There doesn't seem to be anything to hold the street together any more. It seemed so solid that I'm surprised to see it disintegrate like this. First, the buildings crumble, then the smaller structures, the lamp posts and traffic light, the cement trash cans, and the fence around the parking lot. The sidewalk turns to dust, and the street melts into the ground.
I'm left in a dry, dusty open area with huge rocks, giant plants that are like brown cacti without so many spikes, and a dry river bed. On closer inspection, it looks like these plants are dead, and possibly petrified. This whole area seems totally barren. Nothing here is green.
I put my hand on one of the rocks. It's extremely warm. The ground is warm, too. It's daylight, but nowhere in the sky do I see the sun. I am not surprised. There is no place like this in Ohio. I'm still feeling horribly angry, but I'm also wary. This place is unfamiliar, and I don't know if anything else is here.
As I step around a boulder that used to be part of the parking garage, looking toward the area from which I saw them disappear, I hear a noise behind me. Before I can turn, I feel something impact against the back of my armor & shield, and I'm thrown forward. I curl up and roll onto my side to see that the impact came from the stinger of a huge wasp that is close to half my size.
There are scorch marks around the base of a stinger as long as my arm, where energy discharged from my shield seems to have burned the wasp. It rises in to the air and circles around, then hovers over me. The stinger appears to be poised for use, but the wasp appears to be hesitant to approach. It buzzes angrily, as I stand up and look at it. I'm waiting to see what it's going to do, but I'm also pulling energy from around me. The spikes in the outer shield stand out, arcs of energy crackling between the points. I feel like an electric porcupine, but at least the bug can't touch me without getting hurt.
Slowly, the shape of the wasp changes, slimming down, wings shrinking, head shrinking, front legs becoming arms. As it sinks toward the dirt, the face begins to look vaguely human. He stands on 4 legs, the stinger still sticking out behind him, staring at me with those injured-looking eyes. I stare back at him. I hear a low growl, and then he's moving forward again. He gets just a few inches away from the ends of the spikes in my shield, and stops. He looks furious.
He kind of belches, then vomits a viscous, black ooze over me. It doesn't touch my body, hovering on the edges of the spikes instead. I feel pressure, like fingers are pushing on my skin. The ooze slides down to the ground, and soaks into the cracked dirt beneath my feet. The attack was totally ineffective. I'm feeling simultaneously triumphant at having had no problem resisting his effort, and confused as to what he was trying to do.
Suddenly, the ground beneath me jerks upward hard and fast, knocking me off balance. As I struggle to right myself, it lurches side to side, up and down, tossing me around like a rag doll. I'm thrown to the ground, and can't do anything about how I fall. I feel my head hit a rock when I land, and for a second, I'm completely stunned.
I find myself on my back, with him on top of me, using his six limbs to pin me to the ground. His little tiny mouth opens, and keeps opening, until his jaw has stretched wide, and his chin is down by his chest. At the same time, he motions that stinger forward toward my gut. He bites down on my shoulder and thrusts the stinger in, only to shriek in pain and leap away from me.
The shield wasn't gone. It looked like it was gone, but it was still there. It was just flattened up against my body during the moment when my focus was dimmed. Now, the stinger seems bent at an awkward angle. I'm guessing that it's broken.
I take a few steps toward him, still crackling with energy. I haven't actually done anything yet, and he's all ready battered, bruised, and burned. He backs away from me and belches more goo on the ground.
This time, I jump into the air and try to hover. It takes concentration away from my shield. The spikes don't shrink, but they sag a little. Trying to distract him, I throw an energy ball, but the expression on his face changes.
I can see from my vantage point that the earthquake isn't very big. It only affects a circle about 15 or 20 yards across, the edge of which doesn't reach where he's standing. He wasn't shaking the ground under his feet, only under mine. I decide to try something new.
Staring at him, I mentally focus my energy behind him, moving toward him from back there. I pull at the energy that is in that area, and then push it toward him with as much willpower as I can muster. The effect is a strong gust of wind hitting him from behind. He keeps his footing, but his upper body falls forward, and his face slams into the ground. The wind breaks up before it gets to me.
He quickly rights himself, giving me a livid, hateful glare. His nose is bleeding heavily. He bellows at me and dissolves into a pulsating swarm of normal sized black wasps. The swarm expands, spreading out to surround me, and then they all dive in at once, bombarding me with vicious little attacks, hitting so hard that the impact of each one against my shield sounds like raindrops hitting a window. The horror of being overcome by a swarm of angry, stinging wasps is too much, and I find myself falling to the ground, trying to cover my head with my hands, even though not one sting makes it through the shield. I try to concentrate on adding energy to zap them, but it just won't move for me.
At this point, I'm thrown into a totally different experience. I'm about four years old, swinging on U-shaped metal bar set into the end of one of those A-framed, back yard swing sets, at my parents' house. I can see them standing nearby, chatting with someone. I'm watching an odd little bug that is hovering in front of my knee. It's long and skinny, a little over an inch, shaped kind of like an ant, but with wings, and a more pointy butt. As I keep swinging, my knee is getting closer and closer to that bug. I think I want it to land on me.
Suddenly, I feel burning pain in my bare arms and legs as hundreds of them attack and begin stinging me. I hear my mother shriek at my father, and the two of them grab me, fighting off the bugs, and run toward the house.
The pain is really intense, and it draws me back to the fight. I don't know if I've dropped my shield because of the panic attack, or if they've broken through, but the stinging continues. The natural response of thrashing around kicks up a cloud of dirt, knocking many of the wasps away from me. I find more loose dirt and throw it into the air, hoping to make flight more difficult. I desperately reach for the nearest energy and focus on rebuilding my shield, but I'm afraid I'll trap some of them inside of it.
I take the energy into myself and then try to push it out in all directions in a totally unfocused blast, hoping to turn myself into a human bug-zapper. Instead, it comes out at first like sweat, creating a wet layer on top of my skin. Working with what I have, I harden that. The stinging stops. I put my back to a big rock and try to force myself to focus, despite having a case of the creepy-crawly-heebie-jeebies over all of these wasps. I can still feel them crawling all over the outside of that thin shell.
I close my eyes and picture just the rock that is behind me, how still and hard and solid it is. I find its energy and begin to draw on that. As I do, I can feel the shield getting thicker, until I can no longer feel the tickle of little bug feet on my skin. I'm about to work on the spikes, when I realize I can't hear the bugs any more, either. I open my eyes.
He's just a few inches away from my face, staring at me intently, like he's studying me or something. There is blood encrusted on his lips from his nose. He doesn't look angry any more. His expression is really hard to read. For a moment, I forget attacking, and just stare back at him, trying to analyze his face. I settle on possible curiosity. It's hard to tell.
"Doesn't that hurt?" He glances down at my red, bumpy, wasp-stung arms.
The question pisses me off. Of course it hurts! I'm sure he's aware of that. Why the hell is he asking me?
I throw back at him, "How about your nose?"
He says, "It's broken." His tone of voice sounds totally unconcerned. He might as well have shrugged his shoulders, and added "Meh..." to the statement.
He doesn't look extremely bothered by the pain, not like I am, but it occurs to me that if I'm able to hide that about myself, he probably can, too.
