#dream transcript

[captainboringposts]

Doctor: All we inject for the Flu Shot is this little tube here.

Me: I didn't know the Flu could come in tubes.

Doctor: I didn't know I could either until I tried.

Me: WHAT?!?

Doctor: What?

[illume-blog]

The Governor of NH is up for Re-Election

The governor of New Hampshire is up for re-election. In the stratosphere, her luxury ship carrying society’s elite is making record time to get home. A sitting-duck ship painted disco orange and yellow is bobbing peacefully in the distance, a millennium remnant in the stars. It is an exact replica of the hot dog trolley that sits on Broad street in Philadelphia. Per orders of the governor, the captain pummels headlong toward the trailer. We smack violently into it.

Despite the reality that it is filled with people, the crummy discotrailer fishtails out of orbit and toward a black hole. It disappears, of course.

The decision was easy to make; it was clear that it would have the effect of getting the governor’s ship home faster, something to do with every action having an equal reaction. Scientific reasoning has long surpassed the social value of the disco people.

A funny thing happens back in New Hampshire. With my morning coffee and paper I’m thinking about what unfolded up there, grappling with the loss of those people. Just because they’re from the past doesn’t mean they don’t equally deserve to live. Wasn’t it already enough that we launched them into perpetual orbit in their own antiquated spacetrolley? Did we really have to kill them needlessly, too? I don’t agree with the captain that they’re only worth the phosphoric fuel they produce.

The governor is my neighbor. She steps onto her lawn this morning as the contents of that very spacetrolley come pouring down, like a very neat waterfall, in front of her. Tables, chairs, outdated flight equipment, people. It’s a space smoothie that burns a pinhole into the ground. Like clowns into a prehistoric clown car. The black hole must have had a NH function on the backend.

I’m sure she didn’t expect this. It’s not often you have to look your casualties directly in the eye these days, much less right in the acidic death funnel.

And that’s when she flipped. Maybe I am giving the governor too much credit, but the only viable reason I can think of is that the guilt was too great. It seems like she had to clip free moral conscience altogether. When you’re that far in, when the guilt is that overwhelming, you kind of just need to become a new person. You adapt to the conditions you’ve created.

AND ANOTHER THING, she says.

NO MORE SOIL, EITHER. She starts putting out the few flower pots of personal soil she has left, maybe six or seven containers of dry stuff. A telepsyche is sent out to New Hampshirites that soil is illegal now, is to be disposed of rather immediately. Like all mass communications she distributes, the sender only shows up as ‘MGMT.’ People have somehow not connected this back to the governor. It’s just my opinion, but this disembodiment is what has allowed her to continue her rule as a beloved icon.

AND YOU KNOW WHAT ELSE.

I don’t know what else.

NO MORE DOGS, EITHER. She sits her black Doodle on the sidewalk next to the soil pots.

She’s really on a roll.

It strikes me that all this isn’t okay. Actually, it’s kind of fucked up. No more soil, I think we could probably deal with that in the gLabs. Whatever is left of it anyhow is mostly just novelty. But no more dogs? No more dogs? We already know they can’t be perfectly reproduced, at least not for a long time. There is something in their doggiealities, some organic substance that the teams haven’t been able to manufacture the random uniqueness of. If they go now, they’re not coming back. The Doodle looks at the governor through overgrown bangs.

I have to do something. A panic sets in as I grab the dog by the collar and take off at a brisk pace down the street. Instinctively I grab the next one I see, a wire-haired cattledog. I’m just going to save them. I start looking for other dogs to smuggle when I run into Jeffu.

He’s on board, but he’s got a better formula. “We need two of each, duh.”

We set off on this archaic mission, searching for what seem like probable matches. For every dog we take we explain to its owner that soon they’ll understand. It is for the dogs’ sustainable future. This is primo dog-walking hour, so there are plenty to grab, but we soon start to run out of fingers to hook collars (we didn’t bring our own leashes). We have to do this on a bigger level. Two by two isn’t going to cut it.

“We have to make waves,” Jeffu says. “We need to get the attention of a mass body of emotionally fertile people.”

We get word that the governor’s re-election rally is taking place down at the fairgrounds. And, as it just so happens, it coincides with the meeting of Regional Dog Enthusiasts. Clearly, this event was arranged before the trolley catastrophe occurred/was swept under the black hole rug, but when I really think about it, the last century has been filled with an uncanny amount of coincidences.

