Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
Ah, so the ‘no new wars’ POTUS, Trump, he who thinks he so richly deserves the Nobel Peace Prize, has declared a war on drugs. After having several Venezuelan boats attacked and destroyed by the United States military, seventeen people killed, Trump is now attacking United States citizens in Chicago through ICE, the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives raids. United States citizens were dragged out of their apartments during the night. Their apartments were trashed. All without due process.
All this by the Grand Old Party, the party begun by Abraham Lincoln. President Lincoln, who declared, “A house divided cannot stand,” a phrase he took from the Bible. How sickening now, less than two hundred years later, that party is deliberately pursuing courses to divide the United States by wantonly attacking United States. It’s not just part of the war on immigrants that he began on day one as the 47 POTUS, recklessly abducting, shackling, and deporting people. No, Trump is also attacking Blue states, deliberately withholding funds that were appropriated by Congress. These funds supported approved projects to improve situations. Some are infrastructure. All employed people. Without the approving funding, these projects will most likely un-employ people. That’ll drop state, local, and Federal spending and revenue. Trump, in his hatred for the United States, is deliberately sabotaging the economy. It is surreal.
A house divided cannot stand. You’d think the GOP would know that phrase. You’d think they understand the principle behind it, and the history upon which the speech was made. Yet, they mindlessly endorse and encourage Trump’s war on their own nation. Trump is even trying to set up the use of the U.S. military against United States citizens.
All this by a man with six deferments, an individual who never served the country, who now holds pretensions to being king, an absolute and tyrannical ruler, a dictator. There’s supposed to be a term limit for the presidency, but he’s changing the White House without regard to tradition, norms, history, or good taste, building a monstrosity of a ‘ball room’. Many think these changes are a signal that he never plans to leave.
Donald Trump has left a path of destruction and failures behind him. He’s been a failure at everything he attempted except for lying and being a con man. He declared multiple bankruptcies. He has several failed marriages, cheating on his wife just as he cheated on his taxes. He’s even a failure as a friend, once declaring that he and Jeffrey Epstein were friends, and now denying him, just as Judas denied Jesus in the Bible. Now, as POTUS, like his businesses, his ‘university’, and his marriages, he’s destroying the United States, dividing its population. Are he and his GOP enablers really so dense that they don’t think that destroying the economies of the blue states won’t contribute to the greater downfall of the United States economy?
A house divided cannot stand.
We’ve learned that lesson once. Well, some did. It’s clear that MAGAts and the GOP in general have forgotten that lesson. Either that, or they, like Trump, hate the United States and the freedoms and principles for which it stands.
I can’t conclude that it’s anything but that: Trump hates the United States, as do his supporters. Because as we know, especially with Trump, actions speak louder than words.
And Trump, clearly, is intent on destroying the nation.
Dream night as busy as SFO airport on the week before Mother’s Day. All were in close third person POV, like I was outside of myself and could see me, but was focused ONLY on me.
First, there I was, being told, “Hey, you won a major prize.
Me: I did? What is it?
“A significant amount of money and famous hardware. Hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
I was very excited. Really! Can you tell me more? What did I win it for?
“You’ll find out. Just show up this morning and the details will be provided.”
This morning. That’s very short notice. I can’t make it. I’m taking my cat to the vet this morning.
“Well, the prize is waiting for you, but it won’t be there forever.”
The thing about this is it was just voices, as I’ve depicted. I saw a blue sky and a white building on a hill, but that was it. It was almost like I was just having a two-way conversation by myself.
I awoke and puzzled over that with Tucker curled up beside me. Then, back to sleep, and another dream.
I was on a curve on a road, where it crested a hill. A sniper was high on a steep hill green with trees and bushes. Shooting down on us, he was forcing us to take cover and stay still.
Walking, I came upon this happening. “What’s going on,” I demanded of my small group. I knew they were my group, but don’t recall anyone. They told me about the sniper.
I was pissed. “Shoot him. Where are our shooters?”
“They tried. They couldn’t do it.”
I scowled. “Give me a rifle.”
I peered up the hill until locating him and fired one shot. Handing the rifle back, I said, “There. Done. Was that so hard?”
I turned away as my group began talking to each other about what I’d done, very impressed about it.
Then I awoke again. I wanted to ensure I was up at 6:30. It was 4:10. Back to sleep and another dream.
