All Singing and Dancing, Science Fiction, Future-Fantasy, Seven Escape-Room Extravaganza!

Starting with a sliding ice puzzle and winding its song and dance routine way through; star crossed romance, rescues, tentacled maidens, mafia weddings with choreographed bridal deflowering, lost purses, exes showing off their reconstructive breast surgeries, and, in general no foot, hand or chest pains. What an exhilerating and eshausting morning.

Dolphinia

I had been selected for a strange experiment. I was injected with something that allowed me to stay underwater for several minutes, and sent out into a netted off bay to find and communicate with the trapped Dolphinia. I managed to find her, or allowed her to find me. I was able to communicate with her after a time, finding out that she was a mother, and her pod contained two of her children still. She desperately wanted to be re-united with them so she could see them join up with other pods after their summer feeding meet up. The more days that went by, the harder it would be to catch up. She also worried that it was dangerous for a lone dolphin to migrate the later the season got. I relayed this to our experimenters, and they told me to promise her that people could transport her directly to the feeding grounds where she could find the rest of her pod. She just needed to come play some games with us first.

I did my best, but it seems there were no easy way to talk about being transported really fast until I learned that dolphins bow surfed on whale and boat waves, so used that to say a boat would let us surf quickly to her pod. I felt bad for deceiving her.

The experimenters lowered a whole office building into the bay. I had to explain to them that we still needed to breathe air and couldn't reach the lower levels without extreme risk, so they put down diving bells with oxygen pumped into them. The two of us managed to swim through the building, with Dolphinia teaching me the proper way to swim, and how to glide to conserve air. By the time we were done with our experiments, I could stay down almost as long as Dolphinia. The longer these "games" went on, and the less the experimenters shared with me the more I began to worry that I had been deceived as much as Dolphinia.

Then one morning I woke up in a normal bed, with my normal body intact. I felt woozy though, as if I'd been drugged for days. I managed to get out of my room and found where they were keeping Dolphinia.

She had been completely transformed. She was human now, at least six feet tall, and in a blonde curly haired wig and red dress. She was stunning if a bit alien looking. She was frightened, couldn't figure out how to swim (walk) and confounded by the need to breathe continuously through this thing above her mouth. Turns out I had been allowed to find her in order to calm her down and get her cooperation again. She was so happy to see me, and concerned that I too had been made into this awkward land animal. She was convinced that I, too, had been a dolphin, and that was why I learned to swim and breath so well with her. Spiritually, I agreed with her, and I wanted nothing more than to be back in the warm water of the bay, swimming freely. I wanted to get her back to herself, and then delivered to the summer grazing area with a large pod she could travel with until she found her own. I had the feeling, though, that the dolphin to human conversion was only one way, neither she nor I would be able to go back.

Stormy Moving Day

I dreamed I was moving into a new home on a low hillside overlooking the ocean. The unpacking was a little chaotic as J and her family were there helping, as well as L and a couple of other folks including my brother and his wife. We were unpacking one of my parent's dressers when we discovered that it didn't sit very even. I opened up the top and we discovered an entire sewing machine cabinet, disassembled, stored under the top shelf. It was something my brother had inherited, but we'd not found it at the time.

Of course we took a break to assemble it and my brother decided that he wanted it. We had to disassemble it so we could ship it to Virginia. J was in a little bit of a mood as the kids were wildly running around discovering all the neat features of the house. Her son, however, thought it was because this was our fourth anniversary. I tried to point out to him that we hadn't been dating in almost two years, so that seemed unlikely (and it was the Sunday, not Friday before Thanksgiving, so there were still a few days left even if that were the problem.) All the while we were working, the light kept growing dimmer until I looked out over the bay and saw huge cloud wall, churning gray and green and full of lightning. A waterspout headed right for our little beach. I yelled at the people outside to hurry and get into the house. When they asked why I pointed out to the waterspout, and that got them moving. Several strangers also ran towards the house, then looked confused about what to do then, as they were sort of trapped against our sea wall. My brother and I helped them up over the wall and shooed them into the house. I was being pelted with water and small fishes as I ran into the house and pulled the french doors shut behind me.

"There's a box of towels in the back bathroom, bring them all."

The group of people from the beach were all trying not to drip on the carpet, so were all huddled in the six by nine tile space right in front of the doors. This room had indoor/outdoor carpet, though, and was meant to be more of an enclosed patio than a regular room, so I told them to spread out, "the carpet washes out." I remembered that it had plenty of sand in it when I bought the place, so wasn't worried about it.

The water spout lifted and vanished as it made its way overhead. The house was well built (very dome like) and it didn't even shudder, though lightning was flashing and you could hear the thunder so loud some of the people were holding their hands over their ears. The kids were helping me pick up the little wriggling fish and put them in a small bucket. I opened the door and ran out to the edge of the sea wall, a wave reached up to just a few inches below the wall, so I was able to scoop up a half bucket, it would be enough to save at least some of the fish. At least there weren't any more falling from the sky, just normal rain at that point. J's grandkids joined the beach kids in catching the fish and putting them in the bucket.

Convoluted

The explanation started, "I was replacing the water-stained kitchen sink, just because I can't stand to look at it any more...." My anger was not so much that it was MY kitchen sink they were tearing out, without my permission, but that the person had not even come close to removing all the bits and pieces of the destroyed garbage disposal, or the water logged stuff that was stored under the sink. They hadn't even thought to turn off the water main when they discovered that the old shut off valves weren't fully shutting off.

I went out to shut off the water and when I stepped into the garage, I was suddenly not in my house any more. Now I was just furious, because I know that my improvised plumber wouldn't think to see why the water didn't shut off, and might go off to buy a new sink, though they seemed to expect me to do that, so probably not even that much. I looked around and stepped out into the alleyway between the house I just stepped out of and the neighbor's garage. I could touch both buildings with my outstretched arms. I decided to go back in, just to see if I would be back in my own house. Nope, the door was locked behind me. I pulled out my phone to see if I could figure out where I was. It wasn't in English. I could make out some of the words, as they had Latin roots, but wasn't sure what language my phone was in. I went into the settings, English wasn't even a choice. I didn't have a network connection, but that didn't come close to explaining why the phone was unreadable.

In the street, all the vehicles were three wheeled coupes that whined by with a light electric buzz. The people were speaking English, but only some of the signs looked like English to me. I was so obviously confused that I ended up being gently delivered to a local hospital. I'd apparently had a stroke that affected my memory and my reading, but not my speech and hearing. It also seemed to have affected the universe I inhabited. That's when it got strange. The doctor completely agreed with me. It seems my whole body MRI showed that I had a lot of organs in me that they just flat out didn't know what they were. I looked at them and told him the names of everything I recognized (Which was more than I thought.) He showed me what "normal" people had inside, and I was pretty sure they were some sort of androids, as most humans I know don't have nuclear power banks.

