Hope Monday’s been kind. If it hasn’t, at least it’s almost over. Tell me about your dreams.
Last night (5/17) the cat woke me up at 3 AM. The dream I awoke from had interesting imagery.
I am a political prisoner, wrists zip tied behind me and I’m kneeling, facing a rusted metal wall. I’m inside a moving truck, prisoners on either side of me. A man is yelling something at each prisoner before a soldier shoots them. I make eye contact with the prisoner next to me, a young woman who’s panting in fear. Our mouths are covered but I wouldn’t know what to say anyway. She’s shot in the head. I close my eyes and am shot too. It doesn’t end there. Our bodies are reanimated for a short time to clean up the mess left by our destroyed heads. When we’re done, our bodies are dumped one by one off the trestle bridge into a lake or river. Dark colossal shapes in the water snag a single body each to pull to the bottom. I watch from an ever increasing height as my soul departs from the earth.
This is a troubling dream. Not for the obvious reasons - I’ve had nasty, violent dreams since I was in single digits - but with the diegetics. I have problems with the storytelling. Me and my little conscious brain have questions for me and my subconscious brain, and a few suggestions for improved storylines. Possible changes:
- Our revenant bodies continue to function. They’re brought by the monstrous servants of the true rulers of the world to an enormous factory beneath the surface where we will assemble the devices which power the system, enabling the status quo to remain, for as long as our bodies hold out.
- The immediate family of the deceased are brought in to clean up the mess and throw the bodies of their loved ones off the bridge. They are charged for the bullet and cleaning supplies. Those who cannot pay must work or be imprisoned themselves regardless of age.
- I have a vague recollection, I suspect all the prisoners do, of being pulled from class in 4th grade by military men to sanitize a truck full of dead prisoners. Each of us is to clean after one body. I recall at that moment the clothing of the dead person I was cleaning up after. It’s what I’m wearing now, the body I saw as a child is the corpse I’m about to become, and this is how the world works. A government with absolute control would of course take a miracle discovery like time travel and use it for a cruel and petty purpose.
- I’d been twisting the zip ties since they were placed on my wrists. When the truck crashes, I grab the rifle from the sprawled soldier. He’s dazed and has his hands up for mercy. I don’t care and show him the mercy he showed us. The crash had been set up by the resistance, the driver’s dead, the rest of the military taken prisoner. We join the resistance, and the woman and I fall in love. After the overthrow of the government we settle down and marry, have two kids, grow old together. The sound of a single shot brings me back to the present moment. The woman beside me is dead, and I await my turn. (“Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” - Bierce)
- I’d been twisting the zip ties since they were placed on my wrists. When the truck crashes, I grab the rifle from the sprawled soldier. He’s dazed and has his hands up for mercy. I free the woman next to me and tell her to keep the gun trained on the soldiers while I free the survivors. Instead she empties the rifle on the captors. Grabs the other guns, empties them too. The scientist is merely wounded. I tell him to revive the dead soldiers and prisoners and set them against the armed driver who’s headed towards us. They’re going to tear him apart.
Who else here is a big fan of happy endings? Over to you, citizens.
~ SQRL, cub reporter at The Backtalk Village Haruspex
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