Guest Post - The One With The Rabbit Possession

Guest dream by my partner and co-adventurer - The One With The Rabbit Possession

Guen and Greg had been invited to a meeting in a countryside inn. The building was a squat, two-storey block, whitewashed and set slightly into a steep hillside in the middle of nothing but farmland. The inside was over-decorated with chintzy knick-knacks, floral plates and teacups and the like and filled with the sort of quiet regulars that you might expect in an out-of-the-way country pub.

 

The meeting they’d been summoned to was less ordinary. The Doctor and all of the past and present companions had been invited to council in the Inn’s saferoom. And some safefroom it was: The mirrored walls were feet thick and without windows, the door was impenetrable, thick and armed with a very solid lock. In the centre of the room was a long oval table, around which were seated many of the companions including Greg and the ninth Doctor (Christopher Eccleston).

Before the meeting was started, Guen remembered something she had left in the front rooms of the Inn and went to retrieve it. Almost immediately after she had left the room one of the companions that she did not recognise, a good looking, shorter man, with a tanned face and strong black hair rose and addressed the assembled group.

                “I will now seal the room” – He told them, and the group took their seats so the secret and protected meeting could begin. But the tanned man stepped out of the room completely and slammed the door closed.

Watching from a distance, hidden by other inn guests, Guen watched him lock the door* securely and felt cold dread. The doctor and the companions were trapped in a cell designed to withstand any attack and their jailer was walking off scott free.

But she didn’t have time to do anything about it right now, the other inn guests were behaving weirdly. Guen raced back to join a friend she’d made, a younger blonde girl. Never having been a companion, the girl had not been in the meeting and was now silent and afraid: The pub goers were possessed and their behaviour was changing rapidly and becoming more and more hostile. Guen grabbed her hand and they fled the front rooms.

The pair raced along the balcony that skirted the building, many, many metres off the ground**. The possessed mob tried to grab at them through the windows and Guen and the girl fought them off with planks of wood.

Finally, they scrabbled up onto the roof-top garden of the inn but the horde has found a way up there as well. But, here they changed. Their attack stopped and, although still trying to nibble and nip the other girl, they began to attempt to lick Guen on the hands and on the shins.

At this point the tenth Doctor appeared, and seeing through the change of behaviour of the dangerous guests he said “It’s OK now. They’re all possessed by the soul of your dead rabbit."

And, with that assurance in mind, Guen woke up.

*I hope it was wood – Sonic doesn’t do wood.

 **Many, many metres up on a two storey building – Tardis Inn much?

Send Greg To Space...

So, here's the deal.

For some reason, Lynx (Axe, to my American pals) are sending some people to space.

It's sub-orbital so I won't have time to set up any experiments *this* time, but its a start.
And the testing will be grueling and painful. Which I know you want to hear about.

To advance to testing I need to be in the top few of this leader-board.
Which you can help me achieve here: Vote for Me

From the bottom of my heart - Thank you.

Greg

The One With Polarised Lighting

Ugh, I had a pretty rough patch emotionally recently. Lots of self doubt and worry about the future. As is its custom during times of high stress, my subconscious has been trying to pick me up by screening a new and exciting film of its own creation each and *every* night.

As to whether this one cheered me up? Not hugely. But it was interesting none the less...

The One With The Polarised Lightning

The lectures had abated for a lunch and the poster session wasn't starting until 14:30. Chris and I took the opportunity to slip out of the beach-side hotel and conference centre to wander on the sand and skim stones in the surf.

Walking through the coarse grey sand, Chris and I expressed the exact same opinion at the exact same time: We sighed. To be alone, without the 5-10 students and professionals asking questions everywhere we stood was bliss. Without being asked to pose for photos or shake the hand of the 10-year old winner of such-an-such a science prize. Just...alone with our thoughts. Not a word was said.

Chris and I had given the last one of three keynote lectures at the symposium. Scientists from all over the world were in attendance and listened enraptured as Sir David Attenborough outlined an ambitious conservation plan that relied on emerging power and energy technologies and was so crazy it just might work. After this, my brother and I took Stage One. Between us we detailed a renewable energy system that used polarised lightning to power the cities and countries of the future. The watching audience had erupted into applause and questions and at 14:30, our posters would further explain the mechanics of the system. Until then though, our time was our own.  

(The conference centre looked a lot like the Apple Campus, but it overlooked the sea)

Five hundred metres or so down the beach there was a small café. We reached it and met our mother and grandmother for lunch. They'd not wanted to come up to the hotel. We ate and as we were all about to start the short walk back to the conference centre. I spotted a very interesting beetle (yeah, that bit is a LOT like real life). It was the shape of a soldier beetle, black and yellow striped like a Colorado potato beetle and had a bright purple head, making it one of the most striking insects I'd ever seen.

