Little Shop of Horrors

 (While Dreaming)

I encountered my old boss Larry.  We had not parted on good terms, mostly because he is a massive jerk but for whatever reason, we are chatting amicably now.  In fact we even plan to go to a movie.  On the walk up to to the theater, he asks me about red feathers and says his sister likes them.  He also says he's heard there is a coating that can be put on the feathers that can make them better quality and more fluffy.  In the dream, I understand this and talk about how the coating makes them great for hair feathers (feathers that are clipped into hair for decorative purposes) and makes them nice and supple in the hair with a nice S curve.  

 As we get towards the door of the theater, apparently there is a change of plans and we reverse directions.  I think we are going back to his store but am not sure.  He is driving and he seems to go insanely fast on a highway that twists and turns and is so narrow I can't really see it.  I do my best not to be scared of dying in a car crash but it isn't easy.  

We arrive in a sunny relaxing paved area between stores where people walk casually and we chat more.  I think about the scary road to the location and he surprises me by asking my what I am thinking about.  I blurt out, "It's a good day to die!" and surprisingly, he chuckles good naturedly even though the statement is nonsensical. 

Then a very dark black young man in a expensive looking sharp grey wool coat comes walking by.  He seems nervous and I wonder if Larry will accuse him of stealing since that is the kind of assumption Larry would often make.  But instead they talk in a friendly way, even though I get the impression they do not know each other.  

The next thing I know, they have walked off together, side by side and are already far away. I decide to follow out of curiosity and hustle after them.  Soon I turn a corner and the street is now wide with tall gothic style stores and structures on both side and abandoned streets.  I assume people are staying inside due to the pandemic.  The sky is now overcast and soon an insanely heavy rain begins to fall.  I decide that I can handle some rain and continue on.  

Soon I come to a huge stone structure that looks like the underside of a massive overpass but very old and cool looking, albeit a bit creepy.  It's so big I can't really see the end of it, almost like a tunnel and rather poorly lit. As I go under, I see some workers on ladders trying to pry open some holes in the roof that look like some kind of drainage.  I get the impression there is a type of pressure buildup that needs to be relieved, these emergency workers are almost frantic trying to relieve the pressure quickly.  Somehow there is a store front to my right with huge windows, it reminds me of Larry's old store but inside I see a scene from a horror movie.  

Half human half ghoulish creatures are somehow pouring into the store.  I feel like they are draining in like liquid from portals but then materializing into these ghouls.  They are slight of build and terrified, running in a panic in every direction, trying to cling to each other but getting separated from each other in the panic.  With them is a profound sense of terror and horror that goes well beyond just their gruesome appearance.  The scene is for some reason in black and white instead of color (I wondered later if that was to partially protect myself from the horror).

 

I am completely shocked staring at this not believing it can be real in front of my eyes. I feel like something like this should be on the news if it was real but I had not heard anything.  I feel a profound horror emanating from the place but for some reason am not totally scared of the ghouls, they feel weak and diminished like golem from Lord of the Rings and seem more interested in running than attacking.  Some of them run by me out of the store but I continue to stare into the store window in shock.  I feel like I want to ask the government workers I just saw what is happening here but then I decide the smart thing is to get away from obvious danger so I turn and run myself.  Luckily I clearly remember the way back.  Then I wake with a start to a fine Thanksgiving morning with tears in my eyes.  

Looking back on the dream, I wonder if mean old man Larry has finally died or will soon and this horror is where he is going.  But as much as I didn't like him and he may well be an evil person, after seeing it, I couldn't wish this kind of hell on anyone.  

Who Are You? (Or On the art of Communication)

I woke up early today but once I was moving around, I felt massively tired, so I sat on the couch, put my head down, and took a nap shortly after I had just gotten out of bed.  This is how it goes sometimes these days, and not long after I put my head down, I started to dream.

In the dream, I was sitting on a green bench out in a parking lot near a busy street and still with my head down dozing.  My friend Dave was sitting on the other end of the bench looking out over the parking lot.  Eventually a woman came by and rushed up to Dave and seemed to want something from him.  He seemed irritated with her but spoke with her anyway.  Eventually, he came over to me and surreptitiously handed me a business card and some money and asked me to hide it.  I put it on my thigh under my hand and tried to act natural.  Once the woman was further away, I moved it into my purse. I noticed I had a big wad of money in my purse and now his money was next to mine, for some reason this seemed interesting, like I had forgotten I had that much money in there and I was surprised by the size of the wad. 