Then there was finding my home on this world's equivalent of Google Earth, and taking me there, and the place was abandoned, but the driveway looked well kept, and the hedge and Junipers were not completely unruly. There was a grassy meadow, like I'd always wanted, in place of the front yard. The inside, however was a shambles. Critters had gotten in through the pet door and everything was just piles of shredded dirt covered ruin. "Well, it looks like you have lots to do, so we'll just leave you here." And they did. The whole neighborhood looked pretty much like it normally does, except, no cars on the streets, no sound of people, just the occasional whirring noise which I couldn't locate. I managed to find my rake (The handle too dried up, it had shrunken out of the socket and the head separated the first time I tried to rake a pile of old books towards the door. The shovel was in much better condition, but I had no idea where I was going to shovel all the stuff, so settled for just getting it out of the house into the garbage cans. I didn't even know if there was still garbage service. The drapes in the living room crumbled to dust when I went to open them, I had to scrape grime off the window to see outside. My backyard looked like a combination of MC Escher and James Hubbell, but with obviously alien light sources in the sculpture. (I absolutely can't tell how I knew the lights were alien, I just did.)

There were also cats, but not my cats, though they didn't seem to mind. I started to wonder what I was going to eat, or if there was anything even to drink. I did find some of my cups had survived, though filthy, and oddly, the granite sink, laying on top of the ruins of the counters where the particle board had turned to mush. There was a thin stream of water running out from beneath it, through and under the debris, and then out through the garage along the west edge where it had cut a small channel, then pooled behind the stacks of ceramic tile and left over pavers, where it overflowed a low spot before being absorbed by the rather lush side yard. The fence was long rotted away, but the steel fence pole was still there, rusted and tilted. From the front you couldn't see the flowing brick and glass structure with its alien lights.

This was one of those dreams that had so many tiny details that I can't even begin to describe how rich the atmosphere was with the dank decayed smell of the house and how it mixed with the freshly chlorinated city water. The eerie silence and the low electric buzzing. (Like my electric clock, I'm guessing.) and even the cats and birds were almost silent. The reddish brown sunlight of the town I appeared in versus the fresh light of my own neighborhood, apparently abandoned, but somehow still maintained. (Much of the plantings were wildly overgrown, but all of the hedges were trimmed even with the walkways and driveways, and there was no debris in the street. Even my garage door was perfectly intact looking from the front.

Wild Pool Party

Lots of splashing and laughing, the smell of burgers on the grill, mustard and onions. Walking on the bottom of the pool with one of the kids on my shoulders to help keep me from floating away. When I got too deep the child swam away and I floated up to the surface, where everyone but me seemed to have some sort of super-soaker spraying in random directions.

Someone shouted out "Make it rain," and everyone started shooting strait up into the air. Music was blasting out of the boom box and every one in the pool was giggling as the water fell back on our heads.

Sunburned, wet, and very happy.

Houseboat and Star Wars Sequel

"I'm too old to do this" I said as I walked the gunwale of the houseboat we'd rented. I was trying to keep us out of the floating logs on the riverbank. J was wearing one of her white cruise-ship robes and a white captain's hat. She was steering the houseboat from the top of the cabin. Her son and daughter-in-law were there as well as their four kids, only, they were all about ten years older than they are now, so the youngest was a teen. All of us but the youngest were manning poles, helping pole the houseboat up stream. We could have gotten a tow, but it would have cost us $800. We were making good time, but it was a lot of hard work.

Before that I had a Star Wars dream, something to do with rescuing Bothan spies, avoiding TIE fighters and slogging our way through giant creature infested sewers. It was all very light sabers and flashing blasters at some points, and dark sneaking through the muck at others.

Evacuation

The city I work in was being evacuated. I headed over to my parent's house, where I found a note saying they'd already left for Whyoming. As I drove down the street, I came across some fools who'd broken down along the road. I had rented a large Humvee sort of thing, so invited them aboard.

A couple of miles later, we came across a couple truck loads of soldiers, they too had broken down. I offered to take them to their evacuation point, so they climbed on the outside of the vehicle. For some reason the mom of the group thought that was too dangerous, as the zombies might get the. I pointed out that zombies weren't part of the problem, poisoned water supplies and radiation cloud was. The sargent of the squad riding on my bright red Humvee asked me to drive across country to get to the bridge evacuation point faster. I had to slow down enough to keep the soldiers from bouncing off, but we still made goo time, and managed to avoid the rockets that screamed overhead, pockmark in the roadway. we appeared to be the last group out, so the road being blown up was without casualties. Though the Sargent didn't say so, I got the impression that we were the ones blowing up he road, not the terrorists who'd put plutonium dust in the water supply.

------

This afternoon was a mostly calmer dream until it wasn't... I was starting a new job subbing in a school in the swampy part of the country. I was walking through the halls when I noticed that all the women teachers were les than five foot tall, and all the men but myself were over six foot tall. Every junction in the halls had double doors, a natural choke point we manned to keep an eye on the kids as they travelled between classes. N was going to school there and wasn't happy about it. He took my keys and keyed J's car. I called him a couple of rude names, immediately felt that was bad decision, as he then tossed the keys into the stream along side the road. I had just picked him up to toss him in after them when I spotted the alligator and snatched him back to the bank, pulling him up seconds before the critter's jaws snapped shut.

Short Stuff, Working, Space Survival

Many little dream snippets.

Two featuring miniature people. The first was a vacation trip. Couldn't afford to go our selves, so sent miniature versions on the vacation. We got to be there, but in miniature form. It was like visiting a beach in 'Land of the Giants' mode. While at the beach one of the avatars dropped the room key down a sewer grate. In climbing down after the key, the avatar started growing, good, in that the long drop wasn't long any more, bad in that there was no going back the way we came.

Lots of large stacks of boxes and crates and a dark damp wall full of fist sized hollows, one of which had the key, which had morphed into the key for my old Plymouth Satellite. I had to slide down a pipe, then scale down a stack of moldy crates and boxes to get over to the wall.

---

In the second Little People Dream, the avatars were back home, and they were now living independent of us. They had developed their own personalities and shared our home. One evening there was a glass soup steamer over the fire pit. The steamer rolled off of its stand as the last of the soup dried up. The little man avatar threw himself in front of it where it rolled out into the room, absorbing the shards of glass as the tube shattered. I don't know how he knew the tube would shatter, but had moved faster than any of us. The female avatar raced to his side and collapsed, sobbing, and then shut herself off.

