The Pit
i prolly would love it, j, but sadly, when i have time i have no such inspirations and when there are neat things afoot, i haven’t the time. i’ll only be seeing what you download for the meantime…
as recent dreams go, this one is pretty bizarre..
earlier i’d dreamed i was leaving school but couldn’t get out due to the water, knee deep in the buildings. i got frustrated and decided to go, jumped in with my school bag and slipped and ended up getting my coat wet, worrying about what that would mean.
then i was at university with a group of ppl, a special conference. my deskmate accused me of looking thru a sealed letter of hers and i had, but i successfully denied and defended how i would never. i felt awful about that. then an old friend of mine, one i recently located again, was sitting at our workstation. we were all having a discussion about the work we’d done on this project and what we were about to go out and do. i was thinking about him, tho, and about time running out. he was deep into his side of the conversation and i was having one of those moments where i’m ultra aware of everything happening, so one free part of me chose to be brave enough and i reached across the desk to stroke his hand, to see what would happen. i was watching his face, because another part of me was incredibly curious what his reaction would be and wanted to extensively document it for later study.
the reaction was priceless. i had that electric touch i’ve been blamed for, giving him a lasting but short-lived physical jolt. plus my sudden attention seemed to be both very much welcome and scary as hell, like he wanted it but was freaked out. his face bore an expression i’ve seen nowhere before. and then he was suddenly gone.
a group of us were to attend a function that involved touring campus and i’d been getting my things together, ready to follow. i’d wanted to fuss with my hair first. i was wearing a yellow bandanna, rolled in a complicated way. when i pulled it off my head, my hair had been burned an unusual shade of deep red. i assumed in the dream that was where the sun had struck because it struck and arc across the top of my head. i had a lot of paperwork and my organising took just a few seconds too long. when i emerged, classes were dismissing and my group was lost in the mass.
i searched for a very long time, looking for clues, going where it made sense, related departments, political science building. i ended up in a gym at one point, steeling myself to keep pushing thru doors, all the time feeling time was running out.
i don’t recall how i transitioned to this part, but i was in a car with five other ppl. something small and we were packed in with our gear. the driver said she knew this great place we had to stop. we were in the middle of nowhere now. she pulled in to a field where there was a smashingly huge hole in the ground. i became worried when i thought she got a little too close to the edge as we passed. i looked down into what may have been a driveway, rutted and washed out, just waiting for someone to try its slope. they’d end up trapped or dead in the bottom of the pit. it was rough-edged and not manmade or made by explosive and the place gave me the extreme creeps, but slowly, like someone steadily turning up the intensity. the driver said ppl used to come here and do ceremonies in the bottom of the pit. that actually made me feel a bit better, perceiving that to mean my kind of ceremony, good magic stuff, which wasn’t necessarily so.
ppl fanned out to explore the area nearby. i think one dude had to pee and headed for a small wooded copse (don’t you say wooded even tho that’s all a copse is?). i begin heading for the car, ready to leave asap. i throw all the bags into the back and make ppl room, as if i know something is about to happen. i want to be Ready. and the shrieking starts. its our party, running, screaming from all corners of the land. i’m shoving ppl in and making room, trying to pull doors to as we peel out of there.
we end up in a nearby town where i resume the search for my friend. i go from building to building. no luck. all the while that Time issue is nagging at me. i leave town, taking the car we’d been using. on the road, i am going the wrong direction to, but somehow pass the area of the pit again. small groups of animals are going crazy. in the first town i’d seen some of this from individual animals, but now i’m seeing them run the same direction, away from the hole, in packs. they get in the road and act confused. my mind is racing and going in so many directions i nearly hit one cat, then have to miss whole floods of other animals, always only with their own species, all looking alike.
i pull up to an old farmhouse and go inside and here is my first clue that i’m on the right track. there are papers that show they belong to the group. i begin to search the house. there are ppl inside, but they aren’t right and i can sense that. i don’t know what it is about them… i can feel is that they have an emptiness in their minds where human rules apply. i see it as a shadow in their minds as i scan their bodies. they begin to approach me with offers and i ignore them. i go to the mirror and notice my hair has changed again. its getting long now and is oddly frosted and layered. i get wrapped up in fixing it until a smaller one of the residents comes over and latches onto me in a sexual way. i’m disgusted by it but it feels good and i’m not as quick as i should be to break out of the contact with the thing. they seem to be trying to be purposefully inappropriate with me, maybe to distract.
i get away from them and get my mind back on track and start searching the house again as they follow me from room to room, begging now, like they need my help. i ignore them, recognising this as a trick. they’d seem convincing, but i can feel the insincerity come off them just as i can see the shadow inside them. i walk into a room where they have lined a high shelf with lamps and heavy objects that are dropped at me one by one. without having to look or think, i avoid and deflect them. they are concerned by my ability to do this, but it also makes them more intent on keeping me there. the begging continues. i look past the small one and out a front window to see a part of my group in suits, combing the neighborhood with a survey. i’m thrilled and i rush for the door.
i leave the house and i’m in a small farm town center, just a few old houses and grain processing equipment/buildings is the impression i get peripherally. i’m focused on finding the group. i can’t be far behind them. i begin with nearby buildings and find i’m again in places that don’t fit. there is a menacing and awful pressure that builds this entire time and i begin to be able to hear something laughing at me in a strange voice. i start to feel sick from the sound pressure.
once i’m in the next building, i stop and look down at the tile floor. there are ppl rushing past me in the busy lobby and tho all the ppl in this and surrounding towns are succumbing to that Sound thing and acting wrong, these ppl seem unaffected. i am also, now. i can think again. i think, i’m dreaming. this is a dream. i judge how close to wakefulness my body feels. i think i want to finish the dream, not wake. i also think, if i’m dreaming, i can resolve this situation. no more hunting. they will be in the next room. i walk purposefully for the door.
and enter a burger king. ok…ppl here are acting eight kinds of silly and stupid. which of course i love. i immediately forget i was aware and enter the kitchen to toss marinated tofu triangles and prepared hot sandwiches over a suspended hood and onto specific ppl in a tight knot in the forefront of the kitchen, having a serious meeting. i tell the employees before i throw, calling my shots, and we celebrate when i make every attempt, covering ppl in slop.
another transition and i’m back at university, sorting my things again. i’ve decided that if finding the group isn’t happening, then that’s how it is to be and i’m ok with it. and then it immediately seems they are to imminently arrive. and i wake.