He reaches one hand out toward me, and I zap him. He jerks his hand back, sticks his finger in his mouth, and looks annoyed. I cross my arms. I'm a little stunned to see such a human gesture from him. I feel like a stubborn little kid standing up to a big bully. I set my jaw and draw more energy from the rock behind me.
He stands up, turns around, and walks several feet away from me, turns back, and shoves both hands toward me like we're in a pool, and he's trying to splash me. I don't see anything coming my way, but I feel something wash over me with incredible force. Everything I can see, except him, seems to be breaking apart and melting.
The next thing I know, I'm laying on the couch in my living room. It's dark, and I don't know what time it is. I'm not sure what that was about, but when it happened, I instantly woke up. I have the feeling I was shoved out of the dream state.
I called and talked to my mother about the part of the dream involving the swarm of wasps and the swing set. She said she was surprised I still remember that. I was only 4 when it happened, so it's been over 35 years. I told her I didn't remember, I dreamed it, and it seemed really real. According to my mom, there was a nest in the swing set. Each time I swung that U-shaped bar back and forth, it ground against the top bar, vibrating the nest. No one saw the wasps until they found me and attacked.
No wonder they creep me out so much!
Showing posts with label earthquake. Show all posts
Showing posts with label earthquake. Show all posts
Shake it up, baby
I'm at work, assigned to the register closest to the door. Everything is going as normal, checking people out and stocking cigarettes. There is a young looking woman at my register who wants to buy a carton of our store brand, but when I ask for ID as required by law for anyone who looks under 30, she gets mad. She yells at me and tells me she's an adult with the right to buy cigarettes just like any other adult.
I tell her I'm happy to sell her anything in the store, but the law says if I think she looks under 30, I'm not allowed to sell cigarettes to her without ID. It's out of my hands. I even sympathize, telling her how my sister-in-law, who is my age, still gets carded entering clubs and bars because she looks twelve, and how she can at least take some solace in the fact that she'll always be prettier than the other ladies her age because she has such an ageless face. She calms down and gets out her ID. She is actually 35 years old, but I would have pegged her at no older than 17. The ID is legit, scans properly and everything. In truth, I really envy this lady, because I had gray hair at 18, and could get into bars without ID at 17. I looked 30 from the time I was 12 through about the age of 35.
After the lady pays for her purchases and walks out the door (with a smile) and is therefore out of earshot, my boss starts crowing to the rest of my coworkers, alleging that I was flirting with and hitting on this young kid, barely old enough to buy cigarettes. Thus begins the argument of "I was not flirting" and "yes you were," followed by "she was not a kid; her ID said 35" and "it must have been fake" followed by "it scanned properly and had no signs of forgery."
There really is nowhere to go with this; I've actually been ordered by higher-ups at work to not document when my boss harasses me. I look at the clock to try to fix the time in my mind so I can write it down at home, angry that I can't deal with a female customer without my boss accusing me of flirting. Where does she think she gets off doing that? I don't flirt with anyone at work. Oddly, I can see that my boss is really getting annoyed by the discussion, too. She's not razzing me with allegations of flirting; she sounds offended. In the back of my mind, something goes off, and I feel like I'm getting snapped at for stepping on a dog's tail.
The other cashier does not pick up on my body language, and teases me about the lady. I say cut it out, and try to demonstrate in every way that I can that I'm not amused. My coworker doesn't get it, and asks why I didn't get a phone number. At this point, I'm nearly seeing red over this. I'm uncomfortable with the situation, unhappy with the insinuation, and concerned that someone will tell the lady about it the next time she comes in and I'll have to deal with that, too. I am really not interested in her, and don't want to have to clear that up with her.
I tell my coworker, "Seriously, cut it out. I'm done with this discussion." I get back to stocking cigarettes.
She replies, "Whatever. I don't care who you pick up at work. I just thought it was funny."
I reply by repeating my point, this time with a frown, a vehement tone of voice, and the stomp of my foot. Right as my foot hits the floor, stuff falls off of all of our shelves. Then, cigarettes fall out of the pack racks over our heads, less than a second after stuff falling from the shelves. I can hear things falling in the back room, too. My first thought is, what the heck? I didn't stomp that hard!
My boss comes out and yells my name. I turn to look at her. She has this incredulous and indignant look on her face. She says, "You'd better slow your..." but is interrupted as the whole room jerks sideways. All of us stumble, trying to keep our balance. I'm in the doorway between the registers and the office I grab the doorway for support. My boss is holding on to the steel sink in the back room. The cook is right beside her. The refrigerator with wheels that don't lock any more rolls across the room and slams into the freezer.
At the register, the other cashier is thrown to the floor. On the other side of the counter, a customer entering the store falls into the building, landing on his face on the floor. All of this happens in a split second. Momentarily, there is no further shaking. I check that my coworker is ok, then run around the front counter to see that the customer's nose is bleeding. I grab a clean towel and get a handful of ice to wrap in it, run to the customer, and offer that for his nose. As he looks up, it is obvious that the nose is broken. The customer gingerly applies ice, while asking, "What the hell was that?"
I say, "I think it was an..." but am interrupted by further shaking. The floor lurches up and then sideways beneath us, then the whole room seems to just vibrate. The remaining merchandise falls off of the shelves. We can hear stuff falling inside the cooler and hitting the doors and the floor. The customer and I are on the floor, and we can't move. We hear someone scream in the back room, and I think maybe the refrigerator hit someone.
**************************************************
I am in the back room with my boss and the district manager. They are lecturing me about my "temper tantrum." I keep telling them that earthquakes are a natural phenomenon, and that there are news stories about the cause. They tell me that it doesn't matter what I say, the decision has all ready been made and I'm being held responsible. My boss tells me that they're going to have to document this, and I'm required to sign it, or I'll be let go. I read the write up, and it clearly says I caused an earthquake throughout the greater metro area because I was angry about being ribbed by my coworkers about my behavior.
I say, "First of all, I'm not signing this. It's bullshit, and it won't stand up in court. If you fire me for not signing this, I'll get unemployment."
My boss gives me that incredulous, offended look, complete with her patented taken-aback jump-and-gasp that she uses to try to make people believe their own thoughts and feelings (like the feeling of urgency after being denied a restroom trip until over an hour after stating the need to go) are not legitimate or valid.
I outwardly ignore that and continue, "Second, if you really believe that I have such great power over nature and the physical world that I can cause a 4.0 earthquake under your feet and around your entire city, do you really think getting fired from this job is going to phase me? Do you really want to piss off someone who you think can do that? I mean, one of two things is true here. Either you're sane and smart enough to realize that what you're accusing is impossible and this 'documentation' of yours is invalid and illegitimate, or you're crazy or dumb enough to believe I can make the earth shake, but still willing to do something upsetting at the risk of finding out what else I can do. Which is it?"
The district manager tells me that is enough of my "smart mouth" and orders me to sign the paper. I refuse, and am ordered out of the building. My boss dials a number on her phone as the DM is speaking to me, and just as he finishes the order, I hear her telling someone on the phone that she needs police to come and arrest me for causing the city-wide earthquake, and for threatening to cause another one. An officer who happens to be buying coffee at the register by the doorway to the back room hears her, and gets an amused look on his face until I tell him that she's serious, and that's a real phone call.
I hear her arguing with the person on the other end of the phone line that she has "documented proof" in the form of a record of the preceding conversation, then hedging with, "no, it's not a recording, we're writing it down."
