Not so sweet dreams
Mar. 13th, 2016 12:38![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
torquillEnough with the bad dreams, already.
Three nights ago I dreamt that I was at a sporting event with a group of friends. We had finished up and we were piling into our converted schoolbus. We had just turned onto the main road when I realized there were red lights on the horizon, and what looked like a blue flare travelling rapidly just behind the skyline. As it came into view ahead of us I could see that it was attached to an ambulance which was pacing a very fast Amtrak train, headed south. Hmm, we thought, they're rounding people up again... time to find a dark corner and hide out. We parked in a shadowed corner of a gas station, closed for the night, and hunkered down into the seats so that the bus looked vacant. A couple of other cars pulled up, doing the same thing we were. Everything was all right until one of the other people presumably drunk, called out, "Joe!"
We hushed him, but he had already attracted attention. Several authority figures came over and started rounding people up. We were turfed out of the bus, and a woman in uniform set about tying our hands behind our backs. She was apparently assuming that we would stay cooperative, as it was just her (the rest had escorted the other detainees away). Her efforts at tying our hands weren't very good, either -- one of my heftier friends flexed his arms and managed to get a full foot of slack between his wrists, before removing the rope entirely. He almost seemed like he was going to ask the agent why she was doing such a crappy job, until I sidled up to him and told him to put the rope in his pocket and act like he was still tied. He nodded. It became pretty clear to me that we should be able to escape before we got put on the train, which was important because anybody who got put on the train never came back... and that was an increasing number of people, now that being different or attracting attention was all it took.
****
Two nights ago I was at a party, a small group. There was a bit of a conversation going, I don't recall the details. I do remember that one of the women was sleeping, and there ended up being some discussion of how easy it would be to pick her up; one person tried, and from her reaction, she didn't actually mind. A couple of others tried it, as one person called out "hey, why don't you see whether you can do it?" to each of them. I wanted to see whether I could, too, but I was being utterly ignored by everybody. When it all settled down again, I took my leave, saying something to the effect that I was tired of being left out and I was going to go home.
I went into the other room to collect my coat and shoes. One of the women followed me and started asking why I was unhappy. She proceeded to show that she was completely mystified as to why I would feel unwelcome. Did I want to be part of what they were doing? Why didn't I join in? Why didn't I say something? I explained that I was shy, and the comment as I left might have been passive-aggressive, but it took all the courage I had. She said that well, if I hadn't indicated what I wanted...
A couple of other people had come in as I cut her off, saying I knew where this was going: she was going to imply that if I hadn't stated what I wanted, it was all my fault if it was unhappy. Before I could counter that, the host laid into me because when I parked I had knocked down a reflector in the driveway (news to me), such that when he went out to the store in the middle of things, he had missed the house twice on his return, and it took an extra ten minutes. I was unsure why his inability to find his own house without the aid of a single reflector was my fault, but he seemed insistent that it was. I finally disengaged with him long enough to make my point to the first woman, that she would have a valid point if everyone else at the party hadn't been explicitly invited to join in... but she was no longer paying attention. It was so frustrating that I woke up in a horrible mood.
****
Last night, I was touring an old school which had been vacant for a while. It wasn't until my guide opened a door into an adjoining lab that I realized why I had been brought in: to assess water damage and mold which needed to be remediated before the place could be used again. I caught a face full of mycotoxin and attempted to backtrack, my feet oddly reluctant to move as I tried not to breathe in. Great, I thought, just as I was getting my peripheral vision back again...
As a bonus, later on I dreamt that I was reading a newspaper article and trying not to cry, because it was about how one of my friends (Steve Libbey) had been at an industry conference when he was shot. The reporter stated that he was shot while fleeing a man who had shot two other people, and that he might not have been the target of the planned assassin -- that he might have been mistaken for the target, or simply been eliminated as a witness. He died in hospital a few hours later. I was thinking that I should drive up to Citrus Heights to see if I could comfort his widow, but I was crying too hard.
