The half-forgotten
Other half of my short life
In short story form

 
One Last Time
9-24-2004

I'm driving my Dodge Dart through my childhood neighborhood at night. I'm standing up to turn the wheel and use the brakes at each stop sign. I notice the car is making a whistling sound and figure I should take it in soon. I head over to Wayne's parents' house, a dead-end street, but it's changed to a condo complex so I turn around.

I make it back to a brightly-lit, white little building that serves as a laundromat, video arcade, coffee shop, and copy center all rolled into one. Everything inside is white. It makes the rest of the surrounding territory look utterly dark. A guy and a girl stand outside, dressed in black, playing imaginary instruments as part of an arcade game I can't see. It's some guitar-jamming game that makes you feel like you really know how to play, even though you don't. Sounds good though. I watch the chick slap her imaginary strings in beat with some orchestra hits.

I hawk over a printer, awaiting a printout that I don't want anyone else to see. I didn't think I was long in the queue, but my printout doesn't turn up. I flip one of the others over and see it's a little comic written by an Asian girl sitting at a table nearby, sipping a cup of coffee. It's amusing in a way I hadn't expected, and includes the comment, "I am NOT going to pay for a single copy." Printing and copying are paid for here on the honor system, as is the coffee. I don't see her here often; she drives in from somewhere else, then leaves. Doesn't stay like the rest of us.

I go outside, around the back of the building, and she's there looking out into the dark forest. It's cold outside, and a barbed fence surrounds the yard, tilted away from us. A ditch lies beyond. It's all there to keep us in, for whose safety I'm not sure. I test it with my foot, confirming it wouldn't be possible to jump over it and the ditch to leave this place. The girl turns to me and says, "I want to go. Out of here." I explain that she comes and goes in her car all the time. She says, "I can't take the car. I need to leave it here." She faces me and puts her arms around my waist, yet keeping her distance as she talks to me. "I want to go with you," she says, and kisses me. I slip to the ground as I kiss her back, and she urges me to stand up, because the ground is cold and wet. I take her to a pond and we wade into it, leaning against a rock and staring over the water. The water is freezing, too, but we don't care anymore. She comments that running into me has changed everything for her.

We're out on a public street, under a gothic-style bridge. Still nighttime, but there's an old streetlamp here. Keefer Sutherland probes the wall under the bridge and disconnects the brige, moving it aside with superhuman ease to reveal a tunnel. "This is the only way out," he says, "this tunnel. It's dangerous." I thought we could come back and take it later if we wanted, but an old roadster pulls up and some men in burlap suits get out. A little girl with curly hair stands up from the car, points at us, and says, "There they are, get them." I urge everyone to take the tunnel right away.

Keefer goes first, then the girl, then me. Noone follows us. The tunnel is long, narrow, and full of water. I can't really feel anything with my feet, just amorphous goo and weeds and God knows what, so I have to pull myself along with my hands along the walls, which are made of white brick and thankfully aren't slippery. We come to a corner, passing a decayed, brown skeleton that none of us comment on. The water is dark, but the tunnel is well-lit. Keefer stops in front of a large room, wading in the muck. It's darker in there. Looking up, I see tons of spider webs, and I warn Keefer to watch out for the big purple spider over his head. He wacks it, sending it screaming. We swim into the big room. Bats attack us from above, but they leave as alone after we pass under.

We make it out of the muck and into some old service passageways. I take hold of the girl's hand in case the floor gives, and help her climb down some walls. There are no stairs anywhere. Everything is lit again, a sort of turquoise color, like a room lit by a pool's underwater lights. Turning a corner, I see a gleaming corridor that looks promising. I also notice a hole in the wall in front of me, leading into a darker passage. Upon reflection, the gleaming corridor looks too promising, like a trap, so I lead everyone into the dusty black passage.

We come out into more hallways. I see metal doors all over in the white concrete, locked shut, boarded and chained up. One I take to be the entrance to a movie theatre, and I wondered what it must've been like to come here for movies, or when it even used to be open.