Soon the woman came back and talked to Dave a bit, said some friendly words to me and said she had to go.  I realized she was part of a counter lockdown demonstration and was carrying a sign to that effect.  I wanted to give her some words of encouragement so as she was leaving, I tried to say, 'Yah, good job!' but the words came out quiet and low and grumbled. I realized I was asleep and it's hard to speak when asleep and I felt she probably did not hear me.  

I dozed more on the bench until I noticed a weird sickly ratlike animal crawling along the pavement towards us.  I asked Dave what it was and he said he didn't know.  It was missing a lot of fur on it's back and the skin appeared ready to crack open, as if it was half rotted inside but yet still alive somehow.  I took a stick and poked its back but it did not respond to the prodding. I felt I could easy kill it just with a hard poke, which would cause its rotting insides to burst out, but I did not want to do that.  I asked Dave several more times if he knew what it was, for some reason I felt he MUST know and if I asked again, he'd surely tell me, but each time he said he did not know.  Eventually the moldering rat creature left and then another one came that was similar.  I poked that one too and asked Dave if he knew what it was again but all the outcomes were still the same.  And it too wandered off again.

Then I became aware of a middle aged black man with speckles of beard hair standing there looking at me.  Although he seemed to be in a different place than me, under a wooden door frame in a building, somehow I could still see him.  He seemed poised to move on but he seemed important somehow so I said, "You seem important, who are you?"  In response I could see his lips moving but could not hear the words.  Frustrated I said again, "Wait!  Who are you!"  He seemed amused by this as if he knew it would not work but he answered again anyway and again, although I listened with all my might, I could not hear the response.  Then he turned and I knew he was starting to leave.  But I was determined so I said, "WAIT!  Can you answer in a way that I can hear you?"

He paused and looked at me.  For my part, I tried to listen again and then my left ear seemed to increase greatly in sensitivity.  I felt it 'open up' in a weird way as if I could now hear even the tiniest hair vibrate on a fly.   Around me was a slowly increasing massive din of noise, channels of noise coming from all directions, all manner of noises, squeaks and growls, tones and clanging, and above all there were many kinds of people and things talking here and there, almost every sound imaginable, coming from every direction at many different levels. I could hear them all at once, confusing yet amazing and I was in awe of hearing this all at once.  And then I determined that I must listen very hard for the answer from the black man in between all that racket. 

I knew the answer in my mind before I heard it, by the time the sound came, it was anticlimactic
.  In a gravely whisper so very quiet that I could barely hear it, slowly emerging with a great amount of time between each word, I heard him say, ".... i ......... am ................ Morphius."  And then I woke up.  

*  Note that the black man did look similar but not identical to Lawrence Fishburne from the Matrix movies.   Google also showed me that Morpheus is said to be the Greek god of dreams. 

My Part in the Game

It began innocently enough as a mystery whodunnit dinner game. A jovial group of us came to eat and digest clues to figure out a grand mystery. The leaders of the game were a finely dressed sharp eyed older woman in a white knee length skirt and her side kick, a middle aged tall thin quiet man with a receding hairline. At first it was fun, huddling in groups, guessing at clues, pondering on who we could trust.

But then it took a sinister turn.  The old woman became snide and verbally abusive.  Eventually I learned she was hitting and abusing some of the younger people way out in the massive back yard when others weren't around.  We began to complain and that's when she told us we couldn't leave unless we did what she said, and there was no way out.  It was also at that time that a lot of the people who had come in with me were now gone.  No they were not milling in the back yard or in another room, they just weren't there anymore and the old woman with a sly smile told me that it was none of my business where they were.  

Weeks past and things only devolved from there.  She became more abusive.   Her favorite weapon was a short whip or flail that she would lash at your face if she didn't like how fast you were moving or if you looked at her for too long.  The three of us that were left learned to keep our heads down.  I noticed I rarely saw the quiet mousy nervous 18 year old girl, she was usually out in the backyard, and eventually I didn't see her at all.  Then it was just me and that tall pudgy middle aged Asian looking man with the kind smile.  Until he was gone too.

So many weeks had passed, or was it months now?  I realized I was some kind of chosen one in their eyes.  They had me wearing a weird short black shiny cloak that in my opinion has was horribly tacky and cheap but they seemed to think it had special meaning.  Needless to say, I kept my real opinions to myself and tried to go along with their bs.  Over time, they were behaving less violently and for the most part, we lived quietly.  But I was still looking for opportunities to escape.  