****
I think I could do with a couple of uneventful nights now, thanks.
Three nights ago I dreamt that I was at a sporting event with a group of friends. We had finished up and we were piling into our converted schoolbus. We had just turned onto the main road when I realized there were red lights on the horizon, and what looked like a blue flare travelling rapidly just behind the skyline. As it came into view ahead of us I could see that it was attached to an ambulance which was pacing a very fast Amtrak train, headed south. Hmm, we thought, they're rounding people up again... time to find a dark corner and hide out. We parked in a shadowed corner of a gas station, closed for the night, and hunkered down into the seats so that the bus looked vacant. A couple of other cars pulled up, doing the same thing we were. Everything was all right until one of the other people presumably drunk, called out, "Joe!"
We hushed him, but he had already attracted attention. Several authority figures came over and started rounding people up. We were turfed out of the bus, and a woman in uniform set about tying our hands behind our backs. She was apparently assuming that we would stay cooperative, as it was just her (the rest had escorted the other detainees away). Her efforts at tying our hands weren't very good, either -- one of my heftier friends flexed his arms and managed to get a full foot of slack between his wrists, before removing the rope entirely. He almost seemed like he was going to ask the agent why she was doing such a crappy job, until I sidled up to him and told him to put the rope in his pocket and act like he was still tied. He nodded. It became pretty clear to me that we should be able to escape before we got put on the train, which was important because anybody who got put on the train never came back... and that was an increasing number of people, now that being different or attracting attention was all it took.
****
Two nights ago I was at a party, a small group. There was a bit of a conversation going, I don't recall the details. I do remember that one of the women was sleeping, and there ended up being some discussion of how easy it would be to pick her up; one person tried, and from her reaction, she didn't actually mind. A couple of others tried it, as one person called out "hey, why don't you see whether you can do it?" to each of them. I wanted to see whether I could, too, but I was being utterly ignored by everybody. When it all settled down again, I took my leave, saying something to the effect that I was tired of being left out and I was going to go home.
I went into the other room to collect my coat and shoes. One of the women followed me and started asking why I was unhappy. She proceeded to show that she was completely mystified as to why I would feel unwelcome. Did I want to be part of what they were doing? Why didn't I join in? Why didn't I say something? I explained that I was shy, and the comment as I left might have been passive-aggressive, but it took all the courage I had. She said that well, if I hadn't indicated what I wanted...
A couple of other people had come in as I cut her off, saying I knew where this was going: she was going to imply that if I hadn't stated what I wanted, it was all my fault if it was unhappy. Before I could counter that, the host laid into me because when I parked I had knocked down a reflector in the driveway (news to me), such that when he went out to the store in the middle of things, he had missed the house twice on his return, and it took an extra ten minutes. I was unsure why his inability to find his own house without the aid of a single reflector was my fault, but he seemed insistent that it was. I finally disengaged with him long enough to make my point to the first woman, that she would have a valid point if everyone else at the party hadn't been explicitly invited to join in... but she was no longer paying attention. It was so frustrating that I woke up in a horrible mood.
****
Last night, I was touring an old school which had been vacant for a while. It wasn't until my guide opened a door into an adjoining lab that I realized why I had been brought in: to assess water damage and mold which needed to be remediated before the place could be used again. I caught a face full of mycotoxin and attempted to backtrack, my feet oddly reluctant to move as I tried not to breathe in. Great, I thought, just as I was getting my peripheral vision back again...
As a bonus, later on I dreamt that I was reading a newspaper article and trying not to cry, because it was about how one of my friends (Steve Libbey) had been at an industry conference when he was shot. The reporter stated that he was shot while fleeing a man who had shot two other people, and that he might not have been the target of the planned assassin -- that he might have been mistaken for the target, or simply been eliminated as a witness. He died in hospital a few hours later. I was thinking that I should drive up to Citrus Heights to see if I could comfort his widow, but I was crying too hard.
****
I think I could do with a couple of uneventful nights now, thanks.
