looked up from her planner and I apologized for the interruption, moving through the room into the schools central hallway. There I ran across the Principal who was beaming at how efficient and trouble free it was all going to be. I started to worry about what was going to happen to all of our students. Were they being replaced, too?

I made my way through the faculty room, and out onto the little patio that faced the open hillside behind the school. Lightning filled the sky, thunder rolled across the valley and shook the windows of the school, I could hear them rattling all down the length of the building. I looked out to see the fluffy pink bunnies and leaping unicorns lightning struck and suddenly come to life. The plastic cavorting turned into the real thing, accompanied by a tinkling and high pitched whistling music, they danced under the darkening sky until they seemed as one, to notice me watching. They lined up facing me, much in the same way as the lightning men. I started to make the same gestures and then stopped myself, speaking directly to the head unicorn instead.

She blinked. Obviously not expecting me to actually try to interact with them. At first she seemed to think I was a Thunder man, and wanted to run me through, but I somehow managed, by taking my hat off and bowing, I think, to convince her that I was just a former teacher who'd been replaced. This saddened her and she raced away, leaving me to watch her fluffy bunny and unicorn minions cavort to unearthly music. Eventually she returned, accompanied by a large pink and white dragon. The dragon had to be as big as the school she surveyed from end to end with a single sweep of her long neck. She settled over the hill and curled around her bunnies and unicorns, shielding them with one giant wing. She began to shoot the unicorn who'd spoken with me, jolt after jolt of pink lightning.

"Stop" I shouted. "She hasn't done anything wrong!"

"You live, Thunder man, that is not to be tolerated, I will get to you in a moment."

I don't know where the courage to do so came from but I stepped in front of the unicorn, letting my wet trench coat drag the lightning to the ground. I felt the tingle on my feet, but though painful, it wasn't in any way debilitating.

"If you kill her, how will she learn and become an even better leader for you?"

The dragon stopped mid breath. Her great head lowered down to my own, her eyes, as large as myself, took turns looking at me. I felt like I'd been put in a giant MRI or CAT scan machine.

"You are not a Thunder man."

"Thanks, I think."

With that she picked me up and flung me high in the air over the hill and above the clouds. I don't know how every bone in my body wasn't broken by ahd acceleration. I found myself cresting the top of my arc in the clear sky overlooking a vast ocean and a road, suspended in the air. There were small figures, moving, single file along the road as I flashed overhead. A rope was tossed to me and I managed to grab it as I dipped below the road. I crammed my hat on my head, and held on with both hands as the rope curved my fall into a pendulum swing just below the roadway. I pumped and at the crest of the next swing back, managed to grab the hands that were being offered down below the road edge. The large scaled arm pulled be up past the road and let me down on my feet.

It was an assortment of characters, I think from my own gaming past. The large spear toting Lizard Man, a pair of spindly hobbits in all black kit, and an elf of surprising beauty with two longswords on his (her?) hips. The only one I didn't recognize was a nearly topless scaled woman with short curled horns and long nails. Like the Lizard Man, she had a long tail, whip-like rather than trunk-like. They greeted me and one of the hobbits asked if I was a Thunder Man. The Lizard and Demon Girl looked like they were ready to throw me back off the skyway.

"No" was all I could manage to croak. I checked my bag, somehow it hadn't dumped anything. I took off my hat and bowed, that seemed to convince them. I surmised at that point that the hat was part of a thunder man, so they couldn't do that.

"Where are we going?"

"To the other end of the road!" chimed in the hobbit twins, getting disgruntled looks from their companions.

The elf spoke, explaining that they were on a quest and had traveled on the skyway for the better part of two days. They believed they were much closer to their destination than their beginning, which was, though civilization, nothing the matched what I knew. Plus I only had a muffin and a half bottle of water in my back, so didn't fancy going that way until I could replenish my supplies. The Hobbits were the only two in favor of letting me travel with them, but somehow they managed to convince the demon girl after the two women had a hurried conversation out of earshot of the rest of the group. They resumed travelling, single file, except for the hobbits who trotted ahead of the group hand in hand.

"They are a cute couple," I volunteered, trying to make conversation.

"They're twins." The Lizard man grunted, shouldered his spear and leaned forward to pull away from me. The elf had dropped back far behind us and only the demon girl stayed close enough to converse with until we met the end of the road.

I had to explain that I wasn't flying but falling, as I'd been thrown by the pink and white dragon. The hobbits looked at the elf and said "your prayer must have worked!"

"I doubt that." The Elf had barely spoken to me the whole trip, he seemed to have something against me from the very start, but never revealed what he was thinking or feeling.

It had been much easier to befriend the Lizard man, I taught him tic-tac-toe, and despite there not actually being toes in the game, he was quite taken by it.

The Hobbits seemed to love everyone equally, and the Demon Girl, seemed to be practicing sultry on the Elf, and not succeeding, ignoring the Lizard Man, who seemed all too interested. I had the impression that there was some history there best left lie. She would at least converse with me, explaining her own world and listening intently to tales of my own "crushingly boring" world, which the hobbits seemed to enjoy.

We sat at the end of the road, obviously not what any of us were expecting. I noticed that there was a large blue square with writing in it, but I couldn't make it out from where we were.

Soon I found myself being lowered on the end of the rope. "Press to Call" was what the writing said. I asked them to pull me up and we looked around, but didn't find a button like it in the covered bridge area, at least, not on the side we were on. One of the hobbits took the rope and tied it around her waist. The Lizard man tossed her over to the other side. She landed with a giggle, and found the button, but it had been smashed in and wasn't working. They hauled her back over, and I thought of an idea.

The rope wasn't long enough for me to swing over to the skyway support column, though. I then thought of another idea. We filled up my water bottle and unraveled the knitted border of my sweater to lower it towards the button, again not long enough, until they lowered me on the rope. The bottle landed on the four foot square button, and the elevator shot towards me. the team started pulling me up, but I still slammed into the platform. The bottle rolled off the button and the elevator slowed to a stop and began to fall. I managed to recover enough to pull the bottle back up and roll over to the button. Whoosh, the elevator slowed and then accelerated skyward.

It took a few tests to figure out how to raise and lower the platform smoothly enough not to launch me into the ceiling, or more importantly to land at less than terminal velocity. Apparently whatever controls were supposed to be in operation were no longer working. I drove the platform up to the team and they let me fly them back to the ground. The elf looked greener than usual after the trip down, but the hobbits wanted to stay and see how fast they could make the elevator go back up. As we left One of the hobbits had put a rock on the button I turned in time to see the elevator platform crash through the roof of the bridge structure at the top of the skyway, and then come fluttering, obviously no longer under control back to the ground. We all ran out of the range of the falling debris. When the Elf started to chastise the hobbits they just pointed at each other.

Somehow they convinced me to come with them rather than build a hundred foot ladder to climb back to the roadway. (Even though I was pretty sure the roadway didn't lead back to where I needed to go, I felt it was at least closer to home.) There was a short barrage of other travel stuff. Something to do with a big blue glowy thing, and a pretty wild celebration party that ended with an acrobatic naked tangled celebration between the Demon Girl, Hobbit Girl and myself. The team asked the pink dragon to send me home. Good thing I hadn't tried going back by the skyway.