We put them in a series of sarcophagi on a shelf with statues of birds, because, as the avatar's instructions indicated, "There shall only be birds at our grave site." The avatars personalities had been backed up, but we knew that even if restored from that backup, they wouldn't be the same.

---

In another dream I handed in a couple of spreadsheets to an accountant, who was just raving about the quality and speed of the work. (Which mystified me, as it was something that took about twenty minutes.) She was cute, though, so I didn't mind the fuss.

I was sitting at another desk across the hall, and after my last appointment left, my old boss came in to express how disappointed he was that I had taken these other jobs. "All for what?" he asked.

"Less stress, and eight percent more per year in my retirement check."

I was trying out both jobs to determine which one I would keep, if either at the end of the year. One job was full time to half in the second part of the year, the other was half time to full time at the end of the year, so they complemented one another perfectly to make me full time. Both paid considerably better than the previous job.

My old boss wanted to know why I hadn't promoted in his department, so I had to explain that the education cost to do so was greater in terms of time and money, neither of which I would have gotten back on the job, not to mention it was only a five percent raise, not twelve percent.

"It's a waste of your time and talents."

I pointed to the happy accountant and the family that was just making their way out of the lobby, "not to them it isn't."

---

In the fourth little snippet, I was floating in space, having been ejected from my vessel by pirates. I jetted off into orbit near some asteroids and set up my emergency shelter. There was enough ice in the nearby asteroid to flood the cotton candy like walls and get the greenery growing faster than normal, that would scrub the CO2 from the air and in a few days provide food. I had enough emergency rations to make it that far.

I was floating in the center of the sixty foot diameter ball, watching the grass grow, as well as the gauges that showed the atmosphere percentages, the electricity production (the outer layer of the ball was solar panel material) and the positions of nearby ship transponders. Sometime during the second day, another commander drifted my way. He also had an emergency shelter in tow. I extended my airlock tube and the commander rotated to connect. I had still not completely gotten off of my suit oxygen as my bubble was still growing its atmosphere (I could have survived if I had, but didn't want to stretch the growing system.)

She introduced herself, and we compared seed stocks.  We traded some seeds, passing them through the tube. We decided not to visit one another yet. I could see that she'd been out in space far longer than I, her greens had grown more than a foot into her living space, and she'd trained some of her vine plants out into a sort of hammock, or nest. I indicated that there were good organic carbon solids on the asteroid I was orbiting, so we could grow some of the longer rooted plants in time.

She indicated that she was hoping to make a go out here, if she could just get a more permanent shelter. She then asked if she could keep my bubble when I was rescued. I had to admit that I'd been toying with the idea of tethering to the asteroid below and then hollowing it out. She let out a girlish giggle, and asked if I had two spoons. I pointed to my escape pod, explaining that I had my prospecting tools, including a portable mining laser. It was fully charged, still.

Stranded

I dreamed R and I were stranded on an island, the boat we were on wrecked on a reef, and we were tossed out and managed to swim ashore. The tide came in and the boat limped away, saying they would let the coast guard know where we were.

We built a small fire and took a tour of our little mountainous island. There was a large lagoon on the other side, and the remains of a few huts. We found a small graveyard out on one arm of the lagoon. The markers were no longer readable and had fallen apart. After a couple of days, I went and repaired the markers with new twine made from palm fibres.

In looking over the huts I realized that this was Gilligan's Island. R thought that was funny, and unlikely. Since the island was a set, I thought so too. But the number of graves (six) and the arrangement of the huts made it seem likely.

We took turns keeping watch on the top of the low hill, keeping our fire going. A boat finally came for us, and sailed into the small lagoon to pick us up. When we got back to the main island we had a neat surprise.

The island was for sale.

We decided to pool our resources and buy it. We named it after R's mom. We brought his kids, his sister and her children back to the island. His daughter was in training for some competition, so we (well, she and R) were running along the beaches around the island. I was taking the inside curve of the beach while they ran in the shallow water. There was a spot on the back side of the island where there was no sand, so we had to swim. The waves were growing larger and larger, though, making swimming dangerous, as we might be dashed against the reef after being pulled out by the undertow.

I recognized that this was merely the influence of my filling bladder and stretched out, falling back to sleep. The dream continued! We managed to swim back around to a part of the island with a beach, lots of new sand having been deposited by the storm surge. When we got out M had a large bruise on her thigh, but felt that it would be healed enough for her to compete when she flew home in a few days.

Cycling

Last nights's dreams all had a similar theme. I was pedaling my butt off all night long. In the first dream I was at the beach. No exactly on a bicycle, and not exactly on a unicycle. The device had two wheels, but they were side by side, unless I opened up the device, and then on was to the front of the other, sort of. The frame of the thing was about twelve feet long, it wobbled like a teeter totter, and I had to continually lean it so that folks could duck under it or step over it.

In a later dream I was riding up the street and then around a corner, where I found myself at the end of a parade, since I was on a real unicycle this time, the crowd just thought I was part of the parade, the police went along and let me through their moving barricade, which allowed me to catch up to the actual parade. I managed to pedal up next to the mayor's car and then when I had the chance I ducked down a side street to finish my trip to the store.

In my final dream this morning, I was pumping water from the bottom of the house up to the roof where it was going into a storage tank that flowed back down through a series of water wheel powered turbines. It only generated a few watts, but it was enough to light up the house at night and recharge the cell phones. Everyone was supposed to take turns running the generator, or pumping water up into the tower. In practice, however, I seemed to be the only one who hopped on to the exercise bike and actually did any pumping. I thought it was particularly unfair, as I had also built, and maintained the windmill that powered the pumps/generators most of the time. One of my neighbors asked why anyone would bother pumping the water up there. I told him that sometimes people might want light and a shower when the wind wasn't blowing.

Other Worldly Fall Through

I had one of those dreams that would take far longer to relate than it did to have. Myself and my cell phone were out for a walk when I crested a low ridge and fell right over the other side onto a different world.

I could tell it was different by how light I was, and the fact that the sky was full of nebulae and stars so close you could see they were small disks. There were no grasses, only broad leafed plants with leaves that turned to follow the brightest parts of the sky. I had no cell reception at all, so I turned off the phone completely to conserve the battery.

I wandered around a bit, coming across a path, whether made intentionally or a game trail of some sort, I couldn't tell. I moved down hill, figuring at least that might lead to water, eventually. The scents in the air were very purple and orange, with a touch of brine every so often. Insects flitted about, but I didn't see or hear any birds. There didn't seem to be any plants over about twelve feet tall, either. Everything had a pretty manicured look to it, though, so I began to think I'd wandered into some sort of garden.