We pass it and see a set of metal doors with reinforced windows. Lots of light coming from the outside, and not boarded up either. This is it, I think, but then two black men with hatchets enter from outside. They don't say anything, but they walk toward us. We duck into the movie theatre lobby, and they follow. "They're holding hands. It looks like they were about to do something," one of them comments. We walk out, past them, toward the doors. A thin black girl, holding a hatchet, opens one and comes in, walking towards us as she says, "Come on out." Just a blur in the windows, but I can see tons of people outside, all with hatchets. "Everyone's out there. Even the rescue person!"

I get the feeling I won't like their idea of rescue, so we turn around. As we do so, some chubby white kid swings his hatchet at the girl and gets her in the side of the neck. She screams. I pull it out of her, trying to ignore the blood, and stick it into his face. Two big white brutes run at me, but I chop into their heads quickly, then throw my hatchet into an older woman's head as she comes near the girl. The only thing going through my mind is that I have to kill these people quickly so that I can be with the girl in her final moments.

I lift gently off the ground a little to hold her in my arms. I try to keep the wound closed to prevent bleeding. We were so close, too. Almost out. Must've been the wrong exit. "Don't tell me," she says, "I don't want to know." Referring to her wound.

I run some analysis software, but it turns up red instead of green, indicating death will happen. Suddenly, though, I'm the one who's wounded, and I'm in her arms. "It's red," I say. "I'm going to die." Sad, beautiful piano music starts to play from somewhere. She starts to cry and says, "I told you not to tell me," and kisses me one last time.

posted by Phlegm at 9/30/2004  (0) comments

 
Naturally Buoyant
9-15-04

I have a crappy job in the supermarket. I'm not even real employee. Every time I walk by the front doors, I hear a microphone squeal. I notice a storm coming, and everyone comes outside into the courtyard. I go back for something when I feel a rumble and look up to see a tidal wave coming first over the mountain and then over the skyscrapers. I figure I'm a goner, but turn to run anyway. Some old man helps me over the wall and we all run back inside the store where we started. Nothing happens.

A big steel door in the basement keeps the water at bay. It's only a matter of time until it busts. I get into a fight with black kid and tell him he's gonna die. We climb to higher floors to escape the rising water. We all live there for a couple years, and I bring in some expert friends to help survive. At the top is a dark cave with hard floors, which we cut away to get to the foam underneath. Easier to sleep on it that way. We arrange a fancy dinner. A bum arrives at the door to the dinner, and I give him a quarter.

I get tired of the radio in the building and get into a gunfight in "town" with the radio speaker. I flee to the semi-flooded lower levels of the building and notice the water is starting to rise again. There are some people down there, foolishly trying to drag stuff up, like soaking sofas. Some people even get into a flooded elevator, hoping it will work. I figure they drowned. I make it up some steps and see the radio guy. I say our fights doesn't matter now since it's flooding again.

I go outside and see the rest of the world isn't flooded. I ride my bike through the city. I go to the roof of the tallest building and see the same bum there from before. I give him a quarter. A tidal wave hits and drowns everything but us. The water comes nearly to the top of our building. Other buildings pop up out of the water with survivors, as if they had been broken at the base and were naturally buoyant.

posted by Phlegm at 9/30/2004  (0) comments

 
Jerky, but Fun
9-12-04

AK found an Asian chick to marry and his mom, my mom, and me meet her. On the spot, however, he decided not to marry her because she was only twenty-one.

I also have a frankenstein project going with the red maple in my childhood front yard. I try to collect parts to hook up to the tree so I can animate it during the next lightning storm. I climb up the tree and wonder how it can still support me, since I weigh more now.

I go inside and find the mouse flooded with nice warm rain water. MG comes in to swim in it. She points into the distance, out the window, and I see that the clouds are on fire. I turn on my old television to find the news report of it, but I end up in a flying rowboat in Rome. A man and a woman are with me, news reporters, passing by some very large stone statues of people. It's nighttime so I can't make much out, though there is water somewhere beneath us. The woman and I both have umbrellas, which are used to steer the boat. I don't know what I'm doing, though, so I just mimic her. Later the man tells me I was supposed to just keep it pointed down.

I go to church with my parents, but people start throwing snowballs, since the service is outdoors. MG is there playing the guitar, yet it's still strapped to her back. My mom says she was skinny dipping in our hours, and shows me naked pictures of her, but I don't remember that happening. AK is there, too, apparently a Christian now.