There was a knock on the door. The police were looking for me, as I had gone missing. I explained that I had been playing a video game the whole time, and was right here. They looked dubious. I noticed the figures on the screen were the Lizard Man, Demon Girl, Elf and Hobbit Twins with a Long Coated stranger in a Green flat brimmed hat. They were waving good-bye as the stranger headed into a pink and white portal and the rest of the team, escorting a wagon with a strange blue glow coming from under a tarp, headed into town, they turned and waved, not at the portal, but at the screen. I was at my computer, but dressed in the clothing I'd been wearing since my "disappearance" including an adventure's worth of wear and tear. Not to mention a bag of gold coins and semi-precious stones that I might have some difficulty explaining.

Vampire Mom

I was in a lovely leather and brocade wallpapered train cabin with a woman and her teen daughter. It became clear that the woman, who referred to herself as "The Wife" was actually a vampire. The trip took on a much more sinister air. It was not clear that she was my wife. I don't remember any details from our conversation, except at one point the thirteen year old daughter (who I presumed was born before mom became a vampire) spoke up.

"Some people tried to kidnap me on the way home one day. I said 'why don't you take Suzy, she's way prettier than I am." She paused and looked out the window. Mom patted the back of her hand. "I still miss Suzy."

Road Tripping in the New Car

I dreamed that I traded in my Insight for an all electric vehicle, a sleek, four seat, deep cargo well all wheel drive vehicle. It was a dark metallic maroon color. Since I wasn't going to always be on the grid when I stopped, and I was planning on travelling all the way to Colorado to meet someone, I packed not only everything I would need to wear for the trip, but an extra battery pack and solar cell banks, and an air bed. I had a little Honda generator so I could recharge overnight if there were no charging stations or hotels. My plan was to only drive each day until the batteries were half depleted each. The generator was mounted in a little exterior alcove so I could run the thing and charge either battery as I was driving. The solar panels on the roof didn't really power anything more than the phone and radio. There was a little five gallon tank that would run the generator for a little over nine hours. I carried a spare gas tank just in case. It was a pretty cute little set up. I stopped to visit a couple of my former student/gamer friends and their new baby. (Wasn't really a baby any more in the dream.) D and R both looked like they were healthy and happy. The baby was zooming around crashing into things. I was glad they hadn't come to my very un-childproofed house. We played a couple of hands of Scarabs and Side Scroller, just so I could get their feedback. I left them a prototype deck of scarabs, because the baby seemed to like the illustrations, and giggled lots while sorting them out by color or shape. Before I left, we drank a toast to our fallen gamer friend. I then went on my way, headed to Colorado, but I don't remember any more of that trip.

Later on I drove up to my sister's. It had been raining a lot, so the batteries of the rover were both pretty much depleted and I'd only made it because I'd been running the generator the last several hours taking turns topping off whatever battery I'd just used to climb the latest grade, the batteries weren't really designed to be deep discharged multiple times per day, so this trip was an experiment to see if I could make an eleven hour drive in less than two days. By the time I got to the base of her hill. She was there waiting for me anyway. She showed me where to park (next to her little purple car on a little raised gravel bed) and said the road was washed out so we'd have to hike the half mile up the hill. I topped off my little generator and started it up, locking the access door. I hadn't really planned for this trip very well, so I only had a small bag of stuff, not even a full change of clothing, as I'd only intended to stay a day or so. We hiked up the gravel road and came to the place where the road was washed out. There were a couple of shallow stands of stone, only a few inches below the surface of the water that was now part of a lake rather than their lower pasture. My sister was barefoot, and she hiked up her skirt and waded in. The water was only a few inches deep. I only had the one pair of shoes (my blue Nike runners, and I didn't want to get them wet, so I took off my shoes and socks and followed her across. While I was in the middle of the crossing it started to rain. So much for keeping my shoes dry. One of the stoned rocked down a few inches as I reached the edge and I ended up soaking the bottom of my pants, even though I'd rolled them up. I managed to keep my balance and jumped across to another stone slab, it also shifted precariously under my weight. then to an asphalt slab, which started to crumble when I landed on it. I scrambled a bit and then was up on the gravel road bed, what was left of it. I used my socks to dry off my feet as best I could and then stepped into my shoes. I couldn't walk on the gravel road like my sister, my feet just aren't that tough any more. I greeted J when we got to the house. He had pulled out some clothes for me, as I was soaked by the time we got there.

Jim insisted that I stay a couple more days than I'd planned, because he wanted me to witness my sister and him renewing their vows. I pointed out that the clothes we just put in the dryer were the only ones I had, as my visit had been sort of a whim. He said he would loan me a suit, as he thought he had one that might fit. "Besides, if the rain keeps up, you might not be able to get out for a couple of days." We geeked out a bit over my new electric vehicle. Which I had essentially turned back into a hybrid. (Calculating it now, I see I was getting just shy of eighty miles per gallon, not counting that both batteries were fully charged on house current, of course, so way less than that.)

Driving Miss S.

I dreamed I was driving a recreation of my old 1969 Plymouth Satellite. I was taking J around town (or towns because our trip included LaJolla, Vista and San Diego's Old Town) because she needed to run some errands, and she could no longer drive and didn't trust the self driving cars. I didn't mind so much, except she kept reminding me that I was just her driver and shouldn't expect anything more. (I really have to have a chat with my brain about the "rubbing it in" habit it has.)

We arrived at our last stop, to pick up some refrigerated groceries just before taking J home for the night, when we "ran into" her boyfriend. I distinctly got the impression our meeting was anything but accidental. J decided to let him finish driving her around. We started to unload my car into his. With every armload of stuff, he became visibly more agitated. Petty, vindictive soul that I am, I found that quite amusing. It rapidly became clear that there was no way all her stuff would fit in his much smaller car. J asked me to drop off the stuff that wouldn't fit, "just slip it into the garage." She handed me her garage door opener. Telling me to put it in the can under the swan on the front porch. Since J had been telling me about her plans to sell the house and move out, it did seem odd to be stockpiling more stuff that would have to soon be sold or donated if she really was going to downsize. I could tell her boyfriend was thinking much the same thing, and it wasn't making him happy.

Weird details from the dream. Cecil (my old car) was back to being beige, but the interior was very modern looking maroon and grey with a dark green burl dashboard and interior details. The power train had been swapped out for an all electric drive, and it was, in fact, a self driving car. (I pretty much only parked the vehicle and took over when we were window shopping and needed to stop somewhere not on the original itinerary, or if I didn't know the address.) J seemed to be okay with the self-driving aspect as long as I was in the driver's seat.

