I am in some kind of a secret commune with at least a hundred other people. It's right in the middle of a densely populated city, but only those who live there know about it.
I know some people, but others I don't. We're safe in this area, but outside of it we're subject to a dictatorial, malevolent government of some kind.
I've just come back from some kind of a raid in which I've obtained photos of a popular star, some belongings of my family, and a processed food that is so extremely nutritious that if a broth is made by boiling a small piece if it in a huge pot of water, each serving would be as fortifying to the body as an entire meal. Anything added to the broth for bulk and flavor would absorb the nutrients, making the resulting stew extremely satisfying. I have gotten enough of the processed food item to last us through the entire winter. The piece is just slightly larger than a grapefruit.
I give the items obtained for the community to the leader, a middle-aged woman who is very happy to receive them. She starts to give me praise, but I'm embarrassed and tell her to stop. I say I'd rather not stand out, and have people talking about my trip, and I ask her to not make a big deal about it. She says ok, but still gives me a hug and a thank-you. It's better than being singled out and stared at, so I hug back and tell her let me know if she needs anything else done. She says she'll call on me when I am needed. I leave her rooms feeling very positive; accomplished and appreciated.
I place my family's things in our rooms, then go back out. There is some reason why I have to go out into the city, just outside the complex, on an errand. I step out and walk a couple of blocks. Now I'm in an area that borders on a downtown area with two and three story buildings.
I discover that the "fronts" of the buildings are lined with men hung up on the walls, and lined up on balconies or in front of open windows. This is something new, but I can tell from people's averted gazes that it's not new to them. At first, I think the men on the walls are dead. Then I realize they're alive, and being tortured. Some of them are just hanging up, but some are being electrocuted, or subjected to substances or devices that burn or otherwise inflict pain or discomfort. They're on display as an example to everyone, but each is being tortured as punishment for something to do with himself.
I have no knowledge of why they're being punished, and can only guess that they did something really illegal. However, they all look like regular guys. There are way too many of them to all be thieves or rapists or anything like that. I ask someone what they did, and all I get is a terrified stare before she bolts away from me. A young man approaches, draws me into an alley, and whispers to me that they're all considered enemies of the state, all for little things they did like choosing a color to paint their houses without consulting anyone, or for things over which they had no control, like becoming disabled after catching a stray bullet during a conflict between rebels and state police. He tells me not to ask questions in public, or I'll end up on the wall with those guys.
This pisses me off. I tell the guy thanks for the info, and then tell him he might want to be somewhere else. I start pulling energy from the ground around me. I can feel it flowing into my body from under the bricks that line the alley. I think of laying on a grassy hill on a breezy day in the summertime, feeling the warmth of the sun on my skin, but still kept comfortable by the breeze. The energy takes on a warm, positive glow. I direct it at the men on the wall, and whisper "relief."
I see a wave of energy going out from me, looking like heat waves coming off of the hood of a car that's been running for a while. It hits the men, and they all relax. The men on the balconies begin removing the devices, helping to get the guys off of the walls, and turning towards the rooms behind them. I hear shouting from inside.
"What the hell? What do you think you're doing? You're going to regret this!"
I continue to draw energy, changing my thoughts. I focus on my anger, letting myself feel like I need to punch someone. I'm drawing energy from the stones in the buildings around me, where the emotions of the tortured men have left their mark. I direct this at the guards "tending" the men, and I whisper "torture the torturers."
I see twelve big men in odd uniforms that look something of a cross between security guard uniforms, and some kind of spiky S&M get-up. They have rushed the balcony of the building directly across from me. They're beating on the relieved victims. When I whisper, I see the energy flow out from me. It's like seeing a current of hot water moving in a body of cold water. It rushes across the street and hits the guards. They twist and contort, screaming. One falls over the balcony and lands on the pavement. I can hear similar screams coming from the other buildings, and I know that the energy has hit all of the guards.
The guys begin collecting everyone and head into the rooms. I know they're going to come out of those buildings and have to go into hiding. I send a mental message to one of them to find me in the alley. If we run through to the other end, we can quickly get out of this neighborhood, and I can have them hidden before any authorities come along. My contact shouts to the other guys to follow him, and they do.
I realize that if I'm going to bring a bunch more people into the commune, even though there is room for them and work for them, I'm going to have to get more processed food. I start mentally preparing for another raid.
Showing posts with label turmoil. Show all posts
Showing posts with label turmoil. Show all posts
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!
Without a paddle
This one is from last night.
Its early morning. I have to get up for work. A noise has woken me up, a few minutes before my alarm should go off, and I am annoyed. I hate that. It always makes me feel sleep-deprived, even though I've only lost a few minutes.
I grab my phone, and start heading down the stairs. About the middle of the stairway, the carpet is sopping wet. Water squishes up through my socks and between my toes when I step on it.
What the heck? Why are the stairs wet? I reach to step down one more, thinking I'll turn on the light, but I actually step in water, clear up past my ankle. I run back up the stairs and use the light switch at the top. The lights come on, but they're flickering. I can see that there is a body of water in the living room of our apartment. It has risen to about halfway up the stairs. Now that I see it, I realize that I can hear it, too. The sound of water lapping up against the walls is what woke me.
