tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18587433665806796422024-03-08T01:46:33.091-08:00Dream TraffickingNightly wanderings into the black market of my unconscious mindNoniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12284313718593137785noreply@blogger.comBlogger20125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1858743366580679642.post-11417970784776389432015-01-27T05:40:00.001-08:002015-01-27T05:41:14.219-08:00What if I had an Emily of my own?<p dir="ltr">We were getting a robot of my best friend Emily to keep at home because I don't get to see her very often and <u>I</u> miss her. I was supposed to choose what era Emily to get. Did I want teenager Emily with braces, from when we first became friends? Senior Emily, a little more graceful? College Emily, Youngest At Her Proper Grownup Job Emily, Bride Emily, Pregnant Emily, or her current form, Mama Emily? Each had different powers and strengths, and would remain the same forever. At first I was excited and happy while trying to choose, remembering different times we spent together. It was fun to reminisce. </p>
<p dir="ltr">But then I started to be worried that I'd pick the wrong one and regret it. I wouldn't have much in common with Teenage Emily anymore for instance. Even if I picked the most recent Emily, she would become obsolete as the real Emily continued to grow and evolve and learn and change.</p>
<p dir="ltr">I decided not to get a robot Emily at all. An Emily who will not be slightly different and new each time I see her wouldn't really be an Emily at all. We'd have nothing to talk about, since she wouldn't be analyzing the world, constantly questioning and coming to conclusions and decisions, aging, studying her own changes. </p>
<p dir="ltr">The only best Emily is Emily as she is now, the cutting edge, most learned Emily, with her separate life and family. The Emily I rarely see but treasure every minute we do spend together. I look forward to the next Emily.</p>
Noniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12284313718593137785noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1858743366580679642.post-22477654627144668052014-05-27T05:38:00.001-07:002014-05-27T05:38:24.186-07:00Black Boots of Power<p dir="ltr">I met a deer who had 3 bodies and 12 legs. He was giving himself and anyone who would listen a pep talk, about how each body had a mind of its own. To get anywhere, he needed to distract his other bodies. So he could never think about what he was doing once he made a decision or else his bodies would know what was going on and rebel. </p>
<p dir="ltr">Nearby, a livestock auction was going on, and a young pig sold for a high price and was very proud, because only show pigs sold that high and it meant he was compellingly handsome. </p>
<p dir="ltr">I went with my father to find the secret house we lived I when I was first born. He showed me some photos he had taken from where my crib had been, and it made me remember old thoughts from when I knew no language nor what anything was. Just mysteries all around, but I didn't know yet how to question or search for knowledge because I didn't know what knowing was.</p>
<p dir="ltr">We found our old house on an Indian reservation, and no one had lived there since we moved away. It looked weathered and old on the outside, but inside it was clean and nice and warm. It was nicer than my mom's current house and she wouldn't have to pay anything to live there, and all her old paintings were still hanging on the walls.  So I was going to ask her if she wanted to move in, but then I stepped back outside and all the Indians were slaughtering sick animals outside. I felt like I understood something about what they were doing instinctually, because of my Indian blood, and it wasn't bad because those animals had to die so they wouldn't suffer or infect others, but I was still scared by it and knew my mom should stay at her own house rather than come here. My dad and brother were busy collecting the animal parts they wanted, and my brother was upset because the eagle wing he had been saving was poorly preserved and it was crackling apart.</p>
<p dir="ltr">I left the old house and had to duck and dodge past all the animal guts. I saw some men flying past above and I pointed out to my brother that one of them had fake legs. He followed them to get a better look and learn their ways.</p>
<p dir="ltr">I moved into a capsule apartment building, and a neighbor had some really badly behaved kids who menaced everyone. I told her that her kids were terrible to all the other people who lived there, so we wanted her to teach them how to empathize and value other people. She promised she would, but in the meantime they were still on the loose, so I caught the attention of a scary spirit man with big metal teeth and sent him to chase the bad kids. He couldn't hurt them but he would scare them every time they thought about scaring someone else.</p>
<p dir="ltr">With that solved, I went back to my apartment. A very beautiful young man, my lover,  was waiting outside. He was gorgeous but very delicate, so much so that all his colors were just tints. His skin was very pale and his hair was sort of silver brown, flashing in the light and very pretty. I tried to kiss him but when I touched him he wasn't solid. When I closed my eyes he was only static. </p>
<p dir="ltr">I told him I would teach him to call on spirits to protect him. He revealed to me that he was only half real, and was half spirit too. I gave him a pair of badass black cowboy boots with spurs and said "That's true for everyone. You're as real as you want to be. These boots will ground you and give you substance in this world, but it's only because they make you feel strong. Remember that it's your attitude and your actions that create you." And with that he put the boots on and became fully solid. His cheeks flushed with vitality, and his hair turned cherry red, and he picked me up and kissed me.</p>
Noniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12284313718593137785noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1858743366580679642.post-89234943689203840432012-07-19T07:28:00.001-07:002012-07-19T07:41:16.354-07:00I am ColossusI dreamed I was Colossus (yes, of the X-Men). But my back story was totally different. I was a robot, built during WW2 in Japan. They made me big and barrel-chested, with red hair and a beard, all metal and actual red, not like red hair. Their plan was to use me to attack places and proclaim it an act of aggression from Russia so that the Allies would think Russia was turning traitor. But they needed a human mind to put into the robot and they used a real Russian mutant who could project his mind into other bodies and had him possess the robot body, then killed his real body, thus trapping him in the robot and wiping out his personality and memories. That was how I came to be. When they sent me to go attack something in the name of Russia, I was about to do it, but the X-Men came and got me and taught me to be good and everything.<br />
<br />
The dream fast forwarded a few years of fighting alongside the X-Men and adding colorful Russian-accented banter as I loosened up and became my happy-go-lucky Russian self. Then one day, we were boarding up into the X-men plane (this was not the Blackbird, but more like a military plane). We folded our seats down out of the walls, and strapped ourselves in. I opened a compartment in the ceiling where I had hidden a bunch of condoms and passed them out to the team. Nightcrawler asked what they were for, and I answered "For safety!" and everyone laughed. Typical me!<br />
<br />
We landed for our mission. I didn't really have a role in the plan, so I went to a bar. I was shocked to recognize an old friend there from before I had been forced into this cursed metal body and my old memories began to come back. I was afraid he wouldn't believe me, so I didn't tell him who I was, and I abused my day job selling "Revolution" brand jeans and beer to give him free stuff to make him be my friend, and he invited me along to meet some friends of his at another place.<br />
<br />
It turned out he had actually been a traitor and had joined the Japanese, that he was the one who told them about my abilities and had gotten me captured, and his friends were some of the people who had worked on me and killed my human body. I freaked out but they had been ready for me, and when I tried to escape, they captured me using a special weapon like a tranquilizer gun that worked on robots. Kind of a taser thing. They were going to reprogram me to be properly evil like them and go killing their enemies and destroying evidence of their Nazi cooperation.<br />
