On an overnight group bus trip. We crowd into a wood-panelled roadside tchochke store filled with various odd objects. Happening to know the purpose behind many of them, I regale my companions (classmates? friends?) about one item after another. I know at some point that I’m oversharing and being annoying, yet I’m so enjoying being an expert on something — I get carried away with it. I recall this as “acting enlightened” (whatever that means). As a result I miss the group bus when it departs, leaving me stranded after the store closes. I loiter and pace outside in the parking lot, wondering what to do, trying to reason out where I might get a ride. Across a long distance of strip mall emptiness, I make out what might be the bus, my bus, with all my people that left me here. But that could be simply wishful thinking. By the time I could walk all the way over there, they might very well be gone.
I’m part of an alien hive-mind-ish force, zerg-like, bred in great numbers like insects. As one of the exceptional males who survived, today I’m tasked with re-fertilizing the zerg mother. This is regarded as somewhat of an honor for a zerg drone — it’s rare for us to have sex. The actual experience is unpleasant though. The zerg mother stares at me with gazeless eyes, her exaggeratedly big hips meant for storing vast quantities of genetic material to make whatever brood is needed. But I am a brood — could this be my mother? Not that it matters really; we’re all so genetically alike anyway. But since that’s the case, why does it even matter if I contribute my material to future broods? I find myself wondering if I’m allowed to simply stop having sex with the empty-eyed queen. Eventually I do — and nothing bad happens. But what now is my purpose as a drone?