The Elysian Fields

I think it was the fourth dream, out of the five very vivid dreams I recall having over the past three nights, that I felt had the biggest, most usable portion of Story in it.

Which is why, out of those five dreams I recall having it is they only one with contents that I can not recall.

Except, I think, it had something to do with some kind of war.

The first dream involved a train, kind of a cross between a Polar Express and a Hogwarts Express. I'm sure the over-roof scene in the former provided some influence, as I was required at one point to travel over the roof of one or two cars to get to the engine. The engine was, I believe, an Alco RS-1, because that was one of my dad's favorites, and I remember wishing he was there to see it with me. This train was some kind of gift, award, or reward to me: the over-the-top bit was a final test before I took ownership of it. Apparently, it was a train of thought, or imagination, and the tracks would go wherever I thought they did. This dream was long and quite detailed. Unfortunately, that's all I remember of it.

The second or third dream ~ and I can not recall which of the two came first ~ was, pretty much, an entire James Bond movie. Or, more accurately, a spy movie. I can almost see bits and pieces of it, but the more I try to recall, the quicker it fades away. Although I was an actor in the movie, I had little or no resemblance to me, and, at the same time, I knew it was just a movie, because I saw it through the camera's eye as much as through my own. The good guys one, the bad guys were defeated, and much action was had.

The third or second dream involved the work truck and a week's... not quite vacation, but some week long seminar of some sort. It was at a kind of a cross between a campground and a Disney-level theme park (but with a natural theme about it). I had stopped to get some additional food supplies at a Store 24 type of inconvenience mart. I remember selecting a bag of chips larger than pillow-sized, and thinking it would last the whole week and then some. Around the time I was looking for a few more items, and angling towards the cashier, the whole place grew to more of the theme park gift shop scale. Instead of a crowded little store, it was a multi-story affair, with all kinds of mostly useful items for an eco-friendly stay in a woodland environment. Some of the stuff might have been specific for landscaping or permaculture ~ I remember getting that impression, but I don't recall anything else about this one.

The fifth dream was not an action movie: it was a house-hunting expedition, although, at one point, it involved a gym class. Mixed sports gym class. Football, basketball, probably baseball. Allegedly an organized sport, it had elements of at least two out of three of those. Meanwhile, the coach was flying a kite. Literally. Of course, he did so because he said it was an excellent spot, what with all the low tree limbs and criss-crossing arrays of telephone lines. That, however, was just an interlude in the dream.

The rest of it had to do with the house and the lot it was on, which had about four acres of open land (one small segment of which was used for the interlude).

A quiet, nearly private road snaked up to, and around, and then away from the house. The house was tall, relatively small of footprint, but with several almost tower like sections. Walking up the driveway, the first bit of it was of wood construction, and two of the tower-ish bits in stone. The house was old, probably 150-200 years old, although in decent repair for the most part.

A front porch, set at somewhat odd angles, had a steeped roof. From the driveway, it was well above grade, and you could see several large hives ~ barrel-sized things, really - hidden in the rafters.

An immense sycamore tree was directly in front of the porch, to the right of the driveway, and left of the winding road. The tree looked much as a sycamore should at this time of the year in this climate: leafless. It hosted dozens if not thousands of birds nests and yet more huge bee hives. Although the tree trunk ~ probably about forty feet or more in diameter ~ took up much of the space between driveway and road, there was room for a severely eroded gully between the two. The flow did nothing to the house we were looking at; across the street, though, a flood threatened to engulf the neighboring house.

The driveway ~ dirt, or maybe gravel ~ went around the house, wrapping around to the stone towery bits, where there was three or five garage doors. There was also a parking area in the front, below the front porch, that was filled with limousines (a side business of the current home owner, who ran a Subaru dealership).

From the roadside, I could walk up between parts of the house, but that grade soon climbed higher, and I realized I'd be about four stories over the garage doors, so I climbed back down.

The homeowners arrived to give us a tour after we had walked around the house once (or rather, to the garage and back, as that area was a thickly wooded steep incline and impassable ~ a retaining wall about two stories high came out from the garage area).

The lady of the house ran some kind of holistic healing/yoga studio business, and there was a section to the left of the driveway that had partial or full walls, and almost stall-like sections with different displays. A couple of areas had some water sculptures that had immense free-floating copper bowls that would be pushed by irregular flows of bubbling water. When the bowls struck the rock edges of the pools, they would ring like cathedral bells.

Beautiful stuff.

Shame I woke up before getting a tour of the inside of the house ~ I'm sure it would have been amazing.

So, after spending several hours over one of Deb's cousins for some sort of celebration, someone knocks on the door.

Turns out it's for me. They call me over, and I don't recognize the lady. She has a toddler with her.

She starts walking around telling everyone that I am the father. She insists this, over and over. I still have no clue who she is - not even a hint of familiarity. Trying to get her to leave fails, so I call for police backup. While trying to explain the situation - poorly - the phone (Deb's new one) decides its out of power and dies before I can explain exactly where I am. The name of the place was on the tip of my tongue, but I couldn't think of it.

So, back inside, more trying to coax this lady to leave; to explain to her how there's no possible way I could be the father, all to no avail...

And then I woke up, and it was exactly 23 minutes since my alarm had gone off, and I walked across the room to turn it off, then lay down to stretch, and, ultimately fall asleep.

In those 23 minutes, I covered at least a half hour of drive time, 3-4 hours (or more) of whatever we were celebrating, and then about a half hour of confrontation and arguing. These time figures did not involve skipping around, but moment-by-moment events, discussions, and so forth.

Dream time is strange stuff.

A few days ago, some family members stopped by for a visit.

