Nightmares
No rest for the wicked as they say, and if last night indicates anything, I qualify. I can't count how often I woke up and found myself crossways in the bed, or with my head crammed into the headboard, or my blankets wound into a knot and perched on my chest like a lazy incubus. My reading pillow was at the foot of the bed when I woke up- I think I threw it at some point. This is not the turn off the light, roll over and wake up I'm used to.
And then the dreams. Lucid, thinking, horrid dreams.
My coworker Robin and I were at a different company, and had been sent out to set up a field office for a newspaper to report on a major story. A town had such a problem with pest bears that it had been almost entirely abandoned, the first time this had ever happened because of bears. We were there to assess the situation, decide if it was worth the paper doing a story, and if so to lay the groundwork for a field office for reporters and editors to work on the stories right there and then send them in, ready and edited. It was a village somewhere in the Northwest, full redwood trees, the ground covered in ferns and fist and head-sized river rocks.
The entire town had been wiped out. Almost no buildings remained at the edge, and further in ferns sprouted through the roads and buildings were smashed. We started with the theater at the edge of town, an enormous old structure facing a clearing. We climbed in through where the front wall had been and found ourselves on the stage. Behind us, the dime and dusky clearing like an enormous backdrop, and in front of us the raked seats. But what seats? The seats were gone, and ferns and rocks and dirt raked up to the back of the room. We checked around and concluded the theater was most likely condemned, when we heard something rustling in the seats. We played a spotlight over the ferns, and saw the flash and glow of the reflective black nylon body harness of a bear cub foraging in the ferns. We snapped the light off and froze, and slowly turned, scanning for its mother in all directions. There was a dim glow from the far side of the clearing- the mother's head lights, bouncing around the ferns where she was looking for her own food. We saw her stop and listen, and the cub's radio crackle and she turned and ran toward us with the shuffling gallop of a bear on on a mission.
Robin and I gave up any pretense of stealth and ran like hell. We ran in the only direction we could- off the five foot drop at the back of the stage, away from the cub and toward the mother, then off the trail to the right, and to the right again to the back of the theater. I remembered from a map that there was a fenced utility yard that someone had reinforced when the bear problem got bad. It was abandoned, but still intact according to the latest maps. Robin hit the fence and flew over it so fast I couldn't see, but somehow made it over 12 feet of board fence at a run. I knew that was impossible, and curved in toward the building, then up and over the six feet of steel-reinforced chain link. Safe!
I forced myself to wake up and untangled the blankets. I stayed up until I was awake enough to shake the nightmares, then went back to sleep, but it wasn't enough.
I dreamed I was interviewing a musician, singer and social activist. He was a friendly man with shaggy gray-white hair, glasses and friendly eyes, and a short, stubbly beard. He looked like a cross between my friend Hans York and Viggo Mortensen, but with a thick scar on the left corner of his lip. Then he turned, and I saw the scar ran from his mouth to his ear and down his neck, parts of it were thick and knotted, and parts were fresh, with chunks of flesh missing deep into his neck, cleanly removed with no blood or puss, as if someone had routed out his flesh. He was friendly, and quietly cheerful, but had a mournful demeanor to him as well, an almost Christ-like suffering for the sins of others that he happily took upon himself, but had no illusions about. He was in pain.
We talked briefly about inconsequential things, but all I remember is seeing another lesion on the inside of his forarm. This was wasn't scarred at all, fresher, but again without blood, as if the flesh had been simply removed. He held his arm gently, and I could tell it was in pain.
He excused himself for a moment, and I turned to one of his stage hands with a questioning look. He explained that in their culture they fed the dead to birds. I must have looked confused, because someone else cut in and said he meant flies- his culture did not differentiate by type of creature, but by how it acted. Flies and birds were considered the same thing. The dead were fed to flies. The man I was interviewing had designated himself as a piece of social and religious art, and was feeding himself to the flies alive to protest the lack of empathy in his culture. Everything from governmental persecution of minorities to people who didn't help their neighbors in need. They said it was working- the media loved this man, and there was a gradual social shift toward greater empathy. But then they looked sad, and said that at the rate things were changing, he'd never survive, and that he already considered himself a dead man.
The man had taken a few sips of sugar water, some of the few items of sustenance he allowed himself, and had overheard the last of the conversation. Now he said "it's almost noon," by way of explaining that he fed the flies morning noon and night, and he might as well start early. We moved to a different wooden table, and he went to a nearby glass and wood box and lifted out two panes of glass, held together in a wooden frame with wingnuts, and with flies between them like a wax frame of bees. He laid his arm flat on the table, and shook the frame over it, letting flies fall on it. The flies crawled over his arm and settled into the pitted wound and began to eat, gnawing miniscule portions of flesh with each pinch, buzzing and lifting off in short bursts to get to better feeding grounds, fresher meat. He grimaced, but kept his arm relaxed, accepting the flies like any martyr. He explained that when he had started, he had placed his entire body in a glass coffin full of flies, so they could take whatever they wanted, and he had small lesions all over his body as a result of it. But the flies favored the soft, fatty tissue beneath his ear, and he knew that if he continued he'd be dead long before he could make a strong statement, so he devised this method to keep himself alive as long as possible as the flies ate his non-essential extremities. Sometimes, he said, he fed them on his legs, and his thighs and calves were deeply pitted. He still had holes in his abdomen as well. The flies' saliva prevented the flesh from growing back, and it was a wonder the skin in his cheek had grown so much, like thick and pink rope, growing down over the hole in his cheek to cover it.
He was a dedicated man, a hopeful man, but also a sad man. He explained that he was already dead, this was just a way to use his death before he couldn't do so anymore, and he hoped that he could help his people just a tiny bit this way.