<br />
But one of the Japanese scientists was really a good guy, and he had tried to rebel when they first killed my body but had failed to save me. His spirit had been crushed so he remained working with the evil guys, just doing the science part, telling himself it was enough to just not be behind the scenes building things, not the one actually doing the evil actions. But when I showed up he knew it was his chance to finally redeem himself, so he showed me that the goofy Russian bosy was a disguise and I had been built with the ability to transform into a way more badass, powerful, sleek, Gundam style robot. And I could fly.<br />
<br />
I carried him on my back and flew away from the evil dudes, and they tried to shoot me down. I managed to dodge, but my scientist friend was hit. We landed on a roof somewhere, momentarily safe, but he was dying. His final farewell to me was a code word that unlocked the brainwashing they'd done to me, so I was no longer confined to this cold metal body. My memories came flooding back, along with a bunch of new powers I had never known I possessed.<br />
<br />
Then the evil guys finally located me and attacked with all their weapons, decades' worth of inventions designed specifically to take me out. I fought like a demon, using my powers to blast the programming out of their machines and the consciousnesses out of their bodies. But the most powerful of their weapons were shielded against me, and they landed some serious hits. My body was overheating, and some of my limbs and guns were so mangled they were useless. I knew I had to take the last of them out, so I kamikazed and threw my body onto their biggest, most sophisticated weapons and exploded myself. The explosion triggered the bombs in the weapons to go off and blew the whole place up in a white hot flare that wiped out the whole top of the tower. I had won.<br />
<br />
And my mind had gone into a seagull that was flying away from the blast. I flew away, back to rejoin the X-Men.Noniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12284313718593137785noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1858743366580679642.post-28102118169478949032012-03-24T13:41:00.001-07:002012-03-24T13:41:47.431-07:00Quentin Tarantino's BoatI was hanging out with some of my artist friends, and one of them knew Quentin Tarantino. One of my friends, Carmen, had a movie idea she wanted to pitch to him, so we called him and all we got to say was that we wanted to talk to him, and he was like "Oh! Oh! I'm so there." and he appeared. He was panting and explaining that he flies all over the country to meet with people and talk about ideas. We were like "Carmen has an idea!" and Quentin said "Wait, we have to do this right. I like to rent out the convention center of a town or small city, somewhere small enough that it's a big fucking deal to have anyone go there. Like Denver City, Utah." Tony and I got all excited and said we'd been to Denver City twice (even though that's not a real place, it was true in the dream).<br />
<br />
So Quentin made some calls and was like "There's a place in Florida that's perfect. C'mon, we're taking the boat." I was momentarily confused because we were in Oklahoma and being the experienced road traveler I am, I was pretty sure a boat was not the best way to get to Florida. But then Quentin's people drove up in a gigantic plywood canoe parade float thing. And I was like "Ohhh, yeah, that kind of boat will work!"<br />
<br />
So we all made a supply run to a gas station because we knew you can get bad sunburns on a boat, but all they had on display was hunting stuff. We asked the clerk where all their Mexican items were and he took us upstairs where they had all the sandals and sunglasses and sunblock, and we stocked up and got in the boat and took off through a huge expanse of golden wheat fields. We even fished over the side of the boat and caught chickens.Noniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12284313718593137785noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1858743366580679642.post-74482577423509654542012-03-06T20:41:00.003-08:002012-03-06T20:42:10.337-08:00God Sent Me To Help LandoI dreamed I was chosen by God to help Lando Calrissian. I went to the beautiful hotel he was living in and had to try to find him. I wasn't anyone special to anyone there so I had to make my own way to get to Lando. Someone had wrecked a motorcycle in the parking garage and left it in the trash, and I dragged it out. It was old and rusted and dirty and wouldn't run, but as I touched it here and there it became like new, sparkling and perfect. Because it was never a popular bike, now that it was shiny and pristine it looked really unique and beautiful to everyone. When some of the famous motorcycle-loving guests saw my bike, they challenged me to a race. They knew my bike was nowhere near as powerful as theirs. I accepted, and when they laid out the rules of the race I didn't pay any attention. When they said "Go!" I merely putted over to where the crowds of spectators were and let them all see how beautiful my bike and I were.<br />
<br />
A group of women wanted me to join them for a party in the VIP area of the hotel. I left the bike and the race and went with them, but we found the VIP areas were all too full of people. It was nighttime and cold out, but I suggested we go to the outdoor pools. They all thought I was crazy, so I went out by myself. As I walked to the pools, multi-colored lights under the surface of the water turned on, and fountains flared water up into the air. Steam rose off the pools, because it turns out they were heated.<br />
<br />
In the pools were little grottoes where small parties could sit in the hot water and relax and have conversations. A hand came out of one of these and beckoned me to join. It was a group of Lando's former lovers, women and men both, and they told me I had better be careful because I was just his type. I asked what was so bad about him and they said he was haunted by some feeling of guilt and failure that he would never talk about. They all loved him dearly, but he couldn't really love anyone without loving himself, and so he would pick one lover for a while and then throw them out and take up with another, and keep stringing them all along, making them all miserable.<br />
<br />
Then a waiter appeared and said Lando wanted someone they couldn't find, and to appease him they wanted to just bring any of his old harem back to him. The lovers all clambered to be chosen, but the waiter pointed at me and said "You don't look familiar, maybe new blood will keep him occupied."<br />
<br />
So I was sent up in a special golden elevator that went only to Lando's penthouse. When I arrived, the entryway turned out to be a maze. It was all tiled and decorated like a Greek bath, and dotted with pools. It looked like a fancy re-textured Mario 64 map. Since I played so much Mario 64 I got through with no problem at all and finally found Lando.<br />
<br />
He was a mess. His chamber was torn apart and his furniture destroyed. Despite the destruction everywhere, he looked immaculate. He wore white and yellow and gold, topped off with a flowing cape.<br />
<br />
"I'm here to help you," I told him. His face darkened and he looked on the verge of a screaming rage, but as he looked at my face and met my eyes and I stayed calm and cool, the violence dissipated. He seemed to know who sent me and why.<br />
<br />
He laid before me two pairs of boots. They were much like his own, yellow and gold, but differed slightly from each other. One pair was stiffer and went up to the knee, and the other was a little softer and went up to the calf, and had a flatter sole.<br />
<br />
I tried on each pair, and then chose the shorter ones. It apparently had significance, because his eyes widened and he started whispering incessantly to himself.<br />
<br />
Then he handed me his blaster and pointed at a vase on the other side of the room. I aimed at it, and then moved slightly to the left and pulled the trigger, exploding the target. He nearly fell over backward from astonishment.<br />
<br />