I leave the room to go talk to the officer. I tell him my boss and the DM think I caused the recent earthquake. He asks if they know that the epicenter was west of the city to the south of us, and I tell him they don't care. They think I can control nature, cause disasters, and so on, and I'm being fired for having done so. The officer gives me a blank stare. Another customer says, "file for unemployment."
I realize I'm back in the same position I was in after my injury in July, and I'm going to have to fight that battle all over again.
I return to the back room, grab the paper away from my boss, and use the fax machine to copy it. My boss tries to take it away from me and I turn my back on her. I feel her pounding on my back, then hear the officer shouting, "Stand back. That is an assault!" My boss stops hitting me. I turn to see the officer cuffing her. She looks furious. I take the paper, fold it up, and put it into my pocket. She tells me I can't take it because it's company property. I tell her that since it's going in my personnel file, I'm entitled to a copy, and I'm taking it. I tell the officer I'll press assault charges, and he tells me I'm going to have paperwork to fill out. I am filled with a sense of dread at having to deal with this process, even though it's pretty certain to come out in my favor. I hate fighting!
The whole time, I had this Monty-python-esque sense of real unreality. I'm not dead yet. I'm getting better. (No you're not. You're not fooling anyone - get on the cart!) I felt like I was handling the situation the best it could be handled, but at the same time, I was really unsure how things were going to come out.
I am tired of having dreams about work, and really tired about having earthquake dreams. I know my life is shaken up and I'm all stressed out, but enough all ready! I will be glad when school is out and we can move away from this area.
I tell her I'm happy to sell her anything in the store, but the law says if I think she looks under 30, I'm not allowed to sell cigarettes to her without ID. It's out of my hands. I even sympathize, telling her how my sister-in-law, who is my age, still gets carded entering clubs and bars because she looks twelve, and how she can at least take some solace in the fact that she'll always be prettier than the other ladies her age because she has such an ageless face. She calms down and gets out her ID. She is actually 35 years old, but I would have pegged her at no older than 17. The ID is legit, scans properly and everything. In truth, I really envy this lady, because I had gray hair at 18, and could get into bars without ID at 17. I looked 30 from the time I was 12 through about the age of 35.
After the lady pays for her purchases and walks out the door (with a smile) and is therefore out of earshot, my boss starts crowing to the rest of my coworkers, alleging that I was flirting with and hitting on this young kid, barely old enough to buy cigarettes. Thus begins the argument of "I was not flirting" and "yes you were," followed by "she was not a kid; her ID said 35" and "it must have been fake" followed by "it scanned properly and had no signs of forgery."
There really is nowhere to go with this; I've actually been ordered by higher-ups at work to not document when my boss harasses me. I look at the clock to try to fix the time in my mind so I can write it down at home, angry that I can't deal with a female customer without my boss accusing me of flirting. Where does she think she gets off doing that? I don't flirt with anyone at work. Oddly, I can see that my boss is really getting annoyed by the discussion, too. She's not razzing me with allegations of flirting; she sounds offended. In the back of my mind, something goes off, and I feel like I'm getting snapped at for stepping on a dog's tail.
The other cashier does not pick up on my body language, and teases me about the lady. I say cut it out, and try to demonstrate in every way that I can that I'm not amused. My coworker doesn't get it, and asks why I didn't get a phone number. At this point, I'm nearly seeing red over this. I'm uncomfortable with the situation, unhappy with the insinuation, and concerned that someone will tell the lady about it the next time she comes in and I'll have to deal with that, too. I am really not interested in her, and don't want to have to clear that up with her.
I tell my coworker, "Seriously, cut it out. I'm done with this discussion." I get back to stocking cigarettes.
She replies, "Whatever. I don't care who you pick up at work. I just thought it was funny."
I reply by repeating my point, this time with a frown, a vehement tone of voice, and the stomp of my foot. Right as my foot hits the floor, stuff falls off of all of our shelves. Then, cigarettes fall out of the pack racks over our heads, less than a second after stuff falling from the shelves. I can hear things falling in the back room, too. My first thought is, what the heck? I didn't stomp that hard!
My boss comes out and yells my name. I turn to look at her. She has this incredulous and indignant look on her face. She says, "You'd better slow your..." but is interrupted as the whole room jerks sideways. All of us stumble, trying to keep our balance. I'm in the doorway between the registers and the office I grab the doorway for support. My boss is holding on to the steel sink in the back room. The cook is right beside her. The refrigerator with wheels that don't lock any more rolls across the room and slams into the freezer.
At the register, the other cashier is thrown to the floor. On the other side of the counter, a customer entering the store falls into the building, landing on his face on the floor. All of this happens in a split second. Momentarily, there is no further shaking. I check that my coworker is ok, then run around the front counter to see that the customer's nose is bleeding. I grab a clean towel and get a handful of ice to wrap in it, run to the customer, and offer that for his nose. As he looks up, it is obvious that the nose is broken. The customer gingerly applies ice, while asking, "What the hell was that?"
I say, "I think it was an..." but am interrupted by further shaking. The floor lurches up and then sideways beneath us, then the whole room seems to just vibrate. The remaining merchandise falls off of the shelves. We can hear stuff falling inside the cooler and hitting the doors and the floor. The customer and I are on the floor, and we can't move. We hear someone scream in the back room, and I think maybe the refrigerator hit someone.
**************************************************
I am in the back room with my boss and the district manager. They are lecturing me about my "temper tantrum." I keep telling them that earthquakes are a natural phenomenon, and that there are news stories about the cause. They tell me that it doesn't matter what I say, the decision has all ready been made and I'm being held responsible. My boss tells me that they're going to have to document this, and I'm required to sign it, or I'll be let go. I read the write up, and it clearly says I caused an earthquake throughout the greater metro area because I was angry about being ribbed by my coworkers about my behavior.
I say, "First of all, I'm not signing this. It's bullshit, and it won't stand up in court. If you fire me for not signing this, I'll get unemployment."
My boss gives me that incredulous, offended look, complete with her patented taken-aback jump-and-gasp that she uses to try to make people believe their own thoughts and feelings (like the feeling of urgency after being denied a restroom trip until over an hour after stating the need to go) are not legitimate or valid.
I outwardly ignore that and continue, "Second, if you really believe that I have such great power over nature and the physical world that I can cause a 4.0 earthquake under your feet and around your entire city, do you really think getting fired from this job is going to phase me? Do you really want to piss off someone who you think can do that? I mean, one of two things is true here. Either you're sane and smart enough to realize that what you're accusing is impossible and this 'documentation' of yours is invalid and illegitimate, or you're crazy or dumb enough to believe I can make the earth shake, but still willing to do something upsetting at the risk of finding out what else I can do. Which is it?"
The district manager tells me that is enough of my "smart mouth" and orders me to sign the paper. I refuse, and am ordered out of the building. My boss dials a number on her phone as the DM is speaking to me, and just as he finishes the order, I hear her telling someone on the phone that she needs police to come and arrest me for causing the city-wide earthquake, and for threatening to cause another one. An officer who happens to be buying coffee at the register by the doorway to the back room hears her, and gets an amused look on his face until I tell him that she's serious, and that's a real phone call.
I hear her arguing with the person on the other end of the phone line that she has "documented proof" in the form of a record of the preceding conversation, then hedging with, "no, it's not a recording, we're writing it down."