I go to the grocery store with my mom and get pissed at some old woman who expects me to butter her bread and make her sandwiches while her groceries are being bagged. I then yell at my dad for not realizing that specialty stores have better quality items than grocery stores. I leave, finding I can fly by standing straight and pushing my arms back. It's kinda jerky, but fun.

posted by Phlegm at 9/30/2004  (0) comments

 
Powers Over Gravity
7-25-04

"Get him! He's translating the Qu'ran!" That's what I heard someone shout as I myself ran down the newly drizzed city streets. That's when I spotted the Muslim tearing at a building sign. I was in a hurry, doing my morning jog, and tried to keep going as I passed by, but the law enforcement nabbed me along with several other people--due to our proximity to the crime--and took me to the courthouse.

There I waited in a line so long it went out onto the street. There was some mud on the ground, but they made us hold our shoes in our hands anyway. One after another I watched each suspect go up to the judge, who read off a sheet of paper to confirm vital facts about the person before letting them go. I got bored and paced around a bit, losing my place in line.

One particular guy had a pistol-sized squirt gun on him. The judge pointed a gun at a girl in line and told him to prove his gun wasn't real or he'd kill the girl. He's like, "Nah," but the judge doesn't kill her anyway. The girl calls him a jerk, and he fires a stream of water out of it. The judge says, "Aren't you forgetting something?" I finally got a good view of him, a large fat Jabba-looking guy. That's when the guy squirted the judge with his water pistol and left.

When I finally stood in front of the judge, I was prepared to answer the simple questions regarding my name and so on, but when he read my name, it was wrong! I contested, and he said, "Oh really? Then why are you soaking wet?" I explained that it was raining earlier, and that they were making me stand outside in the mud. Translators cause rain, after all, so clearly I was guilty.

"Translation is a serious crime," the judge said. "We need to preserve our precious American culture." Others in the courtroom nodded seriously, patriotically. "It should only be performed by certified professionals. If we let just anyone translate anything, it would pollute our culture, and we need to remain pure." At this I saw a girl get giddy, glancing at her man, who was probably in school to obtain his prestigious translator's license. It wasn't just doctors and lawyers anymore. I wanted to defend myself, tell them it couldn't have been me since I just GOT here to this time. I was from the past, couldn't they see that? But no, they'd only think I was crazy.

As they escorted me outside, where they would take me to be jailed and/or excuted, some fellas in the courtroom saw me and wailed, "NO!!" It distracted my escorts just long enough for me to fling my shoes into their faces and run. I busted out the door and into the streets, taking a left and disregarding traffic. The city was like a huge building, all gleaming metal and clean, and yet at every other intersection it was raining.

Was I causing this? Heck if I knew. I wasn't from here. I only knew I had to make it back to what I thought was my apartment. Perdi was there, I was sure, and the authorities only had my face, not my name. They'd never catch me if I got away now.

I glanced back and so no signs of pursuit. I ducked into what turned out to be a gym, bounding up several flights of stairs to see people on exercise bikes. Others sat in bleacher-style seating, watching. A black girl--a personal trainer--asked me to please take my seat. I thought I heard her say my name, so I asked her if she knew me. She said, "No, but I'm sure somebody does," and followed it up with a wry smile. "No," I said. "NOBODY knows ME." I decided it was time to leave when she got a call on her call phone, in case it was the police calling around town, giving everyone my profile.

I went back down the stairs and saw two security men walk by the exit door just before I pushed it open. I took a right down the hall, passing another security guard who was walking into the building. He didn't notice me as I slipped outside.

I ran some more, holding a blue plastic binder over my head to help protect myself from the rain. "I need to disguise myself," I thought, "Change my posture or ditch this jacket or something. Why am I carrying this binder?" By now it was nighttime. Not sure where the day went.

I came out of an alley to the sounds of gunfire. I cringed but then saw noone was shooting at me. A bunch of punks in homes across the street were having a shootout with the homes on my side. I ran across the street into a back yard and stopped when I saw a Mexican with what looked like a flamethrower. He turned it on and a short but thick stream of electricity came out and buzzed around some bushes, trimming them. Ah, just the gardener.

