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torquillLast night I had dreams of catastrophe.
I don't remember what triggered it, but I remember discovering that I could indeed sprint through an airport/mall with wheeled luggage if I put it out in front like a shopping cart. Everybody was running in all different directions. I can run endlessly in dreams, even though I can't in real life; I outdistanced most of the other people there. Many seemed aimless, panicked, without clear direction.
I ended up in an office, perhaps, on the third floor, with windows facing a parking lot. Cars were all pulling out of their spaces and racing for the road, as best they could (there wasn't the massive traffic jam that often occurs in these situations). I was afraid of being seen in the window, and looked carefully at it; I was relieved to discover it was mirrored on the outside, to keep out the glare. Carefully I peeked back out, seeing that there were a few other faces in the wing of the building to my left, visible through untinted glass, worried white faces looking into the parking lot and beyond. The lot was almost empty, now, deserted. On the major road beyond I saw a large group of people running, desperate, fleeing past. Some of them had yellow monk's robes. There was distant thunder.
I was on a train, with padded bench seats. In the seat behind me, toward the front of the train, was an older man I admired -- a mentor, perhaps. We had the seats to ourselves. He got a phone call, and had to get up to answer it. We stopped at a station, then proceeded on. When he got back to his seat, it had been taken up by three younger people -- I vaguely recognized them. Someone had also sat on the end of my seat, but there was a space in the middle. I offered it to him. By the time he was able to get his things and sort himself out, we had stopped again, and there were suddenly five people on my bench. The train was packed. The people were quiet and frightened. It hadn't occurred to me that with planes grounded and roads closed, the train might be the only way for people to travel.
I dreamt that I climbed out of my bedroom window onto the roof outside. The roof crackled under me. I looked down and saw the tar paper was torn away in places, the plywood underneath delaminating and cracking. I tried carefully to place my weight on the broadest parts of my arms and legs that I could, to keep from punching through. A couple of friends passed by below, and I called to them that we needed to rebuild the roof. As they passed out of sight, there was a vibration; I looked down and saw the ground shaking, undulating slightly. The building above me creaked and swayed. I wasn't especially frightened by the earthquake, but I did wonder how I was going to get down.
One last little fragment was that I checked the Ingress intel map, because my team had been successfully overwhelming the other team and I wanted to see what our region looked like now. I zoomed too far out, and I got a map of the whole Western US. California looked very strange, until I realized that it was truncated on a line just north of Bakersfield. That chunk, about a third of Arizona, and the tail of New Mexico were part of Mexico proper now. Baja was its own country, extending up the coast to the new California border.
******
I'm feeling numb today, which is an improvement from the low-grade panic attack I had all yesterday. Amy is just quiet, but not peaceful... waiting, perhaps, for the next disaster to come along. I've stopped reading Twitter, and I may quit the -news and -newstalk channels on lily. Normally I feel like I should at least know what the big headlines in current events are, but obviously my mental health is suffering from it right now. Best to let other people take up the fight, at least for a little while.
I don't remember what triggered it, but I remember discovering that I could indeed sprint through an airport/mall with wheeled luggage if I put it out in front like a shopping cart. Everybody was running in all different directions. I can run endlessly in dreams, even though I can't in real life; I outdistanced most of the other people there. Many seemed aimless, panicked, without clear direction.
I ended up in an office, perhaps, on the third floor, with windows facing a parking lot. Cars were all pulling out of their spaces and racing for the road, as best they could (there wasn't the massive traffic jam that often occurs in these situations). I was afraid of being seen in the window, and looked carefully at it; I was relieved to discover it was mirrored on the outside, to keep out the glare. Carefully I peeked back out, seeing that there were a few other faces in the wing of the building to my left, visible through untinted glass, worried white faces looking into the parking lot and beyond. The lot was almost empty, now, deserted. On the major road beyond I saw a large group of people running, desperate, fleeing past. Some of them had yellow monk's robes. There was distant thunder.
I was on a train, with padded bench seats. In the seat behind me, toward the front of the train, was an older man I admired -- a mentor, perhaps. We had the seats to ourselves. He got a phone call, and had to get up to answer it. We stopped at a station, then proceeded on. When he got back to his seat, it had been taken up by three younger people -- I vaguely recognized them. Someone had also sat on the end of my seat, but there was a space in the middle. I offered it to him. By the time he was able to get his things and sort himself out, we had stopped again, and there were suddenly five people on my bench. The train was packed. The people were quiet and frightened. It hadn't occurred to me that with planes grounded and roads closed, the train might be the only way for people to travel.
I dreamt that I climbed out of my bedroom window onto the roof outside. The roof crackled under me. I looked down and saw the tar paper was torn away in places, the plywood underneath delaminating and cracking. I tried carefully to place my weight on the broadest parts of my arms and legs that I could, to keep from punching through. A couple of friends passed by below, and I called to them that we needed to rebuild the roof. As they passed out of sight, there was a vibration; I looked down and saw the ground shaking, undulating slightly. The building above me creaked and swayed. I wasn't especially frightened by the earthquake, but I did wonder how I was going to get down.
One last little fragment was that I checked the Ingress intel map, because my team had been successfully overwhelming the other team and I wanted to see what our region looked like now. I zoomed too far out, and I got a map of the whole Western US. California looked very strange, until I realized that it was truncated on a line just north of Bakersfield. That chunk, about a third of Arizona, and the tail of New Mexico were part of Mexico proper now. Baja was its own country, extending up the coast to the new California border.
******
I'm feeling numb today, which is an improvement from the low-grade panic attack I had all yesterday. Amy is just quiet, but not peaceful... waiting, perhaps, for the next disaster to come along. I've stopped reading Twitter, and I may quit the -news and -newstalk channels on lily. Normally I feel like I should at least know what the big headlines in current events are, but obviously my mental health is suffering from it right now. Best to let other people take up the fight, at least for a little while.
