I Did It All For Maseume

Another Dream

2006-01-26T13:48:00.000-08:00

"Avatars"

I started off in the back seat of a van. My friends and I had just picked up two visitors from somewhere, and we were transporting them back to home base. Apparently, we were some sort of evil-fighting group, and these two were sent as special reinforcements or teachers of some kind. Everyone was speaking as if it were hundreds or thousands of years ago, and I was having trouble fitting in with them. I was speaking perfect Californian, and I could sense it was disturbing to them. So, I made a joke about how I was from the future, and that everyone would talk like me eventually. The joke died. I then started swearing in order to lighten the mood. They all tried very hard to ignore me.

We parked somewhere and began the walk back to the base. Leaving the road, we turned onto a dirt path lined with brush and trees, at which time I began to sense danger. I told the group to pause and watched as a gust of wind lifted some of the fallen leaves. Just when I was doubting my powers, a large, brown rhinoceros came barreling around the corner and stopped ten yards in front of us. My companions teasingly pushed me forward, telling me to use my astute language skills to reason with the beast. I decided to be brave and told them to sneak past the animal, while I tried any nonsense I could come up with that might sound like Rhino (or something that would bewitch a rhino). The beast was angered by this and came charging at me with a yell. I mimicked the yell, following its melody closely, and the rhino halted. He gave me a bit of attitude, asked if that was how I intended to play the game, and then led me in a musical round of "repeat after me". I passed the test, slapped the rhino a low five, and continued on my way. He escorted me for a few paces, where we discussed the conflict of my occupation and how hard it must be to be a mercenary and a vegan, particularly in a world where people were animals and vice versa. I would say that we became friends, but I think it was more of us both seeking to understand our enemy. We were at least able to be friendly, and then I arrived at my destination.

Home base was your typical, one-story, college party house. There were tons of kids everywhere, chatting it up over new fashions, celebrities, and the business of the day. Everyone was most excited about the visiting sages. From my post at the front door, I watched closely the activities inside and outside of the house. Two strangers walked up and asked to enter. I hesitated, sensing again that something was not quite right, but the other members of the house were glad to welcome them. They were particulary charming guys, and one of them stepped right in while the other stepped out to take a phone call. I decided to use another of my special powers and hissed out the word "avatar", at which point the gentleman outside transformed into an animal and back. It was seen only by me. I then turned to his companion inside, and whispered the same thing with the same effect. He noticed what I was doing and pulled me aside.

"Look," he said, and he showed me that his avatar was that of a beagle, which was similar to my own dog-like animal other-form. "Just like you," he said, and I allowed him to think that this fooled me into believing he meant no harm. I let his outside friend in, and he was followed by a whole gang of them. I knew it would be trouble, but the thoughts of ambush were too enticing. How could they know that the whole house was full of my companions, who were sworn to destroy all of those that would use their animal powers for evil? There was a varied enough mix of innocent animal-humans to keep our secret safe.

The boys announced that they had come here to breed (which was apparently a big part of this huminal world), so they began to hook up with a few of the ladies. I knew that we couldn't let them get so far as to spread their evil seed, so I tried to get a few of my teammates' attention, to let them know that we should strike while the bad guys were...ahem...distracted. My girls were not listening to me at all, and my looks and whispers were starting to draw the attention of some of the evil gang. Desperate, I burst into a room where I knew one of them to be, and I pretended to be drunk.

"Sorry," I said to the writhing shadows. "I just needed to get something out of the bathroom." I stumbled through the dark room, lit only by the poolside tiki torches that shone through the sliding glass door. Once in the bathroom, I grabbed the nearest weapon I could find: my toothbrush. I figured that if I threw it with enough force, it would spear right into my enemy's heart. With a yell, I came back out of the bathroom and thrust the Oral B with all of my might! It fell short and to the left of its target, and with a surprised look my foe lunged for the weapon. I beat him to it, and stabbed it into him with everything I had. He screamed, and I shouted "avatar!" which started his transformation into a snake. Before he could complete the change, I tugged at his glowing, green "essence" that I was psychically pulling from his mouth. It turned into a solid, rubbery thing. Not knowing what to do with it, I shoved it into my mouth, chewed, and swallowed it in order to destroy his soul and absorb his powers.

In a flash, his pals burst into the room. I grabbed at the first one, biting into his cheek. The second my tongue tasted his flesh and the blood pouring into my mouth, I awoke.

I'm even vegan in my dreams.

Let's Take It Back...

