Explosions and Organ Harvesting
2012-05-01
It's been a while since I've written one of these. Part of that is because I simply haven't been having nearly as many dreams lately; I'm not sure what it is, but compared to late last year / early this year, I'm in the middle of a dream dry season.
The other reason is that, for what few dreams I have been having, I've almost always been way too lazy to write about them. Most of the time, it's the usual incomprehensible shit: Talking to people I don't remember about things I can't remember, or else having arguments about whatever I was thinking of immediately prior to falling asleep. Sometimes I'll also dream about whatever I've been doing recently, or any new little 'kicks' I'm on. Nothing important or particularly memorable in any case, so I can't find the motivation to record them.
In the last month, though, I've had a couple of more interesting dreams. The first was most distinct, though my recollection will be hazy because it's been at least a couple of weeks since I've had it. Even then, it wasn't as pronounced as some of the earlier dreams I've written about. The second dream I had quite recently, last night in fact, but it too will be hazy because it seemed to want to be forgotten just as soon as I woke up.
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The first took place over the course of a day (I think), with me and a group of companions running from place to place accomplishing various tasks. I can't recall who they were, other than that they were a mixed group of men and women who were roughly my age, and seemed to be following my lead for whatever reason.
The only part I remember with any distinction is the last part of the dream, which took us to a war-ravaged collection of buildings on the outskirts of some city or other. There was still fighting going on, bombs dropping in the distance and gunfire droning on in the background. We were there because we had to meet with one of the members of 'the resistance,' whatever that happened to be (I knew in the dream, but don't now). The entire thing had a very 'Children of Men' feel to it. The building we arrived at seemed to be standing on stilts except for one wall, or otherwise had its entire bottom floor or two completely missing for whatever reason; underneath the building, we took shelter from a passing of jets overhead that were attempting to bomb the area (or us).
The bombs were dropping hard all around us, and seemed to be targeting us specifically -- or maybe just the building we were hiding underneath. They were close, close enough to blur my vision, to cause my nose and eyes to water, to cause my ears to ring and to shake me uncomfortably right down to my bones and organs. It was almost like swimming, except instead of water it was air, and instead of me swimming through it, it went through me. It made me want to puke, and the looks on the faces of everyone around me said that they felt similarly. The looks were also expecting, as if I could protect them from the blasts, and in a second I discovered that indeed I could.
Apparently I was also a sorcerer of some type. I closed my eyes and told them to gather near me, and in my mind I saw complete blackness except for one bright point near the bottom of my vision. The point flared and grew brighter, moving clockwise and slowly burning an empty shining circle that filled most of my vision. When the burning point had finished carving the perimeter of this circle of flame, reaching the point at which it began, the entire circle stopped burning and grew even brighter, becoming a blinding white ring that dominated the darkness in my mind. Then it shattered, I saw blackness again, and I somehow knew we were protected.
I opened my eyes and everyone stood gathered around me, no person more than six feet away. The bombs were hitting harder, closer, but the blasts seemed duller and muffled, farther away than they were. A few hit close enough that we could see the explosions, fire and earth cast from the point of impact and flying toward us but doing nothing more than mussing our hair. After a few more seconds of this, the bombing ceased and a person from the building that we were hiding under opened a door and led us inside.
We went up a few stories, but it was at this point that I realized what had been bothering me about this building. It wasn't made of stone, or wood or anything else normally used to make buildings. It was made of thin sheets of aluminum, each no more than probably 1/25 of an inch thick, and wrapped in duct tape. All of the sheets of aluminium were duct-taped together in the shape of a building, and somehow the structure was standing. In fact, there were people moving around, desks, doors, everything. We were even riding in an elevator that seemed normal enough. I was terrified of stepping out of it onto the floor, since I was certain my weight would be too much for it.
The man leading us through the building coaxed me and my companions out of the elevator, though, and the floor did indeed hold, though it sagged a bit. It felt kind of like walking on a stiff trampoline. I walked over to a man sitting behind a desk, with a look in his eyes like he had something very interesting to tell me, and then I woke up.
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The second dream took place in the future (I guess). I don't remember most of the dream, other than there were large transports that I traveled on frequently. A form of mass transit, I think, almost like space trains. I spent a lot of time travelling from place to place, through spaceports all over the place. I don't know how I knew, but in this future, there were no agencies like the TSA; in fact, there was virtually no government oversight over these forms of transportation, and unlike in so many other sci-fi settings, this didn't actually result in a hellish dystopia. The people were friendly, the rides were cheap, the spaceports and space trains were all every neat and well-kept, etc.. There was nothing to complain about for the most part.
I remember spending some time talking on the phones in the spaceports, and in fact, that seemed to be what I spent most of the dream doing. I spent the majority of my talk-time speaking with my friends, parents or other relatives. I should mention also that these were payphones identical to the coin-operated type you'd find at a grocery store -- that seems funny to me for some reason. Anyway, I was so comfortable with these payphones that I wouldn't think twice about answering one that was receiving a call from the outside.
I found myself passing through one particular spaceport quite often, and almost every time I did, a different person would be calling to ask about the doctors in the city I was leaving. They specialized in organ transplants and the sale of organs, and the people on the other end of the call always wanted to know just how good the doctors were. They seemed determined when they called, determined but nervous; I got the feeling that they were going to sell all of their organs to help their struggling families get along or something like that. I would always answer that the doctors were very good, among the best, but that the person calling should be very sure that that's what they wanted to do before committing to such a thing.
The only variation from that typical conversation came at the end of the dream, where the person on the other end also asked me about a restaurant in town (or something). Just as I began to answer in a very salesman-like manner, I heard a disturbance on the line and noticed that a man was fooling with the main unit of the payphone (I had picked up and continued walking along the terminal; I guess they had very long cords). I got the distinct impression that he was trying to listen to my conversation, to find out where it was that I spent most of my time in that city eating. I caught a look at him before he disappeared into the crowd, and I recognized him from the spaceport bar. He had been watching me then, and had apparently followed me some way. He held no luggage and fled the very instant I 'made' him. He was haggard and rough-looking, almost Mongolian in features with long black hair and black facial hair.
I felt a chill running through me then, and I remembered all the stories of people murdered for their organs. There was a tidy profit to be made if one could find a less-than-reputable organ trader and sell such stolen goods. I decided then to board the space train, and kept a close watch on the doors to the cabin I was in before I woke up.