I went to the hospital and talked to a doctor behind the counter there. I explained my situation and presented my evidence: a plastic bag containing a length of intestine, a foot, and a penis. A nurse stopped over out of morbid curiosity. "I'll call you in a couple days with the results. Can I get your number?" The doctor was treating me like just another patient. "No, I don't have a phone number. I don't have an address. I...do not...EXIST. With the exception of this precise moment, I am invisible."

"Well let us run your name through our database anyway," said the nurse. What came up was a third person image of a lawyer detective running down the sidewalk yelling, "I must save the clients!" I took his point of view and ran toward a group of people, pushing them and hurling them across the terrace with my mind. A force bubble grew out of my body and enveloped the surrounding area, obliterating everyone. The nurse was impressed, "That would be useful for getting Kevin out of bed." I guess she was making a joke. I said, "My life changed when I realized I had powers over gravity."

posted by Phlegm at 9/30/2004  (0) comments

 
Tolerance to Water
7-22-04

Racing down a mountain on rollerblades, I acquire a target in my reticle: an object stuck in the ground and buried by a helmet. I only have eight seconds to get it. There's an armoured chick there, so I shoot her in the face through her open visor. I lift the helmet and get the glass vial from the ground and stick it in my jacket. I run into a building, through corridors and doors and steps, basically a big maze, and get away from my pursuers. They're all over the building and outside, searching for me. I run into a bum in the staircase. Wwe find an old white t-shirt. He asks if it's mine. I ask the same, because I wanted to use it to disguise myself. Finally, I get outside.

I make it to a shopping mall. It's closing early. I look into a closet I rent there, but my stuff is gone. I start to crawl into it through the entrance to another part of the store, like I usually do, but I see a guard in there with a gun walking by.
This alerts other store workers and they want to make sure he's really a guard.

Later, I'm in a sleeping bag on the ground of the mall waiting for it to close or something. A black family is there. I take the black kid's jacket, saying it's mine. He leaves but his parents ask if it really was. I say oh maybe it isn't, but it was exactly like mine, and it was missing from the closet upstairs.

Suddenly a big being invades the mall. The mall transforms into a magestic fountain or swimming area, with layers and shelves of water all over the place. The water is warm. There are little rubber ball things with puss-filled openings, spewing little critters out of it. I get some statues to fight each other as a distraction, but they get wise and befriend each other again, which I find lame. I pour ethanol into the water to help kill the creature by lowering its tolerance to water.

posted by Phlegm at 9/30/2004  (0) comments

 
What's Your Name Little Girl?
3-28-2004

I'm working out on the street outside Gold's Gym. Another kid is doing pushups. People are always trying to get by while I do pull-ups, and it's annoying.

My friend is driving a car, and I'm riding with him along with someone else. I feel a rumble and know the end is coming. We're going down a coaster-like freeway with two lanes, and I see the road ending into the ocean after it twists down below. I buckle up to brace for impact. One guy goes through the windshield and gets crushed.

I swim underwater for a long time to avoid lava fumes. I surface to see other swimmers, part of my military, swimming from a fallen helicopter. I grab a yellow floatee thing from them that's more of a marker than a floating device. Several times they must pull me up from underwater when my limbs just don't work anymore. The commander yells at me to stay with the group but I don't care. I go off to check something out on land.

I don't find what I'm looking for, but the group is too far ahead to see. It's shallow and rocky, a wasteland up ahead. I find someone else, weak as me, and we crawl. I see movement up ahead and figure a base is nearby. I hear Spanish music and comment that at this time any culture is better than no culture.

Inside, I notice it's an Invid base, but we're using it. It has warm water. Lots of
children. I make a Goofy voice to cheer things up, asking "what's your name little girl" in his voice. I see pilots hooked up to these hoses to juice them up, many resisting but consenting once they are hooked up. Some Invid device. One of our own best, turns out, was a spy for the Invid and is hooked up to a lot of them to recharge.

Suddenly we're attacked. Both Autobots and Deceptacons are on our side, joining against the common enemy of all. Optimus prime runs and jumps to fire a giant cannon, disintegrating a giant evil dinobot thing.

posted by Phlegm at 9/27/2004  (0) comments

 
Story Straight
3-27-2004

I'm in a house with many people around. A video plays on tv featuring a kitten being put in a freezer and ice being poured on it. The next video is about someone tossing poop into vents. I refuse to watch.