2005-11-22T14:28:00.000-08:00

Maseume, your comment on my last post reminds me of one of the first dreams that I ever remembered, and that I still remember. I was five or six years old and living in Emmett, Idaho. It went a little something like this:

In the dream, I was a teenager, and I was taking my Japanese girlfriend (who was a few years older than me, and I think a little taller) on a date. She was beautiful, so I really wanted to impress her. I took her to Baskin-Robbins 31 Flavors for some Daiquiri Ice ice cream. While we were in the shop, using those tiny pink spoons to enjoy the rum-flavored, lime goodness, my "spider senses" tingled, and I noticed a gang walking into the store. Sensing trouble, and knowing that I didn't want to get into a fight in front of my woman, I took her hand and we snuck out the back entrance.

It's not much of a dream, but it's my first! (Tiny minds can only hold so much information!)

Joel

Dreams - Second Installment

2005-11-10T09:54:00.000-08:00

I have the wonderful ability in my dreams to watch from an omniscient and omnipresent perspective. I can jump in and out of bodies, and I often step out completely, as if watching the events on television or playing a video game. Here is last night's "Spiderman dream":

I began the story as Spiderman's younger brother. It's hard to live in a home with such a hot brother as Peter Parker, not to mention another equally hot older brother who had taken over as our guardian since Mom and Pop passed away. My little junior high self in this dream had a difficult time dealing with the guilt over ogling my brothers, and trying to look up to them as heroes as well.

The plot went like this:

Scene One: The Spider House.

There were a lot of webs in this old house in an old neighborhood--webs with spiders. In one of the webs was my brother, Peter Parker, hanging upside down in his spider costume. From the "little bro" persepective, I was able to get close to him and tell him how cool I thought he was. Then, the plot thickened.

Scene Two: Family Feud.

Apparently, there were ambulances outside. One of the neighbors had either been killed, or was being sent to prison for something he did. Being a part of the Spider family, I knew that the neighbors were a bunch of crooks, and Spidey had put the oldest brother down for his crimes against humanity. I exited our house to view the action from the front porch. That location wasn't close enough, so I walked right up to the neighbors' porch. Sitting there was the next oldest brother, who went by the name of "Ben". Ben had a shaved head, and a long, black beard. I'm sure he was wearing overalls and smoking a pipe. He looked a little bit like one of the cast members of the new John Cameron Mitchell film "Short Bus" (coming soon to a theatre near you).

Scene Three: Movie Watcher.

I went back into the Spider house, and the "cameras" started doing a lot of close-ups on the webs and their creepy residents. When I came too close, my brain put a television screen in between me and the spiders and I made a quick comment to my dad (who was watching the movie with me) about how I was really glad I didn't see this movie in the theater.

Scene Four: Rude Awakening.

A moonlit room. Peter Parker (not Tobey Maguire, HOTTER) asleep on his bed in a pair of PJ bottoms. The window was open to let in the warm summer breeze. Junior high me snuck into the room to put on my bee "super hero" costume, which was pretty sorry. After donning it and making a lot of noise while doing so, Peter woke up and asked me to sit on the bed next to him. Of course my brain couldn't handle this, so I jumped into Peter's body and, little brother gone, I got out of bed to get a glass of water from the kitchen. I looked into Little Bro's room to my right in the hallway, and noticed someone crouched on the floor in the dark, wearing my Spiderman suit! The person jumped out at me, and I stopped him, grabbing him by the neck and pushing him up against the wall. I ripped off the mask, and couldn't see his face in the dark. He asked if I knew who he was, and I put my hand up to his face to tug on the beard I knew would be there.

"Ben!" I said. Then the whole family came pouring into my room. I wasn't nervous, because I knew that the costume didn't have any special powers, and I'd probably be able to kick the whole family's butt if need be. There were five of them total, all in super-hero costumes that they'd made for themselves. "Ma Baddy" was played by Jessie Salka, and "Younger Baddy" was played by Matt Artson. Jessie was dressed as something like "Electric Essence", and Matt was "Pura Girl", who was a character from one of his favorite computer RPG games. I commented on how lovely their costumes were, and they seemed fairly distracted from their dark purposes. This is where the dream ended, because I my morning alarms had already gone off, and if I did any more dreaming I would have been late for work.

Dreams - First Installment

2005-11-09T14:05:00.000-08:00

I had a strange dream last night, and I figure this is a good place to set it down.

This was my first "Hurricane dream" since all of the terror has hit this season. My recollection of the first portion involves some woman making an off-hand remark that California was due to be hit by a Hurricane sometime this year--a statement that jump-started my dream world into chaos.

Part 1: Checking into a refugee camp.

My mother met me at a camp that was supposed to provide shelter for those fleeing the storm. I sat down at a picnic table, awaiting a meal for which I was a bit late. My mom handed me the menu, and both courses were simply listed as "meat". When the chef (my former catering boss Julia Engstrom) came up to us, I asked her if she had anything that could be substituted for the "meat". She said "no", so I asked her to just give me some rice and whatever the sauce was. She brought out two disappointing plates of the stuff, and I began to eat.

