Dream Log: September 27, 2001

Katie was behind a window for some reason, and I'm looking at her, standing in line for something, something I'm used to doing, something with no variation, waiting in line for my food pellet. But tonight there is variation, Katie is behind the window.
Her hair is short, and starting to dread; however, I haven't seen her in about 3 months, so her hair looks a tad longer than I saw it last, it seems to have grown alot since she was around. She's grown up alot too, she was in NYC when the shit hit the fan. She sits up straight, she is confident now. Now that she's been out in the great big scary world, which swallows some whole, now that she's been there and come back alive she believes in herself. I hope. Maybe the world was to much for her, why would she hitchhike to Michigan, NYC, Tennessee, then north again to Indianapolis only to settle back in the southeast, here in Asheville, NC.

This is home. I've known Katie longer than she knows most people who she sleeps with (something I'm glad we never did). Shit, Katie is right in front of me, and I'm standing still.
My body jerks into motion like electric shock, and I run around through the door into the smallish room that stands "behind the window". Katie is sitting down just before me, she leaps up and hugs me, and I hug back, hard.

The embrace lasts forever.

It lasts until about mid-day, when I remember the dream I had, and wonder what KT is doing right now, and say a silent prayer for her.

This is the only part of last nights dream I remember with sufficient clarity:

There was an art gallery, with one particular new display that I was there to see. I walked down a black hallway about 5 feet wide, twenty feet long, with about a 12 foot arched ceiling. It was illuminated by pale blue neon lights in the ceiling, but it was too dark to see the floor. The hall winded slightly so that you couldn't see either end very well.

I made my way to a connected room with a higher, domed roof, and the same black walls. The roof was about 5 feet higher than the hall ceiling. The room was illuminated by small narrow skylights, allowing in a yellow dusk light. The room was about 14 feet in diameter. The middle of the floor was deeper, you had to go down a couple steps or a ramp. Around the inside of the recessed floor were seats. They were yellow fabric with what looked like a gold colored wire mesh over the fabric, they had no arm rests. There were about 6 chairs on each side of the recession, and a small round coffee table in the very center. Two or three other people were there to admire the paintings.

At about 5 feet up the wall there were evenly spaced paintings. All were square, about a foot to each side, spaced at about six inches. They were of puddles, lakes, waterfalls, mugs of coffee, women with long flowing hair, many different liquid or moving things. Some were just abstract blobs. A sat in one of the chairs and watched the paintings. Which ever one you looked at flowed and moved in weird ways. It was as if they got into your mind, and moved according to your subconscious. There was an ambient hum in the room, but when you focused on one painting, the hum would be replaced by some music or sound accompanying the painting.

At some point I was gazing deeply into an orange/pink whirlpool, and it was as if I had achieved enlightenment. I deeply understood something for a period of time. But when I got out of the chair, I forgot everything.

I left the room and explored the art gallery, bought some bread and tomato sauce from the gift shop, then aliens attacked, and I woke up.

Superluminal Girl

• I'm a ten year-old girl alone on a starship stranded deep in interstellar space. The automatic pilot computer has failed and I am faced with the daunting task of piloting my ship manually at superluminal velocities. On my computer screen I see a three-dimensional representation of a four-dimensional situation: my ship and the small rabbit-hole in hyperspace through which I have to maneuver. My joystick control is extremely sensitive and the little spaceship icon bobs crazily about before the green grid wall, trying to maintain a course towards the circular hole in its center. I approach closer and closer, still veering unsteadily, until I miss my chance and fall permanently against the infinite plane of the cold, empty cosmos.