Sleeping in: A Chance to Dream

I love these long breaks, I don't have to wake up at the crack of oh-dark-thirty and be on the freeway before first light. I can, instead, feed the kitties and go back to bed. I have my best dreams during second bed time. I dreamed about sleeping in, and dreaming. The bedroom got cold, so the dreams had the usual histrionic version of that - stranded out on the ice in Little Red, trying to get the little engine to make enough heat, but because I left the car in econ mode, the engine wouldn't come on enough. Eventually I got the message, woke up and put an extra blanket on. My brain has to make up these little dramatic interludes instead of just saying "wake up and get another blanket."

Next I was in KPFM, only they'd added a bar on the upper deck, removing a layer of small tables. My friends were already there and had saved me a seat next to a woman I hadn't met before she was part of a larger group of new folks to our little social group. The seating was a bit close so our shoulders overlapped. I turned towards her a little to make more room, and she immediately snuggled up against my fat belly. She smelled a little bit like baking soda, familiar, and not unpleasant. I was enjoying the warmth and her conversation. A definite Star Wars fan, interested in having a Star Wars role-playing get together when she discovered that I was a game master. (Truly a nerd's dream girl.) She was trying to convince her friends to commit to a date when there was a loud rumble from her tummy, echoed immediately by my own.

I made a comment about the "hungry chorus in B-fat," poking my belly. She, however, appeared to be mortified, she straightened up and moved out of contact with me. There was the tell tale smell of diarrhea, mixed with baking soda. I could tell she was profoundly uncomfortable, so moved myself out of her way. She was blushing furiously and excused her-self. She leaned in and made whispered comment about getting old, and cheese and grease, then with a quick "so sorry, I knew this was a bad idea," she headed towards the bathroom, pausing long enough to pick up her over-sized purse. She had tears in her eyes and I knew that, unless someone talked her out of it, she would bolt after she cleaned up. I got the attention of one of her girl friends, and she agreed to try to get her to come back to the bar, but told me "she'll probably hole up for weeks." I took a sheet out of my notebook and wrote my phone number on it. "Please ask her to call me, I'd love to continue our conversation."

She seemed surprised, then pleased and relieved that I wasn't disturbed by her friend's problem. Both women returned, the tall blonde friend and my short dinner companion, whose curly brown hair, I now noticed, had purple highlights. She tried to take her friend's seat, but the much larger blonde just eased her right on by and pulled out the stool next to me. She sat, clutching her large bag in her lap. She wouldn't look at me, though.

That's when I woke up and realized that Giles was back, and he smelled like cat litter. (The cat litter has baking soda in it.)

Driving

Two dreams about driving. In the first, I was driving Little Red, up the hill and down the hills, monitoring the battery charge, when the rain came. Lights and wipers always make the battery deplete faster than normal, so I started looking for someplace to stop for the duration of the storm. I was headed home from a convention and had a trunk full of dirty clothes and one small box of unsold games, plus the stand-up displays in the back. I hadn't packed any blankets so only had a light jacket, and no rain gear. I came to a flooded part of the road and had to pull off. The road was divided so there was no way to go back. Cars were behind me, with higher clearances, and they forged on ahead through the flood. I am glad I stopped. The water would have been half way up my doors. I backed up the little hill when it was clear to do so, as the water across the hollow was getting higher. I wanted to turn around, but the road was divided, and I couldn't see a way to get over to the other side. Eventually other cars stopped and the shoulder also filled up so I couldn't back up any further.

In the second dream, I was driving a convertible, top down, wind whipping across the car as I barreled down the I-15 outside of Rainbow, right past a CHP officer with a radar gun on the side of the road. As he mounted up, I swooshed off the next off ramp and pulled into a parking lot. The officer sailed right past and down the road. That's when I noticed the little white convertible half way up the hill. I pulled out of the parking lot and headed after him. I didn't want someone else to be stuck with my ticket. The officer wouldn't believe me, so I left the poor woman my phone number with a note to call me when it was her court date.

Lost at Sea

I was driving through the desert with J, re-living our recent vacation, when the news came on the radio that we were lost at sea.

Odd, that. We were quite plainly driving across the desert, and I had more than half a tank of gas left. At least until the life preservers popped open.

Then there was suddenly no gas gauge, and Little Red was a life raft with a half shelter on it. We were still in the desert.

J was worried that they would never find us, but I was pretty sure we'd be okay, as we were stopped in the middle of the road.

Over the Edge

Driving down a steep mountain road. I was in the passenger seat, enjoying the view. It was sunny and clear, amazing views and the AC was working well so the inside of the car was comfortable despite the noonday sun. We started to pick up speed, not wanting to lose the two cars ahead of us. (Even though we weren't actually travelling together.)

I wanted to say something along the lines of "no need to rush," when the two cars ahead of us didn't manage to navigate the switchback and the second car broke through the guard rail. The first car managed to spark and scrape along, but then flipped over the damaged railing just as I thought it was going to stop, toppling into a drainage culvert and vanished out of site over the edge. We were also going too fast, but now there wasn't a guard rail to keep us from sailing right out there as well. The second car had taken the already damaged rail out. The tires and brakes both screeched in protest. I tightened my belt and tilted the seat down just as we slid sideways over the edge of the road (me first.)

I sort of was hoping we'd go over front first so we might get a little steering action, and the front facing airbags might be useful, but we went sideways over the edge, and immediately lost all contact with the ground. I ducked even deeper into the seat as the car began to roll over in the air.  I could tell it would be thirty or forty feet before we were back in touch with the ground, and that ground was steep enough to still call a cliff face for another hundred feet or more. I was pretty sure there was no way we could survive this one.

A Quiet Remote Place

I dreamed that a group of my friends and I traveled up into the mountains as far as we could by car, and then, when the road was at an end, packed our clothing, bedding, food, water, and tools into bags and satchels and a couple of wheelbarrows. We hiked up over a pass that was only just barely a pass, several times having to pick up the blue and red metal wheelbarrows and carry them over rocky ground too rough for them to roll.

We crested the ridge to look down into a valley that had obviously been settled at one time. There were massively overgrown trails, a rickety rope bridge over a small stream, and several ruins of buildings. There was a herd of deer in the fields, which were full of oats and mustard. (Both the deer and the fields I think.) Blackberry and raspberry bushes grew in a profusion of thorny meandering hedges, the gentle western slope of the valley was covered with peach, pear and apple trees, as well as walnuts and pecan trees. Vine of peas and beans were reclaiming various old pieces of farm machinery. Roses grew over one of the ruins, great tendrils of pink and white variegated flowers that you could smell all the way up the ridge. It was getting dark and we made our way down to the original trail that led into the valley. It had mostly fallen away, and was blocked in several places by rock slides. It would be a long time before we could clear enough to make the road passable again, if it was even possible for the dozen of us to do so.

Then there was a Hollywood style movie montage of time passing, buildings replaced with earth berm houses, using the old windows to bring in natural light, lumber reclaimed to make a barn and a watch tower, with a zip line down to the edge of the valley. We'd managed to bring up a generator (taken from Little Red, I suspect) and made a water wheel for power. I managed to rig an antenna to the tiny wind-up emergency radio so we could get music and news. People hiked out to the cars to make runs back to town for various supplies, at least for a time.

The state came and repaired the road, even though we didn't ask them to. We were able to move all the cars up into the valley, except little red.