Jeffu and I get to the fairgrounds, dogs in tow, and charge through the enormous  backstage pavilions toward the stage. We can hear the large crowd of pro-governor pro-dog attendees. A few government employees in red baseball jackets trail us, but are largely ineffective. When we reach the stage I  have a surprisingly easy time of taking the microphone. Whoever is lauding the governor just kind of hands it over. The lady of the hour sits quietly next to the podium.

I’m sure that most of the historic speeches in the cloud archives are far more inspiring than what I might say next. But I really give it everything I have.

I point at her accusingly. THIS WOMAN, THIS VERY WOMAN SITTING NEXT TO ME JUST THIS MORNING RENOUNCED SOIL. SHE IS THE ONE WHO HAS INSTRUCTED US TO DO AWAY WITH THE VERY THING THAT FIRST GAVE OUR ANCESTORS LIFE THROUGH AGRICULTURAL FOOD.

The crowd’s interest is piqued.

THIS VERY WOMAN HAS GONE SO DANGEROUSLY FAR TO RENOUNCE DOGS. DOGS!

What could be called a fevered hush runs through the rally. I’ve complicated their idea of our leader.

SHE IS SYSTEMATICALLY GETTING RID OF THEM. AND DO YOU KNOW WHY? BECAUSE IT WAS HER SPACECRAFT THAT KILLED THOSE POOR DISCO PEOPLE IN THE SKY LAST NIGHT. THAT’S RIGHT. THIS WOMAN IS GETTING RID OF THE DOGS, AND ALSO HAS NO RESPECT FOR HUMAN LIFE. IS THIS REALLY WHAT YOU WANT? DO YOU REALLY WANT TO RE-ELECT A PERSON LIKE THIS?

I’ve won them over. They’re gently chanting NO.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, I bleed into the microphone in what could be called a moment of glory.

The rally erupts into full protest--it’s really a large crowd, and they’re starting to lose control--as the governor continues to sit ashamedly next to the podium. My work feels done.

As I walk back across the fairgrounds through the confetti of justice, a media photographer asks to take my picture. I ask him to hold on until I can find Jeffu, who is walking toward us, a bath towel wrapped around his lower half. During the course of my speech he apparently set up a guerilla encampment, with showers, just outside the fairgrounds.

“Take our picture together, please. Jeffu is a huge part of this movement.” The telescope eye blinks. 

+

The next morning, over coffee, I unfold the day’s paper. After some searching I spot the small photo that was taken of Jeffu and I, crammed at the bottom of page 8. We look pleased.

What I do not see at first, and have to flip back to, is the full-page photo of me occupying the front page.

I only recognize my face. It then becomes obvious that my head has been superimposed on top of a huge, over-sexualized, cartoon super hero’s body.

Some highlights are a scant leotard and buoyant cleavage; vintage elbow-length star trek gloves; and knee-high boots that offer a very fictitious understanding of my thighs.

I throw the newspaper against the wall and select glass shatter scream. 

You actually can’t win.

[milliemylesie]

An Exploration of My Dreams

(Partner comes in through the door)

Me: Surprise!

(I've forgotten what the surprise is but we start making out anyway)

(There is a knock on the door - some gunslingers on horseback are outside)

(I look back at my partner. Although I don't remember her not looking and sounding like my white, early-20's, British partner at any point prior to this, I notice that she's actually Zoe from Firefly)

Zoe: Honey, get the grenades.

(I go up to the room upstairs, even though I have no idea where the grenades are)

(One of the gunslingers calls Zoe by a slur but I can't tell if it's insulting her race, her gender, her apparent sexual identity, my apparent identity as transgirl!Wash, or her haircut)

(I can't find the grenades. I look out of the window. The gunslingers have summoned an army - there are about two hundred people out there)

(I wonder if I can open a coke can in a way that will fool them into thinking I've got a grenade)

(Suddenly aliens arrive above out house and scare most of the gunslingers' army away. I get pissed off that it's happening at an angle above my house that I can't see it)

(In the confusion I open the coke can and throw it out of the window. It hits someone who looks slightly confused, irritated and wet but continues running away)

(When the aliens leave, one of the neighbours comes in through my window)

Neighbours: Hey.

Me: Hi.

Neighbours: Is the big giant camera out front the one you stole from us a few years ago?

(I didn't know there was a camera there but I instinctively know the answer is yes.)

Me: No. I mean, it used to be, but then we got a new one.

Neighbours: Well, can we use it to look through the footage to see what the aliens looked like?

Me: Yeah, ok.

(Wake)