There's a hedge maze outside with fences around the hedges. Some areas are fenced off, but mowed anyway. One is particularly reinforced, and I climb over it. From the bushes I hear a little girl ask my name. I get scared and go back to the house, reporting my finding. A girl confirms there are people that live over there, and how they will forever haunt our minds. I get visions in my mind of them in my mind, all smiling too large, the dad with three heads all grinning evilly at me.

I flash back to their origin. At one time they were a simple family who had a home out here and operated a car garage nearby. Over time they added a ramp inside the garage, then the ramp turned into railroad tracks.

I decide to see my sister off to the riviera. Phil's driving his new car. Too fast. It scares me. He rear-ends someone, blaming the guy in front of him, even though he was going way too fast. The guy in front of him is rich, but it doesn't matter since it's Phil's fault. He tells Phil he doesn't want to look at him. They sit on tree stumps to get their story straight.

posted by Phlegm at 9/27/2004  (0) comments

 
Lobotomy
3-4-2004

My friend Mike comes with me to get a lobotomy. It feels great not having frontal love function, like life is heaven. I climb into a truck and go to astronaut school.

posted by Phlegm at 9/27/2004  (0) comments

 
Manta Army
2-24-04

AK and KL pull up in a moving van. I'm simply astounded, thinking this is such a crazy coincidence, running into them out in the middle of nowhere. That's where I am, somewhere in the Heartland. KL stays chill in the passenger seat while AK and I go into the restaurant we're at. It's actually an old train converted into an eatery.

I look outside and realize the train is moving across the countryside. It's breautiful: the rolling green pastures on the left...a bag lady next to a fence on the right...the men in Mantas firing at us! Dozens of neon green energy blasts hit the train, and many more miss, obliterating the bag lady. Glass flies everywhere and people panic. I duck under the windows and yell for everyone to get down, but nonetheless many passengers are blown away. I wonder when I'll be next.

Daring a look, I see a bridge ahead. I jump out of the train and into the water. Staying underwater as long as possible, I come out onto a golf course. Enemies are still everywhere.

I run into a building to hide. While I'm in a kitchen closet, I notice a good hiding spot under the stove, so I hide there instead. A girl finds me, but she's not part of the Manta Army.

posted by Phlegm at 7/23/2004  (0) comments

 
My True Parents
1-22-04

I'm in my childhood neighboorhood at night. I have a mask on, and kids keep giong by saying trick or treat, but they going up to houses. I suggest we go up to one that has its lights off. Someone at the door answers and we each get a piece of candy. I put it in my my mouth and we go to the next house. A cat comes out of the door. I go, "aww," and pet it.

Still night. I'm bicycling through the old neighborhood. I'm still afraid of the trees, which always try to grab me when I get too close. I go to the elementary school. It's totally dark and nothing's there, but then I see some flares in the parking lot, which turn into headlights. I decide it's time to head back, but Fern has turned into a looooong bridge. I shift into gear and get over the bridge really fast, my companions on the other side telepathically telling me to hurry up or the car will catch me. I tell them, "I know."

My sister's headed to a dinner at the G's in AA and I can't figure out why. I go over to this house that's supposed to be theirs in the middle of a dark forest. Many people show up. We watch a movie about a small animated plastic doll. It rolls along the floor and hits stuff, and somehow it's the most hilarious thing I've seen in a long time. There are other animated plastic dolls, but they can only move their limbs in one direction each, unlike the main character. One is nailed to the floor like it's crucified, and it talks and complains about its condition. It's like a wolf. At the end, the doll dies and you see the world enclose into a circle and then zoom out, revealing something off to the side of the universe, which turns into a mushroom. Then the mushroom zooms out and there are green tendrils of energy reaching vertically about. The narrator says "The good doll was reincarnated in the mother universe by the evil designer to be a mushroom"...or something. I'm like, "No no that's not how it ended. There was supposed to be a giant spider there waiting for it in the next universe," which would be a horrific ending. Then I remember a few parts that weren't in the movie, and mention to P's dad how funny they were--those other parts we filmed--like the part where the guy comes up to the house and says he's come, then the baby doll is born.