A few months later, everything went crazy. It was an alien invasion that caused a panic, and subsequent pandemic, followed by an invasion of emaciated, diseased refugees. Folks who'd been camping out lower down on the mountain. About two dozen of them shuffled into our little valley from the recently repaired road. They climbed over the gates we'd put at the property line, but wandered listlessly around the settlement, not seeming to be aware that they were surrounded by edible plants.The fever seemed to leave them alive, but with addled brains. We hoped that they would recover, and their brain functions would return to normal. Fortunately only a few of them were violent, most were just confused and wandering, with a decided tendency to take the easiest path that led up and out from the trees. They'd lost all desire to eat or drink, at least until something fragrant, like oatmeal with black berries in it or bacon was offered. Even then, they ate and drank little.

Some of our village wanted to round them up and shoot them, but saner heads prevailed and we lured them into the barn where they could be out of the weather, and we could try to get them food. It was difficult, as we could see they were all sick, and we didn't actually want to get close to them. We sent people out to gather up tents and sleeping bags from the various campsites they'd abandoned. Our own supply of blankets was severely depleted. Food and drink eventually helped some of the sick recover, but others continued to decline. I kept worrying that this was going to turn into some sort of zombie apocalypse, but that didn't happen. We spent a large part of the dream chasing down sick folks, and then luring them back to the barn in the center of the valley. (That was where the main leech field for the septic systems started as well, so there were facilities in the barn for our guests.)

We'd lost contact with the outside world, the radio grown quiet and our cell phones no longer connecting to the network. We didn't know if there was medical help available. We sent someone down the mountain to find out, but they returned only a few hours later saying the roads off the mountain were impassable, and that someone would have to hike down into town. I wasn't sure our little valley could feed all of our refugees indefinitely, if they were to suddenly find their appetites, but knew that there were plenty of edibles up and down the side of the mountain, if we could get enough people foraging we would be okay. The apocalypse was in our very mild fall, so we'd just brought in a good harvest and had plenty of supplies.

White House Road Trip

Had this dream several nights ago, but thought it would be appropriate for the day after the State of the Union Address.

J and I had taken a road trip across country, stopping in several places in the west and mid-west before shooting across the Mississippi and forging through to Washington D.C. Once there we got up bright and early one day for our tour of the White House. It was a lovely tour, and the antiques just fascinated J, re-igniting, I suspect, her desire to collect. At one point the President actually stopped in the hallway to say hello to us. We joked with him, and J and I managed to make him laugh. We finished our tour, and ended up the last of the crowd to go into the gift shop.

In the gift shop, J was looking at miniature versions of some of the famous antiques, and was chatting about re-furnishing her dollhouse, suggesting we make a White House replica. While she was talking the store emptied out, except for four secret service guys, and the President. The President waited on us at the checkout stand. I thought it was amusing that he needed help getting the cash drawer open.

Courthouses and Castles

Two great tastes...

The new RPG from...

Interesting evening last night. There were many and varied dreams but two of them had a bit of plot to them, and stick with me, even after a full day of work.

In the first of the two, I was at work, plugging away at sending out emails telling folks they forgot to push the "Publish" button on their sites, when one of my co- workers came down from upstairs with a couple of huge envelopes. Each one looked like a US Post prepaid envelope, but stuffed with what had to be a full ream of papers each. It was obvious that they had been opened and the pages rifled through, then put back, but. like many things, they didn't quite fit properly. Both envelopes were from the District Court and both had instructions that I was supposed to read the material and appear at the appointed time if I wanted to be present for the arguments of the cases. The nearest date was for half an hour from the time they landed on my desk, but at least there was a week before the next date. I showed them to my boss and ran out to the car, one ragged and inexpertly taped together envelope under each arm.

When I got to the court, the judge was standing by our president and attorney. She looked at me as I rushed in asking "Why are you late, sir?"

"I got these..." I set the envelopes down and pulled out my phone, "Forty six minutes ago."

"Well, you missed it, then."

"That was fast."

Our attorney explained that the other side had offered to settle, stipulating that everything we'd claimed was true, but not, somehow, admitting any malice in the events as detailed. I wasn't sure that was going to play so well for them, as it only left incompetence and stupidity to blame, not altogether a better characterization of them. (In the dream I knew what all this was about, but I can't remember now.)

The judge wanted to know more about my envelopes, and if I had received them in the condition they were in now. She then indicated that they hadn't gone out of her office like that, and had been sent over thirty days ago. She called her administrative assistant and they verified the return receipt had been sent back, three days after they had been mailed. It was my name on the receipt, but most certainly not my signature. I even pulled out my driver's license so they could compare them. The judge didn't look very happy about that, and gathered up her bailiff and assistant for a quick consultation. The bailiff left the courtroom at a run, talking into his radio.

Our attorney was smiling a very satisfied looking smile as the judge and her assistant vanished back into her chambers. "So, do you think they photocopied the whole thing?"

I shrugged, "I don't know why they would, wouldn't they have a full copy of everything, too?"

"Their attorney's would."

"So why wouldn't they get copies from them?"

Maybe it was someone who wasn't supposed to have them. I looked at him, thinking 'how was that even possible,' when he pulled out a document that was an order from the court not to discuss the contents with any outside of the governing board and our attorneys.

"Oh..."

The bailiff instructed the attorneys, who'd apparently not made it out of the building to sit back down, when they looked over and saw me, and my ragged envelopes they just rolled their eyes and both of them started calling people on their cell phones. I thought that was interesting, as they clearly weren't expecting to see me here.


In the following dream, it was another one of those where I was involved in playing a game, but somehow it was also happening at the same time. Sometimes I was traveling on my little brown pony through a deep, dark forest, and sometimes I was standing over a very detailed map, looking at a yellow meeple on a brown Lego horse. J and several others were at the keep as we adventurous few loaded up our supplies and mounted our mounts, my chocolate brown pony, TC on a white draft horse, like an albino Clydesdale, and our third member, whose identity kept changing, on a Dorse or Chocobo like critter. (The miniature for it was a keyfob, I think.)

We left the keep, waving goodbye to our companions and set out for the Castle of Perilous Perils on the the other side of the Mostly Impassible Forest. The dice were with us as we traveled through the forest, nothing of note was encountered, and finding myself the smallest of the group, no more than a meter tall at best, I was disinclined to go looking for trouble. During the forest travel the dream had shifted into the first person mode, so by the time we arrived at the Castle of Perilous Perils, we were dirty and smelled a great deal like our mounts and oiled leather mixed with week old Cheerios. In other words, not pleasant. As we rode directly up to the gates of the first tower, I offered to scout around the perimeter of the castle. Oddly enough, the castle was entirely made up of the one tower, and the scouting trip was so short that each of my companions repeated the journey, just to make sure I wasn't playing some sort of practical joke on them.

We considered for a moment that we weren't in the right place, I mean, a tower is not a castle, and a castle couldn't really be just a tower, right?

The game master, frustrated that we might just go merrily on past this place blurted out that the castle was mostly underground, then fudged up some knowledge rolls to say that I knew that. And so, suddenly back in the first person view, I said, "hey, I remember that most of the castle is underground."

