Tag: sinking

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Dream Journal

Private Property: Several Absurd Scenarios

In the hinterlands far out in Nevada, rich citizens build a pair of eccentric mansions right next to each other. These private residences resemble city apartment blocks in their scale, shape, and modernist aesthetic. Yet a lone high-end car is usually all that can be seen on the miles-long public access road that links out to them (essentially just a private drive), crossing a sandy ridge which obscures them from eyeline. The buildings belong to a pair of relatives who still don’t often see each other, a father & son or perhaps an uncle and nephew, yet though the twin properties are huge the structures are built in a small corner practically touching, with the absurd addition of a tall wall between them blocking a direct view.

Zooming in on a map of islands in the Pacific, and it appears that one has been completely bought and taken over, now labelled “twitter.com”. I realize the islands are a bit further north than I though, and the the round bad in the middle of the grayscale topological map is the Hawaiian island of Molokai.

Participating in a reenactment of the Titanic sinking, I remember the 1997 movie and position myself near the middle. When the ship keels into the air, I hope to survive the split by minimizing the distance I drop. I do, but things have gone a bit differently and it’s the forward half that stays afloat. Long enough, as it happens, that its momentum carries it within swimming distance of the shore of a small private island (owned by the musician Sting, in fact). The ship effectively pulls aside it. I spot a few Mexican dudes hanging out playing cards, listening to ranchero music. It’s oddly domestic enough that even on our sinking vessel we passengers hesitate to jump in the water and interrupt their day.

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Dream Journal

Nature Danger

Corey Matthews (from Boy Meets World) won’t shut up in class because his questions are too existentially important. I’m playing a drum made from a record album, a tiny gap between the drumhead and the frame. The rhythms are extra cool.

Controversy in Trump’s military as a small Navy ship, The Ensign, is ordered to the front of a convoy despite being a fairly weak ship in rough seas. It’s never seen again. Recordings of radio chatter have the ship asking for confirmation of the order, but proceeding anyways per protocol. Barely audible, a radio operater for the convoy can be heard saying “we’re not even going to announce anything?”

Coming round a riverbend, I spot one — no, a pair of huge herons, twice as tall as a man. Nature danger: a bit like being in Area X, or another Vandermeer world. Despite knowing how strange this place is, my companion (Jennifer? Who’s Jennifer?) runs chasing an allurement through a long series of doors. I chase after, but she’s gone, disappeared by mysterious menace.

Categories
Dream Journal

Novel Anxieties (Ones I Don’t Have to Feel Too Bad About)

“Excuse me, what do you think’s going to happen if you keep doing that?”

An entitled, stocky, well-dressed white girl is throwing dirt and plants over the fence from the garden next door. I happen to be out in the backyard smoking from my smoking kit and tell her there’s people that live here, and to stop. She keeps doing it even when I shut the fence’s windowed door and lower its shades. So I hop the fence and get all up in her face telling her to get out. She pouts all the way back to her tan scooter. I get my phone out and get pictures of her and her license plate, at which point she yanks down her shirt a little bit. I say “come back when you have a better attitude. Thanks for showing me your boobies, that’s always nice.”

My landlord gets called in shortly thereafter and I have to worry about explaining everything to him even though I’m in the right. He’s smelling my smoking kit, and there’s a guy I don’t know who’s complaining on behalf of the woman that I have to sit too close to on the couch. I retell the story and emphasize that the woman was damaging his property.

It looks like two of the cars outside my bedroom window have been sideswiped. I look again later and those cars have disappeared, and I watch as my own truck is sinking up to the grill in the mysteriously liquefied asphalt. Baffled, I visit the coffee shop three doors down. The barista has never heard of such a thing, and I’m worried that people will think I’m nuts.

Stranded on the side of the road in a tropical paradise, could be Hawaii, could be El Salvador. It’s relatively rocky and barren, but since it’s June it’s not too hot yet. I climb over logs and inspect the nature. A public bathroom there has lit-up text on the door when it’s locked. I’m with someone else — a Japanese girl — and I’m not Orin. She manages to flag down a passing motorist, but it’s a large-wheeled 2-seat race-car. She catches a ride promising to come back for me. I’m kinda glad she’s gone since she wanted to be rescued more than me anyways.

In a broad terracotta tile courtyard with modernist angles, underneath the floors of a building, I’m waiting for the elevator to get back to my apartment. The door opens, but opens right into a part of the city’s downtown. I sigh and start running up the stairs the opposite direction, out to the sunny but dry streets that remind me of Florida. I seem to be carrying a dog on my shoulders, and I’m quickly tired.