I leave the room to go talk to the officer. I tell him my boss and the DM think I caused the recent earthquake. He asks if they know that the epicenter was west of the city to the south of us, and I tell him they don't care. They think I can control nature, cause disasters, and so on, and I'm being fired for having done so. The officer gives me a blank stare. Another customer says, "file for unemployment."
I realize I'm back in the same position I was in after my injury in July, and I'm going to have to fight that battle all over again.
I return to the back room, grab the paper away from my boss, and use the fax machine to copy it. My boss tries to take it away from me and I turn my back on her. I feel her pounding on my back, then hear the officer shouting, "Stand back. That is an assault!" My boss stops hitting me. I turn to see the officer cuffing her. She looks furious. I take the paper, fold it up, and put it into my pocket. She tells me I can't take it because it's company property. I tell her that since it's going in my personnel file, I'm entitled to a copy, and I'm taking it. I tell the officer I'll press assault charges, and he tells me I'm going to have paperwork to fill out. I am filled with a sense of dread at having to deal with this process, even though it's pretty certain to come out in my favor. I hate fighting!
The whole time, I had this Monty-python-esque sense of real unreality. I'm not dead yet. I'm getting better. (No you're not. You're not fooling anyone - get on the cart!) I felt like I was handling the situation the best it could be handled, but at the same time, I was really unsure how things were going to come out.
I am tired of having dreams about work, and really tired about having earthquake dreams. I know my life is shaken up and I'm all stressed out, but enough all ready! I will be glad when school is out and we can move away from this area.
First in a long time
I used to have this one when I was a kid, during the ages between when I broke my tailbone, and when I had experimental laser therapy to remove the scar tissue from where it healed. The therapy worked. Prior to the therapy, I used to have regular pain in the area similar to arthritis pain. It hasn't hurt like that since.
The significance is that when the pain went away, I went from frequently dreaming about this little guy to rarely seeing him at all. Last night, my shoulders got sore, and I got my first visit in about five years. Not having photos to combine to make what I saw in my dream, I drew a picture and enhanced it in G.I.M.P. This is just about the angle from which I saw the creature, which was chewing on my right shoulder (which hurt more than the left) and my neck.. It hissed at me. The startle factor woke me right up.
I used to "wake" with those teeth locked around the top of my butt, right where it was hurting. When I was still growing really fast in elementary school, and I used to get cramps in my calf muscles, I used to dream it was biting those, too. I'd wake up with my toes pointed down, unable to straighten my foot without using my hands.
I ended up having to get up and take aspirin. I usually don't take meds in the middle of the night because they're rough on the tummy, but my shoulder was really sore.
When I went back to sleep, I had this really insane dream about human waste oozing up out of the sewers all over the place, then eventually out of every pipeline in the area, including those for clean water. Finally, it started coming out of cracks in the ground, too. I was not where I live now. I was back in college, and at college age (still a teen) but not at the college where I went to school. We were in this big, flat, open rural area with no bigger towns nearby. I don't remember much of the dream except that I felt responsible for helping to clean it up because I hadn't been able to make people listen to me when I told them it was going to happen. I felt like if I'd been able to make people listen to me, they would have done things differently and avoided this. Despite my objections, my friends wanted to get me out of town, because they were sure I'd get blamed for the mess on the basis of my having predicted it.
I am pretty sure that the monster dream was a result of the pain in my shoulder, but the sewer dream is more likely a manifestation of stress, combined with certain realizations. I guess that figuratively, I'm seeing everything around me turn to crap; my work, my neighborhood, the circumstances with which pretty much everyone I know is dealing right now... and I did predict everything that is happening locally, but not as any kind of psychic.
This is all stuff I said would happen based on bills being passed by the state government between eight and four years ago, and the federal government during the last few years. Now, I'm almost afraid to join in when there's a political discussion, because everything I say sounds like "I told you so." On top of that, I'm worried that being right about the predictions that have come true, I may have also been right about some really scary possibilities. If I am, things here will go to hell at a frighteningly fast pace. It'll probably be that way in most cities, even the ones that aren't so big. I don't think smaller towns will be hit as hard because people there are used to having to work together to overcome hardships without the aid of highly organized, extensive networks of emergency services.
It's my extended family that wants me (and my household) out of here. Both sides want us to come live with them. We're actually working on just that - going north across the state to live in or near the same town as my in-laws, away from the city where we are now. It'll be months before it happens, though, and in the meantime, I do feel like I'm watching things fall apart. Who knows, maybe that is why I've had so many earthquake dreams lately, too.
The significance is that when the pain went away, I went from frequently dreaming about this little guy to rarely seeing him at all. Last night, my shoulders got sore, and I got my first visit in about five years. Not having photos to combine to make what I saw in my dream, I drew a picture and enhanced it in G.I.M.P. This is just about the angle from which I saw the creature, which was chewing on my right shoulder (which hurt more than the left) and my neck.. It hissed at me. The startle factor woke me right up.
I used to "wake" with those teeth locked around the top of my butt, right where it was hurting. When I was still growing really fast in elementary school, and I used to get cramps in my calf muscles, I used to dream it was biting those, too. I'd wake up with my toes pointed down, unable to straighten my foot without using my hands.
I ended up having to get up and take aspirin. I usually don't take meds in the middle of the night because they're rough on the tummy, but my shoulder was really sore.
When I went back to sleep, I had this really insane dream about human waste oozing up out of the sewers all over the place, then eventually out of every pipeline in the area, including those for clean water. Finally, it started coming out of cracks in the ground, too. I was not where I live now. I was back in college, and at college age (still a teen) but not at the college where I went to school. We were in this big, flat, open rural area with no bigger towns nearby. I don't remember much of the dream except that I felt responsible for helping to clean it up because I hadn't been able to make people listen to me when I told them it was going to happen. I felt like if I'd been able to make people listen to me, they would have done things differently and avoided this. Despite my objections, my friends wanted to get me out of town, because they were sure I'd get blamed for the mess on the basis of my having predicted it.
I am pretty sure that the monster dream was a result of the pain in my shoulder, but the sewer dream is more likely a manifestation of stress, combined with certain realizations. I guess that figuratively, I'm seeing everything around me turn to crap; my work, my neighborhood, the circumstances with which pretty much everyone I know is dealing right now... and I did predict everything that is happening locally, but not as any kind of psychic.
This is all stuff I said would happen based on bills being passed by the state government between eight and four years ago, and the federal government during the last few years. Now, I'm almost afraid to join in when there's a political discussion, because everything I say sounds like "I told you so." On top of that, I'm worried that being right about the predictions that have come true, I may have also been right about some really scary possibilities. If I am, things here will go to hell at a frighteningly fast pace. It'll probably be that way in most cities, even the ones that aren't so big. I don't think smaller towns will be hit as hard because people there are used to having to work together to overcome hardships without the aid of highly organized, extensive networks of emergency services.
It's my extended family that wants me (and my household) out of here. Both sides want us to come live with them. We're actually working on just that - going north across the state to live in or near the same town as my in-laws, away from the city where we are now. It'll be months before it happens, though, and in the meantime, I do feel like I'm watching things fall apart. Who knows, maybe that is why I've had so many earthquake dreams lately, too.
It's a Gas, Gas, Gas
I'm driving my son to school. I'm thinking about the morning's schedule, and also about his ridiculous homework assignment for the week .