My companions seemed completely unaware of the GM interaction and we dismounted to check the door for traps and to see if I could pick the lock. I had to remount to do that. Once inside there was a quick encounter with a couple of ghouls, each with a burlap sack full of limbs and mildly interesting loot. I peeked out of the entry room, and suddenly had a quick flashback of another adventure, the rooms to the right, I remembered, had been full of creatures well above our ability to handle, and the left had been nearly an empty and straight shot to the widget we needed. I asked my companions to hush and wait while I snuck out into the hall. I looked down the cooridoor to the right, more ghouls, and something in the distance flitted between the corbled walkways in flickering torch light. I could hear the clanking of metal on metal and deduced that there were many heavily armed and armored foes in that direction.

I looked to the left. The halls were pitch black, I waited for my eyes to adjust, I could just make out a sort of dim outline, empty halls, nearly a mirror image of the halls full of enemies opposite.

I reported what I had seen and we decided to head left. I think I am the only one who heard the disappointed sigh. We found a largish room down the ramp that could be barred shut, and the shifting character and myself barred ourselves off from the rest of the dungeon, er, castle, while TC took a heavy crossbow and a large shield and struck out based on a sketch I'd done to see if there was a path to our objective. I warned that it wasn't a good idea to split up the party, but TC promised that he would run back at the first sign of trouble.

We waited a bit, then I got fidgety and went outside to bring our mounts into the tower...castle. I used all of TC's extra shirts and pants to tie makeshift pads to all of the animals' feet. Stopping to admire my handiwork, and picture how TC would look when he found out, I listened intently to see if the coast was clear. As I did so, I stooped low around the corner to see what the critters on the right side of the corridor were doing. The ghouls were munching on whatever was in their sack lunches, and the armored patrols were patrolling further along. They'd obviously seen and heard nothing.

The four of us snuck back into the barred chamber. SCV (currently playing our third adventurer) asking how I managed to get past the bars. I just shrugged and carefully took off the rags, folding them neatly and putting them back in TC's saddle bags just as he came puffing back into the room.

"I got it, the McGuffin of Enormous Worth, let's get.... How did our horses get here?"

I grinned.

"Well, good, I might have angered a small mob back there." Sure enough, I could hear voices shouting in the hallways in the distance.

We mounted up and raced out of the basement...castle. I was falling further and further behind, my pony being significantly less long-legged than the others' mounts. I waited until the pack was on my heals and then shot down a side path, hoping they would follow me and allow the McGuffin to be ensconced in its receptacle and thus solve the problem of the un-dead once and for all. By this time, however, the GM had begun tossing dice into the "shame" pool, skipping over the penalty box entirely. So he declared that they "didn't even see your diminutive form on the tiny pony" and raced after the group.

I stopped, and turned around, where I then began thinning the mob out one at a time from the rear with my Wand of Wondrous Webbing.

Even in the first person mode, I was sure I heard swearing and laughter coming from the sky. J's giggle was clearly audible.

Now that was a fun dream. I loved how even in first person mode, I could sometimes make out the grid lines on the forest floor or in the Castle. If virtual reality were like that, I don't know that I would ever want to leave.

Evacuation

Those few of us who were left waited out the Peat Rain, and when the fall had slowed, gathered our most precious belongings, what food and drink we had left, and gathered at the Arco Station on the hill to refuel before driving north into the desert and then east into the mountains. I looked around at the mall, and was amazed by how quickly some the buildings had collapsed into ruin. It was almost like the sturdier the building had been, the quicker it had fallen. I couldn't really make out a pattern for that. My own home had been fully intact, While any with flat roofs or multiple stories had begun to decay around mine.

While waiting my turn to fuel up Little Red, I was absently shoveling the peat aside as I'd seen a depression in the nearly smooth layer we'd all driven over to get to the parking lot on the hill. The pit was about the size of a large tool box and as I shovelled the last of the peat from it, I came to a thick canvas covering that was already being damaged by the spongy alien material. That told us that the pit had been covered up in the first or second Peat Rain.

The garage owner was one of the survivors and he came over to help pull up the canvas covering. There were tools there, blow torches, wrenches, socket drivers, Even a few different tire irons and small jacks. He explained that these were all damaged in some fashion, so had been put in a storage bin as spares. After some negotiations, he allowed the cache to be parted out amongst the survivor's vehicles. We were very cautious taking the tools out of the pit. The garage owner and a couple of other mechanics went over each tool and made sure they were safe before handing them out. Eventually we had about thirty vehicles and several dozen five gallon and one gallon cans filled up and loaded into the various vehicles. We set out down the hill and up onto the freeway, driving at a cautious speed to allow the larger more fully loaded vehicles to keep up. I didn't know what to expect, as everything on our radios was filled with digital noise.

Road Trip from Hell

Not to Hell, from Hell, as in, escaping in a little red car, but not my little red car. I was driving, bumping along over broken up roads and through the high grass stalks trying to lay claim to the path. Suddenly, large metal objects barely spotted in time to avoid them, my evasive maneuver caused us to bounce completely off the road and we ended up straddling a ditch. I managed to slow us down to a stop with the vehicle still drivable.

We'd seen no signs of pursuit, but I knew there were plenty of dangers lurking in the harmless looking woods nearby. We needed to find a way to get the car back on the roadway. The ditch ran alongside the road a good number of yards, and there it went into a culvert under a crossroad. We debated between going into the woods for lumber to try to make a bridge, or driving oh so carefully, to the crossroads in hopes that we could just drive up onto the roadway from there.

We decided to head to the crossroads with a couple people sitting on top of the car to let me know when to stop so they could move stones, or build up dirt to get over them.

It took far less time than I thought it would, and there were still no signs of pursuit. The ditch widened as we approached the culvert, and the flows had undercut the roadway a little bit. There were more discussions and while the team was up on the road above the culvert, I saw something moving in the culvert, blocking the entire thing, almost. I slammed the door and steered the car down into the ditch, then built up enough speed to turn it up the bank at the last second. I thumped up onto the roadway with some sort of half scorpion, half snake looking thing hot on my tail. I accelerated down the dirt road, slamming on the brakes and spinning around. I stomped on the accelerator back towards the creature, and then stomped the brakes and slammed into it (using the passenger side rear fender.)

With a sick sounding thunk I bounced up and over it, then raced back to the panic-stricken group. I unlocked all the doors and shouted for them to get in. This works way better in the movies than it does in my dreams. I saw the creature pulling itself back up onto the roadway, "get back!" I stopped short of the group and shifted into reverse, thankful that this little dirt road was both straight, and debris free.

I hit the thing full force and it shattered, smashing in the trunk and shattering the back window. I raced back to the group, who'd managed to arm themselves with sticks and rocks. They pulled the doors open and started shouting at me to get out. I looked in the back seat, and the top half of the creature was chewing its way through the back seat.

After we managed the kill the thing, no one wanted to get back in the car, so we packed out as much stuff as was still untainted by it's highly corrosive blood and started back down the road on foot.