"I bear a message," I told him. "Your son forgives you. You never did anything wrong, and the guilt you feel is pointless. You cling to a tree which has no roots--climb down and let the wind blow it away."<br />
<br />
He began to cry and thanked me. I left knowing the old Lando was going to be himself again.Noniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12284313718593137785noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1858743366580679642.post-42844903643638166052012-01-07T10:38:00.000-08:002012-01-07T10:38:42.491-08:00The Thunder Lizard WarI was a prisoner in a village in a jungle. There were a few other prisoners and we were locked in a barn type building. We were starving. <br />
<br />
Our captors were other villagers turned totalitarians, crazed with patriotic fervor, and they had arrested or killed so many people that the village was dying. There weren't enough people to tend the farms. The livestock was gone. The fields were dry and filled with weeds.<br />
<br />
My mother was living in the woods somewhere with a small group of escapees, and she sneaked in during a disturbance to give me food. It was a sandwich, and it was amazingly good, but the bread was hard to chew so I couldn't eat it fast enough and the guards came back and found me chewing furiously. One of them knocked me to the floor and stuck his fingers in my mouth and took my half-chewed bite of sandwich and screamed at me, demanding to know where I had gotten the food. I wouldn't tell him and he beat me, trying to get me to talk.<br />
<br />
I still wouldn't tell him, so he pulled me to my feet and shoved me out the door. He and a group of other totalitarians surrounded me and shoved me along a path. We went past various buildings, all empty, and fields that had gone to seed. I knew they were taking me to be executed, and I was really scared.<br />
<br />
At one point a small gap had opened up between a couple of the totalitarians and I lunged through and began to run. We were in a forest, definitely tropical, but we were still within the area of our village and there were paths through the forest. The men were chasing me, and though I was fast, they were fast too.<br />
<br />
I ran past buildings, and thought about going in them to hide, but each one had dead bodies and the stink of blood and fear and decay. One had a *lot* of bloody bodies and some kind of creature still killing people inside. I wanted to help them but I knew it was one of the totalitarians' attack beasts and with no weapons, I'd just be killed right along with them.<br />
<br />
I kept running, but I realized they weren't really trying to catch me, but herd me along in a certain direction. Toward were I'd be killed. So I stopped and tried to hide among the trees, but they knew right where I was and grabbed me and forced me onwards. <br />
<br />
We were further from the agricultural part of our settlement than I'd ever been, and I was realizing our culture had once been great--around me now was a big market, with narrow streets paved with painted wood planks and shaded with big colorful cloths hung across the walkway, and low wooden buildings full of goods, but no food and no people.<br />
<br />
As we kept going I could somehow feel this cloud of fear and death thickening, and I resisted more and more until the men had to carry me. We started hearing sounds, faint screams and crashes, that grew louder as we went. I felt more and more crazy and desperate, and was kicking and struggling, but the men held me tight. They started to seem scared too and our approach slowed and became very cautious.<br />
<br />
The sounds stopped. It was just creepy quiet.<br />
<br />
Then we came to a big crater. It had once been market like we'd been walking in, but it had been smashed and crushed and was now a 20-ft dropoff to bloodstained, broken boards and wreckage and torn earth.<br />
<br />
The there was a big crash and another scream very close to us, and we saw the roofs of some nearby buildings collapse violently, shards of wood exploding into the air. The destruction seemed to be moving. Towards us.<br />
<br />
"The cavamon!" the men were yelling. It was the legendary giant attack beast, the thunder lizard the totalitarians had been using as a weapon to gain control of our people.<br />
<br />
The men tried to throw me over the edge into the pit, and in mindless terror I pulled some kind of cat-ninja move and yanked on the clothes of one of the men so he started falling in, and I kicked off him and landed on all fours inside one of the broken buildings. There was a wall between me and the men now, and the one who I'd yanked on fell into the pit and was yelling for his friends to help him. I couldn't see what they were doing, but knew they weren't going to help him.<br />
<br />
Then the crashing started again and I ran. I could hear the man who fell in screaming as the cavamon got him. I came out of the wrecked building into another wooden walkway and ran. To lose the other totalitarians I ducked into a shop. It was full of little painted wooden trinkets, which I noticed were shaped like alligators or dragons. Some kind of lizard. They were supposed to be the cavamon.<br />
<br />
As I came out the back of the shop into another covered walkway I realized this whole gigantic market was all cavamon effigies of all different makes and sizes. Clay cavamon pots, wicker cavamons, fabric cavamon kites. It seemed none of them agreed on what a cavamon looked like, exactly, except for a mouth full of sharp teeth. Some of the effigies showed it eating cattle, some had it eating humans, some breathing fire. Some gave it four legs, some six, some two. They all portrayed the cavamon as fucking huge.<br />
<br />
I kept running, but as the crashing sounds faded in the distance my pace slowed. The totalitarians didn't seem to be following me. I heard the cavamon roar in the distance. It sounded just like a Jurassic Park T-rex.<br />
<br />
The market walkway turned into dirt, and the buildings and cloth coverings were replaced by trees and leaves. I was in the jungle again, and the path here had once been wide but was starting to grow over.<br />
<br />
Someone yelled. There was a totalitarian guard here, and she took off chasing me. I ran into the forest, and ran and ran. I startled another escapee, who happened to be the General from Akira. We knew we were on the same side, so we ran together.<br />
<br />
We came to a waist-high chicken-wire fenced creek. I hesitated at the fence, somehow knowing it was supposed to be a crime against the state to go beyond a fence, and the totalitarian chasing me gave a shout of triumph. I turned and looked at her in her uniform and hopped over the fence.<br />
<br />
She gasped and stopped. I began to run in the shallow water. The General jumped in after me. The totalitarian finally decided that catching an escapee was more important than the fence law and jumped over, but then seemed to have a panic attack and just didn't chase me.<br />
<br />
So I was now a fugitive in a jungle, running along in a muddy stream. I transformed myself from skinny girl into my friend Justin, who I guess I figured was more physically prepared for this kind of thing. The General frowned a little, not quite approving, so I made my arms more muscular and he gave me a satisfied nod.<br />
<br />
We eventually came to another village. I wanted to go in and try to find food, or get some kind of help, but the General refused and went a different way. I hopped the fence again and went into the village. It had a different style of architecture, still pretty primitive, and it seemed as empty as my old village. I saw some people and realized this village had the same totalitarian problem, and they tried to capture me. I ran, feeling pretty confident that they couldn't catch me. I wanted to see what was up with this place. It wasn't all filled with bodies, but it was still empty and fear-shrouded.<br />
<br />
Then I found what looked like a fair. It was kind of like a market like the other one, but looked like it hadn't been there as long, and there were people here. All wore totalitarian armbands, though they seemed to do it begrudgingly.<br />
<br />
Their wares were all dragon-themed. Pots, baskets, whistles, masks. I was able to steal some meagre little vegetables, but there wasn't much food here either and the people had gaunt, sad faces.<br />
<br />