I made my way down to the bottom of the trail, which curved along the edge of a steep slope. I looked over the slope and below me stretched out a nearly endless expanse of land and oceans. I knew in an instant it was a world far larger, and far different than our own little globe. As far as I could tell, it extended into every direction, blending in with the grey black of the sky. I could tell the little world I was currently on rotated slowly about an axis that would make this little trail eventually level or even feel like it was the top of the hill. I headed back away from the edge, hoping to find some signs of habitation.

I came across a camp of about thirty people. As soon as I entered the camp they asked what I was sent up for. It was a language that I had never heard before, so I don't know how I understood the question, nor how they would understand my answer.

I told them that I actually fell down. That was apparently the wrong thing to say as they all drew small makeshift weapons and advanced on me. As they drew close I noticed that they weren't all human, many of them had triangular ears and tails, puffs of fur grew from their cheeks like a lion's mane, and some even had whiskers and small flat noses.

"Look," I said "this is where I came from." I turned on my phone and opened up the photo gallery to show the pictures of myself and the kitties. That actually stopped them. They had never seen anything like it.

I tried to explain that it wasn't magic and the battery was not going to last long if I couldn't get back to my home to charge it.

They conferred a long time, and decided that I was some sort of wizard, and they really didn't want me there messing up their balanced society. Apparently they were all exiled here from the world below, they'd managed to scrape together enough resources to stay alive, but they were stuck as jumping off the world would likely be fatal, and they had received some supplies from below, as occasionally someone had jumped off and survived. The occasional survivor sneaked to the catapult that had put them there and fired up news and goods. The reports were also that survivors who returned to their home area were executed if caught. They knew this because their bodies had been launched up to the rock as a stern warning not to try it. I realized that the only people I could understand, and who understood me were the cat people. They had some sort of limited telepathy, it seemed.

They debated whether to strip me and take my stuff before throwing me off the rock, and during that debate I slipped away, heading to the edge of the rock, again. surveying the world below. Apparently that was not what they were expecting, as they headed for the uplands and the forests and caves to search for me. (At least what I could hear from when they discovered I was missing.) I would guess the whole rock was nor more than six or seven miles around, so a few square miles of fairly verdant territory. I found an area where there was a makeshift "Dock" at the edge of the rock. I guessed that this was the proposed drop-off point. I looked out over the edge and saw a huge water filled crater almost directly below me. I was really thinking a hang glider would come in handy right now. The sun came up, or, more precisely, the rock rotated into a position where the fiery globe in the sky that was this world's sun could reach where I was on the rock. I could see that there was a ladder on the side of the platform, so I climbed down. It turned under the rock and led down to a small ledge. I realized that if I slid down the ladder, and let go before the ledge I would be aimed right at the crater lake below the rock. So, not knowing what possessed me to do so, I let myself slide down below the rock and then let go as I neared the ledge.

Something in the mass above me seemed to counter my weight, and I didn't fall nearly as fast as I thought I would so I realized I was in danger of overshooting the lake below. I opened up my shirt and tried to use it as an air brake. That was partly successful, but wouldn't really have been effective. What was effective, however, was the force holding the rock up in the sky, it seemed to pull me into an orbit, or more accurately, a falling spiral centered on the crater lake below. My only regret now was that I had no way to protect my cell phone from getting wet. I balled it up in my shirt as best I could.

I don't remember hitting the water, but I woke in the bottom of a small boat, my shirt and phone balled up on my chest. I unwrapped it, and the inner folds of cloth were still dry. I couldn't have been in the water long.

"We fished it out first, it seemed really important to you." One of the fishing cats communicated to me quietly.

I thanked her. They dropped me off on the shore outside of a town before heading to their own village.

I looked up the street and realized that most of the signs were just pictures, but the few that contained text were completely unrecognizable.

I wandered up the street, looking at the various shops, realized that my cards and what little money I had were not likely to be worth anything here. I greeted folks as I walked, and they were friendly enough, but it was clear that no one but the cat folk were able to understand me, and even then it only seemed to be a fairly small subset of them.

I came upon what looked like a large town hall. I looked around for a seat, figuring I would just sit and watch for awhile, try to get a sense of the society, the way things work. It was pretty crowded and I eventually found myself in a little rectangular pen like area with several open stools. I sat in one, just to catch my breath and get my bearings a little bit. It was obvious after just a short while of looking around that the more cat-like cat people tended to be the less well off looking. There was a good spectrum of wealth shown among all the peoples there, but there were a couple of obvious trends like that.

I finally decided that I needed to move up to the gallery with the "poorer" folks, in the hopes that I would get some inkling of what was going on. Unfortunately, I had sat down in the "Defendants Paddock" and was no longer allowed to leave. I tried to explain what had happened but folks just laughed at me. A bailiff made me sit back down.

The judge/mayor came in, a red-haired woman who, oddly, I could mostly understand, even though she didn't look much like a cat person. I just assumed her words were so reinforced by the cat folk in the audience that I was getting them as a sort of telepathic overflow effect. There were a half dozen "cases" on the docket, not all of them criminal matters, some were civil matters. The Judge went through all of them, and then looked up to see me sitting there after all her files were done.

"Who are you?" she asked, and I could tell it WAS her that I was understanding.

When she realized that her audience couldn't understand me, and had begun wondering how she could, she had the bailiff remove me from the room.

I ended up in the police station, but not in a cell. It was obvious that I wasn't allowed to leave, but otherwise they brought me lunch and a light blanket when it started to get chilly. The evening shift came in, and one of the officers was a cat woman who was able to talk to me. The Judge arrived shortly after my interview with the officer.

The conversation, and another meal, was quite pleasant, and the Judge was pleasant, but very obviously concerned about my story. I could tell that she wasn't really willing to believe it, until I showed her the pictures on my phone, which sputtered and died after a few moments. It apparently had gotten some water in it after all. I had to convince her it wasn't magic, or at least no more so than the fact that we could understand one another.

After our long conversation about where I was from, she pointed out that she could have me arrested for being a vagrant, as I had no money and no place to stay. I could see she was weighing her options when the feline police officer rescued me, saying she had a spare room and I could stay there and help with the dogs until I found other work.

By the time the officers shift was done, I was bone tired and barely remembered the route to her home. I fell into her too small guest bed, and immediately fell to dreaming. (All I remember from the dream within this dream was sitting next to a busty woman in a blue linen jacket, immaculately tailored and with very shiny silver buttons.)