I walked closer to see it, but was distracted by finding Sir David sitting cross-legged in the sand, holding a fistful of grains and letting it flow slowly out as if from an hourglass. He looked up for a second, his worn face crossed with the lines of a long and illustrious life, and said "I am old. What good is life without productivity?", before letting the last of the sand run out of his fist and closing his eyes. 

I knelt down to talk to him, to tell him that every person in that hall had thought him productive, that his life was *so* full of meaning to so many, but I stopped. Partly because I couldn't think of the words. And partly because I'd just put my hand on a thistle and biting my tongue to prevent my crying out also prevented me from saying anything.

I stood back up, picking long, brittle thorns from my palm and strode after the three members of my family. I looked at my mum and thought that she would love life even if she were a disembodied brain and a jar with a single eyeball. Her phrase is where there's life, there's hope. And I was sure she'd say so if I asked her. I saw her catch Chris' attention and point offshore. And then I turned to look. And my heart raced.

About two kilometres offshore was a towering storm-cloud. The winds ahead of it were whipping up ocean froth and the waves were increasing in size. Neither of these thought meant much too me though. I knew that Chris had set our machine running before we gave our presentation. Without any lightning it had been a very dry demonstration, but if this storm became electric then, if our calculations had been correct, we would see something new.

At once the sky was split with lightning. Chris whooped and yelled. He had his polarised sunglasses on and screamed for me to put mine on as well. I did so just as the sky was lit again. The lighting was a myriad of colours. Some parts blue, some green, some crimson red and purple. I fell to my knees with relief and joy. It worked!

Exultant with joy, Chris ran into the surf still in his smart trousers, shirt and tie. I did the same. We splashed and shouted and grinned like idiots. Nothing could bring us down now.

Until I saw granny, our frail octogenarian granny, enter the water at the same time I felt the character of the surf change. The first of the big swells ahead of the thunderstorm were reaching the beach and they carried a lot more power than she could stand against. The sky had darkened under such heavy cloud, but in a flash of lightning I saw her swept out. By the next flash she had sunk. I swam to the spot and dived, but was unable to reach her. I could barely make anything out in the gloom, but her pale skin and white hair helped me to see her. Every time I tried to swim down, the air trapped in my shirt would buoy me up. I knew she was gone.

And as I surfaced and gasped for breath, salt water turned to cotton and I stared at a blank canvas of plaster by my bed. I whispered to the darkness (very quietly for fear of alerting waiting grues to my presence) "No." And closed my eyes again.

The same first swell came again. The same unstable second preceded my grandmother's disappearance to sea. This time I swam harder, faster. This time I didn't have to dive twice. I knew the spot, and I knew how fast she was sinking. This time there was no shirt.

With Granny back on the beach, shaken and bedraggled, but alive, I considered the dream. It was falling apart now, I was mostly aware of cotton sheets and the fact I'd had most of the duvet stolen, but I could still see the multicoloured lightning and feel the pride in a machine well built. One thought stayed with me: A life without productivity is no life at all. So why had I fought so hard to save it?

 

Many Dreams. None Of Any Interest.

Hello People. Or person, depending on how many readers I have.

Hi mum.

Anyway. I've had a lot of cool dreams recently. Included have been Batman, Catwoman, Nigella Lawson, Mos Def, Obiwan Kenobi, The Smurfs, Ninjas, Rockets, Space Stations in orbit around Jupiter and see-through metal.

But, no-one I know has featured. So, I figured it a little boring to write up for here.

What I have done in the mean time is to *finally* modify that sign I see at Wigan Station, so here, for your viewing pleasure:

Later.

Guest Post - The One With The Awesome 'Fro

Greetings One and All,

This is the first of a couple of submissions I've had via the "Submit a Dream" button. I like it, because, to me, it reads like an exam dream, which I haven't had since Vet School (obv.). It's nice to know they still exist. Claude's a wedding photographer and a mate of mine, so you can understand where the stress comes from, on both counts.

The One With The Awesome 'Fro - Claude Schneider

Was asked to photograph the wedding of two friends (who are actually going out), but hadn't discussed or prepared with them what they wanted photographed on the day; so I missed loads of important bits (at one point got dragged out by a relative for no good reason and missed a chunk). Then again, the bride and groom were late for things, not always together, and the wedding was rather relaxed. She was wearing a black/burgundy dress/casual concoction, but burgundy may have been her colour, hence the choice.

I borrowed her (large) ring to photograph it, took it way out to the end of (my parent's house) garden, where the last of the sunlight was, and took some photos of it on the grass.

Headed out to a club after that, turned out to be free entry, with a pizza restaurant in the left room as you enter, restrooms on the right (where I wet my hair and got an awesome 'fro going on under a blue sweatband), and then upstairs to the club to find some ladies.