This morning, I have to drop him off, go home, throw my work clothes on, and leave so I can get to work in half an hour, because I am actually starting my shift on the half hour, something no one ever does at my workplace. I know my boss did it to screw with me, though, so I didn't say anything to her, but just took it in stride. That I am not upset about it will totally piss her off.
The homework assignment, though... that has me upset. My son is assigned to watch a political movie that we can't find online, the library doesn't have, and the video store in our neighborhood has to order out. It's a fictional story called, "Having My Own." Also, the summaries and lesson plans about the movie which I just got done reading online have me up in arms about it. It looks like the school is trying to indoctrinate the kids with the idea that having personal possessions is morally wrong, and they should instead consider everything to be public domain, including their own lives. I'm going to have to go talk to the teacher about the movie before class, then drive home and get ready. That is going to leave me 5 minutes to get ready before I have to go to work, but I've gotten ready in 5 minutes before.
As we near the corner where we make our first turn, there is a thunderous boom, as if someone set off a dud firecracker. Immediately after that is a rumbling sound accompanied by major shaking of the ground. I actually watch the road in front of me ripple like waves in water. The pavement cracks up and chunks of it disappear into the ground. Instinctively, I put the van in park as the bumps and jolts jostle us all over the place. Then, I grab my son's hand. His eyes are as wide as they can get. I can tell he's shocked and horrified. I'm pretty sure the expression on my face isn't helping. I'm terrified of earthquakes.
There is nothing we can do. We're shaking too hard to have any kind of controlled movement, and we don't have any idea what is going to happen. There isn't some shelter to go to where we can get away from the earthquake, like you can with a tornado.
The shaking makes it hard to hold onto my son's hand, but I do not let go. I tell him to just hang on, that it will stop soon. Behind me, there is a crashing sound, and I turn my head to look . The house on the corner has fallen into a hole in the ground that was not there before. It looks like the house in the movie Poltergeist, crumpling up and getting sucked into a void at the end, except that it stopped at the crumpling up stage. God, I hop no one was home!
There is a crack coming from the hole. It's not headed toward us, but I throw the van into drive and try to move it forward anyway. I have to let go of my son to do that. I don't want to, but I need both hands to drive, and I need to get us away from that hole.
We move forward a couple of yards, but the shaking makes it really hard to steer. We get thrown to the side. I feel the whole van come up off of the pavement as the ground launches us upward. Then, we slam back down with two tires up on the curb. I keep driving. I can see in the rear-view mirror that the crack has completely crossed the street behind us, and it's getting wider. Traffic that was back there is making u-turns and driving the other way to escape it. The other side of the crack is also lower than our side. All I can see of the cars is the top of the windows and the roof of each as it turns. The city bus is taller. I can see the driver's frightened, determined face as he turns the bus around, running over the curb in the process.
In that split second I took to glance in the rearview mirror, another crack has opened in the pavement in front of us, this one along the center of the lane I'm in. I barely manage to steer around it before moving on, but it keeps opening and remains parallel to us. I drive over the curb and through the yard of the house on the next corner, onto a side street. As I do, I see smoke coming from the crack, and there is another boom. Something inside tells me this isn't an ordinary Earthquake.
I punch the pedal and drive through the neighborhood, speeding away from the shaking ground. The further away I get, the less shaking there is, until finally we stop in a location where we can feel the car shimmying, but the ground beneath us isn't bucking and rolling any more. I look back, and there are huge, billowing clouds of smoke behind us, coming from the direction of the gas station/convenience store where I work . There is a third boom, this one sounding almost cartoonish, and now I can see flames. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice the clock . It is not yet time for the school to even open its doors. The entire experience so far has taken all of two minutes.
People are coming out of their houses. A man in pajama pants, a bathrobe (but no shirt), and slippers approaches my car. I roll down the window and tell him how and why we ended up in his neighborhood. He says, "You don't know what's going on, do you?" and I answer "no, but I think there is a fire."
He tells me that the gas stations are blowing up. First (my station), then (the station across the street), and it sounds like now (the station on the opposite corner) just blew too. The first explosion took out a natural gas line, and they're worried about (the three gas stations down the street) going up next. The fire from (my station) has spread to (the neighboring business) and is starting to ignite the houses in the neighborhood. They've all ready called every fire station in the metro area to fight the fire.
My son says "What about our apartment? Can the fire reach that far?"
I tell him we can't worry about that right now. We're alive, and we're safe, and that's all that matters. I say that if that many firefighters show up, they will probably be able to contain the fire. They aren't going to let it spread, because it's too close to the military base. The soldiers will probably be called to help fight it. In my mind, though, I am thinking I may be wrong. A fire like that could spread quickly through the neighborhood, and they may have their hands full just trying to keep it away from the base. I can tell my son has his doubts, too. It's all over his face.
I remind him that at least none of us are caught in the fire. We're safe, and we (and his father, who is at work) can get further away whenever we want.
The man's wife comes outside with a portable radio. I can hear the DJ saying that my son's school is canceled for the day due to risk of the fire spreading, and for one stupid second I panic about having to call off work ... then I remember I don't have work because my workplace has exploded.
Oh, my God. My work place has exploded. There was probably no warning, either. My co-workers are probably dead. It's Monday. I think about who was there, and realize that if they didn't get away before the explosion, the two totally single moms I work with are both dead. Who is going to take care of their children?
The hitting home of the thought must show on my face, because the guy asks me if I am ok . I look at him, and tell him that I work at (my station.) Then it hits my son. He looks at me and says, "You could have been there." I can see the horror rising in his demeanor, and I try to calm him down, but the tears hit anyway.
At the same time, the man turns to his wife, and says, "She works there. She's one of them." I don't know what he means, but his expression suddenly hardens into deadly seriousness. He reaches into the van, as if to grab my shirt. I shove his arm back out, throw the van into drive, and speed away. The man actually chases me for several yards before giving up. I can see him pull a cell phone out of the pocket of his robe and start dialing. I turn the corner and pull out onto the main road, driving away from the neighborhood.
I call my husband's number and leave him a voicemail stating that no matter what, he is not to go home until he hears from me, that I don't know what's going on, but (my station) just blew up and a neighbor just called me "one of them" and tried to grab me. I call my parents and tell them about the incident, and that my son and I are headed their way. I call the hub of my social group, with whom I've been hanging out since college. I tell her what I've witnessed, and advise her to get her family, all of their meds, and their important papers (things she can grab quickly) out of the house and out of the neighborhood NOW. Before hanging up, I tell her about what the man said, and that I don't know what is happening, but something is very wrong. I tell her where I am going, that my son is with me and my husband is not, and ask that after she has her family to safety, she check on him. She agrees. She tells me she is glad to hear from me and know that I was not at work .
I call another very close friend, also a hub of another social circle that kind of overlaps with the first one, and go through the same discussion, though she lives a few miles away from the neighborhood, while my first phone call lives close to me.
I call my husband's mom and leave a message letting her know that we are all ok, and none of us were in the fire.
Looking at the clock, I can see that only another two minutes has passed. We have to pull over into a parking lot to let emergency crews drive past us toward the fire. They are coming down both sides of the divided road... during rush "hour" (which lasts half of the day in our neighborhood). I take a moment to once again try to calm my son, reminding him that we're safe, I wasn't in the fire, and the important thing now is to stay levelheaded and deal with the situation as it is. He looks shaky and teary-eyed, but he nods and says ok . He asks if we're going to Grandma's, and I say yes. He asks why the man called me "one of them" and I admit I have no idea, but that it bothers me enough that we're getting out of town until we find out. Then, the emergency crew is past, and we get back on the road.