One day when the man was not around, I tried to seduce the old woman.  It was a risk but I could not think of a better strategy.  She was obviously the leader and maybe I could get her to trust me more or let down her guard or maybe I could sew strife between her and her side kick.  I noticed as I got close to her, she was much older looking than I had first thought, deep lines etched into her face, covered over incompletely with skin tone makeup, how had I not noticed that before?  She was just really really OLD!  But it didn't matter for my strategy, I figured it would either work or she would get angry and hit me but I had already been hit so many times, another round was worth the risk.  Strangely she just looked at my impassively when I tried though, with a blank stony look on her face devoid of personality.  The seduction was not working at all and I felt like a fool for trying, but neither did she seem displeased.  

Instead she calmly explained to me that I was not designed to be with her but instead I was to be for the middle aged man. Because she would not be around much longer, she had blood cancer and would be gone soon.  I calmly accepted the information, at this point, I was numb to any trauma and I also had no love of the woman, if she died, that just meant a change in power dynamics, but other than that, I had no feelings other than being glad they were not angry with me. 

Not long after that, the man left for the back yard with a shovel and pick and I knew that the old woman was dead and he meant to bury her.  Some hours later, he came back in heading directly towards me with the shovel and a very intense expression.  I realized he was angry, the first time I had actually sensed strong emotion from him.  He took the shovel and started hitting me with it and I understood he was angry about the death of the woman and taking it out on me.  This was the first time either of them had ever hit me with something that dangerous as full swings with a shovel.  Strangely though, each time the shovel came down on me, it seemed to slow down and not hit me hard and not actually hurt.  At first I just stared in confusion but then I realized my part in the game meant I should put on a show so I held my head and tried to look agonized, it seemed important that I put on the best and most convincing show that I could until finally it was over.    

After that, the house was quiet with just the two of us, he had never been one to talk much and I had learned months ago to keep my own mouth shut for anything other than essential communication.  I realized I was quite lonely and began to long for communication with my friends and social media.  Surely there would be many good conversations and stories waiting for me once I got back to the rest of the world. I looked around the house, everything was white, the furniture, the carpet, the entire place was bland and empty and devoid of character and totally totally white, how I had I not noticed that before?  This was my old home that I had grown up in, except that everything was white.  It felt surreal.  And very very lonely.

The next thing I knew, I was making phone calls to old friends on an old fashioned land line telephone in the kitchen of the house.  I was telling them yes, I'd be getting married soon.  What was he like?  My voice was calm and completely jovial as I spoke to them.  The man was in the kitchen working but also listening to my every word, but I felt confident, I knew my acting skills were perfect.  I told my friends he was like 'nice guy meets Jesus' but in my mind I added 'freak' at the end as in 'nice guy meets Jesus Freak.'  My friends were happy for me, they assumed I was happy and that made them happy.  I could tell that the man was also pleased.  For some reason beyond my ability to understand, he believed my act, he thought I meant what I said to my friends, he thought their mission had succeeded.  But inside I knew I was just waiting for my chance to escape. 

And then I woke up.   

   

We Shouldn't but I Can't Stop

He came over unexpected that night out of the blue.  Why after all this time?  It had been so long, what did he want?  He acted like it was just a casual visit but we both knew there was nothing casual about it.  We hadn't even spoken in months since our work no longer brought us together.  Yibin, even his name churned up warm feelings inside me.  We had worked together on that project, sexual tension thick in the air and the two of us continually dancing around it, with our little suggestive jokes and accidental touches, but neither of us quite acting on it.  Once our assignments ended, we had walked away from each other as if there was nothing between us.  I knew I had made the right decision but yet I still could not help but miss him, even after all this time, a part of me still lingered on his memory.  

And then he came over unexpected out of the blue.  We exchanged banal pleasantries and for lack of a better idea, I started preparing him a meal.  The kitchen was a mess, dishes stacked up, if I had known in advance, I would have cleaned but too late now.  I found space on the counter to lay down a cutting board and started chopping vegetables and meat to add them to a fry pan, quick and easy.  Meanwhile, he quietly stood in the kitchen behind me, I could feel his heavy gaze on my back as I fidgeted nervously.  The food was almost ready.  I pulled out a clean plate and dug through scattered silverware in the drawer for a big serving spoon.

