(no subject)
So, early Monday morning I woke up from a nightmare involving collecting oral histories on an exoplanet inhabited by people who vaguely resembled otters. I was working for a museum established on Earth by the local community of their diaspora, and the interviews I'd been sent to get heavily concerned a genocide that had taken place in the region where I was some decades earlier.
This wasn't really the nightmare part.
The local transport was terrifying. Everybody got around on these platforms which hovered about ten feet or so above the ground, just above the tops of the local grain (which was red and kind of furry) and these platforms didn't have rails or sides. They were just draped in really beautiful rugs - of course they were old rugs, but they were beautiful - and this did not feel secure to me at all.
That's not the really bad part.
The bad part is that some of my informants wanted to take me out to show me places they were talking about - villages that didn't exist now, specific trees where relatives of theirs were buried, fields that had been bombed. And of course I wanted to go! So we had to take the platforms part of the way because it was really too far to walk.
And they wanted to talk to me.
While we were traveling.
So there I am, trying very hard to listen closely and respond supportively, at the same time as I am fighting the urge to start crying because I'm so scared of these platform things and how fast they go and how there are no rails and nothing to hold onto but the rug. It was awful and hilarious at the same time.
So even though everyone was really nice to me and there were so many important and moving things being said, I was still really glad to wake up.
This entry was originally posted at http://tiamatschild.dreamwidth.org/40150.html. Please feel free to comment there using OpenID. Or here! It'll be read either way, is what I'm saying.
This wasn't really the nightmare part.
The local transport was terrifying. Everybody got around on these platforms which hovered about ten feet or so above the ground, just above the tops of the local grain (which was red and kind of furry) and these platforms didn't have rails or sides. They were just draped in really beautiful rugs - of course they were old rugs, but they were beautiful - and this did not feel secure to me at all.
That's not the really bad part.
The bad part is that some of my informants wanted to take me out to show me places they were talking about - villages that didn't exist now, specific trees where relatives of theirs were buried, fields that had been bombed. And of course I wanted to go! So we had to take the platforms part of the way because it was really too far to walk.
And they wanted to talk to me.
While we were traveling.
So there I am, trying very hard to listen closely and respond supportively, at the same time as I am fighting the urge to start crying because I'm so scared of these platform things and how fast they go and how there are no rails and nothing to hold onto but the rug. It was awful and hilarious at the same time.
So even though everyone was really nice to me and there were so many important and moving things being said, I was still really glad to wake up.
This entry was originally posted at http://tiamatschild.dreamwidth.org/40150.html. Please feel free to comment there using OpenID. Or here! It'll be read either way, is what I'm saying.