Then I saw totalitarian soldiers marching a line of prisoners along. The totalitarians were trying to rouse the other people into shouting names and throwing things at the prisoners, but the other people seemed too tired and apathetic and just kind of stared.<br />
<br />
I ran ahead to see where the prisoners were going. And I heard another fucking Jurassic Park roar, though this one sounded kind of smaller and reedy.<br />
<br />
In the middle of the market/fair was a big cage, and in the cage was a dragon. It was long like a Chinese dragon, and it was red, and it was chained up. Its cage was littered with bones and half-eaten corpses, the older ones were livestock and the newer ones human.<br />
<br />
I freaked and ran. Some guards chased me, but I hopped the fence again into the stream and ran up the stream. The General was gone, I was on my own again. I ate my stolen vegetables as I ran.<br />
<br />
After a while I realized that the stream was getting deeper, and the walls of the stream were wooden. There was a raft in the water, and I got on it. If you stood on it right it went upstream, much faster than I could run. But as I continued up the stream, the signs of habitation increased. There were things like oars sticking out into the stream. I was afraid the stream was going to go right into the middle of another nightmare town, so I got out.<br />
<br />
Right away there were people. I was scared of them being totalitarians too, so I stayed well away from anyone, but there were many more people here. Their fields were still growing, and they still had livestock. I started to feel like this place might not be so bad. They seemed to want to help me, and they gave me food. Real meat and potatoes!<br />
<br />
But the food was on a stick. I was suspicious. I ate it all right, but it smacked of carnival food, and as I went further into their town my stomach sank. It was another fucking fair.<br />
<br />
But I had to see if they had a people-eating beast too. I crept deeper into the fair. Their trinkets were definitely lizardy, but there was no miasma of fear here. Yet I could hear people talk about the Thunder Lizard. I thought maybe they just hadn't had their beast long enough to burn through all their livestock and start feeding it political prisoners. I thought maybe I should cut my losses and get out of there before I got too close. And just when I was about to turn and run, I saw the beast.<br />
<br />
It was a brachiasaurus. A plant-eater.<br />
<br />
They had it in a tall building, not really a cage, just a roof and stairs up to a platform where you could be near its head. And it looked loveable! People were feeding it by hand and it nuzzled up to them like a horse.<br />
<br />
I was so relieved I fell to my knees. I realized this was probably what started it all, that this village had a brachiasaurus that attracted visitors and boosted the economy, so other towns wanted their own Thunder Lizard, but in trying to one-up the brachiasaurus they got scary ones. The more dangerous, the bigger the economic boost, but the greater the cost as well. The dragon needed a lot of meat to sustain, and the gigantic cavamon thing needed tons more. More and more drastic measures were taken to sustain the monster, until it ruined my old village and turned it into a hell.Noniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12284313718593137785noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1858743366580679642.post-75818732540012788412011-12-30T10:15:00.000-08:002011-12-30T10:15:50.864-08:00Spirit Bird's SecretTony and I were on the road and we stopped at a weird hotel that didn't have proper elevators--instead it had open platforms that went up and down through holes in the floors, like in a video game. Those were freaking me out a bit because we had a lot of luggage and I was afraid that since there was no railing, our bags might stick out and get smashed by the edge of the next floor. I asked the staff if there was another way up, and there was: this very new-looking carbon fiber ski lift. Like a chair on a cable. It went very fast, too.<br />
<br />
Neither method would work with our luggage, and it was almost daytime again anyway and we weren't tired, so we decided to just keep driving. We got a little lost trying to leave the hotel and came out on a loading dock, facing the back of a huge amusement park with hundreds of rides, all painted blue, packed so tightly together it looked crazy. I realized, that though I remembered for some reason knowing about the place and knew that it was famous for having so many rides that you never really had to stand in line anywhere, the real secret of the place was that they were really all one big connected ride. The whole place was like clockwork and gears so that the rides, even though they went in and out of each other, would never collide, like the machine guns of old propeller-driven planes being mechanically timed to go between the propeller blades.<br />
<br />
Apparently that was a big industry secret, and an employee chased me back into the hotel. We found the front door and got in the car and kept driving. The car wasn't like our car in real life, it was more like Luke Skywalker's speeder thing in the beginning of A New Hope; red, no top, just a windshield. We went a new way along Lake Superior, and drove further and further away from any towns or cities, and at one point the road just ended at the water and our car apparently could hover about 10 feet above the water, so we just drove out over the lake.<br />
<br />
The sky was getting lighter, and we followed the shoreline. We were really in the wild, no other people around anywhere, and the trees were old, old growth. Not tall or huge, but they seemed weathered and wise. Seagulls and geese and other birds flew around us, and then a big eagle or an owl flew in front of us. We could barely see it, it seemed to be made out of a wisp of mist at first glance, but it was really shimmering energy that swirled with all colors. We could see a trail in the woods coming up again, and we thought about landing the car and driving, but the spirit bird was not turning. She was sticking to the shoreline, and we decided to follow.<br />
<br />
It turned out she could talk, sort of, it wasn't like a voice but more like a thought that came into our heads but we knew we could both hear it. She said "Hello, humans. We don't usually see your kind here. Most of you have forgotten how to fly. I'm going to take you to our most secret shore, one you cannot get to by roads or land."<br />
<br />
We followed, and the shoreline became rocky and chaotic and shrouded in mist, and we had to fly our car carefully not to crash into the cliffs or the gnarled old trees sticking out of them. It got steadily more and more difficult, and though as it got closer to sunrise, we still couldn't see well due to the mist.<br />
<br />
Finally we came out through a big crack between two giant rock formations, and the shoreline opened up and the mist cleared just as the sun came up over the horizon behind us, bathing everything in gold.<br />
<br />
The rock formations were huge, easily as tall as skyscrapers, but with wide open areas of smooth water between them. No trees grew on them, because they were bare rock. They were filled with holes, like enormous sponges with pockets and tunnels big enough to put a house through. The rocks, all hard and even in texture like basalt, were a riot of colors, jade green and mauve and turquoise and gold. As we flew close to one of the formations, we saw the surface of it was peppered with sparkling mineral deposits, mica and fool's gold and hematite.Noniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12284313718593137785noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1858743366580679642.post-49843571888792345672011-12-29T08:39:00.000-08:002011-12-29T08:39:30.017-08:00Love MagicsI was a sorceress, and I lived with my all-female family of witches and sorceresses in a beautiful house. Our family had lived there for centuries and we took in any woman or girl who wanted to learn magic. Our house was full of laughter and every room was different. When women came to us hurt or intending to use magic for evil, we took them in and cared for them and showed them love and peace until their souls were healed, because you couldn't use magic with a cracked soul or you'd shatter from the power of it and die. Every time someone came to seek help, the house grew another room for her, and each room became the ideal place for her, filled with her favorite things and pictures of her loved ones. There were all different colors and decorative styles and the differences were what made the house so beautiful.<br />