It was then that I noticed that I was the tallest one of the group, and the oldest, and the fattest. There was a twenty something couple, both very clingy on one another and dressed similarly, like a fast food place uniform, and a younger person who I'm not certain was a boy, or a girl disguised as a boy. There was a middle aged man and woman, not really a couple, and of indeterminate relationship to the child, sometimes one or the other was sort of parental, and other times they ignored the kid. I had found the three of them together, so in my head I thought of them as a family, though they really didn't show any sign of that.

As we picked our way carefully along the roadway, I wondered what sort of world produced automobiles, but not firearms. The makeshift spear had me all sorts of worried about our odds of getting safely away from this place and back to some sort of civilization. I think I understood why there was no pursuit.

Driving in My Car

I turned up the radio. N had called needing a ride from the border crossing. Not sure why she called me, other than knowing that I wouldn't say no. The crossing was oddly empty of cars on the US side of things. I pulled into the loading zone and N got in the car. Heading home, the border plaza was more crowded. This was one of those dreams where the signs and arrows on the road didn't seem to mean anything but to me. Cars wandered across the concrete expanse in buffalo like herds, with about as much organization. I found myself headed up the wrong way into oncoming traffic at one point and barely managed to get over and turned around without an accident. After much pursed lip complaint from my unhappy passenger, I finally got the routes sorted out and drove N home.

Her new home was quite the luxury affair, multiple large TV's, comfy couches, rich thick carpets, heavy elegant drapes. I was surprised she didn't just call a cab, but looking around couldn't see anything that really looked like N in the rooms. We sat on the couch for a bit, chit chatting. eventually she leaned into me and we cuddled. I was pleased that she no longer stank of weed ash, I was thinking perhaps she'd completely re-invented herself this time. We sat enjoying one another's warmth until the large screen TV popped to life, showing a bunch of squealing bikini clad volleyball players romping around in slow motion. From the cinematography and hair styles (and high legged bikini bottoms) I could tell the film was shot in the late seventies. I was able to ignore the TV after the initial onslaught (a 'bird in the hand' and all of that.) N, however, was disturbed by it, though strangely hesitant about doing anything about it. That is, until the bikini tops started flying off. She got up and headed deeper into the house with a purpose. I hesitated a split second before I followed her, enjoying the fact that the producers hadn't hired a bunch of silicone injected models for their shoot, and realized that was a later development. I hurried after N, expecting her to be looking for a remote, I wanted to ask "why not just power it down manually" without worrying about...

We entered a small den, where there was a young man playing on a computer. N asked, politely, if he could turn off the TV in the front room. His answer was simply "no" and a sarcastic smile. N was surprisingly meek about that answer.

N led me outside the house, confessing that she had not exactly been truthful with me about where she lived.

I made the mistake of saying "that's not really a surprise."

She said "you don't have to be an asshole about it."

I realized that was exactly what my comment was, and she was right; I didn't have to be a jerk. At the same time, she had been lying to me, and I really hadn't been surprised.

I walked her around the side of the big house to a much smaller glass-fronted building. She made me stop at the door so I said good night. I walked around to the floor to ceiling windows and looked in at her apartment, pretty much a single room with a bathroom next to the kitchen and a set of screens blocking the area of the walk-in closet. Brightly colored covers hid several pieces of very blocky furniture. I didn't see any sign of cats, and that was sad to me. "Nice fishbowl," I mouthed.

N laughed, but then stepped to her coffee table and picked up a remote, pressed a button; window shades rolled down. She waved goodbye, her lips pressed together in a wrinkled thin line of disapproval.

I really need to work on the sarcasm filter.

Yellow Chair, Not Buying, Red Chair

I dreamed I was moving out of my office, and decided to take the yellow task chair out as the last item. I sat in it and rolled it out of the building and down the sidewalk towards the back hill. For some reason I needed it to get all the way home, and I figured if I could coast down the hill I would get onto the freeway with enough speed to get over the hill and then be able to coast most of the way from Poway to Escondido. I knew I wouldn't be able to make it up the big hill, but was hoping to find a big truck to draft up the hill by the time I got there.

There was a tiny bit of my brain that wondered if the little furniture casters would be up to the fifteen mile trip. The rest of my brain was "Hooty hoo! I'm outta here, let's do this!" and so I rolled down off the sidewalk, lifting up on one side to clear some rocks, and then crashed down the hill through the acacia and eucalyptus debris to get to the freeway on ramp below. I wasn't going quite as fast as I had hoped, but I had an umbrella, so popped it open as I rolled up along side traffic and used it to catch a gust from a passing truck. That accelerated me up to almost freeway speed, and I rocketed up the hill catching draft after draft from passing vehicles. I easily made it to the top of the hill and started gaining speed on the way down the slope, easily keeping up with the car carrier in the slow lane for most of the trip. I shot across the bridge at speed, managing somehow to get across the mall exit without a collision and then started slowing as I rolled up the big hill.

It was about that time that I realized I was going to have to have someone pick me up and take me back to work to get my car, and I wondered if I should have tried harder to get the chair tied into the back of my car. "Doesn't matter," I said to myself, I was already more than a third of the way home. I leaned back to reduce my drag and steered my way off the freeway, it would be a fairly level trip through town, and I figured between the umbrella and the occasional big truck I could easily make it home.

---

In the next dream segment, I had people over to the house to re-upholster and re-caster my task chair and my rocking chair. I gave them a little tour of the house and they wanted to sell me a new hot tub, as they didn't think they could re-upholster the old one. I explained that I wanted it repaired, not re-upholstered, but the only one who seemed to get it was the executive assistant. I was still not clear as to why she had come along with the others, but wasn't complaining about it, as she was the most intelligent and best looking of the bunch. She did manage to convince her team to take care of the rocker, and I finally managed to convince them that I wouldn't be buying a hot tub from them. The EA convinced me that it would actually be cheaper to buy a new task chair (not from them) than to pay to have the one I have re-done.

I expressed what a shame that was, as I had coasted/pushed it all the way home from Poway. She didn't look like she believed me, until I tipped it up and showed her the pitted and worn casters.

They left, having been unsuccessful in selling me anything but the re-upholstering of one chair, which is what I'd contacted them for in the first place.  I settled into my new chair until the fresh glue/vinyl smell got to me. I opened up the window in the room and fired up the ionic filter. I decided to call it an evening and gathered up the cats to lock them out of the sitting room, figuring the smell wasn't doing them any good, either.

The cats and I went to bed, a few minutes later there was a gentle rapping at my bedroom door (the outside door) I hesitated before opening the curtains. It was the EA, she was still in the light blouse and short skirt she'd worn earlier, but now it was twenty degrees cooler and she looked a bit shivery. I wondered why she hadn't come to the front door. She said she'd forgotten to leave me her card. I opened the door and took the card, it had her home phone number written on the back. I asked her if she wanted to come in for a bit. She looked happy to get in out of the chilly night air.