We start driving. We are away from the fire, and from the nearby gas stations, heading out of town. Behind us, I hear a succession of small explosions, and a whooshing sound. It occurs to me that this is probably a natural gas explosion. At the same time, the whooshing sound gets really loud, and something slams into us from behind. Our van is picked up and thrown forward. We land on the flat bed of a semi that is in front of us, as if it were transporting us. The semi is still moving. It swerves, and we go flying sideways off of it and onto the grass. The whole time, I'm still trying to steer. When we land, I stomp the pedal to the floor and drive back up onto the road, passing several crashed vehicles until I find an open space. I can feel that there is damage to the van, but I keep driving. There is one more popping boom behind us. I hope my friend has gotten her family out of the house.
I grab my phone and dial my husband's number again. This time, he's on break and he answers. I tell him what has happened. I tell him to leave work and get out of town. I tell him a place where I'll meet him outside of the metro area. I tell him he needs to let our friend know he is all right, because she's going to check on him if he doesn't. I start to tell him I've called his mom, when there is another explosion behind us. This time, I think it may be someone's car blowing up. My husband hears the sound come across the phone, and he asks what is happening.
This is where I woke. At the same moment, I had a feeling of relief that stuff was not blowing up at his location.
In real life, my son has had no such ridiculous school assignment. So far as I know, there is no such movie, either. Homework assignments are sometimes made which require last minute acquisition of materials which are a challenge for us to get, and that does frustrate me.
I have not recently been scheduled to go to work on the half hour, and probably won't, but it's not that odd for it to happen, and it used to be a regular thing. The three gas stations on the same corner are real, and so is one down the street that I dreamed about, but it's a mile or more away, not that close. The rest of the stations were just part of the dream.
If something like that happened, it would take longer than two minutes for the news to pick it up and start reporting on it, and if we landed on and slid off of a flatbed semi like that in my big old van, we'd probably roll.
About half an hour after I got up this morning, there was thunder and rain. I'm wondering if there was thunder in the night. Maybe the sound of that inspired the dream. On the other hand, it could be that I've dreamed this because of the upheaval in my life.
There is a lot of stress right now related to work, family, distance, and pressure my son is dealing with at school. In real life, my boss is kind of gaslighting me. What she doesn't realize is that I know it's happening. I've noticed that my lack of response to it is really pissing her off, and I'm kind of having fun with that. In the meantime, though, she is being rotten in other ways I'm going to get into here.
I think the detail about the homework was inspired by some real life stuff that is happening there. There is an undercurrent of political agenda, (mostly union related) but nothing I can directly confront, and I do find it threatening and annoying. However, I am able to discuss school reality versus real life reality with my son, and help him to come to rational, logical conclusions about what he is seeing and hearing there.
Anyway, I must have tensed up in response to the shaking... I feel like I had a workout last night, and possibly like I have a mild case of whiplash. Darned fibromyalgia!
This morning, I have to drop him off, go home, throw my work clothes on, and leave so I can get to work in half an hour, because I am actually starting my shift on the half hour, something no one ever does at my workplace. I know my boss did it to screw with me, though, so I didn't say anything to her, but just took it in stride. That I am not upset about it will totally piss her off.
The homework assignment, though... that has me upset. My son is assigned to watch a political movie that we can't find online, the library doesn't have, and the video store in our neighborhood has to order out. It's a fictional story called, "Having My Own." Also, the summaries and lesson plans about the movie which I just got done reading online have me up in arms about it. It looks like the school is trying to indoctrinate the kids with the idea that having personal possessions is morally wrong, and they should instead consider everything to be public domain, including their own lives. I'm going to have to go talk to the teacher about the movie before class, then drive home and get ready. That is going to leave me 5 minutes to get ready before I have to go to work, but I've gotten ready in 5 minutes before.
As we near the corner where we make our first turn, there is a thunderous boom, as if someone set off a dud firecracker. Immediately after that is a rumbling sound accompanied by major shaking of the ground. I actually watch the road in front of me ripple like waves in water. The pavement cracks up and chunks of it disappear into the ground. Instinctively, I put the van in park as the bumps and jolts jostle us all over the place. Then, I grab my son's hand. His eyes are as wide as they can get. I can tell he's shocked and horrified. I'm pretty sure the expression on my face isn't helping. I'm terrified of earthquakes.
There is nothing we can do. We're shaking too hard to have any kind of controlled movement, and we don't have any idea what is going to happen. There isn't some shelter to go to where we can get away from the earthquake, like you can with a tornado.
The shaking makes it hard to hold onto my son's hand, but I do not let go. I tell him to just hang on, that it will stop soon. Behind me, there is a crashing sound, and I turn my head to look . The house on the corner has fallen into a hole in the ground that was not there before. It looks like the house in the movie Poltergeist, crumpling up and getting sucked into a void at the end, except that it stopped at the crumpling up stage. God, I hop no one was home!
There is a crack coming from the hole. It's not headed toward us, but I throw the van into drive and try to move it forward anyway. I have to let go of my son to do that. I don't want to, but I need both hands to drive, and I need to get us away from that hole.
We move forward a couple of yards, but the shaking makes it really hard to steer. We get thrown to the side. I feel the whole van come up off of the pavement as the ground launches us upward. Then, we slam back down with two tires up on the curb. I keep driving. I can see in the rear-view mirror that the crack has completely crossed the street behind us, and it's getting wider. Traffic that was back there is making u-turns and driving the other way to escape it. The other side of the crack is also lower than our side. All I can see of the cars is the top of the windows and the roof of each as it turns. The city bus is taller. I can see the driver's frightened, determined face as he turns the bus around, running over the curb in the process.
In that split second I took to glance in the rearview mirror, another crack has opened in the pavement in front of us, this one along the center of the lane I'm in. I barely manage to steer around it before moving on, but it keeps opening and remains parallel to us. I drive over the curb and through the yard of the house on the next corner, onto a side street. As I do, I see smoke coming from the crack, and there is another boom. Something inside tells me this isn't an ordinary Earthquake.
I punch the pedal and drive through the neighborhood, speeding away from the shaking ground. The further away I get, the less shaking there is, until finally we stop in a location where we can feel the car shimmying, but the ground beneath us isn't bucking and rolling any more. I look back, and there are huge, billowing clouds of smoke behind us, coming from the direction of the gas station/convenience store where I work . There is a third boom, this one sounding almost cartoonish, and now I can see flames. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice the clock . It is not yet time for the school to even open its doors. The entire experience so far has taken all of two minutes.
People are coming out of their houses. A man in pajama pants, a bathrobe (but no shirt), and slippers approaches my car. I roll down the window and tell him how and why we ended up in his neighborhood. He says, "You don't know what's going on, do you?" and I answer "no, but I think there is a fire."
He tells me that the gas stations are blowing up. First (my station), then (the station across the street), and it sounds like now (the station on the opposite corner) just blew too. The first explosion took out a natural gas line, and they're worried about (the three gas stations down the street) going up next. The fire from (my station) has spread to (the neighboring business) and is starting to ignite the houses in the neighborhood. They've all ready called every fire station in the metro area to fight the fire.