<br />
We used little magics all the time, to help animals and to subtly help people all around the world. When someone anywhere cried out for help, we could hear them and send what magical help we could. Sometimes we couldn't do very much, when their needs were physical such as food. But we could calm the emotions of attackers or make them forget what they were doing, or we could chase the nightmares of children away.<br />
<br />
But there were bad people in the world who could use magics too. They didn't bring their power from a source of love, but from their pain, and the more cracked and broken their souls, the more evil and destructive their magic. They found our house and laid siege, killing anyone who went outside.<br />
<br />
We had a secret exit and we escaped, but they sent a broken woman to go through the front door of our house, because our magical protections and wards allowed anyone seeking help to enter--but once she was inside, she turned around and invited the evil ones in, thereby allowing them to pass. And because our power came from our home, its feeling of love and peace and privacy and security and safety, they had to destroy those centuries-old spells. They opened the front and back doors and they marched all their prisoners through again and again. They made all the townspeople walk through. The more people walked through, the more the energy of our comfortable, beautiful home leaked out, until our home had no power anymore and was just a building. We sorceresses and witches could no longer call on our magic.<br />
<br />
But they didn't realize that our kind of magic, once created, does not get destroyed, it merely moves around. The town around them transformed into a beautiful paradise, and their prisoners and the townspeople and everyone who went through that door felt a little of their worries and pains and emotional wounds lighten and heal. Those who went through again and again became happy and full of life, and finally the evil ones had no power over them.Noniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12284313718593137785noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1858743366580679642.post-91288629428660841472011-12-26T08:58:00.000-08:002011-12-26T09:06:09.491-08:00Mexican IT Football HeroI moved to Mexico and was jobhunting. I found a company that had three different openings for computer/IT/web positions, and I felt I was qualified for any of the three. I went to interview and I was really excited because the pay was really good and knew I had it in the bag.<br />
<br />
When I arrived for the interview, there was nobody in the building. The lights were off and the late afternoon/early evening sunlight was lighting the place up all golden stripey through the blinds. There was a voice over the intercom asking me things and then we started talking about football. I told them if they ever went to a football game it should be the Vikings.<br />
<br />
Then I went into another room and there was a little football field there. Like maybe 1/4 the size of a normal football field, but inside and with a ceiling. The grass was real and there was a haze in the air like they'd just had the sprinklers on, and the golden sunlight was making it all glow golden-orange.<br />
<br />
And then I noticed I had a football in my hands, but it was sort of a wiffle-bell version of a football that was like a neon yellow-green plastic football-shaped cage-like ball. And there was an actual football game going on, and there were massive football players running at me.<br />
<br />
I took off running. The room around the field had disappeared and the sky was dark, like it was a night game with big artificial lights, and I was now wearing a Vikings uniform and pads and everything. The other team (maybe the Raiders or something, they were wearing black) was after me. All my other teammates were on the ground with injuries so it was up to me.<br />
<br />
I ran and ducked and dodged and spun, and I made it to the end zone and spiked the plastic ball. There was a whole stadium of cheering people and the other Vikings picked me up on their shoulders and carried me around the room (it was a room again, but now was crowded full of people).<br />
<br />
I had saved the game and won myself a place on the team. They said I got to pick my groupies out of a big crowd of people in swimsuits, and the room we were in turned into the deck of a cruise ship. Everyone wanted to be in my entourage, and when I looked over the rail of the ship, there was literally a sea of fans. The whole ocean was actually people cheering for me.Noniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12284313718593137785noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1858743366580679642.post-18377437293507141092011-12-13T07:17:00.000-08:002011-12-13T07:17:48.384-08:00Calling CardI was an heir to a big Apple-like company. So was my friend Emma. But the company was evil, so I decided to steal a bunch of the inventions and run away and use the technology to make the world a better place. I went to the invention display table thing and grabbed a bunch of glossy white doohickeys. They snapped together into a little suitcase-shaped object.<br />
<br />
I ran out the door. Emma was on my side though she stayed in, it was our plan that I get free and then break her out later. She stalled everyone so it was a couple minutes before they realized I'd really run away, and then the alarms sounded. I was running through our underground maze and the Apple troops were after me. I knew the way through the maze, and came out to the outside world. Immediately I was jumping fences and running through bushes and gardens, thinking the troops would stick to roads and paths. I used a rope to swing across a deep valley and tied the rope to a tree, but there was a bridge not too far away so it only bought a little time.<br />
<br />
The city I was running through was hilly and had a lot of beautiful terraced parks. This same city appears in my dreams often, so I knew the areas and headed for where I thought I could get help.<br />
<br />
The troops following me started a tornado. I could see the black funnel of it across the valley, and it was pretty slow-moving so I felt like I had some time. I went to a house where I knew my brother Simon would be. I wanted to call my dad, so I used a payphone in the stairwell. Simon gave me the number, but there was some intricate way of dialing to not have to pay and it kept not working even thought I was doing it right.<br />
<br />
I ran and checked out the window and the tornado was closer. I freaked and told Simon I really really needed to get Dad on the phone. He gave me a calling card.<br />
<br />
I looked at the calling card for a second and then I was like "A fucking calling card? Really? Is it 2002?!!?"Noniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12284313718593137785noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1858743366580679642.post-38206717271767903582011-12-10T07:35:00.001-08:002011-12-10T07:52:57.781-08:00Rescued by the Space PopeI was on a space ship in zero g. The ship was pretty colorful, most of it was white or silver metal but all the doors, storage, etc. were painted yellow, orange, or red. There were big windows to see the stars, and as I floated through the corridors and explored, I was happy that this spaceship was obviously designed never to have gravity. There was no floor and corridors branched off in all directions, there was no up or down.<br />
<br />
Tony was there, and we were flirting like when we first met. We went exploring, as a date, holding hands and giggling as we frolicked in zero g. We went out into a huge sun room area that had glass on all sides and kind of a tower of handles you could hold onto in the middle, so you could climb out to the end and be surrounded by space.<br />
<br />
Tony and I started to go out onto the tower, but then Tony pulled his back. He couldn't move himself, he was stuck with his arms kind of claw-like and his back arched. I called out for someone to help and my friend Nathan came to our rescue, dressed in totally ridiculous lavender and mint green and gold and white scifi robes, like something Whoopi Goldberg would wear in Star Trek but with a Pope hat. Nathan saw Tony's condition and said "Oh this happens all the time, I'm really good at fixing it," and grabbed Tony around the chest with one arm and dug his knuckles into the middle of Tony's back. It looked painful and Tony yelled, but Nathan did some kind of twist with his hand and popped something in Tony's back, and then everything was fine. Tony was back to full health.<br />