I rewind it in my mind and I'm there. The guy walking up to the brick house on the second story, but things go wrong. There's an explosion inside and people fly everywhere. I go outside and jump down to the ground. Leaves everywhere. An undead walks toward me from the house. I walk in front of it, sort of following ahead of it through the forest toward another house...my childhood house, back yard. Some green light shines and a huge gaping orange maw of a fireplace or something opens in the side of the house, the undead guy just standing there. I find myself watching a window above, where a strange horse-like dog is cutely pushing its nose out a window and through some iron bars. Supposed to be a really smart kind of dog that learns things on its own. I laugh at it, and a guy nearby laughs too. He's trying to close a garage in the back of the house, but a cat runs out. The cat sees the dog above and decides to go up and join it. How cute. I try to help him shut the garage door, but there are too many bags of leaves on the ground and in the trunk of his car, so it won't shut. I move some leaves around to make it even, but then the cat runs out again. It's very important this door gets shut.

Skeletons rise up from everywhere. I have a bow and arrow, and other humans fight with me, but they're all in panic and they run all over the place. I run to another building and find a blue key, a red key, and a yellow key, all obvious with big rings on the ground as I run around and shoot with my bow. I see a skeleton with a white key ring, so I run and grab it, but it won't let it go. It screams and yells at me that it must have the key ring. I get it and run off. I look at the map in my mind and see that it goes to a library building to the south, so I take flight and soar over there, wary that there might be skeleton birds around. But there aren't.

I fly inside, and it's a normal library with people around. I recognize a thai-looking girl and accost her, gathering she was part of the skeleton crew (props to my unconscious mind for that pun). I urge her that we must follow the black cat--there it is! The black cat ducks into a plastic tube in the floor. I see another asian girl looking uncertain, so I figure she's with us. I have them both follow me into the tube.

It's very tight, and I can barely crawl through it. I turn right at a 'T', and then it's completely black. I ask for a flashlight since I left my jacket somewhere else, and the thai girl has one just like mine, gives it to me. Then I turn right again, knowing I can just wake up if something bad happens in here.

It opens up into a hallway. A bathroom to the left. Thai girl pulls ahead and sees some writing on the wall just past the bathroom, instructions. I say just do whatever it says, we must follow all instructions, and they say to keep going. I hold the other girl's hand while I flash my flashlight around, telling them both to watch for ghosts, and to scan all the paintings on the walls for instructions, rituals, and such.

There's a faint light far ahead, and when I scan with my flashlight, I can see zillions of zombie-like ghosts walking ahead past us. Harmless though. I bring it to their attention.The paintings are diverse, but mostly portraits of people in dresses. I finally get to one that has a half-decayed child on the right side, with a stump of an arm and a grimace on its face. "This is it!" I cry. In the middle is a levitating girl's head, mostly chopped apart, and to the left is a mostly full kid. They're someplace dark and sinister. The left kid thrusts a needle down into the ground, and the girl's head closes up, her tiara falling to a pile of dead leaves. The next painting has a flying beetle in it, and it transforms into something wooden or something, like a lock.

I finally get to the lit part of the place. The girls have vanished. There's an old woman there, sinister and evil, lying in a bed. She asks why I'm there, as if it's the last thing I'll ever get to say. I say, "I want your children!" and I thrust a sword into a glowing white spot in a brick on a table in front of the bed. I twist it around good. Her eyes are glowing the same, so I do the same to them. She shrieks. I hack at her with the sword.

A man-thing comes out from the dark. Its mouth is in its body, and it has flat but fish-like eyes. No ears, like a turnip or something. But strong. I hack at it and it hurts. The more I hack at them, the less I hurt them, until they're fine again. They laugh at my efforts, but I just keep hacking at them. I don't care what they say or do, I'm going to fight.

I finally tone down and open a chest by a wall and find a wedding dress she had once sewn. I say it's beautiful, and she thanks me. I'm about to hack at her again when the man-thing says welcome to the family, and calls me son. I ask why, and it's because I never gave up when most people would have. I ask how I know he won't kill me, and he gives the same answer. I somehow know these are my true parents.


posted by Phlegm at 7/23/2004  (0) comments

 
We Will Attack...YOU!
1-17-2004

I'm with some guys I hate, but will never see again. I get ahold of a white, basketball-sized, cushy ball and dribble it past them, jumping up toward the basket. One of them helps me do a slam-dunk, trying to make it look like I really did it. Nobody says anything about it though, and the gesture makes me want to cry. Later, while I'm talking to MP, I see the guy leaving. I don't expect him to say anything when he turns around at the last second and sees me there, but then he blurts out, "Haha, everyone would have noticed my handwas under the ball in a real game," before he leaves.