And then in a heart beat I felt him push up against me from behind and then stand still, his front touching against my back and butt.  He was tall, so tall that I could feel his long hard erection pressing against the small of my back.  My breath hitched but I tried to play it cool, still fiddling with the food, I tried ridiculously to pretend nothing unusual was happening, but I failed at even that.  Forgetting where I put the plate, where I put the spoon, he was reaching over my shoulder to help me sort the food.  I could sense a pleased smirk within his gentle few words helping me organize, he well knew I was spacing out because of him and it pleased him.  His assistance, surely by no accident, caused him also to press in even harder and in response, I took an almost imperceptible step back further into his body.  I wanted so badly to just wiggle myself back into him, I wanted it so badly but I knew I shouldn't.  I knew it was wrong but I WANTED him.

The food was now plated and in no danger of burning, which should mean that we would move over to the table to eat, but I couldn't move, I couldn't leave that warm pressure of him touching me.  I was shutting down now, my head was spiraling, the conflict between what I knew I should do and what I wanted was just too much.  So I just stood there not moving, not talking, my arms loose at my sides, I was frozen in place.  I knew it was starting to get really weird now, just standing there with no excuses and no words, but the time stretched on and all I knew was I did not want to lose this feeling, not even for a second.

And then I woke.  

The Election

I entered the large teared judicial room and realized that no seats were available.  I was told I would need to pay for a seat, the equivalent of just over $8.00 dollars.  I wryly thought about the irony of judicial systems everywhere and pulled out some money.  The paper money consisted of an ornately patterned roll of special paper that had many perforations in rows.  I would pull off little rectangless of the money to pay and one full strip of perforations off the side was called one 'wall.'

I was directed to one man of many black suited men sitting in a chair near the aisle.  Apparently he had the job of taking up the chair until someone paid him to leave.  I pulled off some money sections for him and proceeded towards the chair.

Later I found myself in a large room with long tables and seated individuals.  We were doing the counts for an election.  In front of me, a small man was seated, between us was a long table with some papers on it, and I stood in front of the table with one other person, a tall man.  People would come to us one by one and cast their vote.  Around us, other individuals were seated at other places amongst the tables doing the same thing but presumedly for other candidates.  The casting was done with some kind of ritual that involved rapping a wooden gavel on the table.  Voters would come to us one by one and me and the man seated across the table from me would do the quick ritual for each of them to cast the vote.  At one point, I was surprised that the gavel flipped off the table onto the floor and I had to pick it up and give it back to the seated man. 

Eventually there was a lull and I discussed with the tall man standing with me the counts and if we were done.  I was not sure of the actual counts, apparently that was not part of my job, and was not sure if we were done.  But he checked his paperwork and said it was 888, not sure if that was the expected or the actual count but had the impression the two numbers were expected to be very close to each other.  We briefly discussed past election gigs and counts we had done.  Now that the expected number for this one had been reached and no further voters were coming to us, we could say our work was done, even though around us, others were still seated.

At that point, a female official came up to us and told me that she had to investigate any 'irregularities.'  I said with surprise, "You mean the gavel falling on the floor?" and she said yes. but assured me that it was a minor thing and probably not a big deal, just that her job involved involved investigating even the tiniest issues to be on the safe side and insure accuracy.   I felt reassured and then the dream ended.  

What would it mean to get married?

Another dream, I walk with him on the deck of the boat.  He bids me sit on a wooden bench and he sits beside me, dark hair, sparkling eyes, and a pure white formal uniform with many buttons which reminds me vaguely of a military uniform.  As we sit, I suddenly suspect what he wants and I become afraid.  I realize he wants to ask me to marry him, a marriage of promise made with red blood that will completely bind us for the entirety of my life.  Divorce would not be an option.  I feel he is a good man and I don't want to disappoint him.  I feel that I SHOULD be ready to marry him, that he deserves it and I owe it to him.  But the more I think about it, the more afraid I become.  I don't want to say no, but I feel that I really only just met him and that I barely know him.  It's too soon, it's too soon!  The more I think about it, the more I don't want to do it.  At least not yet.

Standing in front of us as we sit, an observer looks down at the two of us and tells me that if in my mind I do not want it, then it can't happen no matter what I say out loud.  Therefore it's already over, I have already said no even though I had not exactly meant to do so.  We will not get married, at least not now.  I feel saddened but even more so, I feel relieved.  I think about what a wonderful boyfriend I have and how much I like him.  I hang on his arm.  That's good enough for now.  End of dream.