I shut off the light before an electrical fire starts (wondering at the miracle that it is still working at all,) immediately wake my son, whose room is closest to me, and run with him back to my room. I wake my husband, and tell him that there is a flood, and say how high it has reached. We look out the window. The water is even higher there than inside. Somehow, the windows have not broken, and the water is only coming inside slowly.
I want to panic, but if I do, my son will, too, so I fight it and cling to the calming influences of logic and problem-solving.
I start trying to figure out how we can get to the roof. The building is just basically flat, with no roof access from inside. We could got to the attic, but we'd be trapped in there. We're going to have to climb up from the window, though there is really nothing to hold onto but bricks.
I am a good climber, so I think that I'll try. We can tie a bedsheet "rope" to me, and I will take it up and find something to fasten it to at the top. Then, I can help my family up. I outline my plan to my husband.
He tells me we don't have to do that, and reaches into the closet. I figure he is going to get a rope or something, but he pulls out a huge box. Out of that, he pulls a big vinyl object that looks a lot like the old air mattress we used to take camping with us, except that the vinyl looks much thicker and tougher. Looking at the picture on the box, I realize it is an inflatable life-boat.
He begins inflating the boat. Once it starts to take shape, he ties a makeshift sheet-rope to it and hangs it out the window. I am holding the sheet, in case he drops the boat, but he doesn't.
By the time the boat is finished inflating, the water is at the top of the stairs, and the boat is resting on water outside the window. I look around the room for something to take with us to paddle the boat, but I don't find anything flat enough to be effective at all, except for a few things that have sharp edges. The picture in the box shows paddles, but there aren't any inside it.
We can't risk puncturing the boat, so we don't take anything. We tie the sheet to the dresser, climb into the boat, and then yank the sheet loose. We'll take it with us.
The boat floats past the other buildings in the apartment complex. We can't control where it is going very well. There are handles on the sides, and we figure out that if we all lean slightly to one side or the other, we can steer around debris, but we can't get the boat to speed up or slow down. I realize that even if we had taken a paddle, the water is so choppy and moving so fast that it wouldn't have been very effective.
I start to get seasick from the motion of the boat on the water, but I am at least glad we got out safely. I can see that the water is rising above the second story windows of the buildings as we are propelled toward the church across the street. Behind the church, the trees are bending and swaying in the water. I think we will use the sheet to latch onto that building if we can, to keep from running into those. Its roof is still above the water. We may even be able to climb up there and wait. We can use my phone to call for help. Until we can get to that stability, however, both of my hands are occupied with helping to control the boat, and my phone sits useless in my pocket.
Unfortunately, the water has currents I don't know about, and we are propelled "up" the street to the east. There is a lot of debris where the current coming out of our lot meets the current moving along the street, and we barely manage to avoid most of it. I try to grab at what looks like a floating piece of a kid's toy desk, a red plastic flat item that is wide enough to actually work as a paddle, even in this mess. It is too smooth, and I can't get a grip on it. It slips from my fingers, and we float away.
We float east for a short time. I can see bits of buildings sticking up. Now the water is higher than the trees. My stomach is doing flip-flops, and I am using measured breathing and hard swallowing to keep from throwing up.
We come across another change in current. This one takes us in a big half-circle, then spits us out. I almost lose the nausea battle, but don't.
Now, I can't tell what direction we are moving, because there aren't a lot of landmarks, and I don't recognize anything I can see.
The sun is coming up, and upon seeing the edge of it, I am able to determine that we are heading in a northern direction. The sky is not excessively cloudy, and it's not raining. I begin to wonder where all of this water came from.
Seasickness has made me dizzy. I continue to fight to keep from throwing up, because I am needed to help encourage (we aren't really steering) the boat to avoid floating debris. I feel like if we just keep going, eventually we'll reach higher ground, which is on all sides of where we live. From there, we can find our way to family.
When I woke from this, I still felt seasick . I was laying on my back again. My stomach was sick, and I was dizzy. I rolled over on my side and went back to sleep. Later, when I got up, I felt fine.
I wonder if this dream is my subconscious reaction to the economic turmoil in my area. There have been major job losses, and I am off of work right now with an injury I suffered there. My husband is working, but his income is not enough to totally support our family, and we're going to have to do some careful financial maneuvering to avoid eviction while my employer gives me the runaround about coming back to work, and about my worker's compensation case. I am worried, but I have faith in my hubby, who always seems to come up with the most unexpected solutions when there is a problem. Just as in the dream, what he is doing doesn't seem like the best thing at the time, but in the end, things turn out better for it.
Its early morning. I have to get up for work. A noise has woken me up, a few minutes before my alarm should go off, and I am annoyed. I hate that. It always makes me feel sleep-deprived, even though I've only lost a few minutes.
I grab my phone, and start heading down the stairs. About the middle of the stairway, the carpet is sopping wet. Water squishes up through my socks and between my toes when I step on it.