Part 2: Armageddon therapy.

I was sitting in a group that was discussing survival techniques and how to cope with loss, in the event of a hurricane. The moderator was placating and a little bit "ooky". He was allowing people to ask questions (none of which I remember), and threw in a bit of spiritualism with his answers--"moving on to the next plane" type stuff. He turned to one woman in the group who apparently had dogs, and he told her that she wouldn't be able to save any of her animals, because the government wasn't allowing pets into the underground shelters.

Part 3: Puppies and the end of the world.

I was catapulted to a scene at the entrance of a government "hurricane shelter", where soldiers were tearing frightened pets out of their owners arms and then forcing the people down the stairs, which led to a shelter deep within the earth's surface. An animal lover even in my dreams, I began to think of ways to save at least one of these animals. I saw an adorable golden retriever puppy without its owner, and I grabbed him and ran into the shelter when the soldiers weren't looking. I made it all the way into one of the bathrooms (which had the appearance of those on a Navy cruiser), and I tried to think of a way to smuggle the dog into the civilian containment bay. I stuffed him into my zip-up jacket, at which time he let out a yelp and passed an enormous amount of doggy gas. I knew the situation was hopeless, but I tried anyway. I stepped out of the bathroom, and my misshapen body was quickly accosted by soldiers, who demanded that I surrender the puppy. I refused and ran up the stairs, escaping the building and the government dog-haters. Goldie and I would have to face the storm together. At this point, the dog disappeared, and everything turned into a farcical prime-time disaster-drama, or some horrifying Spielberg epic.

As people continued to run past me, I heard thousands of screams and saw fleeing bodies being hurtled into the air by some unknown force. It came closer, and I saw that it was a train, plowing through the crowds of people, hoping to outrun the storm at the expense of a slew of human lives. I dodged out of its path, and after it passed it seemed that everyone else had disappeared with it. All of a sudden, I looked like Matthew Fox from "Lost", and I was joined by three sexy, female co-stars: A bossy brunette, a blonde ingenue, and a spunky Chinese woman. The shelter was sealed, and we found ourselves on the surface, awaiting the worst. Things grew eerily quiet and we noticed that the rain stopped falling and hung suspended in the air. This was apparently the first sign that the deadly center of the hurricane was approaching. We descended the stairs again, hoping to take shelter in the cavernous wings of the government structure, above the sealed door. Things were fairly wet now, and I knew that there would be flooding, but perhaps the storm would pass by quickly, before our below-ground hiding place filled with water. We were under a ledge, and the bossy brunette and I were arguing about something, while the blond was falling apart emotionally, needing for us to be strong and collected. As the winds became more intense and the water began to rise, to my horror I noticed that our protective ceiling was made of wood, and was being ripped off of us. We dove down into the water-filled spaces, seeking more solid covering, hoping that we could hold our breath until the storm rushed past us. Everything I grabbed to pull myself downward broke away at my grasp, and I realized that it was futile. I was about to be sucked up into the hurricane. I felt myself be pulled out of the water and into the air.

Surprisingly, it was like being in space. We were all just floating there, slowly rising. There was no debris, but a definite sense of pressure. Things became a little more intense, and the four of us reached out to grab hands and find what safety we could in forming a huddle. Accomplishing that feat (untrained skyrisers that we were), the brunette decided that one of us should experience dying alone, apart from the group. She made a moving speech about how that would feel, and how one of us had to do it. I'd already lost my grip at that point, so I suppose I was the lucky volunteer. I jumped out of my Matthew Fox body just in time to see it peel away in lovely ribbons of flesh, torn apart by the winds of the storm. I then watched the brunette and blonde die in a similar fashion. The Chinese woman saw a pork bun floating by, and she athletically dove after it, catching it and eating it, a look of ecstasy crossing her face before she exploded in a flower of ribbon-flesh.

Part 4: Life beneath the surface.

The dream cut to a shot of a hottie blonde scientist, documenting the cause of death of four individuals who looked suspiciously like my crew. She was explaining that something in the atmosphere caused our bodies to mummify, while she thumbed through pictures of our corpses. I get the feeling that I have just seen the pilot episode to next season's "Aftermath" or "Hurricane" or whatever brilliantly chilling title they decide to give it.

If I ever see something this stupid and full of stereotype on television, I'll vomit.

(did I mention that I've been really sick to my stomach lately?)

Joel Rieck

Welcome!

2005-09-29T18:54:00.000-07:00

Welcome, Joel. Welcome to eblogger.com. You'll probably ignore me, but at least now you can comment on Maseume's blogs, seeing as you prefer to live life through other people's daily living and writing. Hoop-de-doo.