I'm in a house with many staircases. Two guys are with me, one of them Asian. I lead them down, then find an older-loooking staircase leading further downward. I see a stone in the wall that I know triggers an ancient mechanism. I urge one of them to push it. Something starts to happen, then stops, but then I notice a small, circular gold plate set in the wall. I have one of them push it. The wall curls up. Every piece of it bends and curlsback on itself to form many golden tubes, which combine to form elaborate devices. It's an ancient machine more advanced than any we have now. I examine a piece of it, which is four circles of metal surrounded by fields of energy, banging into each other until finally combining into a single circle.

I'm looking down upon a small house with a large yard. Several companions are hiding in the next yard over, watching a woman do some task in the yard. I descend upon them and explain how to accomplish our mission before carrying it out myself. I sneak into the yard and pet the dog to distract it from its little blue toy. Possession of the toy grants the wielder invisibility, which then allows me to sneak into the house without fear of the woman turning around to see me.

I'm standing around a table with others. We have an assignment that involves poking sticks at certain objects on the table to destroy them. RDT is there. Many monsters surround us, but RDT tells us to concentrate on our task, as if they are merely a distraction. I'm getting frustrated anyway, so I turn and wave my stick at the monsters. To my surprise, some of them die. I urge the others to help me, and together we destroy all the monsters around us. There are more in this building, I know, so I have everyone follow me to purge the place. Ryan S decides to help.

We make it to a hallway with a bunch of lockers. I wonder which one's mine, and whether the old combination works. 24-14-40. I try to open one and it opens, but then I realize there's no combination. Ryan finds his old locker, but it's locked. We start to venture further, but then monsters face us. "It was a nice trick," they say collectively,"but now we are immune, and we will attack.....YOU!" They pounce on Ryan and he's gone.


posted by Phlegm at 7/22/2004  (0) comments

 
Ass End of the Beach
12-06-03

I am the samurai protector of some chick. I'm at her home in the townhouse complex. Enemies come over, but they don't know who I am, because I'm not in my armour. Another young girl is playing in a play pit in the basement of the townhouse.

I'm back in Houston on my old motorcycle, taking it down the nighttime freeway. I see Heff and Beehan off one of the exits. I stop and join them. They're at an outdoor film festival and other people are around on the grass in sleeping bags. As I stand there, a friend of theirs seduces me. Another friend of hers joins in, too. I then notice an entrance to the sewer system. I'd been there before (in another dream), so I wanted to revist it.

Next thing I remember, I'm driving down one of Houston's main strips, running out of gas and oil. Bad time for it as I get a phophetic vision of giant buildings shimmering over New York, destroying it.

I end up in a truck, moving down to the "ass end of the beach".


posted by Phlegm at 7/21/2004  (0) comments

 
My Check
11-29-03

A piece of paper flies through city, the wind whisking it forever higher through the streets and between the buildings until it goes through a window and lands on a desk. A pretty woman stands in the window.

My vision moves through a maze of windows and fire escapes before centering in on me at the golf course with a mob boss. He kills me, then pulls a gun out and kills me again. The black and white flashback of my life is less glamorous than imagined, highlighting all the mundane and boring parts of my life.

I'm alive in the hospital. Someone tries to kill me again. I literally scream "bloody murder!", after which my attacker dies. He was being possessed. Someone comes in and certifies that I'm insane.

I get released from the hospital and walk around town, wishing I had sunglasses so that the mob guy wouldn't recognize me if he saw me. I go to the bank to get a check when some guy walks in and blows the place up.

A piece of paper--my check--flies through the city.

posted by Phlegm at 3/16/2004  (0) comments

 
Remember No More
11-28-03

I'm being chased by the cops, and I'm driving so fast my stomach feels like it's on a rollercoaster. Bullets fly around me everywhere, and eventually I crash into a building. I manage to escape into a nearby church. I wonder why I'm there, but I enjoy the sanctuary and the silence. People start making noise, however, so I leave. It's a shame, because the techno remix church music was actually pretty good.