My son says "What about our apartment? Can the fire reach that far?"
I tell him we can't worry about that right now. We're alive, and we're safe, and that's all that matters. I say that if that many firefighters show up, they will probably be able to contain the fire. They aren't going to let it spread, because it's too close to the military base. The soldiers will probably be called to help fight it. In my mind, though, I am thinking I may be wrong. A fire like that could spread quickly through the neighborhood, and they may have their hands full just trying to keep it away from the base. I can tell my son has his doubts, too. It's all over his face.
I remind him that at least none of us are caught in the fire. We're safe, and we (and his father, who is at work) can get further away whenever we want.
The man's wife comes outside with a portable radio. I can hear the DJ saying that my son's school is canceled for the day due to risk of the fire spreading, and for one stupid second I panic about having to call off work ... then I remember I don't have work because my workplace has exploded.
Oh, my God. My work place has exploded. There was probably no warning, either. My co-workers are probably dead. It's Monday. I think about who was there, and realize that if they didn't get away before the explosion, the two totally single moms I work with are both dead. Who is going to take care of their children?
The hitting home of the thought must show on my face, because the guy asks me if I am ok . I look at him, and tell him that I work at (my station.) Then it hits my son. He looks at me and says, "You could have been there." I can see the horror rising in his demeanor, and I try to calm him down, but the tears hit anyway.
At the same time, the man turns to his wife, and says, "She works there. She's one of them." I don't know what he means, but his expression suddenly hardens into deadly seriousness. He reaches into the van, as if to grab my shirt. I shove his arm back out, throw the van into drive, and speed away. The man actually chases me for several yards before giving up. I can see him pull a cell phone out of the pocket of his robe and start dialing. I turn the corner and pull out onto the main road, driving away from the neighborhood.
I call my husband's number and leave him a voicemail stating that no matter what, he is not to go home until he hears from me, that I don't know what's going on, but (my station) just blew up and a neighbor just called me "one of them" and tried to grab me. I call my parents and tell them about the incident, and that my son and I are headed their way. I call the hub of my social group, with whom I've been hanging out since college. I tell her what I've witnessed, and advise her to get her family, all of their meds, and their important papers (things she can grab quickly) out of the house and out of the neighborhood NOW. Before hanging up, I tell her about what the man said, and that I don't know what is happening, but something is very wrong. I tell her where I am going, that my son is with me and my husband is not, and ask that after she has her family to safety, she check on him. She agrees. She tells me she is glad to hear from me and know that I was not at work .
I call another very close friend, also a hub of another social circle that kind of overlaps with the first one, and go through the same discussion, though she lives a few miles away from the neighborhood, while my first phone call lives close to me.
I call my husband's mom and leave a message letting her know that we are all ok, and none of us were in the fire.
Looking at the clock, I can see that only another two minutes has passed. We have to pull over into a parking lot to let emergency crews drive past us toward the fire. They are coming down both sides of the divided road... during rush "hour" (which lasts half of the day in our neighborhood). I take a moment to once again try to calm my son, reminding him that we're safe, I wasn't in the fire, and the important thing now is to stay levelheaded and deal with the situation as it is. He looks shaky and teary-eyed, but he nods and says ok . He asks if we're going to Grandma's, and I say yes. He asks why the man called me "one of them" and I admit I have no idea, but that it bothers me enough that we're getting out of town until we find out. Then, the emergency crew is past, and we get back on the road.
We start driving. We are away from the fire, and from the nearby gas stations, heading out of town. Behind us, I hear a succession of small explosions, and a whooshing sound. It occurs to me that this is probably a natural gas explosion. At the same time, the whooshing sound gets really loud, and something slams into us from behind. Our van is picked up and thrown forward. We land on the flat bed of a semi that is in front of us, as if it were transporting us. The semi is still moving. It swerves, and we go flying sideways off of it and onto the grass. The whole time, I'm still trying to steer. When we land, I stomp the pedal to the floor and drive back up onto the road, passing several crashed vehicles until I find an open space. I can feel that there is damage to the van, but I keep driving. There is one more popping boom behind us. I hope my friend has gotten her family out of the house.
I grab my phone and dial my husband's number again. This time, he's on break and he answers. I tell him what has happened. I tell him to leave work and get out of town. I tell him a place where I'll meet him outside of the metro area. I tell him he needs to let our friend know he is all right, because she's going to check on him if he doesn't. I start to tell him I've called his mom, when there is another explosion behind us. This time, I think it may be someone's car blowing up. My husband hears the sound come across the phone, and he asks what is happening.
This is where I woke. At the same moment, I had a feeling of relief that stuff was not blowing up at his location.
In real life, my son has had no such ridiculous school assignment. So far as I know, there is no such movie, either. Homework assignments are sometimes made which require last minute acquisition of materials which are a challenge for us to get, and that does frustrate me.
I have not recently been scheduled to go to work on the half hour, and probably won't, but it's not that odd for it to happen, and it used to be a regular thing. The three gas stations on the same corner are real, and so is one down the street that I dreamed about, but it's a mile or more away, not that close. The rest of the stations were just part of the dream.
If something like that happened, it would take longer than two minutes for the news to pick it up and start reporting on it, and if we landed on and slid off of a flatbed semi like that in my big old van, we'd probably roll.
About half an hour after I got up this morning, there was thunder and rain. I'm wondering if there was thunder in the night. Maybe the sound of that inspired the dream. On the other hand, it could be that I've dreamed this because of the upheaval in my life.
There is a lot of stress right now related to work, family, distance, and pressure my son is dealing with at school. In real life, my boss is kind of gaslighting me. What she doesn't realize is that I know it's happening. I've noticed that my lack of response to it is really pissing her off, and I'm kind of having fun with that. In the meantime, though, she is being rotten in other ways I'm going to get into here.
I think the detail about the homework was inspired by some real life stuff that is happening there. There is an undercurrent of political agenda, (mostly union related) but nothing I can directly confront, and I do find it threatening and annoying. However, I am able to discuss school reality versus real life reality with my son, and help him to come to rational, logical conclusions about what he is seeing and hearing there.
Anyway, I must have tensed up in response to the shaking... I feel like I had a workout last night, and possibly like I have a mild case of whiplash. Darned fibromyalgia!
Earthquake
I'm jolted awake because the bed is shaking like someone is bouncing on it. Right after I wake up, it stops shaking. My husband sits up and asks if I'm ok. Still groggy, I ask what's wrong, and he tells me he thinks I've had a seizure, that I was moving so violently that I shook the whole bed. I tell him that I didn't have a seizure. Nothing hurts, and I don't feel as though I've exerted myself in any way. I was asleep. I woke because I felt the bed shaking.
I look at him, and he looks at me. We simultaneously become worried that someone is in the room with us and has awakened us by shaking the bed. I grab my cell phone and open it, lighting up enough for us to see. He gets up and checks out the closet while I turn on the lamp. No one is there, and the door is still closed. It's too noisy to not wake us if it opens. The building is old, and door doesn't hang right, so it actually is hard to open and close.
Right when we realize no one is there but us, the whole room shakes, harder than the bed had shaken before. The shaking only lasts for a few seconds, but it's hard enough that downstairs, we hear something fall. Our son's shout comes from his room, asking what's going on. We fight with the door to get out. Normally, the trick is to push down and then pull it open, but that's really hard to do when you're being tossed around by a floor that's bucking like an angry bull.