In the morning I got up and helped prepare the breakfast table and then washed up afterwards. Shortly after that the officer got up and took me out to where the dogs were. They were huge, about the height of a pony or small horse. She explained that the puppies were pretty tame, but their mother was still very feral.

She was indeed, and much larger than her children, the father of the puppies must not have been a particularly large specimen. I looked into the mother's eyes and immediately knew that she was much smarter than her handlers were giving her credit for. I jumped down into her pit. There were calls of alarm from the others, but we approached one another and greeted one another. I rubbed her face and ears and then took off the choke/spike chain from around her neck. She stood up and stretched. Then sat, looking at me. I gave her a roll I'd been saving from breakfast. I started walking her around the pit, stopping when she started to pull. (A lot like when walking J's dog Lucy.) We eventually jumped out of the pit and took a stroll around the grounds. The other handlers followed us with weapons and ropes, ready for her to make a break for it. I could tell she wouldn't as she wanted to stay close to her puppies. She kept looking at me like I was going to try to ride her, but I just ruffled her neck fur, gently rubbing down the injuries where the spikes had dug under her coat. Eventually we made our way back to the pit, and she willingly ran down the ramp and stretched out to nurse her newest litter of puppies.

I made sure I had more treats for her after dinner. As I walked out to the pit to feed her, the Judge fell into step with me. I was surprised to see her. As we walked, I realized that she was a cat person. "Did it hurt when your ears were docked?"

Her hand flew up to her ear, hidden by a tiara/turban sort of headdress, then she dropped it quickly looking around to make sure no one had seen. I also guessed that her bustle hid the fact that she had a tail, or at least the stub of a tail. I immediately felt sad for her. She could tell. I promised I wouldn't say anything, as her people adored her and were obviously prospering under her leadership.

Her conversation with me indicated that she would be much happier if I didn't stay in the area, and after seeing me feeding the "feral bitch" she lit upon the "perfect solution." When the puppies were weaned, I would take the dog and leave for a stint in the wilderness, find a feral mate for her so her puppies would be full sized next time. She also indicated that she would not be broken up if the two of us didn't return. Ever.

I told her that would be difficult, as I too was rather fond of the people of her village. I promised I would consider it, though. That seemed to strike her as true, and I realized than that the telepathy was much stronger between people who shared common passions. I think that very much disturbed her, but she knew I was serious about not being a threat to her village so she was content to let me free, but keep a close eye on me.

The dream continued on for quite some time. One night I went to a dance, like our English Country Dancing, except I had to learn the calls in a different language. I tried to dance with the cat women, as most of them could tell me the right (or left) way to go. It was a lot of fun, and everyone had good humor about my lumbering attempts to be graceful.

Another evening we had a huge bonfire and barbecue with story telling. Again I had to have "translators" for several of the stories. I showed my hippo photograph and described the San Diego Zoo. I tried to draw a picture of a giraffe, and that got everyone laughing.  I worked with the dogs, including the feral mom.

Eventually the dog and I were out working with the police, tracking large animals who'd broken into some chicken coops, or chasing after a lost child, or just patrolling the village after dark with my hostess. However, I never rode her like the police rode her grown puppies. It suited us fine. (It was then that I noticed that I was easily fourteen inches taller than any of the villagers, and bigger than all but the blacksmiths and warrior types.) I had little trouble keeping up with the pack, even when they were running. (They were a little faster, but I could run far longer.)

At some point my hostess actually paid me, and then told me about the kingdom'c bright city center, where there were rumors of magic looking glasses like my own, and people who know how to make them work again. I wasn't sure mine would fully recover from the water damage, but when I powered it up, it did come up, and there was no crackling. Still no signal, though. I agreed that a trip to the capitol was probably in order, so we spent my wages on outfitting me and the dog for travel. I was amazed when she allowed me to put a puppy backpack on her, but she seemed to be excited about the trip, too.

This was the point where I woke. I really didn't want to, as I wanted to find out more about this interesting world.

Water Damage, Virtual Damage

I dreamed profusely, but only remember two little snippets. The first was being pushed into the water at a lake. I got out quickly, but my medicine bag was wet. I quickly dumped the contents, but wasn't able to prevent the water from getting into the pill box. I didn't care about the Benadryl as I had a sealed bottle in my car, but the sildenafil I didn't want to go to waste, as they were the only one's I'd brought on the trip. I scooped them out before they were just mush and was going to take them.

"You can't take those NOW!"

"The effects last a while, we'll be back to our cabin in a couple of hours."

It was a pretty funny moment.

-----

Just before waking I was playing a video game. The game was a sort of World of Warcraft and Defiance mash up with a little bit of Diablo III or Torchlight thrown in. There was the steam punk sort of vibe mixed with the gun show and over the top magic effects all thrown in. Characters could be "pure" or mixed, and the system seemed pretty balanced except for certain challenges. I was showing one of those challenges to J. A mission where you cleared out a cave and defeated the boss, but when you went to leave, there were nearly a hundred regular mobs outside, rushing the cave. If you didn't have an Area of Effect spell or ability, it was very difficult to get out. I showed her with a Magic using sort with big AoE spells, and it was easy to let the enemies bunch up and then blow them up, retreat, and repeat until you got out.

I then showed what it was like for a non-AoE character. I had beaten the boss, then was showing how you had to lure the bad guys in and then lead them through the tunnels to thin them out so you could take them on one or two at a time. As the first bunch approached the entry to the cave, I suddenly saw the flash of a green/gold enchanted blade sweep through my character from behind, killing him in one shot. I sat, stupefied, looking at the creature with the golden glowing name over its head, it was doing a victory dance on my corpse. J was asking "what's wrong, can't you just start over?" I'd done this mission a couple of dozen times, and something like that had never happened.

A rare champion creature had spawned, without notice, right behind me in the entrance. I hadn't even had the chance to notice it was there before it struck. The game popped out to the "Your Deeds of Valor will be Remembered" screen, where it displayed the one hundred forty plus hours and all of his gear as well as naming the mob that had killed me (a golden named unique creature.) This particular character was a "hard core" character, and his death was final, no restarting, except to restart from nothing and build back up again.

"Ah, Sweetie, I'm going to need a moment..."

Celebrity Time Tour, UFOs, and Random Voice

In the first dream of the evening, I was invited on a Celebrity Time Tour. Something, however, went horribly awry and we were separated from our guide. I spotted a young Mark Hamill along a boardwalk, so pointed him out to the other tourists who were starting to panic. Sadly, the younger ones of the group had no idea who that was. Sigh. I remembered that we were supposed to just hang out and watch, not interact with the future celebrities, or that could alter history. (The guide did tell us that history was pretty resilient, but we'd better behave just in case.) The trip planning had involved a lot of questions about who we might be related to, as that seemed to be the one thing that screwed up history fairly easily.