Both of my grandfathers were there - I'm sure of it - although they weren't part of the focus, indeed I didn't actually see them.

patrixa's mom was there, looking as I remember her being for most of my life, with a tiny hint of her last few years, and a slightly larger but still small impression of her from some pictures I've seen of her when she was much younger. She was smiling, not talking, always facing me, and always remaining a few feet away - I'd say "hovering" but I mean that in the sense of feet-on-the-ground, as one might do at a party.

My father was much closer, with an arm around me, and he was happy. Whenever I moved around, he stayed with me. He was the only one who spoke, although he only did so once.

There were other people in the dream as well, from work, other friends, all milling about talking about a variety of things.

After giving me a quick hug, my dad said, in a very reassuring manner: "Why don't you let us dead folks stick around, okay?"

Hmmm... might make frasadillas for the cookout on Monday... have to taste test the sassafras leaves first and make sure they're ready.

A few odd dreams, one might have a story in it. Strange off-beat stuff.

The bear (one of, rather) walked up to the back of the house, nearly to the deck, and then right under the family room window, about three feet from the house. It was Justin's first sighting. One of the smaller ones - only about two hundred pounds. From discussion with my neighbor, there are at least one of about twice that size. Another neighbor sighted a mom with four young 'uns crossing the street down by the old mill stream (at the end of the block and around the corner.)

Deb reported that after the bear went around the corner, it seemed to have been spooked by something and took off across the the neighbors yard. Maybe Tanis or Tika chased it off?

Wrote a birthday present for my dad last night - it's on the other laptop. He always said that when things go really bad, at least it helps me write some really good stuff - well, in this case, it's not really good stuff, but silly and whimsical, a look on what might have happened if he was able to become what he called a Gentleman Farmer (owned the farm, didn't have to do the work.) I'm willing to bet if that had ever happened, you wouldn't be able to stop him from working the fields, especially if he had a tractor. I'm still considering holding off on posting it until his actual birthday - most of you know this will be the first where he's not in attendance, but if anyone wants to catch up on the backstory it started here and is summed up here - but he either already read it or isn't ever going to, depending on how that stuff pans out...

Very odd dream last night, and unfortunately I only remember small little bits that hint at deeper and longer parts I can't recall:

Something about Native Americans and Vikings. I was not me in the dream, but I was one of those two races, newly arrived at a village of the other along with one companion. I believe at the start, we were the Native Americans. Some bits about not being up to the job of being a legendary hero, and given a horse that was considered equally unimpressive (shades of the dun horse?) The dream itself being a legendary story, of course my character overcomes those obstacles and becomes a great hero - but I remember even less about that part.

I do remember something at the end where a young girl was constructing a stone lodge for her grandfather - it was the old way, and the others wouldn't understand, but she did. She would bring him here, and essentially entomb him, and he would receive a death with high honor. By this point, I think we were Norse, although the rituals surrounding the construction of the crypt-to-be lent more towards Norse mythology as well. The crypt was being constructed wholly within an older abandoned building, and that building sat on the edge of a trail and on the edge of worlds - as we walked out of the structure, we realized we had crossed back to this world. There was some memory of having gone in the other direction earlier. A car drove by as we hid behind the building, and, we realized, the girl building the lodge was now a girl exploring the old building. We slowly made our way around the outside, as she investigated the initial noises we had made.

Had somewhat of a rough night - constant drifting and waking, and one constant dream that kept intruding into my thoughts, pushing aside whatever I was thinking about, and overriding any other dreams.

Some background information first.

First, I've been spending the past week working on a multi-section maintenance program with a number of multi-dimensional dynamic arrays, and some intricate ways of dancing around the data and getting it into the database.

Second, despite all that you may have read (if you have been reading them!) in recent posts, I am not reading Firebringer - the wife hijacked that before I could get to it. While in a holding pattern there, she cleared me for Spirits in the Wire. So far, I've gotten as far as the second time the blank browser screen started to show an expanding pattern, as if something was trying to escape from the net.

Third, yesterday morning I read an article in the Berklee alumni magazine about, in part, a concert at Auschwitz.

Fourth, I listened to the Schindler's List soundtrack in the car yesterday - I had selected it a few days before, as I work through my movie soundtracks; it just happened to be next in line.

There, now the dream itself.

As I mentioned at the start, the dream returned again and again, but it did not repeat. It merely showed fragments that progressed.

The dream started as a single dot. That dot gradually grew and expanded, but instead of seeming like an opening eye, it became a pair of parenthesis. As it grew, it became apparent to me that it was a dynamic array, and elements were being added to it. The elements themselves, while just represented by counters, had a menacing nature, and I knew that what was being constructed was Not Good.

Dimensions were being added to the array as well, and more elements began to grow the array. I had to develop code to try to contain the array, but it continued to grow throughout the night. Despite my efforts, the growth continued - not rapidly, but slow and lumbering and dark and threatening. I woke up a few times in the night, even got out of bed twice, and each time I drifted off once more, it returned, relentless.

It stopped growing early in the morning - or, rather, it stopped being the center of my attention. Output, you see, was being produced.

I was no longer coding or dealing with code, but was instead holding a newspaper, and reading an article about some ceremonies at Auschwitz. The article had some opening piece about families from the Lehigh Valley who had many relatives who went into Auschwitz but did not come out. Pictures of the gravestones - only those that were at the head of bodies that could be linked to the local area - were printed below the opening text. As I first looked, there were a few rows of one inch square photos, grainy black and white shots on the paper. As I looked at each gravestone, more were being added, and I realized that the photographs were what the array had been storing, now appearing on newsprint as fast as I could recognize each image. Some had names, others were plain stone, but each one was a victim of the Nazi machine.

When I woke, the paper had scrolled down - filled left to right, and for hundreds of feet, with one inch photos of gravestones - and showed no signs of stopping.