<br />
We thanked Nathan, who floated away like he had some kind of little hidden motors that let him move however he wanted rather than use the handles in the walls like anyone else.Noniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12284313718593137785noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1858743366580679642.post-48891670237079845932011-12-06T05:49:00.001-08:002011-12-06T05:57:59.293-08:00Presidential Waterskiing CompetitionI was in a flying aircraft of some kind, flying close to the surface of the ocean. I opened the aircraft's cargo door, which was like a big ramp on the front, so we could see the water and dolphins and stuff. The plane was too close to the water though, and when the ramp opened all the way it dipped below the surface and the water came rushing into the cargo bay.<br />
<br />
Bill Clinton and I then dove out into the ocean and started to waterski behind the plane. We could see it was kind of more like a flying saucer or scifi drop ship. Since I was running for president, Bill advised that I beat Herman Cain at waterskiing tricks. So I went over ramps and did spin moves and flips and stuff like that.<br />
<br />
I kicked Cain's ass at waterskiing, and Bill tried to beat me but I sabotaged the ramp and he fell and was totally embarrassed. Then a really tall blond Swedish-looking woman beat up Herman Cain and I congratulated her and gave her my President crown.Noniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12284313718593137785noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1858743366580679642.post-45992835438577412582011-12-02T06:47:00.001-08:002011-12-02T07:07:13.396-08:00Me and Kiefer BFFs 4eva!I dreamed years ago I used to live in an awesome house on stilts over a canyon where it often rained but the rain was below my house. I could see herds of animals down there. It was beautiful. But I had to move away, and I got some of my friends hooked up to take the place when I left it.<br />
<br />
Then the neighborhood went to crap. The university nearby got really big and the sprawl of the city took over, full of unruly fratboys and loud, gross parties. In the canyon a big amusement park opened, noisy rides and roller coasters chasing all the animals away. There was a record-breakingly-huge Ferris wheel that drew a lot of people, but the amusement park quickly fell out of fashion and into disrepair. They put in a second Ferris wheel to try to attract more people but nobody came, and the park closed and became a favorite spot for illegal drinking parties and was soon covered with broken bottles and graffiti.<br />
<br />
My friends decided to move out, and they asked me to come pick up some mail that had come for me there.<br />
<br />
They had YEARS worth of mail. Some of it was very important, like a magazine had sent me a really nice (though now obsolete) camera to record myself answering interview questions for them to put on their website. There were bills I never paid and lots of things I could have gotten in real trouble for ignoring.<br />
<br />
I was really mad, but by the time I had gone through everything and was going to ask my friends why they had never given me this stuff, they had moved across the country and weren't answering my calls. Then I was just sad that they had let a little thing like some mail snowball into something they felt so bad about that they wouldn't talk to me for fear of my anger. I hadn't actually gotten in trouble for missing any of it, in fact some of it was too old to collect so I was getting away in better shape than if I had gotten the stuff, for the most part.<br />
<br />
Then Kiefer Sutherland as the vampire in Lost Boys came up out of the abandoned amusement park and asked me to tune his guitar, so I did and then he played a song trying to hypnotize some lady but she ran away. He sighed and put the guitar down, and I picked it up and played a song for him and hypnotized him instead, which somehow made me a vampire too. We chased all the other vampires (they were less evolved than us of course) around and had a great time and learned we could run super fast on all fours. We ran and ran and found a new canyon where all the animals had gone to and joined the natural order of life like a couple of lions.Noniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12284313718593137785noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1858743366580679642.post-13595454476133165392011-11-29T04:34:00.001-08:002011-11-29T05:16:26.397-08:00Dragons!I was in a castle. There was an art and video game convention going on and a bunch of my old classmates were there.<br />
<br />
My buddy Lake was demoing a character he'd designed and there was some kind of holographic projector, so we could see the character at life size. It was already rendered in 3d and animated, so Lake was controlling it realtime making it jump and climb and do attack moves. The character basically just looked like him in a long red coat.<br />
<br />
Suddenly the castle was under attack by a medieval army. Lake grabbed my hand and said we had to hide because we were royalty. He told me he didn't just look like me but that he was really my brother and we were prince and princess.<br />
<br />
My old classmate Marco was there too and he already knew who we really were. He knew the castle really well and said he could hide us. We followed him through a maze of secret passages and down a well shaft and a couple spiral staircases until we were far underground.<br />
<br />
We came to a room that was almost like a cave with a big shaft that went straight up further than we could see, and in the middle of the room was a brilliant blue hot spring that turned emerald green on the edges. Under the water there were two giant eggs.<br />
<br />
Lake and I had each found one of the eggs when we played in the underground mazes as kids but we had forgotten about them. But Marco was a longtime family friend and had known our parents before they died and we had to disguise ourselves as character designers. He was a prince from another castle.<br />
<br />
Marco left to go fight the invaders and Lake and I looked for a long stick or something to poke at our giant eggs in the hot spring with. But the eggs heard our voices and began to hatch.<br />
<br />
They were dragon eggs! The dragons came out of the hot spring, turning it back into regular cool clear water, and came to us. My dragon was red with black eyes and Lake's was black with red eyes. We climbed onto our dragons' backs and flew up through the shaft and got away.Noniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12284313718593137785noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1858743366580679642.post-81024612201836241672011-11-28T04:03:00.001-08:002011-11-28T04:31:47.962-08:00Son of GimliI was a dwarf, beard and all, and Gimli was my father. I was a teenager and I wanted to be a warrior like my dad. We were fighting in a war that had started over the government declaring pizza a vegetable. My old high school was on the pizza-is-not-a-vegetable side and other schools joined them until there were so many people we took over a huge convention center and subway station.<br />
<br />
The war was all out, and the collective of schools drafted a bunch of us into an army, including me and my father because everyone knows dwarves are awesome fighters. But it was a futuristic war and we had guns instead of axes.<br />
<br />
We were sent to take over the whole subway system, but the other side was expecting us so we had to go over land rather than through the tunnels. They were numerous and really well equipped and they picked us off left and right, but a small group of us made it to the next station.<br />
<br />
Our mission was to set off these bombs that looked like grilled hamburger patties in tinfoil packets. Once we saw what we were supposed to do we just about deserted, because the bombs wouldn't give us enough time to get away. We'd been sent on a suicide mission.<br />
<br />
My father gave a rousing speech about how it was our duty and an honor and all that and got us all worked up, so we ran in screaming and set the bombs and took any cover we could get.<br />