We went across the boardwalk and started discussing the wooden jacuzzi tubs that were set into the bathing pools. Some folks wondered why they'd been removed. I pointed out that even with careful cleaning, wood tubs could harbor fungus and bacteria better than other materials. I pointed out that it was still a neat style, and that we could easily replicate it with sanitary substitutes given a little investment push. As the discussion progressed, I realized that the young Mark Hamill had joined in the discussion. He seemed to think it was a pretty good idea, actually.

We tried to withdraw from the conversation gracefully, and finally the tour guide had to come up and take me away, "Grandpa, you need to get your meds now, sorry young man."

"That's okay, it was cool to meet you."

We got back to our time tour HQ without further issues, and there was Mark Hamill, "Hey, I remember you!"

"Please tell my you agreed to make a movie called 'Star Wars'?" I asked.

"Star What?" then he broke out into a huge laugh. "I did want to show you this, though."

He had an investment promo for faux-wood pool accessories. "I started this company. Sales are great. Thanks for the idea. I was trying to get a time tour to go back and find your family so I could pass some of the success along... well, we see how that turned out."

It was now my turn to laugh.

-----

In the next dream I was having trouble with my asthma and so we were packing up Little Red so I could get home and get medicated. (The car med-kit was apparently dry.) As we sat in the car a line of UFO's crossed the beach about a hundred yards off shore. I quickly got out the cell phone and started shooting HD video. My passenger complained "why do they always look like god-damned Tupperware?"

Three of the four UFO's turned edge on to the ocean and dove out of sight. The fourth one, which looked more like one of those round hot tubs, bounced down into the waves, where it was obvious that it was, in fact, one of those round vinyl covered hot tubs. There were four very frightened people in the tub. We got out of the car and raced down the beach to help pull them in to shore. I was still having trouble breathing, but didn't want to miss their story because of a little thing like that.

-----

As I lay in bed, trying to ignore the alarm light, I heard a voice (concerned, male, deeper than my own) say "He died this morning, shortly after two a.m." It made me sad.

Tubers to Hell and Back

The dream started with myself and the brown haired female companion making our way over a fence into a backyard that was completely overgrown with different berry bushes and a plant that had large manioc like tubers. We had a long discussion about how to identify if these were the edible sort, or the poison variety that needed special processing to be edible. Neither of us seemed to know what that migh be, however. We harvested some of the tubers, being careful to not damage the host plant in the process. We took a lot of the ripe berries as well.

Once the back of Little Red was full we headed out on the freeway into the island valley, as we both felt the coast would be too crowded, and there might not be enough water over the long term.

As we were headed across the valley we were forced off the road by a large line of wrecked traffic, we bounced across the flat valley floor, and came to a ridge line that overlooked a wide valley with three symbols on the floor of the even deeper valley below us. We chose to head to the one on our right, as it looked the most like it might be an airfield. I turned Little Red down the hill and we bounced and bobbled over the rough ground, finally coming to an access road of little better smoothness than the plains I'd been driving on. We parked and decide to hike into the central area where there were some lights.

The center of the area was filled with planes. We didn't find any of the pilots, however, we did find a portal of some sort, and it looked like a passageway directly to hell. Just as we decided that retreat would be a better option, we were confronted by a large demonic lamia. Without any hesitation we bundled her up and dragged her back to the portal. When we tossed her through it, the portal closed.

I drove Little Red down into the center of the airfield, but  it was pretty obvious that the off reading had taken its toll on my little car. We searched around for a suitable plane and settled on a single engine plane that still had full tanks. We found some solar panels and set them up to recharge my car, and decided to fly the plane out to look for a tire shop that we could land near. I wasn't to sure about the last bit, but my companion seemed confident that she could land the plane and take off again as long as the roadway was clear. That, of course, was my exact concern, that we wouldn't find a suitable runway.

Being airborn was a liberating feeling, and we both remarked that it was a shame that we couldn't just stay in the air all the time. I suggested that we should see if there was a blimp available. She headed the plane towards the coast, as she knew where the Goodyear blimp hangers were located.

Why is it Raining in Here?

Seriously, what's with the rain, inside a video game, that takes place indoors. The dream would have been quite interesting if it could have continued, but my brain just wouldn't go along with the whole "it's raining inside" thing. The only bits of the dream I really remember other than the dark blues and blacks of the walls and the reddish brown color of the floor tiles is the stupid interior rain. Interesting lighting, too, coming as it was from the eastern windows set in long rows of slender tall paned windows with a pointed arch at the top. I can't remember the name of the shape now, but imagine the inside area of a wish-bone. None of the windows had curtains, but there was a thick layer of dirt and cobwebs that almost made it seem like there were curtains.

Despite the rain, the floors didn't look wet. That was a puzzler, too. I have no idea what the plot, theme, or genre of the game even was, though I am sure I knew it in the dream.

Survival Boat

In this morning's dream offering, I apparently joined the ranks of the Doom Prep'ers. I decided to build an apocalypse survival boat - in my back yard. There were some very nice features, a solar powered water desalinization and recycling plant, Solar heat exchanger, photo electric panels that provided about two hundred watts during the day, and then via another heat exchanger I could drive a little 5 watt turbine at night or I could open up the mast stacks and let the wind generate energy as well. There was also a fifty gallon methane digester on the poop deck.

The wind stacks were airfoil sails but with a yard and a fabric sail on both sides of each stack (so it looked like I could run with four sails and a spinnaker as well as the wind turbines. There was a small electric motor, but I can't imagine it would generate enough horsepower to make more than a couple of knots. (I believe this was salvaged from Little Red, my Honda Insight.)

Because my back yard is "L" shaped, the boat had a bendy section in the middle! The aft portion of the boat had the wheelhouse, kitchen and fold out solar arrays as well as a back deck with two feet of potting soil arranged around one of two water treatment features. The main cabin was just below this deck. and had a Jefferson bed/desk, a visitor's lounge, and diagonal pane windows looking out from under the poop deck. This deck was the black water treatment area, so was appropriately named, with water/waste entering a compost pile/ methane digester, and then flowing through the soil field below the planters. There was a way to rig plastic sheeting up over the entire deck to turn it into a greenhouse during the winter.

The forward section of the boat had the more complex water desalinization and grey water treatment plant, essentially long rows of rock and soil and sand filled tubes that the water flowed through until it flowed into the storage tanks below decks. This was also the section with the heat pumps. Every horizontal surface of the deck was home to planters or hydroponic runs, and I had in the cargo hold an inflatable raft which could hold even more hydroponic runs once I was out on the water. In addition to the ton of water storage, the ballast area was set up to hold many cans of food, spare parts for the boats critical electrical components, and some spare tires and axles, and the materials to turn the bendy section into a fixed section before being launched into the ocean.

