Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
I was with several other people cowering in a building’s wreckage. Trying to rest.
The building was in a disaster area. It’d been storming. A dark day was ending. Night was arriving. The storm was beginning another act. It wasn’t the storm which caused the wreckage.
Talking to one another, we knew it was time. The creature was regular and consistent. It would be returning. The creature caused all the destruction.
We also knew that it knew about three of us. We’d been fighting the creature, as others had done. One by one, the creature had found and killed the others. Through conversation, we agreed, the thing knew where it was. We discussed who would fight it next. A young woman said that it would be her.
Noises told of the thing’s approach. Peering out through broken walls, we looked for the thing. Dusk was giving up its last hold. In it, we saw the unmistakeable profile of the towering fictional lizard monster, Godzilla.
Godzilla came right for us in our building. Scrambling for cover, we went in three different directions as the building was ripped apart. Cement walls flew past my head. Ducking into a dark safe room, I caught my breath and got ready to go fight.
Jumping up, I ran back out to confront Godzilla. The mechanism of how any of us were expected to defeat the creature was unclear but I was sure that I could do it.
Breaking out onto an office building’s flat rooftop, I spied the young woman raising across rooftops, jumping from building to building. Tearing buildings down, Godzilla thundered after her.
Then his tail swept around and took out the building I was in.
I saw it coming but didn’t react in time. As the building went over with cascading thunderous crashes, I drew my body into a ball and fell through the building and into a street.
I wasn’t hurt.
Godzilla was visible over a mile away. The sky was growing lighter, like dawn was coming. Then Godzilla disappeared.
I watched for him to reappear. Word arrived: Godzilla was dead. Gone. The young woman had defeated him but died in the process.
I was amazed and overjoyed. With the sun rising, we could see the city flattened in every direction. People were crawling out of the wreckage.
Gazing across the wreckage toward blue sky, I saw another creature emerging. I knew I’d need to fight it, too. As I prepared to go, I wondered if there would ever be an end to monsters.
Dream end.
Note: I’m aware that I referred to PINO Trump as Trumpzilla recently. My mind apparently worked that into a dream for me. I’ll let you decide what it all means.
The week’s days have puddled together in a limpid pool of memory. I organize a flock of Neurons into enough intelligence to figure out that it’s Frieda. Part of the process is done using the Fitbit on my wrist. It tells me that it’s March 28, 2025. By going backward through the week’s blizzard of news and activities, I reach my conclusion.
Alexa tells me that it’s rainy in Ashland, forty rainy seven degrees with a high of fifty rainy two expected, and a chance of showers. Sunlight boils through my windows, mocking that weather forecast, further confusing my coffeeless Neurons. The weather likes teasing me, mystiying me about how to dress and challenging me to reconsider my plans. I think it’s mean of the weather but I don’t voice that thought. That would just make the weather mad.
A mystery has the household in a tizzy. My wife announced, “I found one of those little microfiber cloths for glass in a package when I was cleaning. I thought I’d put it in the office by my chair so I can clean off my glasses. I must clean them five times a day.”
I’m half listening, half reading, so I deploy supportive husband speak. “Good idea.”
“But it’s gone. I can’t find it.”
I remembered seeing it, too. We talk about our memories of seeing the cloth, when and where, like it’s a wake. We search the area where it was last seen, the laundry room counter used as the cat food service station. Nope, not there. Nor on the floor or behind the dryer. Things fall behind the dryer. I want to install a shelf across that space. I proposed that solution the year we moved into the house in 2006. I suggested it again last night. “Let me think about it,” my wife replies in throughful wife speak, the response first given in 2006. I mentally shrug. If the cloth is behind the dryer, I’m not getting it.
A cursory flashlight search behind the dryer shows nothing. We walk around, combing through other potential places, wondering, where did it go? It’ll turn up someday, we finally decide, quitting. Then a new mystery will start: how did it get there?