<br />
I survived. A few of us did. But my father didn't make it.<br />
<br />
We took a now-captured train back to the base. When we arrived, our base was full of enemy soldiers occupying the station. Our side had surrendered even before we got to the other base and nobody had told us, so my father had died for no reason. I started screaming and crying and ripping up anything I could get my hands on.<br />
<br />
I went to the area where the administrators were but they wouldn't let me in to yell at the people who had sent us on that stupid mission. They had my father's axe though and I took it and destroyed a bunch of stuff in the room, and they kicked me out.<br />
<br />
I slid down a long railing because angsty teenage dwarves don't take no fuckin stairs. Some kid at the bottom was totally awe-stuck, and told me it was an awesome "bloggerface" (apparently that was what that move was called). I sneered at him and headed off to go pick a fight with the soldiers.<br />
<br />
But then Donato Giancola appeared. He hugged me (he had to kneel down, me being a dwarf) and told me he was upset about Gimli's death too, but that sometimes we do our parents the most honor by not being like them, and that I didn't have to fight. Gimli wanted better for me.<br />
<br />
I realized he was right and I cried a bit and then kissed the top of his head and left the convention center to go become my own dwarf.Noniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12284313718593137785noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1858743366580679642.post-55409500281436443422011-11-27T05:15:00.001-08:002011-11-27T05:56:17.952-08:00The Day We Sank The Aerial Lift BridgeI was in Canal Park in Duluth, a touristy area right on the lake. Someone decided the neighborhood needed to move further north up the shore because a big storm was coming. Canal Park was actually all on floating platforms, and they unhitched everything and began floating it all up the shore piece by piece. It looked so strange seeing all the buildings out on the lake.<br />
<br />
My little brother Derrick and I were watching all this from the lift bridge. We could see the black storm clouds coming in over the lake, with cloud-to-cloud lightning flashing and the wind whipping our clothes.<br />
<br />
We decided to go home and get out of the way of the storm, but found we were too late and all of Canal Park was out on the lake. There was no way to get back into town.<br />
<br />
Then they unhitched the bridge and we drifted out into the lake. Some of the buildings had been pulled ashore on the east end of town. There were a few sailors manning the bridge and they put me and Derrick to work to help sail up to the new location.<br />
<br />
But then the storm started. It took only a few minutes of the strong winds and huge waves before the bridge twisted and capsized and started to sink.<br />
<br />
Derrick and I swam away from the bridge so we wouldn't get pulled down by all the heavy metal as it sank. Some of the crew didn't get away fast enough and drowned. The rest of us tried to stay above water. Derrick and I grabbed onto a big fish sculpture from a fountain in Canal Park as it floated by. It was metal but hollow. The survivors from the crew also managed to grab various Canal Park sculptures, the sailor in the raincoat, the Native girl with the twirling skirt, and we hung on for dear life.<br />
<br />
Finally the storm passed over and a boat came out and rescued us, but they blamed us for the bridge sinking and called the deaths murders and put us in chains. They left us on the deck as night fell, and in the middle of the night someone came and said they knew we were innocent and cut our chains. We stole a lifeboat and rowed to shore near Fitger's.<br />
<br />
Derrick and I headed up the hill. We knew we'd have to get out of town and figured we might have to steal a car to do so, but Derrick wanted to look around for a cool one to steal. We settled on an old Porsche, a bit rusty but pretty cool, and we tried to steal it but the owner came out and caught us.<br />
<br />
It turned out though that he'd seen our story on the news and thought we were innocent, so he decided to help us. He turned us into cats and gave us cheese tortelini to eat.<br />
<br />
<br />Noniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12284313718593137785noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1858743366580679642.post-47729915995595636212011-11-26T05:17:00.001-08:002011-11-26T07:54:05.722-08:00Golden WingsThere was a family of black dogs in a run-down neighborhood. A bunch of cruel people killed the mother and all the puppies except one, and that one puppy grew up nearly starving and only got food when he could steal it, and he got beaten and chased off by mean people all the time.<br />
<br />
When he was fully grown he turned into a young man, and he didn't know how to talk or how to be a human. He would still steal food, and the same mean people couldn't see that he was a human, they still saw the scrappy dog and still beat and chased him.<br />
<br />
A new couple moved into the neighborhood, and they could see the young man was a human and not a dog. They had pity on him and tried to get him to come into their house to feed him and help him, but he was too used to tricks and cruel treatment so he ran away.<br />
<br />
He came to the ocean, and turned into a seagull and flew for a long time. He flew near a big yacht, and there were cruel people on it who threw rocks and cans at him. One hit him and it turned him back into a young man, and he fell from the sky onto the boat.<br />
<br />
The people made him a slave and dressed him in cast-off clothing, but he was too fearful to do anything but hide from them. Whenever they found him they beat him and ridiculed him.<br />
<br />
Then one day an older woman saw him. She was a good person and the cruel ones had kept him hidden from her so they could engage in their mean-spiritedd fun without her finding out and judging them. But when she saw the young man she knew exactly what was going on and she locked the doors to the other parts of the boat so he would be safe from the others, and then began earning the young man's trust bit by bit.<br />
<br />
She gave him food and nice clothes and got him to try the pool and hot tub, and she talked to him constantly in a sweet and calm voice, trying to teach him to speak. She got close enough to him that she could touch him, and soon he trusted her enough to let her wash him and cut his hair and shave his beard. Underneath the grime he was beautiful, and the more she cared for him, the younger she got.<br />
<br />
Finally one day as she talked to him he smiled for the first time, and when he opened his mouth to speak, the most beautiful and amazing sound came out, and though it wasn't loud, all the people all over the world heard it. Those who were cruel at heart and took pleasure in treating other humans and animals badly turned into trees, and would be trees until their souls became kind and clean. Those who were nice and had tried to help him grew glowing gold wings from their backs and learned to fly.<br />
<br />
When the beautiful sound of his voice stopped, the young man was gone.Noniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12284313718593137785noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1858743366580679642.post-53424923016465608722011-11-25T08:47:00.001-08:002011-11-25T09:13:44.366-08:00That's Right, BeeyotchI was on the edge of Lake Superior and remembered that I'd always been able to breathe underwater and thought "If I can beathe underwater, why do I spend all my time on land? That's stupid."<br />
<br />
So I waded into the water and it was super cold. Of course. Lake Superior is always super cold.<br />
<br />
I swam out further, trying to get my body used to the water, but it was just too cold for me to let my head under, so I didn't get to try breathing underwater. I just went back to shore.<br />
<br />
I still wanted to take advantage of my power though, so Tony and I went to the top of a big hill and found a river flowing down. He could breathe underwater too. We got into the water and it wasn't cold, in fact it was pretty warm. It was warm enough that it had tons of plants and mosses and slimes growing in it so I still didn't want to breathe that water.<br />
<br />