Because I live about 16 miles from the ocean, the entire boat was built on a pair of lowboy trailer frames. I was actually living in the main cabin during the dream, it was a nice red patterned fabric and gold and cherry wood accents. My computer and monitor were set into the Jefferson desk, leaving room for several paper books, mostly the ones needed to maintain my shipboard systems, as I didn't want to rely on the computer if something went wrong with the power systems.

As the dream ended, I was sitting at the computer, adding the canned goods I'd just stowed to the inventory and recalculating my survival times. The boat would have been comfortable for two people for nearly a year, easily support four people with rationing and supplemental protein, by fishing, scrounging or hunting, and, if you slept in shifts, could probably accommodate six to eight people. The water and waste recycling systems would most certainly be over taxed, and there would be no way to feed that many people for more than a few months, not on the supplies from the gardens I had built in, even if you could grow food all year long by putting up the greenhouse covers. I turned off the computer and looked out the window over the yard, the grapes were coming along, the lemon tree had a dozen lemons, and the mulberry looked like it was healthy. I suddenly realized that I hadn't finished the rudders yet, and that might be pretty important some day.

Cave Clanks and Werewolves

I was running on all fours, chasing through the forest with a lovely yellow Afghan looking (but much larger, still with the same slender proportions) companion. I could feel the leaves and branches crumple under my calloused paws, feel the saddle bags bounce against the mesh harness. We raced along the open paths, sometimes me leading, sometimes her leading. We'd occasionally catch wind of something interesting and would crash through the ferns and berry bushes to investigate. I could see the fur on my front legs and paws, it was thick, about two inches and mostly grey-brown with black patches.

On one of these little side forays we came upon a round opening in the side of a cliff. I transformed back to my human self and stooped down to see into the cave opening better. The opening would have been completely obscured were it not for the thick bat smell coming from it. I pushed aside the vines and roots and stepped into the entrance. The Afghan, Lydia I think her name was, transformed next to me, delicately sniffed the air. She bounced her breasts at me playfully, adjusted her harness and then transformed back, saying she was going back to bring the rest of the pack. I dressed and, using my wind up flashlight, proceeded deeper into the cave.

The bats only occupied the first large chamber, clinging to the roots and vines along the ceiling. I found that the cave continued past that chamber, a small rocky alcove contained a chiseled opening that headed down some narrow stairs. There were the remnants of wooden stairs in a couple of places, but it was only about four to six feet of a jump down to pass to the next rocky part of the path, so I proceeded by jumping over the wooden stairs, not trusting them to hold my weight even where they looked okay. I kept scanning the walls with the flashlight, hoping to spot some markings that might explain what I had found. I could feel air flowing gently down past me, so knew there must be another opening, perhaps at the bottom of the hillside where the spring pools on the opposite side of the mountain were located. We didn't spend much time over there, as that was Bai Yun's pack's range.

I came to a large chamber, split level, a large rectangular slab of material on one wall, with a square slab inset into its base. The square slab looked like it had been some sort of seal, but was now very pitted and scarred, as though something had been working at it. At the opposite side of the upper level was an adobe building that looked to be connected to the side of the cliff overlooking the lower level of the chamber. I could smell water at the bottom, and it very much smelled like the waters of the spring, so I knew that there must be another entrance somewhere below. I used the flash to try to pick out a path down to the water, but it seemed that the only way down was to jump, and hope the water was fairly deep, or to risk climbing down through the adobe building.

I turned back to the slab, and tried to make out what was etched into the surface. The slab was about fifteen feet high and ten or so feet across at the base. It was narrower at the top, about eight feet or so. It wasn't perfectly symmetrical, so I guessed that it had been carved out of something that was already here in the cave. I didn't recognize most of the languages on the slab, but about a third of the way down, discovered that I recognized some Latin words. I could tell the carvings were not literate Latin, as there were many case and number disagreements, and the verb tenses were all over the place. It was as though someone like myself had tried to put something together from memory, and oddly, it looked rushed. The whole thing looked rushed. There was a large pile of rubble at the base of the monument, and I could tell from the size and color of the chips that they were the debris from the carvings.

I could hear my pack coming down the trail, so headed up to greet them.

There was a huge thundering crack behind me, I turned to see the square chunk of stone pulverized and flying out of the base of the slab. Something mechanical stepped out on six legs, whirring and clanking. It lifted its middle legs up over its head, and lights flickered to life, it scanned the cavern, fixing a light on me. The other arm began to spin, like a Gatling gun. Lydia, still in Afghan form, with the rest of the pack behind her was highlighted on one of the slopes. The machine appeared to dismiss the wolf pack, but swiveled its gun back towards me, I instinctively shouted "RUN!" and turned back down the path as the machine opened fire.

A couple of the bullets hit me in the upper legs and right buttock, I rolled on the ground, transforming as I did so. The flashlight tumbled onto the platform, and the bullets followed its spinning path. I picked myself up, glad that the ammunition didn't seem to be made of silver or salt. I kicked the remains of my pants off, angry at losing them, as they were one of my favorite pairs. I heard my pack leaping up and away, I didn't want to go after them and lead the machines to them, so dashed from behind the rocks I was hiding behind for the adobe building. I glanced over to the opening, and two more clanking machines had scrabbled their way out of the monument, they lifted their middle legs and lights shot into the darkness, helping illuminate my path. I dove through a window into the adobe building, the ancient mud walls cracked and splintered as a fusillade of bullets tried to chew through it. I ducked down, feeling the heat of tracers as they sizzled through the air overhead. The building was essentially a stairwell, so I raced down the stairs, not really concerned about the possibility of a fall.

The metallic creatures made their way across the upper cavern floor, Each window I passed, I could see their sweeping lights, and hear the gravel crunch under their feet. Apparently they were looking for me, and even though they'd seen me go into the building, they didn't associate my wolf form with my human form.

The bottom of the building was bricked up, so I had to go back up two flights to a window. I squeezed through, and dropped the nearly twenty feet to the ground. I was really angry about losing my flashlight, as there was really no way to replace it. As I scanned the path along the underground pond, a light from above picked me out, and hesitated on me, I crouched to leap away, but the light swept on, apparently dismissing me. I headed back along what looked to be the freshest trail, though that was old enough to be nearly indistinguishable. I found myself in a twisting turning set of narrow tunnels, only one of which had any signs of traffic in it, though, again, those were old signs. I came to a curve in the tunnel where I could smell the outside, and thought I could just begin to see a glimmer of light. and there in my path was Bai Yun. He growled. He did not look happy.