PINO Trusk’s number one component, Donald J. Trump, has inspired The Neurons again today. Thinking about how he’s wrecking the world through his prejudice and ignorance, Der Neurons cranked up the 1978 song, “Godzilla” by Blue Oyster Cult, in the morning mental music stream. The latest trigger about my irritation with the mango beast came from Trump targeting ‘improper ideology’ at the Smithsonian Institution. Avoiding laws, debate, popular opinion, etc., he’s using his favorite tool of destruction, an executive order.
Weirdly, Trump’s prejudice against the Federal government’s role in places like the Smithsonian Institution can be traced directly back to the Smithsonian Institutions origins in 1836.
Conservatives and champions of states’ rights, such as John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, argued the federal government did not have the right to establish a national institution, conduct scientific research, or promote knowledge. Federalists and northerners, led by the learned and well-traveled John Quincy Adams, maintained that it was in the nation’s best interest in many ways. Happily, they won out.
As many, including me, note about Trump, the Trusk Regime, Project 2025, and MAGAts, their idea of progress is by going back to the 1800s.
The Neurons created an alternate version of first lines, featuring Trumpzilla and what he’s doing. Did this while making breakfast, so, yes, as little thought as you can imagine was actually engaged.
With a golfer’s grimace and a terrible sound, he pulls the United States government down.
Helpless people around the nation curse his name as he looks in on them.
He picks up a club and throws it back down as he leaves the course and heads for lunch again.
Oh no, they say he’s got to go, go, go Trumpzilla.
If you’re familiar with the song, I naturally had to address the closing lyrics as well.
History shows again and again
How politics points up the folly of man
Trumpzilla!
Okay, off I go. Coffee and I met a match in each other once again. Hope your day brings you some good cheer and satisfaction. Cheers
That didn’t last long.
They repaved one of Ashlandia’s major arteries this past spring. We dealt with that construction since it began with an overpass last fall. But it all was completed this past May.
The results are an awesome and quiet street, smooth as a reflecting pool on a windless day.
Today, they have marked it with the familiar spray paint directions about where to dig the road back up. Which is really, like, depressing. Couldn’t all that work have done at the same time back when so that they don’t need to tear nice road up?
No; that’s been asked and answered before. Different agencies and priorities are involved.
This is why we can’t have nice things.
I’m covering two of my three end of world dreams from last night. First, these dreams had very dark settings. Most of the first one took place underground or at night.
Another aspect that fascinated me about the dreams was how it combined elements of my military career with my IBM employment. Trippy mind work going on there. And now, the dreams.
I was working for IBM and it wasn’t going well. Exhausted from working and trying to save our division, many of us were sleeping at work, going twenty-four hours to try to save it. But we’d run out of time and knew the division was going to be shut down. Worse, and more surreally, we realized that the world was ending. How and why it was ending, the dream never covered. But this was something I knew, and was continually in the back of my dream mind.
To start, I’d been sleeping on the floor in my work office. It’s totally dark. I have a few private possessions and clothing, and that’s it. Voices awaken me. I listen and recognize our division director dismally describing the situation: world ending, division ending, shutting down. We were hanging on to our jobs because it gave us some hope that something could be done to stop the end of the world. Now he’s saying, we failed.
His comments stir me into a restless fit. I pace, trying to brainstorm about what we can do. Crazy ideas emerge but nothing sensible. I want to go talk to him about it, so I dress and head out, tracking him down.
The office area is built on a rock-strewn coastline. I clamber over rocks to find the director. He vaguely knows me. I throw out some ideas and he thanks me but tells me, they’ve already shot down those ideas because we don’t have the resources. It’s all dark doom and gloom.
I wander into another section and find an unused office. Turns out, the IBM offices are built on top of an old military base. The office used to be a missile control center. Finding a key, I put it into a dusty receptacle and turn it.
From elsewhere, I hear alarmed chatter that there are lights on: a missile is firing. I’m horrified to discover that I’ve turned a key to launch a nuclear missile. I’m also shocked; apparently, this one was overlooked when the nukes were removed. I frantically attempt to turn back the key but fail. Finding the director and other people, I try to reassure them that the nuke won’t detonate because it wasn’t armed, but I’m not sure. I’m pretty certain that high explosive are in the warhead and will detonate. I speculate that could cause the nuke to go off.