I was standing by the side of a road on its shoulder. This road seemed like the same road as in the sniper dream. Also, it seemed like highway 92 in California, on the way to Half Moon Bay.
Someone said, “Hey, we need your help.”
Sounded like a male behind me. I turned, wondering, do they mean me? Before I could ask that, they pointed up a hill. (I never saw any of them but the pointing hand.) “Children are up there,” they said. “They need to be rescued. Fly up them and get them.”
I was taken back. “What makes you think I can do that? I can’t fly.”
“Yes, you can, I saw you. You just did it. You just flew in here.”
“I think you’re wrong.”
Others had gathered. I was aware of their presence but didn’t see them. It didn’t prevent several from saying, “Yes, you just flew in. I saw it, too.”
Coming around to the idea that I could fly because so many insisted that I could, I said, “Okay, I’ll try. I seriously doubt that I can.”
But that’s what I did. I flew up to the children, toddlers, and young children, none seeming like they were over six or seven years old. The speed and effortless action surprised me. I was there in a blink without wings, cape, or any kind of aid.
Unlike earlier, I saw all of the children. They seemed like they were in good health and uninjured, but inexplicably alone on a mountainside. “Who are you?” one asked.
“I’m here to rescue you,” I answered. Picking them up — like nine or ten children — in my arms, I said, “We’re going to fly down. Hang on.”
Then, blink, I’m at the bottom, putting the children down. Conversations, congratulations, and astonishment flourished around me. And then, because I could, I disappeared because I’d flown away.
I was at the bottom of a sloping paved lot. A young friend was walking further above me. Machete in hand and weird grin on his face, I shouted at him to stop. When he didn’t, I felt that I didn’t have a choice but to shoot him. I did, killing him. Oddly, there was no blood and no one saw what I did. I walked away, hugely sad by what had happened. I walked around for a while. It was some sort of quasi-military complex. Others were working but I was in charge, and they left me alone, keeping a respectful distance from me as I walked and brooded.
Watching the skies and listening, I perceived that an attack was eminent. I don’t know who was attacking. They didn’t expect us to be prepared but I had other ideas. Jumping into a sports car, I drove down a hill and slid to a stop. Another person was there. I told him, “Go tell everybody with a car who is a good driver to bring their car own here.”
The first arrived, a young, skinny black guy in a silver Starion. He did a power slide and a little drifting on his arrival. Telling him, “Stay in the car,” I directed him to drive his car into a shed. There, I directed him up a ramp. Machines attached a platform to his car’s underside. It took maybe five seconds. The platform featured engines, weapons, and wings. The kid was agog at the transformation. He drove it out of the shed as others arrived.
I announced, “An attack is coming. They think they’re coming to destroy us, but I’m going to change all your cars into aircraft, and you’re going to meet and stop them.” I then went into an explanation, flying was just like driving. Within minutes, several cars were done and the drivers were learning to control their cars in the air.
End dream
You’d think the start was when the body was found. That’s the beginning of the crime investigation. It isn’t, of course, the crime’s beginnings. For that, you need to slip into a wayback machine and ride time to when the killer was young and beginning their career, back to before the victim and killer had ever met, back to a nascent moment when everyone was happy and oblivious to the future.
After all, the killer just wanted revenge. Their victim had killed first, but the body hadn’t been found. At least, that’s what the killer believed.
They were always one to act on their beliefs.
Here’s an explosion from the past. One thousand musicians assembled and played Rage Against the Machine’s song, “Killing in the Name” (1992) in Frankfurt. Pretty damn good time for such a song. Repeat after me, “Now do as they told ya. Now do as they told ya.”
Hah. Now the outre:
“Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me.”
Repeat.
Louder.
LOUDER.
Rage against what’s going on and how the world is twisting. Stop the killing in the name. Insert whatever conclusion you want for the name – hate, nationalism, religion, money… There’s quite a list of absurd reasons for why people kill for you to select from.
I dreamed last night that I was shooting people. Don’t worry, I hadn’t gone on a rampage; I was being told by others who to shoot and when.
They were real people, and not voices in my head, or ghosts. It was a beautiful day. I cringe to note this, but I was on a grassy knoll. Around me, though, was mostly country side. I had a rifle. A person beside me – not anyone that I know – would be given a piece of paper. They would read something and then look around, and point, and I would aim and shoot.