I woke up and stared into the darkness. Something made a bit of noise outside my window, then moved away. I haven't been this eager for the alarm in years.
And then the dreams. Lucid, thinking, horrid dreams.
My coworker Robin and I were at a different company, and had been sent out to set up a field office for a newspaper to report on a major story. A town had such a problem with pest bears that it had been almost entirely abandoned, the first time this had ever happened because of bears. We were there to assess the situation, decide if it was worth the paper doing a story, and if so to lay the groundwork for a field office for reporters and editors to work on the stories right there and then send them in, ready and edited. It was a village somewhere in the Northwest, full redwood trees, the ground covered in ferns and fist and head-sized river rocks.
The entire town had been wiped out. Almost no buildings remained at the edge, and further in ferns sprouted through the roads and buildings were smashed. We started with the theater at the edge of town, an enormous old structure facing a clearing. We climbed in through where the front wall had been and found ourselves on the stage. Behind us, the dime and dusky clearing like an enormous backdrop, and in front of us the raked seats. But what seats? The seats were gone, and ferns and rocks and dirt raked up to the back of the room. We checked around and concluded the theater was most likely condemned, when we heard something rustling in the seats. We played a spotlight over the ferns, and saw the flash and glow of the reflective black nylon body harness of a bear cub foraging in the ferns. We snapped the light off and froze, and slowly turned, scanning for its mother in all directions. There was a dim glow from the far side of the clearing- the mother's head lights, bouncing around the ferns where she was looking for her own food. We saw her stop and listen, and the cub's radio crackle and she turned and ran toward us with the shuffling gallop of a bear on on a mission.
Robin and I gave up any pretense of stealth and ran like hell. We ran in the only direction we could- off the five foot drop at the back of the stage, away from the cub and toward the mother, then off the trail to the right, and to the right again to the back of the theater. I remembered from a map that there was a fenced utility yard that someone had reinforced when the bear problem got bad. It was abandoned, but still intact according to the latest maps. Robin hit the fence and flew over it so fast I couldn't see, but somehow made it over 12 feet of board fence at a run. I knew that was impossible, and curved in toward the building, then up and over the six feet of steel-reinforced chain link. Safe!
I forced myself to wake up and untangled the blankets. I stayed up until I was awake enough to shake the nightmares, then went back to sleep, but it wasn't enough.
I dreamed I was interviewing a musician, singer and social activist. He was a friendly man with shaggy gray-white hair, glasses and friendly eyes, and a short, stubbly beard. He looked like a cross between my friend Hans York and Viggo Mortensen, but with a thick scar on the left corner of his lip. Then he turned, and I saw the scar ran from his mouth to his ear and down his neck, parts of it were thick and knotted, and parts were fresh, with chunks of flesh missing deep into his neck, cleanly removed with no blood or puss, as if someone had routed out his flesh. He was friendly, and quietly cheerful, but had a mournful demeanor to him as well, an almost Christ-like suffering for the sins of others that he happily took upon himself, but had no illusions about. He was in pain.
We talked briefly about inconsequential things, but all I remember is seeing another lesion on the inside of his forarm. This was wasn't scarred at all, fresher, but again without blood, as if the flesh had been simply removed. He held his arm gently, and I could tell it was in pain.
He excused himself for a moment, and I turned to one of his stage hands with a questioning look. He explained that in their culture they fed the dead to birds. I must have looked confused, because someone else cut in and said he meant flies- his culture did not differentiate by type of creature, but by how it acted. Flies and birds were considered the same thing. The dead were fed to flies. The man I was interviewing had designated himself as a piece of social and religious art, and was feeding himself to the flies alive to protest the lack of empathy in his culture. Everything from governmental persecution of minorities to people who didn't help their neighbors in need. They said it was working- the media loved this man, and there was a gradual social shift toward greater empathy. But then they looked sad, and said that at the rate things were changing, he'd never survive, and that he already considered himself a dead man.
The man had taken a few sips of sugar water, some of the few items of sustenance he allowed himself, and had overheard the last of the conversation. Now he said "it's almost noon," by way of explaining that he fed the flies morning noon and night, and he might as well start early. We moved to a different wooden table, and he went to a nearby glass and wood box and lifted out two panes of glass, held together in a wooden frame with wingnuts, and with flies between them like a wax frame of bees. He laid his arm flat on the table, and shook the frame over it, letting flies fall on it. The flies crawled over his arm and settled into the pitted wound and began to eat, gnawing miniscule portions of flesh with each pinch, buzzing and lifting off in short bursts to get to better feeding grounds, fresher meat. He grimaced, but kept his arm relaxed, accepting the flies like any martyr. He explained that when he had started, he had placed his entire body in a glass coffin full of flies, so they could take whatever they wanted, and he had small lesions all over his body as a result of it. But the flies favored the soft, fatty tissue beneath his ear, and he knew that if he continued he'd be dead long before he could make a strong statement, so he devised this method to keep himself alive as long as possible as the flies ate his non-essential extremities. Sometimes, he said, he fed them on his legs, and his thighs and calves were deeply pitted. He still had holes in his abdomen as well. The flies' saliva prevented the flesh from growing back, and it was a wonder the skin in his cheek had grown so much, like thick and pink rope, growing down over the hole in his cheek to cover it.
He was a dedicated man, a hopeful man, but also a sad man. He explained that he was already dead, this was just a way to use his death before he couldn't do so anymore, and he hoped that he could help his people just a tiny bit this way.
I woke up and stared into the darkness. Something made a bit of noise outside my window, then moved away. I haven't been this eager for the alarm in years.