I run out to watch it. The missile launches into the dark sky. Huge ocean waves are crashing into the buildings, tearing them down. Shouting warnings to others, I climb the slippery rocks and escape.
Time slips past. I’m now surviving with three other men in the remaining office complex. We walk around setting small fires to keep warm and looking for food. We’ve found a cache, so we’re not too worried. I’ve also found a radio and keep tuning it, attempting to pick up radio stations and get some news. I worry about some of the fires they’ve set because they’ve put them under wall calendars and posters, which are catching fire.
“So?” Others ask. “What’s going to happen? We’ll burn down the building? It’s the end of the world.” Although I understand what they’re saying, I’m thinking that they have a bad attitude about surviving.
We drift out of the building to find other survivors. We end up in an underground tunnel in a yellow taxi. I’m driving. The tunnel is dully lit with dim yellow lights. To proceed further, we need to stop at a toll gate. There are three lines. Two lines are hugely backed up. The third has no one waiting. We pull up to the gate for the third ine. I get out to talk to the gate attendant, a short, swarthy guy, and ask him, “Can we use this gate? We don’t have any money — “
He interrupts me by showing me a finger, wait. As this happens, a blond woman in a green skirt comes up and reminds the gate attendant that the gate we’re at is to only be used by VIPs and emergency personnel. She leaves and he turns to me and says, “Now you can.” I understand him to mean we can use it because she’s gone. I thank him and asks, “But how much does it cost?” He replies, “No charge.”
I awaken and think all that through. Falling back asleep, I have another dream about the end of the world. It’s burning, and I know it’s ending.
Another dream begins, and I’m with the other three men again. We’re just leaving the toll gate and enter a building. In there, we find some other people and plentiful supplies, including alcohol. We basically decide to drink and get drunk. Why not? The world is ending.
We’re sitting around drinking and hear the outer door open. Investigating, we find four woman entering. They tell us they were looking for someone to party with since the world is ending. We tell them that we have alcohol and invite them to join us. They agree, and men and women pair off.
My companion is a short, chubby woman. She and I begin making out but she becomes morose about the of the world and starts crying. I try consoling her with hugs and some positive statements but she goes on about how so many people are gone and it’ll all be over soon, which is why she and her friends were looking for someone to party with. She and I go back to the main room, where the others are also arriving. All have had the same situation, that the women are sad and crying. They live.
Dream end. I awoke and realized with surprise that it was part of the first dream because of the background situation, my companions, and the setting.
Mood: Cuspsized
Fog and a cool 58 F greeted Churchill Valley on Wednesday, May 29, 2024. Today’s high will be lucky to break 66 F. Thunderstorms are possible.
Thunderstorms hit us again last night. I was out at my sister’s house for dinner. My BIL was grilling some serious beef, shrimp, and chicken. The smell of rain lingered in the air. Chonky gray clouds cruised overhead.
Rain broke, soft at first, warning shots, but the serious stuff arrive about an hour later. Weather warnings lit the phones. An hour later, the storm had significantly decayed, but I encountered chunks of it while driving home.
I’m on the cusp of heading home. Flight is early tomorrow morning.
My feelings are on a trampoline of reactions. I look forward to being with my wife and fur buds. I look forward to taking on some adulting needs and getting to work on stalled projects.
But I’ll miss Mom and my sisters and BILs, and all the children. Sharing a time zone with them has been very satisfying.
I feel like the nation, even the world, is also on a cusp. Donald Trump’s criminal trial has reached the jury deliberations stage. Analysts, pundits, lawyers, and relatives are all given opinions about the outcome, and why. And then, regardless of the verdict, what’ll happen? We’re on the cusp of finding out.
We’re on summer’s cusp in the northern latitudes. Violent storms have been striking the U.S. Destruction is rising. Travel is disrupted. So are supply chains. 23 are dead in the U.S. People’s power has been cut off. Is this an aberration or the new climate change norm? We’re on cusp of learning.