I offered her a robe, but she asked if I had anything to drink. She didn't seem unhappy when I explained that there was only tequila. While I cleaned a couple of shot glasses (they'd been sitting so long they were dusty) she stood in the front room pouring over my library, making delighted comments about what she was finding. She was talking with the kitties, and I heard the telltale sounds of happy to be brushed cats coming from the room. I had made up a plate of cheese and toast (no crackers in the house) hoping it would go okay with the drinks. I really got the impression that she wasn't planning on leaving unless I threw her out. She really wanted to sell that hot tub, pointing out that we could have both been enjoying it if I'd agreed to purchase it. Somehow I doubted that, but it was fun to think about.

I almost hated to tell her "I'm still not buying it," figuring that would bring our evening to a halt.

Interestingly, it didn't bring the evening to a halt, if anything she seemed more interested in staying with me, and the cats, saying she was too drunk to go home, even though she hadn't had even a full shot yet. She started to disrobe, saying how fortunate she was that I only had the one bed, and how warm it must be with me and the cats, all of whom seemed to be attracted to her as much as I was. It was at that point that I realized she was infatuated with the house, the books and the cats as much or more than myself.

---

I was in a furniture store, sort of a mix of new and second hand, where ever I went there was a dark-haired woman with me, helping me try out the different chairs, asking how everything fit, and if I could sit and write for a few hours at a time comfortably in it. (Pretty sure this was the EA from the previous dream.) She was also helping out a single mom and her two children, also friends of hers, I think. The family were looking for something to make their small bedrooms feel larger. I suggested a Jefferson bed. None of them knew what that was, so I asked for a sheet of paper and something to draw with. I drew the arrangement, desk and shelves underneath, bunk bed above, allowing the two sets of furniture to take up one bed sized space in the room, leaving the rest open for shelves or even just a couple of chairs and a game table.

Mom looked skeptical, but both the boy and the girl thought it was a great idea. "We'd both get the top bunk all the time." Apparently they'd had to share a room when they'd first been divorced, and mom swore they would never share bunk beds again. I pointed out this really wasn't a bunk bed, as much as it just made the space beneath usable for more than storing winter clothing.

Meanwhile the woman I was with found a red and white leather barber style chair, complete with chrome arm supports and chrome hardware for the center post and footstool mechanism. There was a headrest that adjusted to fit me perfectly. I rode up and down and swiveled the chair around a full turn or two. The woman lifted an arm - even though larger the chair did work like a barber chair - and sat on my lap, leaning us both back so she was rather intimately stretched out on top of me. "Fits perfectly," was her comment.

"Yes, it does. Rather persuasive sales technique, too."

"I would be delighted to show you all of the features once we get it home."

Yep, pretty sure this was the same gal from the previous dream.

Starting to think I need to go check out some furniture re-finishing places.

Hillside Cantina, in 2D and Road Trip

Had an oddly delightful twist on the dream city Hillside Cantina location. It was in the form of a 2D side scroller. The patrons in the bar area were aware of the change, but the ones in the restaurant section seemed to be oblivious to the difference. I think it may have been something in the drinks. The color palette of the dream was also seriously reduced, making our outfits quite garish.

No one seemed to be too upset by the change, and we did figure out, after a bit of fiddling around, how to move between layers. That was the only way to get out of the bar, it seemed, as the entrance was not in the actual plane of the bar and the patio. (I should say "patios" as there were ladders leading up onto several other layers of the "patio.")


In a separate dream, this morning N and I were travelling to Connecticut in a big blue muscle car (fins and portholes, white leather interior) and, for the first time in a couple years, we were completely civil to one another. In a way, those are the hardest dreams, because when I wake I know it can never be that good between us again and it throws my whole morning off.

Desert Crossing

This mornings mental offering was a dream of outstanding complexity. It started out with my meeting with a couple whose car had broken down on the long lonely stretch of freeway outside of the Grand Canyon. I suspected I was in the Dreamlands, as this stretch of road was more dirt and gravel than asphalt. the couple were fairly young, in their late 20s or early 30s at the most, but they looked beat up from living outdoors, not the weekend camper sort of beat up, but the out of work for a couple of years beat up.

I looked at their pickup truck, and it was rusted out. It reminded me of the total failure of a steel bucket I had owned. 

The bucket had just been used for hot water and baking soda, I had washed down the garage floor, getting rid of the final layer of cat urine, preparing the garage for use. When I was done, the bucket gave a metallic groan, and the rim cracked like someone had attempted to fold it. The rolled edges of the bucket cracked off and fell around the base of the bucket. I called N out to show her the odd behavior, and demonstrated by pressing lightly against the bottom, which promptly separated from the sidewalls, which then folded up like cardboard. pretty soon I had the whole bucket sitting in four inch pieces in my hands. N yelled at me for destroying the bucket, failing to see anything interesting or enlightening in what had happened, and unwilling to ponder what might have caused galvanized steel to fold like wet cardboard.

I shook off the (false) memory, and brought my attention to the present. We needed to get moving, as there were critters migrating across the desert that would strip us to bone and call it a snack. While the family might have been able to hole up in the now deserted gas station, it certainly wouldn't have been very pleasant. Even then, their truck was collapsing into fist sized chunks right in front of us. 

As if to underscore the urgency of the matter, I heard a rustling across the road from the gas station. A beast, with skin like a pineapple and long horns burst out onto the broken asphalt road.  "Be still."  The beast nosed the air, then came running for us as the couple's children came bursting out of the two bathrooms. "Get in my car!" I shouted and the family grabbed a few handfuls of their stuff and piled into my car. 

The car was a slightly modified version of my old beige Plymouth Satellite. The modification appeared to be that I could start it up and open the doors with voice commands. Somehow I ended up in the back seat, and the couple's twelve year old was behind the wheel. The beast launched a salvo of stinging quills at the car, but they bounced off the windows and doors as I pulled the last one shut.

"Make it go!" the daughter shouted.

"It isn't that sort of car," I explained, "you have to manually drive the vehicle, and you're in the driver's seat."

"No time to swap, take the lever behind the steering wheel and put it in 'D' for drive, then press the pedal on the right when I tell you."

"She can't do that!" one of her parents shouted.

"She's big enough to reach the pedals, she can do it. It'll be just like a video game."


"What's that?" the Dad asked. 

I was flummoxed for a moment, but then gave the command for the engine to start up. "I know a place near the edge of the canyon that should have some parts I need. We'll go there and then escape by air."

"How?"

"Don't worry about that, just keep us on the road until we're far enough away for us to switch drivers." 

The twelve year old stepped all the way down on the gas pedal, and the throaty V-8 shuddered to life, rumbled and coughed a bit, then caught, launching us out onto the freeway. The car swerved and fishtailed as the girl over corrected her steering. I leaned over from the back seat and took the steering wheel. "Ease off on the pedal, about a quarter of the way down will be enough."

We settled into a fairly even ride after only a few frightening moments. When we'd left the beastly scout far enough behind I explained the brake pedal and we came to a stop. I fired up the GPS system, which had somewhat spotty reception out this far from civilization. (I thought that was a little bit odd, as this was where there should have been no interference at all.)