Just as I'm leaving, though, I see it again. The thing with the honey silk voice. Terror rips through me as I realize I never did destroy it. Human legs dressed in jeans. A barren spine leading up to an empty void of a head. Bony arms that can peel the skin from your bones with no effort at all. Mercifully I black out and remember no more.

posted by Phlegm at 3/16/2004  (0) comments

 
Good Day for a Walk
11-27-03

I'm in what's supposed to be downtown SB, but the streets are so dark, I can't tell for sure, and I get lost trying to get back to De La Guerra. My euclidean sense of geometry fails me when I try to navigate in circles.

By morning I make it to a construction site north of town. It's a hilly region, mostly hard dirt with large patches of grass. Only the building's frame is up, but people are working on it. The path I'm following goes straight through the structure, so I follow it. Noone seems to notice.

My backpack starts to weigh me down, and I wonder how much further I need to go, when I see some tourists up ahead. Civilization can't be far. They're gathering at the top of the next hill. I make it over there and see a hotel in the next valley.

I make it down there and head into the hotel. I need a shower, and there is a public shower area, like in a gym. It's huge. Most of the showers are on, though noone is there. Even the benches and lockers are being sprayed by water. As I'm showering, Ted Turner shows up and tells a story about drinking and gives me instructions on how to shave my balls.

Outside in the lobby, I run into Shanner and MV. I can't believe it, and I exclaim to them how strange it is that I always run into the most unlikely people in the most unlikely of places. I feel refreshed. It's a good day for a walk.

posted by Phlegm at 3/16/2004  (0) comments

 
Xian
11-08-03

I've just finished reading a book about the bear people, who have a twisted view of the world that makes them see everything as good. I'm also some sort of supernatural creature, and since it's night out, I'm outside with another of my kind. We're up on a mountain, and vampires are fleeing toward us. We bound down with our swords and slaughter them. We see they were running from werewolves. We're about to go kill the werewolves, too, when more vampires come out and catch them, including the master vampire. They start to feed. I don't want to stick around. I see a little girl who was running, the original bait. I take her back to the mansion.

Back at the mansion is a locked courtyard with monsters inside. I fumble for the key to unlock the door to get in. Monsters surround me. Someone locks me in. Weaponless, I go for a file cabinet to grab my weapon. I kill everything and unlock the door again.

Afterwards I'm sitting inside, holding the little girl. Another guy comes up and slaps her, says she can't be one of us cuz she's a "Xian" (pronounced "shan"), not European. I yell that that's fine, call him inbred, that I'm the genetics guy around here. Then I yell at him some more. Monsters fill up the courtyard again. Someone's in there with a machinegun, holding them off. The guy next to me goes to help. I know I won't see him again for a while, and I'm relieved. I notice everyone has caught some disease. Some sort of slime is melting off them. It gets everywhere. I decide to leave.

Daytime. I'm driving a big blue truck through the middle of the desert. I find a country town and park in barn designated for parking. It's spacious like a parking structure, but only has a ground floor. I see some guy getting beat up badly. I know he's like me, but much weaker. I beat up his attackers. He's in bad shape and runs off to hide.

I stay in town and go to the pub that night. A woman joins me to play cards, but then tells me to hide the deck. I hide it under the table. Someone says we've already started our hourly card-playing rate. She calls out women's names, and they come forth (if there are a certain percentage of women there, it's a discounted rate). She also convinces the bartender that he needs to be more responsible serving people liquor, so we must say complicated sentences to get additional drinks.

I spend four days in town, drunk as I can be the entire time, which isn't very. I exhaust all the cash I have with me.

Daytime again. Some other supernatural guy finds me and decides he doesn't like me. He tries to torch my vehicle, but he gets the wrong one. I find him in the parking barn and beat him up, kick him in the back of the head. The guy I saved earlier comes out of a closet he'd been hiding in and helps me. The bad guy turns into a tin dusting pan, and I bust it apart with a pole.

Two normal people are there watching, and old man and wife. They helped me earlier, but now they're frightened of me. I give them each a hug, the man having stepped into a big cobweb.

posted by Phlegm at 3/16/2004  (0) comments