A second or two after my husband grabs the handle, the shaking stops. Now, I feel like I've got whiplash, but in my lower back, from trying to move around while the building was shaking so hard. My husband opens the door and we run down the hall to my son's room, where he is sitting up in bed. All of the stuff has fallen off of his dresser onto the floor. He looks confused and a little scared. I tell him it's ok but that we need to get downstairs. I look out the window, and see people gathering in the parking lot outside. Someone's car alarm is going off. I feel like it's really, really important that we get out of the building. It's kind of old. I'll feel better if we can just get downstairs.
My son stands up and we turn to go down the stairs. There is a loud boom, like thunder, but without lightning and without the initial high-pitched cracking noise. Everything begins to pitch and shake again, even harder than before. Trying to keep myself steady hurts as though I'm trying to bend over backwards. My son is holding on to the bedpost for dear life. My husband has fallen, but he landed on the spare mattress that my son uses for sleepovers. The odd thought goes through my head that the mattress should have been put away, like that's really important right now.
I try to hold onto the wall, but instead, it smacks into me like I've fallen on it.
This is where I woke up for real, with back pain so bad that at first I couldn't move. I had rolled over onto my back in the night, an absolute no-no that always causes the muscles in my lower back to stiffen up and get sore. Though it was only about 5:00 A.M., there was no way I was getting any more sleep tonight. I got up, went down the stairs, and had breakfast, coffee, and Ibuprofen. Once that started working, I did some work in the kitchen, because moving around would help loosen up those sore muscles. I got a lot done before it was time to take my second dose. I'm still hurting, but it's not nearly as bad.
It wasn't until after 11:00 A.M. that I read about the 7.1 quake that hit Alaska early this morning. It occurred to me that maybe I felt it in the night, but there's no way. I'm in Ohio, for crying out loud! For me to feel the shaking from anywhere in Alaska, that would have to be one hell of a quake! Even if I had felt it, I think there was at least an hour difference between the time of the quake and the time of the dream.
Funny coincidence, though... and I do believe it was a coincidence, even if you believe in psychic stuff, because I don't even know anyone in Alaska and have no connection whatsoever to the area. I'm sure the back pain mostly caused the nightmare. I'm more afraid of earthquakes than any other natural phenomenon, and when I have fibromyalgia related muscle pain, I usually dream that something scary is happening that's making my body hurt. This is the worst I've felt from sleeping on my back in years. It was probably also partly caused by how many quakes have been making the news lately, and probably partly because I've had this irrational, anxious feeling that my area is going to be hit with an bad earthquake soon, even though I live in an area that almost never has them. In my lifetime, we've had all of two short, low-scale quakes that didn't even do any serious structural damage, and the logical side of me says that - duh! - I have nothing to worry about.
Still, I've been unable to shake (pun intended) that feeling ever since the Japan quake a few months ago. It's like I've been waiting for the other shoe to drop. I guess that's part of the fun of being me. I guess that's better than having an irrational fear of something mundane that I have to deal with every day. That would really suck.
I'll probably still have nightmares about it, regardless, especially if I keep reading headlines about earthquakes in the news. I suppose if that happens, I can treat those dreams like practice runs. They've got to be good for something, or they'll drive me nuts. (Yeah, I know... short trip!)
I look at him, and he looks at me. We simultaneously become worried that someone is in the room with us and has awakened us by shaking the bed. I grab my cell phone and open it, lighting up enough for us to see. He gets up and checks out the closet while I turn on the lamp. No one is there, and the door is still closed. It's too noisy to not wake us if it opens. The building is old, and door doesn't hang right, so it actually is hard to open and close.
Right when we realize no one is there but us, the whole room shakes, harder than the bed had shaken before. The shaking only lasts for a few seconds, but it's hard enough that downstairs, we hear something fall. Our son's shout comes from his room, asking what's going on. We fight with the door to get out. Normally, the trick is to push down and then pull it open, but that's really hard to do when you're being tossed around by a floor that's bucking like an angry bull.
A second or two after my husband grabs the handle, the shaking stops. Now, I feel like I've got whiplash, but in my lower back, from trying to move around while the building was shaking so hard. My husband opens the door and we run down the hall to my son's room, where he is sitting up in bed. All of the stuff has fallen off of his dresser onto the floor. He looks confused and a little scared. I tell him it's ok but that we need to get downstairs. I look out the window, and see people gathering in the parking lot outside. Someone's car alarm is going off. I feel like it's really, really important that we get out of the building. It's kind of old. I'll feel better if we can just get downstairs.
My son stands up and we turn to go down the stairs. There is a loud boom, like thunder, but without lightning and without the initial high-pitched cracking noise. Everything begins to pitch and shake again, even harder than before. Trying to keep myself steady hurts as though I'm trying to bend over backwards. My son is holding on to the bedpost for dear life. My husband has fallen, but he landed on the spare mattress that my son uses for sleepovers. The odd thought goes through my head that the mattress should have been put away, like that's really important right now.
I try to hold onto the wall, but instead, it smacks into me like I've fallen on it.
This is where I woke up for real, with back pain so bad that at first I couldn't move. I had rolled over onto my back in the night, an absolute no-no that always causes the muscles in my lower back to stiffen up and get sore. Though it was only about 5:00 A.M., there was no way I was getting any more sleep tonight. I got up, went down the stairs, and had breakfast, coffee, and Ibuprofen. Once that started working, I did some work in the kitchen, because moving around would help loosen up those sore muscles. I got a lot done before it was time to take my second dose. I'm still hurting, but it's not nearly as bad.
It wasn't until after 11:00 A.M. that I read about the 7.1 quake that hit Alaska early this morning. It occurred to me that maybe I felt it in the night, but there's no way. I'm in Ohio, for crying out loud! For me to feel the shaking from anywhere in Alaska, that would have to be one hell of a quake! Even if I had felt it, I think there was at least an hour difference between the time of the quake and the time of the dream.
Funny coincidence, though... and I do believe it was a coincidence, even if you believe in psychic stuff, because I don't even know anyone in Alaska and have no connection whatsoever to the area. I'm sure the back pain mostly caused the nightmare. I'm more afraid of earthquakes than any other natural phenomenon, and when I have fibromyalgia related muscle pain, I usually dream that something scary is happening that's making my body hurt. This is the worst I've felt from sleeping on my back in years. It was probably also partly caused by how many quakes have been making the news lately, and probably partly because I've had this irrational, anxious feeling that my area is going to be hit with an bad earthquake soon, even though I live in an area that almost never has them. In my lifetime, we've had all of two short, low-scale quakes that didn't even do any serious structural damage, and the logical side of me says that - duh! - I have nothing to worry about.
Still, I've been unable to shake (pun intended) that feeling ever since the Japan quake a few months ago. It's like I've been waiting for the other shoe to drop. I guess that's part of the fun of being me. I guess that's better than having an irrational fear of something mundane that I have to deal with every day. That would really suck.
I'll probably still have nightmares about it, regardless, especially if I keep reading headlines about earthquakes in the news. I suppose if that happens, I can treat those dreams like practice runs. They've got to be good for something, or they'll drive me nuts. (Yeah, I know... short trip!)
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