It didn’t bother me in the dream, but this is not me. I’ve gone hunting a few times, but didn’t like it and stopped. I was in command and control in the military, and controlled nukes, but I eventually grew to dislike that role. As I’ve lived, I’ve concluded that there are enough threats to life out there without us going about killing one another. Yes, I understand that life is finite, and we’ll all die, and killing another is simply advancing the outcome. But I also understand that killing brings waves of actions and reactions. Some of those waves never stop, but build and expand, creating more killing.
So, it was a startling dream for me to experience. But I was just following orders, right?
“I had to kill him,” he said with a calm voice.
“Assassinate,” a Secret Service agent said.
He smiled. “Assassinate, kill. Funny how we decorate our killing terms. War is acceptable for killing, but terrorism, murder, and assassination are not, even though it’s all about killing. The differences are the who and why, and sanctions. Well, I killed him — excuse me.”
His smile developed a humorous tint previously absent. “I mean, I assassinated him because he was a threat to me and my family. He scared us. The way he spoke on television, the way he sounded, the things he said, all of it, he sounded insane, and it was scary when he started talking about nukes, and using nukes. I don’t want a nuclear war. I don’t think anyone does except crazy people. Like him. And the thing is, as a crazy person, he’s the one that can order us, our country, to use our nuclear weapons to attack another country. But the thing is, we don’t what would have happened then. It would have been like opening Pandora’s box, except Pandora’s box is filled with nuclear and biological weapons, war and terrorists.
“So it was simple. I had to kill him to protect me and my family, and our way of life. It’s funny, but I think he would approve.”
I thought, at first, it was an episodic dream. Those are the ones that feel like I’m in a television show. They’re usually police procedurals or adventure stories.
This one felt like that at first, but then shifted. It became an intense dream and included zombies, a macabre “Groundhog Day,” and the ever-unseen, half-remembered advisers. It began with me killing me in a bleak, yellow and gray landscape under a bleached out sky.
I, the adult, was the victim. The killer was a young version of me. I lacked clues about who he was and what he was doing at the start. Then, after he killed me, and it began again, I realized, that’s me. He’s trying to kill me. Again.
He did kill me again, and again. I couldn’t count how many times he killed me. I grew tired of it. So I killed my younger self.
That didn’t stop it. Other young versions of me came after me. If they killed me, the dream began again. If I killed them, more came to kill me. They were all named Michael, but it wasn’t just the English – Hebrew spelling used. I saw Polish and other languages on pieces of paper. The names were handwritten on line notebook paper. An short, elderly white woman, her hair in a bun, wearing wire-rim glasses, gave me the papers, one at at time. The names on the paper confused me. I asked her, “What’s going on?” She answered in a foreign language.
The advisers finally spoke up. I took them at first as F.B.I. agents or scientists, but now I think of them as advisers, someone there who is supposed to be helpful but not fully remembered. They prefer to be anonymous and in the background. This dream exposed them to the light, and they were uncomfortable.
They explained what was going on, that, yes, all these versions of me existed, and were out to kill me. That’s what they were driven to do, because, like in “Highlander,” there could be only one. Many of them came after me like they were zombies. I had to cut off their heads – my heads – to stop them. And I did, again, again, again, again.
I grew weary of killing them. The advisers told me, and I knew, I was winning, but I was tired of killing my other selves. As less of them existed, they became purified, and more in tune with me. They started knowing how I would think and act. They set up ambushes based on their knowledge and began working together. Meanwhile, as I killed them, I became stained, and less pure. I was enduring more than living.
Until it came down, at last, according to the advisers, only one other remained. He was almost the same age as me. I didn’t want to kill him. He was trying to refrain from killing me, but he was driven. Overwhelmed by his urges, he would attack me. I would take him to the point of death and stop. I didn’t want to kill him. I asked the advisers if there was anything else I could do instead of killing him.
No; they were sad. They understood. No; he must be killed.
He understood as well. He wanted me to kill him so we could end the day. Eventually, I did. The advisers confirmed, the other Michaels were dead. Only one remained, me, weary of death and killing to the point that I was tired of being alive.
I never knew the point of all of this. I was the only Michael remaining, on this bleak landscape. The advisers departed without telling me, and I awoke.
Michael Seidel, writer 