The White Trees and Superman Story

A strange dream, not entirely realistic but interesting to me because it had a story line:

Me and some friends road on top of a slow moving training that snaked peacefully through a beautiful parklike country side of low grass and tall willowy trees with white trunks.  At some point, I and a few others jumped off and lost track of the train.  We were walking along looking for the train when suddenly something grabbed us from behind and plucked us into the air.  Seconds later, we were dangling 3 stories high in the air near one of the trees, completely bewildered and confused.

We began to debate what had happened.  My friends had some ideas about maybe it was UFOs.  My argument was that it had to be that one of the trees that had grabbed us, but the others thought this was ridiculous.

"But how then are we still dangling now without falling unless the tree is grabbing us?" I asked.  They had no answer.

Eventually we were put down and scurried on our way, still not in agreement about what had happened but in a hurry to get away from whatever it was.  After a while of continued wandering, I began to inspect the trees and noticed many of them had a double trunk on the bottom, almost as if they had legs.  The more I looked at them, the more lifelike they seemed.  Then I spied a tree that looked like a humanoid, with two long trunk legs, two arm like large branched and an upright branch at the top where the head would have been.  It's bark was white and peeling and it had few leaves or side branches, just a few twigs.  It stood in a stooped crouched position and when it realized I was staring, it loped away from sight before I could point it out to the others.  Now I felt confident the trees were alive and animate but since they had not really hurt us previously, although I was wary of them, I did not feel great fear.  We continued on and found our way back home to civilization which is where the next part of the story begins.

In this part, I was working together with a super hero type person to defeat an evil villain.  I have no name for the super hero so I will for the sake of the story call him Superman.  The villain had been thus far kicking our butt.  Superman was not strong enough.  I and a few others who knew Superman had been working with him to defeat the villain using various strategies but none had worked and we were in dire straights.  Eventually, the villain had found my house when I wasn't home and had destroyed the inside, breaking apart much of my furniture.  We then quickly moved to rented place and continued on.

Soon after, I went off to work on the villain project and when I came home, the new place also was also broken up inside.  Now I was really scared.  How did the villain find my hideout so quickly when I had gone through such pains to keep it hidden?  If he could do that, there was no place for us to hide.  We knew the villain would be back any minute and so Superman and I and a few cohorts prepared a last stand against him.

When he came, he quickly defeated Superman and as Superman lay unconscious, we feared for our lives and all humanity.  He could easily kills us at any second, but then I began the last ditch backup plan.  As the villain stood outside the house in a location I had planned in advance, hidden machines around him zapped him from all directions and split him into 8 different individuals.

At this time, I recalled back to the creation of the villain.  It was time for the back story.  It had all started with the animate trees back in the park.  Scientists had studied them and were able to extract the spark of life from one of the trees.  The spark was then isolated and the end result was a terrible powerful creature that had become the villain.  Now I had no way of destroying the villain's spark of life but I could split him into parts, although with little idea of the outcome other than that his power would also be split into parts.

After the zapping, I watched as 8 young boys with dark hair now stood where the villain once had been.  They were all dressed similarly in dark clothes and looked to be about 8 or 10 years old.  Their personalities seemed much changed from the villain and 6 of them immediately moved away in different directions and soon were out of sight.  Two stayed for a short while, one slightly taller and appearing older than the other and the taller one, did all the talking.  Curious but nervous, I approached and spoke with him.  I asked him how he was and what his plans were.  I knew I was taking a great risk because even at only 1/8 of his original power, he could easily destroy me. Superman also still lay unconscious and vulnerable.  The taller boy acted as if I were a stranger and said, "We will need this lantern," and also indicated a need for a few other utilitarian items and so took them without asking.  I did not argue.  He seemed to speak more towards his younger cohort than me.  Then they also left the area and disappeared into the world.  I hoped that they would not cause trouble but if some of them did, once Superman recovered, he would at least be able to handle them one at a time now with their power thus split.

After the commotion, the police had arrived and were inspecting the damage to the inside of my home, trying to figure out what had happened.  During the fight, the house had been further devastated and everything was broken, scattered, and strewn.  Me and my cohorts needed to make an excuse to get inside and recover the body of Superman which was under a guise so that regular people could not see him.  The police let us in hoping to get some clues from us about what had happened but we gave only vague answers that were not useful.  Once in, some of us distracted the police while others of us got Superman's body.  Superman would recover.  It was a partial victory for us but we did not know what kinds of creatures the 8 children would become or what the future would hold.  We could only hope that the future would be brighter.