We stuck to the surface out deeper where we wouldn't get slimed and followed the flow of the river. It was fed by springs that looked like little fountains and the area all around it was a beautiful forest you couldn't get to except by the river.<br />
<br />
When the river flowed back near civilization again we got out to go back to town. We found ourselves in some kind of walled-in private property that belonged to a company that was doing all kinds of random things like making combined tent-sleeping bags and giving rides on the end of the line of a crane, which I did hanging from my ankles and it was scary and definitely not concerned with being safe, but it was fun.<br />
<br />
Then this lady came up to us to yell at us because we weren't supposed to be there, but she said so in a sweet voice full of passive-aggressiveness. I didn't have any patience for it and I said "Don't be passive aggressive, save us all some time and tell us what you really mean." She said fine and accused us of trespassing and I had an argument with her, saying we were just following the river and found the place by accident and that there was clearly no reason for the place to be off-limits aside from making those who got in feel special.<br />
<br />
She couldn't say I was wrong, so she just left.Noniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12284313718593137785noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1858743366580679642.post-9431577946999990472011-11-24T06:21:00.001-08:002011-11-24T07:36:23.165-08:00The ConvertI was at some kind of sewing contest. There were tables set up with sewing machines on them and piles of random fabrics and the point was to sew the best thing from scratch. I wasn't competing but I wanted to sew and I dug around in the scrap pile and there were tons of half-sewn things I had started and decided were crap and gave up on, and I was momentarily afraid these people who took things very seriously would see these ugly projects, so I buried them under other fabric and left.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Outside there was a sort of normal neighborhood but on the corner was a huge ancient building that the locals were explaining to me was their school. It was built of very rough stone, and it was really tall, maybe 600 feet (this neighborhood had only 2-story buildings aside from the school) and it had the stairs on the outside, spiraling up around the structure making it get thinner at the top like a pyramid but a more severe angle. The stairs were narrow and had no railings. There was a woman on the stairs, and a few children. Someone walking with me explained that the school had been built from ruins of past civilizations in the area, and told me the woman was one of the teachers. You could tell by her feet, because the stone steps were rough and sharp but no one was allowed to wear shoes on the stairs, and her feet were thickly callused.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
We continued walking and came to a couple parking garage-type structures with a narrow alley between them, and there were two warring factions occupying each. The soldiers looked modern but were no older than teenagers, and their uniforms and helmets were varying shades of gray. Both sides looked the same.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
A small group of soldiers came running out and told me they were so glad to see me and started filling me in on the enemy's positions while escorting me into one of the parking garages. I was aparently some kind of famous war hero and they expected me to turn the tide of the battle, which wasn't going well for them. I could see why, they were disorganized and seemed to have no discipline or training, and I gave them a run-down of tactics and made a battle plan. We were to split up, take positions all over our wall facing the enemy, and snipe them from many directions.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I had a really good position and ended up shooting several enemy soldiers. Our guns, instead of shooting bullets, shot a handful of pebbles, not lethal at all, in fact not even hard enough to hurt. But apparently this was normal, as the enemies, when hit, left the battle.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Our side finally was doing well, and I got bored and remembered I was actually a vampire. I leapt across the narrow alley to the other parking garage and jumped onto the leader of the opposing team. Everyone was too shocked to shoot (and they were wrestling with the hypnotic, powerful effect of my sexy vampire pheromones) and I bit the leader dude. The two of us started glowing as I consumed his mind and he became dangerous and cool and sexy like me.</div>Noniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12284313718593137785noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1858743366580679642.post-36945827337186206622011-11-22T11:16:00.001-08:002011-11-22T16:47:52.848-08:00Super JumpI was at some kind of very small convention. There were only a couple other artists there, and we were at one long table along with small press and some indie board game companies. Nobody had much of a professional looking setup, and I felt kind of embarrassed about my lack of preparation but comforted that everyone else was in the same boat. <br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Except that for some reason my work was hanging from the ceiling. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
It was either a prank or I won some kind of contest, I wasn't sure, but it was kind of an honor and the other artists were high-fiving me, so that was good. But then I had the problem of needing the work that was on the ceiling (it was a sketch) for a demonstration. It was a 20 or 30 foot ceiling. So while everyone was kind of laughing and teasing me jocularly about how I was going to get it down, I was getting more and more worried.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
So I said fuck it and decided to jump up there. I tried once and it was not much higher than I jump in real life, and everyone laughed like I was just making a silly joke. Of course I couldn't get that paper, they thought. It made me even more resolute to get it myself rather than wait for help.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I jumped again, and this time I jumped pretty high. My feet were far above everyone's heads. They stopped laughing. But I still didn't get my sketch.</div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
So I jumped again. This time I jumped so high my fingers touched the ceiling, but just barely, and I didn't get my sketch. I was attracting a crowd who were getting pretty excited about my awesome jumping skills, some of them clapping or whooping and some of them just staring open-mouthed.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I jumped one more time and this time I pulled my sketch off the ceiling, but I didn't quite get a grip on it, and it went flying around all over the place the way paper does when you try to throw it, back and forth slicing through the air currents. I was so determined to get it this time though that my willpower alone kept me aloft and I could control my fall back down enough to chase after the paper--but I still wasn't agile or fast enough to catch it as it whipped past me one way and then another and I continued to fall slowly back down.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
So, my obsession with getting my paper back now consuming my whole being, I thrust my hand out and sent my will out and fucking ORDERED that paper to come back to me. And just as I crashed back to the floor, this time just falling rather than landing on my feet, the sketch flew into my hand at the last second so when my hand hit the floor I pinned it down and it was MINE.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Everyone around cheered, and I had the secret satisfaction knowing that while they thought the paper landed under my hand by chance, I had made my will into a physical force and MADE the paper come to me.</div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
In celebration, my friend Ryan gave me a little box of differently-colored clay and little clay things he'd made, and then Tony and Ryan and I all made little dudes out of clay and little weapons and helmets for them and it was fun.</div>Noniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12284313718593137785noreply@blogger.com1