What the heck? Why are the stairs wet? I reach to step down one more, thinking I'll turn on the light, but I actually step in water, clear up past my ankle. I run back up the stairs and use the light switch at the top. The lights come on, but they're flickering. I can see that there is a body of water in the living room of our apartment. It has risen to about halfway up the stairs. Now that I see it, I realize that I can hear it, too. The sound of water lapping up against the walls is what woke me.
I shut off the light before an electrical fire starts (wondering at the miracle that it is still working at all,) immediately wake my son, whose room is closest to me, and run with him back to my room. I wake my husband, and tell him that there is a flood, and say how high it has reached. We look out the window. The water is even higher there than inside. Somehow, the windows have not broken, and the water is only coming inside slowly.
I want to panic, but if I do, my son will, too, so I fight it and cling to the calming influences of logic and problem-solving.
I start trying to figure out how we can get to the roof. The building is just basically flat, with no roof access from inside. We could got to the attic, but we'd be trapped in there. We're going to have to climb up from the window, though there is really nothing to hold onto but bricks.
I am a good climber, so I think that I'll try. We can tie a bedsheet "rope" to me, and I will take it up and find something to fasten it to at the top. Then, I can help my family up. I outline my plan to my husband.
He tells me we don't have to do that, and reaches into the closet. I figure he is going to get a rope or something, but he pulls out a huge box. Out of that, he pulls a big vinyl object that looks a lot like the old air mattress we used to take camping with us, except that the vinyl looks much thicker and tougher. Looking at the picture on the box, I realize it is an inflatable life-boat.
He begins inflating the boat. Once it starts to take shape, he ties a makeshift sheet-rope to it and hangs it out the window. I am holding the sheet, in case he drops the boat, but he doesn't.
By the time the boat is finished inflating, the water is at the top of the stairs, and the boat is resting on water outside the window. I look around the room for something to take with us to paddle the boat, but I don't find anything flat enough to be effective at all, except for a few things that have sharp edges. The picture in the box shows paddles, but there aren't any inside it.
We can't risk puncturing the boat, so we don't take anything. We tie the sheet to the dresser, climb into the boat, and then yank the sheet loose. We'll take it with us.
The boat floats past the other buildings in the apartment complex. We can't control where it is going very well. There are handles on the sides, and we figure out that if we all lean slightly to one side or the other, we can steer around debris, but we can't get the boat to speed up or slow down. I realize that even if we had taken a paddle, the water is so choppy and moving so fast that it wouldn't have been very effective.
I start to get seasick from the motion of the boat on the water, but I am at least glad we got out safely. I can see that the water is rising above the second story windows of the buildings as we are propelled toward the church across the street. Behind the church, the trees are bending and swaying in the water. I think we will use the sheet to latch onto that building if we can, to keep from running into those. Its roof is still above the water. We may even be able to climb up there and wait. We can use my phone to call for help. Until we can get to that stability, however, both of my hands are occupied with helping to control the boat, and my phone sits useless in my pocket.
Unfortunately, the water has currents I don't know about, and we are propelled "up" the street to the east. There is a lot of debris where the current coming out of our lot meets the current moving along the street, and we barely manage to avoid most of it. I try to grab at what looks like a floating piece of a kid's toy desk, a red plastic flat item that is wide enough to actually work as a paddle, even in this mess. It is too smooth, and I can't get a grip on it. It slips from my fingers, and we float away.
We float east for a short time. I can see bits of buildings sticking up. Now the water is higher than the trees. My stomach is doing flip-flops, and I am using measured breathing and hard swallowing to keep from throwing up.
We come across another change in current. This one takes us in a big half-circle, then spits us out. I almost lose the nausea battle, but don't.
Now, I can't tell what direction we are moving, because there aren't a lot of landmarks, and I don't recognize anything I can see.
The sun is coming up, and upon seeing the edge of it, I am able to determine that we are heading in a northern direction. The sky is not excessively cloudy, and it's not raining. I begin to wonder where all of this water came from.
Seasickness has made me dizzy. I continue to fight to keep from throwing up, because I am needed to help encourage (we aren't really steering) the boat to avoid floating debris. I feel like if we just keep going, eventually we'll reach higher ground, which is on all sides of where we live. From there, we can find our way to family.
When I woke from this, I still felt seasick . I was laying on my back again. My stomach was sick, and I was dizzy. I rolled over on my side and went back to sleep. Later, when I got up, I felt fine.
I wonder if this dream is my subconscious reaction to the economic turmoil in my area. There have been major job losses, and I am off of work right now with an injury I suffered there. My husband is working, but his income is not enough to totally support our family, and we're going to have to do some careful financial maneuvering to avoid eviction while my employer gives me the runaround about coming back to work, and about my worker's compensation case. I am worried, but I have faith in my hubby, who always seems to come up with the most unexpected solutions when there is a problem. Just as in the dream, what he is doing doesn't seem like the best thing at the time, but in the end, things turn out better for it.
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