Israel attacked Rafah on Sunday. ‘All eyes are on Rafah.’ What will happen there next? I’m not arguing the right of Israel to defend itself, the role of the U.S. and other nations, nor the reasons why Hamas launched their attack last October, triggering this latest season of death and destruction. I’m like many, wondering if we’re on the cusp of a greater conflagration.
While we’re at it, Russia continues its assault on Ukraine, and Ukraine fights back. The deaths mount. More NATO resources might get involved. Are we on the cusp of world war? Could this be the cusp of a long-feared nuclear war?
And we’re on the cusp in the U.S. of finding out how extreme the GOP will be to keep people from voting. We’re on the cusp of finding how much of democracy they’re willing to destroy to keep the voters silenced and stay in power.
Looks like we’re on the cusp of a long, historic summer.
Being on the cusp of so many possibilities incited The Neurons to fill the morning mental music (Trademark almost ready) with “Enter Sandman” by Metallic. I can see The Neurons’ reasoning: this summer could be a nightmare, and that’s what the 1991 sound is all ’bout.
Hey, ho, here we go. Be strong, stay safe, be well, and Vote Blue in 2024. Here’s the music video. My coffee tank has already been filled.
Cheers
Demofloof (floofinition) – 1. An animal who shows or explains how things are done to other animals.
In use: “Parents, especially mothers, are often the demofloofs that young animals depend upon, but when the young are orphaned, other animals must take up the mantle of demofloof and show them how to be proper animals.”
2. An adherent of the premise of rule by animals.
In use: “Animals who witnessed and understood the butchery humans were inflicting on Earth were beginning the demofloof movement, advocating that animals should work together to reduce and limit human influence and take over.”
The first dream was simple and peculiar. I was with male friends from different times of my life, but we were all young adults, regardless of how old I was or they were when I knew them. I think there were a dozen of us. All were people I haven’t seen in years. Some of them have died.
We were playing a game in the living that required us to bounce off the walls. I was watching, though, trying to remember the game’s name and the rules. One friend went into the kitchen. I went after him to ask questions, but the dream was interrupted, and that’s where it stopped.
My second dream was about land, property, and building. My wife and I had bought some property. The deal was set in motion, but was incomplete.
Visiting our property prior to taking possession, a sort of wooded country place of several acres and buildings, we encountered a group of young teenagers with a pile of remotes. They were taking turns hurling remotes at trees and rocks to break the remotes, an activity that fed giddy laughter. Talking to them about it, a smiling girl said that her father encouraged them to break the remotes like this to relieve stress and tension. Feeling that we could use a release, my wife and I threw some remotes and concluded, it is a great way to relieve stress. Meanwhile, I wondered how they’d collected so many remotes.
We went into a small house that was part of our new property. A balding, stocky man and several teenagers were busy working on it inside. An old building with white walls, tall, traditional windows made it a light and airy place. I somehow know that the layout was different than it had been. The man working on the place confirmed it, explaining what had been where and how they’d been moved. As he talked, I said, “That’s right, you’re the original building.” He confirmed that, but I knew that he wasn’t the person who sold us the property. He confirmed that, too, telling me that he’d been hired.
Then I remembered his name was Was, but then questioned myself on the spelling. Was it Was, Waas, or Wass?
In the third dream, I was flying in an aircraft. It seemed like it was an advanced technology. It lacked wings and was quietly traveling fast and high above a planet.
I thought the planet was Earth, but I wasn’t sure, and was collecting details in search of verification. A bright yellow-white sun shone in a blue sky. Only a few sketchy, high cirrus clouds marred the sky’s impeccable blue. The ground below was mostly sandy brown and flat with green and dark blue patches that sometimes looked black. I took the dark blue/black patches to be lakes or puddles. A haze-filled horizon seemed to veil mountains.
I tried understanding which way we were traveling, and the sun’s path, as a way to verify it was Earth. Therein was an interesting duality. I was in the dream with friends (although they’re nobody that I know from this life), discussing our plans (we were on a mission to find other people), but I was also aware that I was in the dream and was trying to understand the dream.
That’s where it ended.
Michael Seidel, writer 