I transformed, "Run, gun-clanks have come out of the cave."

I transformed back, he growled low, but nodded and waited for me to finish, then led the way out.

Accidental Downspout

I was dressed in a green wool suit, wholly inappropriate for the weather, but right for the 1940's style murder mystery weekend I was acting in. I was glad that my character would be killed in the first half of the first day. After that, I would go into town and get a shave and a haircut, rinse out the temporary hair color and return as a late arriving "guest" for the rest of the weekend. My job at that point would be to be a sort of improvisational "shill" who would be responsible for making sure one of the investigation teams stayed somewhat on track with the story. Missing out on the main action would give me the excuse to say "What happened, again?" with great sincerity. I had done this enough times to discover that was typically enough to keep things on track.

I always got a kick out of the round up at the end of the weekend where our roles were revealed. There were always a few people who never knew I was one of the main cast the first morning.

This particular time, things went a little bit odd when I returned from town. There was a child out on the porch, just sitting and looking out at the rain. Now, this is an "adult" weekend, as there are frequent bad words, some partial nudity, and the occasional heavy sexual tension. (Sometimes the guests brought their own brand of this, which, as a single actor, was not unwelcome.) So, I was surprised to see the child. I stepped out onto the patio to try to determine where he belonged.

And I was a child, playing on the same patio, but newer, with a fresh coat of whitewash, and brand new cloth screens between the beams. "Let's go on the roof to watch the storm come in!" said a little brown-haired boy, my brother, older, braver, but shorter than myself.

I watched as he swung out of the patio door and hoisted himself up the corner post, stepping on the lantern support and then up onto the roof. I ran out to the uncovered part of the patio, pacing him as he raced over to the shorter part of the roof. By leaning back, I could see the black and green cloud wall approaching. Wind and lightning whipped around the thing silently. The wind stirred across the yard behind me and flowed, full of the leaves dropped in an early fall, up and over the roof of the house, as if the storm contained some giant vacuum cleaner. "Get up here! It's keen!"

"I can see it from here. Looks like a tornado, we should get in the basement!"

"It's too late for a tornado, you're missing the lightning!"

"I can see it from here!"

"No you can't!"

"Can, too!"

"Chicken!"

Well, I couldn't let that stand, so I hopped up on the rail and walked over to the corner post with the lantern support. My brother had turned back to watch the storm. The climb terrified me. I half walked half crouched over to my brother once I was on the roof. It was covered in leaves and the footing seemed unsure. He laughed but quickly turned back to the storm. He was right, of course, I couldn't see all of the lightning. The storm had to be at least a mile across, a solid green-gray wall of blurry motion, shot through with lightning that rippled around the circle, up into the thick clouds above and leaping off the roofs and trees below as though it were being drawn up into the thing.

I stood, completely amazed, entranced.

"Told you."

"Uh huh." I nodded, still standing slightly hunched over, afraid I would fall backwards.

We could hear the rumbling of nearly continuous thunder, like an approaching freight train. The cloud and its lightning storm began to blur and fade. Too late, I realized that was the storm letting loose, the curtain falling on a show. I turned and went back to the patio, where it would be easier to get down.

"Yellow!" My brother teased.

"I don't want to get..."

But it was too late. The water from the storm front hit. I could barely make out my brother, it was as if I'd been dowsed with the laundry tub, only the water kept coming. I scrambled on all fours to the corner post, easing myself down over the edge of the roof, hanging on to the lantern support for all I was worth. I could feel my feet slipping on the hand rail of the open part of the patio. I turned to see where my brother was. He was coming straight down the roof. I'd seen him hang from the gutter and drop to the patio chair before, so figured that was what he was going to do. I grunted, I should of done that. It was a ten foot drop off the handrail to the ground below if I slipped.

Then, the wind came. I could feel the whole house shake. My brother hadn't made it back to where the patio was when he slipped, then rolled towards the edge of the roof. It was probably twenty feet to the ground where he was. I shouted his name. His foot slammed into the gutter and he hunched up against it legs drawn up to his chest, but instead of crawling back to the relative safety of the porch overhang, he stood up and waved at me, keeping one foot in the gutter. Another gust, and I dropped to the rail, forcing myself to fall on the patio side. It hurt, but I was safe. I stood up, there was no sign of my brother, the gutter where he'd been standing was burst out, and water poured out of the accidental downspout. I limped over to the rail, but couldn't bring myself to look down right away.

After a moment, I followed the falling stream of water, watching it arc down past the patio, and finally to where it splashed on the small crumpled form of my brother in the broken berry bushes below. And I knew, I just knew he was gone.

The adult me stood alone on the patio, in the midst of a sudden fall shower. I turned and looked out past the edge of the patio, eyes along the roof line, and there about six feet past the end of the patio was a rusted hole with the ragged edges still slightly bowed out, water poured out of it far in excess of what one might expect for such a gentle rain. I walked to the edge of the patio, following the falling water with my eye, and there at the bottom of the fall, it fell in a bramble bush, pushing the leaves and branches playfully to splash on what I'd always thought to be just a granite stone, but that I now realized was a grave marker. The young boy was there with me, appearing out of nowhere.

"It wasn't your fault." I said.

"I still miss him. He won't come play in the rain any more."

"Of course you do. He loved you." I turned to face the boy, and he faded away smiling sadly.

The older gentleman who owned the house slid open the door. He watched me standing in the rain for a moment or two, then motioned with a towel in his hand.

I looked out at the gutter again for a moment, then turned back to the house.

He handed me the towel. "I should fix that gutter some time."

I looked at him, "no need, looks like the water goes right where it's needed."

"You saw him, didn't you."

I nodded. I could hear the sounds of the guests chattering about their clues in distant parts of the house, the old man and I looked out across the rainy valley.

"I still miss him."

"Of course you do, he loved the wonder of the world, the adventure of it, loved you."

The old man handed me another towel, "hold that for me,"  then stepped out onto the patio himself.

Exploration, With Installation

I was swimming around the very picturesque and massively undercut islands looking for a place to haul myself out of the rapidly cooling waters. All th while I was trying to configure Open Office on my waterproof tablet device. I ended up reinstalling the whole thing before I finally found that there was a special .odt file that needed to be deleted and replaced with a customized version for my device.

I never did find a place to climb out where I could enjoy the dark green jungle and flashing whitecaps on the dark blue sea. I kept expecting to see giant squid; thank you Minecraft.

Adventure on Rails

Sometime, I shall have to look at how to consistently grab the tablet in the "right side up" position.