By using the GPS, I was able to navigate us overland to the rim of the canyon, and to a dirigible hanger that I knew about. I had the envelope for the car and the cable in the back seat to connect us to the large bag, what I didn't have was a way to quickly inflate the thing with Helium. I hoped the Catalysis system in the hanger was still working. 

It was a bit like driving on the map in a game, searching the topographic overlay for passable routes to get us up to the rim of the canyon. Apparently one of the other upgrades to the Plymouth was an adjustable suspension and four-wheel drive. After watching our little white rectangle positioned against the map for several minutes, all while listening to the family inventory what they were able to grab from their truck, we arrived at the hanger. 

The hanger was collapsed and the caretaker's house was in only a little better condition. I told the family to go and get blankets and towels from the house while I rigged our escape. The two little boys raced for the house, all ready having to go again.

The trunk appeared empty, but I spoke a short phrase, and another dimensional space was revealed. I'd waited for the family to go into the house because I didn't really want them to know about the secret spaces in my car. I could easily ride out the swarming horde's advance inside my car, but it would have been more than a little crowded with six of us. 

I removed six stacks of cables and glassware, then a huge red velvet feeling hide. It was a demon hide, very rare, and very stretchable. There were six inlets set with a pair of poison spines on either side of the connection. The connections had been set into the bag by powerful magics, and were the only way to get gas into the bag. I could rig the bag to fill itself, but that would take several days. (This had been my original plan.) I rigged the first cable and connection, carefully bending the two poisen spikes down and through the tops of the tubes. Poison began to flow into the contraption, being caught by the glass bowls and altered by their magic. The bag immediately began to fill, the small stack of glass bowls working magically to filter hydrogen and helium from the air. 

My car clamped itself to the ground, living steel spines shooting into the ground from behind each wheel. The Dad was out of the house, watching by now. I could tell he didn't believe the bag would be large enough to lift the car. I told him to check in the hanger for anything that looked like a bunch of long hoses, or we were going to have to fortify the house until the bag could finish filling. 

I quickly connected the other five cables and the magic glass filter pumps. It was then that I noted that my first pump was actually broken, and wasn't properly filling. I removed it and went into the kitchen of the house. I needed some small glass bowls to replace the ones that had their bottoms rotted out. Like the galvanized bucket from my memory, the bottoms had just separated from the sides of the bowls. It was not the sort of behavior one normally sees in glass, so I found myself wishing that I'd made a better analysis of the bucket all those years ago. 

I noticed that I'd attracted a shadow. The Twelve Year Old had attached herself about two feet from my left elbow, and wherever I moved, she was right there with me. I could tell she was scared, eyes darting around, always looking outside the window. The dad had found some hoses. We watched him drag them over to my car, where the large bag had all ready doubled in size, and the cables were charged and holding it just a few feet above the roof of the car. "He doesn't know where we are." The Daughter stated. 

I found some glassware that might suffice, but I would have to reveal a lot of my abilities to the family in order to make them work. I wasn't really looking forward to that. So far they had managed to retain a feeling of urgency that exposure to pure magic might trip them over into panic. The demon bag was probably all ready perilously close to the line as it was. I took some small pleasure in the musical tinkling as the small bowls nested together, and the last of the original glassware fell to ruin. 

"Interesting, are you mine or his?" I asked.

"Neither," the Daughter pointed out to her Mother, "We're all hers, except you. You're not, but she doesn't know that, yet."

As we headed out to fix the first connection, I felt the hydrogen pouring out of the end of the hose the Dad had delivered. I disconnected the cable, put my bowls inside the tube and then performed the rituals to enchant them just before slipping the output hose over them. The Demon hide bag began to fill and stretch.

Apparently the woman and her family had figured out what was going on, and they all vanished quietly. I picked up the ruined glass shards and began to investigate why they had failed. I began to worry about demonic corruption from the bag. I would have to fully inspect it and make repairs if needed. I had time to do that, now. 


One of the things I loved about this dream was the textures and color details. The desert reds and browns, the brown-red rich color of the bag, the blue and red bottoms of the glass elements in the filter pumps. The textures of the etched glass bowls, the velour of the bag, and the dusty crumbling bucket and bowls. 

There was another dream, equally as detailed, but much shorter. All I can remember now is waking up and thinking "Oh, another one of those dreams." Hardly useful for remembering any details, sorry about that.

Arch Bridge Romance

DROG20110925

I was in the northern Dream City, the one with the highly arched pair of bridges over the bay. In this particular dream I was trying to get a couple together for a walk across the bridge. Tricky part was, they had each been separated from their groups and one was on the lift and the other in the crowd waiting for the lift.

The complication was that there was a large crowd of tourists who were less than polite, they kept cutting one another off, and were loading up the spacing gate in such a way as to create a hazard. Then the park staff would have to clear some of them from the gate, and while that was happening more would show up and demand to all be let on together.

It took me several tries to explain that the park would only let eight to twelve people on at a time, to prevent bridge collapse. This wasn't true of course, it had more to do with the capacity of the lift. (Any number who fit could climb the stairs and then walk across the bridge.) The noisome tourists got out of the elevator and were now in the courtyard arguing amongst themselves in an attempt to make eight to twelve person groups. 

The young man got off the lift so the first group of twelve could all ride together.

This was the opening I needed to get the young man and his (soon to be) woman together, suggesting that they both looked fit and therefore the four flights of stairs wouldn't pose a challenge to them. (And since no one hardly ever takes the stairs, it was actually more private.) The view was also better as the stairs were on the underside of the bridge for the first three quarters of the climb and you could look almost directly down at the ships and the bay below.

The woman asked if I was going to come along. The young man looked properly relieved when I said I had to drive over the bridge, as I lived far to the south. At that point myriad futures seemed to coalesce; I knew that I had succeeded.

I was pretty sure that my presence in the pedestrian access area, when I had arrived in a car, would be enough of a mystery for them to ponder together as they climbed the stairs.

Found DROG File

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My brother and I were traveling together in a pair of wildly mismatched vehicles. I was in Little Red and he was in a large blue and silver van. We entered a town that looked like someone had beat it about the head and shoulders with a tree trunk.

We stopped in a clear spot in the center of town near what looked like it had been a park. Every manufactured item in the park was broken, burned or bent into unrecognizability. 

As we made our way towards the center of the park I started to get nervous. Turned out there was ahold reason. Three balls of trash and debris began to roll after us, converging as they came.

It looked like we were able to out maneuver them, but each time we did they learned from it and didn't fall for our tricks. 

My brother thought we were close enough to the cars to outrun them, but I knew that while his van would likely drive away from one or two hits, Little Red was unlikely to. 

I did know that my car was going to just start up and go, as I had left the engine on. 

We needed to outsmart them just one more time, so this time we split up, but looped back around, then took off with the three of the now over ten foot high balls crashing into one another. That gave us enough time to get to our vehicles. 

I have no idea why I thought they would stop chasing us after we left the park.  Because if anything, they were faster on the road.

The Way Station

From the first of the dreams I remember last night. I actually did this note in bed before the write up.