Tag: old building

The Factory Dream

I was a young man, possibly in my early twenties. Some other fellows were with me at a factory. I’m not sure how many were present. There were at least three, but maybe five, not including our overseer. I never took a head count.

We were in a factory doing a special job. No details of that job are available. It was cold but sunny weather. The factor was a plain, spare building with a whitewashed apparance that presented an air that it was on the verge of being abandoned or falling apart. Corrugated metal construction. Gaps in the walls. Bare, cracked cement floor. Signs that it’d be used for something else before and was now on a fifth or sixth life.

Under an uneven combination of weak overhead lights and sporadic, fading sunlight eking in through large, filthy windows, we worked around a long, dirty conveyor belt putting things together. As part of this, each of us were given some small black devices which seemed to be some sort of governor and also a CPU that told the system what to do. To install mine, I had to climb up a tall metal shaft and slip it into a slot just so. Some jiggling followd and then the conveyor belt sprang into noisy activity.

I don’t know what we were making but we shut everything back down and gathered again. The overseer, an oversized white guy in his mid-forties or early fifties, receding brown hairline and white short sleeve shirt with a tie, told us that we had one more run and then we could go home. But the other run was at another factory, about a mile away.

I had a car, a dark brown 1970s era Chevy Malibu. Sort of a ratty vehicle. I asked another for a ride to the other factory. Once we got there, I realized that I would need to return to the previous factory. We’d been sleeping in some little locker room there on cots. I’d left my clothes and gear there, not to mention my car, and would need a ride back.

This seemed to irritate the other guy, a big, good-looking guy with short, curly hair. He turned surly, and then shunned me during the rest of the session and wouldn’t speak to me. I was taken back by the change and wanted to talk to him about it.

The regular factory workers arrived. They all seemed to be foreigners to go by their dress, appearance, and language. They watched me as I climbed up to install my governor, laughing and joking about it. I gathered they had some other way of doing that and my method seemed strange to them. I tried explaining, “This is what I learned,” and asked for information about the other way. They wouldn’t address my questions.

That’s where the dream ended.

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A Dream About Previous Work

It was such a long, uninterrupted dream. It involved Michele, an ex-coworker, and the BlackICE computer security product we sold and supported.

I came across Michele. She and I had worked together for ten years. She told me that BlackICE was working again. I was surprised; did it ever stop working? Not that I knew. She told me that it had ceased and then disappeared from the market. Then, suddenly, it was back. She, along with others, were trying to learn who brought it back.

I offered to help, which was gratefully accepted. She led me down a narrow path through a short field past a few trees. Going through a gray metal door, we entered a two-story place. A minimalist place, constructed from cinder blocks, it had two dirty windows. Old wooden workbenches with old, old, large computer pieces lined the walls. Up narrow metal stairs which shook when we walked up them, was a loft with an old gray desk, monitor and computer on it. Two people, men who I knew were engineers, were working, one downstairs, one up. Both greeted me.

“There it is,” one man said. “It’s live again.”

Michele had explained to me that they hoped that it would go live, allowing them to trace it. That’s what they started doing. She told me a more senior engineer was due and asked me to go outside and wait for him so I could bring him in. As I went to leave, he entered, slender with a gray beard and hair, wearing a tan trench coat, carrying a brown attaché. Someone said, “That’s Alexc,” to which I replied, “I know.” Seeing me, Alexsaid, “Oh, you.”

It sounded a little derogatory. I replied, “You know me, Alex. We’ve met before.”

He nodded, I guess acknowledging that.

Alex went to a computer, studied it, and then directed some activity. We were to continue monitoring the systems for further activity. Michele was told to go upstairs. She did. Though I wasn’t officially involved, I went up after her. There was another room up there which I hadn’t noticed before. Very dark, it lacked furniture but was loaded with stacked servers, keyboards and monitors, and was very cold. She settled on the floor in near darkness and used her jacket as a blanket. I told her, “I’ll stay up here with you if you want.”

She answered, “I appreciate that.”

I sat on the floor beside her, our backs against the wall. Alex came up to check on her. He said, “It’s going to take a very long time. We’re setting up another place. When it’s ready, I’ll send for you.” He then thanked me for helping and departed.

Michele and I began falling asleep. We decided to nudge each other to stay awake. One of the monitors leaped into life. Numbers and graphs danced across it. Jumping up, I said, “Michele, look.” Her eyes were closed and she was snoring. I shook her awake. Another engineer came up and said, “We’re set up at the new place. Come on.”

We arrived at the new place after a short walk through the night. This new facility was low and modern, cement, with blacked out glass windows. The three of us entered. Long consoles loaded with gear were manned. People greeted us. Michele was shown to her workstation. Alex asked me if I wanted to stay and be a part of it. This is where the dream ended.

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Bewildering Red, White, and Blue Dream

I was staying in a two-story place with many other relatives. A diverse group, among the others were my father, two nephews, a sister-in-law, and one nephew’s wife and children. We were staying in the building temporarily. It impressed by being old and mundane, cheaply furnished with things which might have been procured at the curb on trash day or from secondhand stores and estate sales. It would only be for a few days. We understood and accepted its limitations.

One thing that did stand out was the owners’ use of red, white, and blue bunting and decorations. Much of it was worn and torn, and some of it was stained and moldy.So much of it in some many places, it was a great distraction. Especially, we noted to one another, since it’s not any sort of holiday that would call for decorations like that. It seemed like they wore their patriotism on their sleeves and by doing so much of it, they demeaned it. But it was their place, so WTH?

My nephew’s wife decided on another course. Without telling us, she and her daughters took much of the bunting down on the second floor because it annoyed them. I didn’t approve and told her so. Her husband, my nephew, defended her in his loud voice, joking about the whole thing. Dad agreed with me, it shouldn’t have been done, but shrugged it off, refusing to involve himself.

Everyone except Dad and I took off. A fuller understanding of the dwelling emerged. It was like a shoebox stood on one end. All the walls were white, except one upstairs, which was pink. The upper floor had a loft so you could look over and see about half of the bottom floor and the front entrance. No furniture was in that space. That floor was covered by a thin, worn, and soiled harvest-gold carpet with an extremely short pile, almost like indoor/outdoor carpeting.

Someone came to the door and then stepped in. Looking over the loft’s railing, I saw that it was a local police officer dressed in a black uniform. He said he was investigating vandalism. Going down and speaking with him, I realized that the owners had reported removing the second-floor bunting as vandalism. I told the officer what’d happened. While doing that, I indicated one wall to our left. Although white and broad, red, white, and blue ribbons covered the wall. These ribbons were like a blue ribbon given out as an award. There must have been thousands.

The officer considered everything and then said it didn’t sound like something he should be dealing with and left. I went back up and told Dad about this. As I did, the others returned. I repeated the story about what’d happened.

The others again prepared for an outing, and Dad and I again remained behind. Someone knocked on the front door, and then a state trooper entered. Looking up at me, he told me he was there to investigate reported vandalism. I laughed at this. Going down to talk with him, I discovered the ribbons gone from the first-floor wall, revealing a well-used and large corkboard. I asked the officer about the report, laughing as he explained that he was looking for missing ribbons, and then told him about the red, white, and blue ribbons which had covered the wall. The rest returned while the officer was there. Dad came down and told the officer that we’d pay for the missing bunting and ribbons. The officer replied, “No, the people wanted prosecution.”

The trooper decided it wasn’t his problem. He’d make the report and it would be forwarded to DA for further action.

Dream end.

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