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.

The One With Sherlock Holmes and The Doctor...

I'm home for Shristmas now, so expect some cool stuff.

The One With Sherlock Holmes and The Doctor

The afternoon sky thickened an angry grey-yellow above me and the air felt thick with the danger of rain, but for now dust still rose as I walked along the train platform. The platform was two kilometres long and built when armoured trains a mile long took soldiers and guards all over the continent to police thousands of scuffles and disputes.

But that was years ago, the rails were rusting slightly now and, when we did get a train, it was rarely more than a few hundred metres long. The far ends of the platform were growing sparse weeds from cracks in the concrete and gathering that fine yellow dust that permeated everything round here.

At one of these far ends was a group of tumble-down warehouses and hangers. It was to here that my investigation of multiple “Missing Person” cases had led me. I knew they were legally desserted, having been abandoned in the recession, but, you know that feeling you get when something just isn’t right? When there are footprints that seem to deliberate, when the street seems to hold its breath, that moment after a firework sounded like a pistol shot. This was one of those moments.

I crept closer until I had my ear to the building. Silence. I pulled open the door and realised my mistake at once: It was pitch dark inside the warehouse and still light outside. I was silhouetted beyond repair and my position was obvious. By the light now entering I saw tools, benches, dropped chunks of metal. And all at once I saw something else: Two glowing, malevolent eyes. These red triangles rose higher and higher until something monstrous took a step towards me. The floor shook and I sprinted from the doorway just as it was torn apart by the beast within.

A colossal robot, belching steam and smoke from the chimneys on its back lumbered toward me. The huge spiked jaw opened and closed with a deep clang, while a Gatling gun large enough to shoot tank shells started to revolve. I moved just as the floor underneath me exploded with chips of concrete and wooden splinters. Rolling and ducking I avoided a swipe from the grasping and cutting left arm and ran back along the platform, thoughts fighting to be heard in my adrenalinised head: Whom had it been built by and for what purpose was the foremost amongst them.

By luck a train was waiting to depart as I came sprinting back down the platform. It was commonplace in these austere times to utilise a train doubly and this one was passenger cars and supply cars coupled together. As I ran past I saw huge pieces of machinery covered in white ceramic-looking plates. Suddenly it hit me: the monster that had attacked me had been the bare skeleton of a terrible weapon. With this projectile-proof armour fitted, each car was carrying the limbs or body of a war-machine that would be nigh-on unstoppable. This went a lot further than some madman in an abandoned shed, railway permissions came from the top...

I pulled my collar up to hide my face as I picked my way through the passenger carriages to find a seat. First class had been mostly empty, but I had alarmed a young woman with my somewhat feral countenance (made no smarter after a roll in the dust to avoid the beast’s barrage) and so beat a hasty retreat to the next carriage. 

This was even less opportune since it appeared to be the ladies bathing carriage, and in a white porcelain bathtub lay a lady with her modesty maintained by copious bath foam. Unfortunately, as the train rattled round faster and faster corners, water was splashing from the bath and the contours that the foam had been able to conceal were fast becoming apparent. And, since my brain decided that Kat Ahern was the right person to fit to this role, there was no shortage of contour.

Averting my eyes and jumping over the spilt bathwater and foam I found myself in the main seating carriage. I stalked down the walkway looking for a seat, but instead saw a face I knew! Sherlock! My old friend was a little impolite at times and his methods unorthodox, but with his help I could crack this case wide open! I sat next to him and greeted him warmly.

But as the man turned to me, I realised it wasn’t Sherlock at all. This man was Major Jamie Stewart from Warhorse, one of Sherlock’s triplets. I leaned past him to see the other of Sherlock’s triplets: a dark and troubled man, continually muttering to himself and biting the skin over his knuckles. He wore a black Starfleet uniform and I didn’t know his name. I looked back to Mjr. Stewart, who inclined his head, silently indicating his second brother, who was sat a few rows further down the train.

I crouched in front of him and looked him in the eye. Without any pre-amble he looked me up and down and asked what I needed.

                “Investigation” say I. “I’m here simply to investigate”

                “So are we” comes a voice from my past and from 12 inches behind me. 

Sherlock looks over my shoulder and smiles. I spin and put myself face to face with The Doctor (Played in this dream, by David Tennant). He holds a stony expression before breaking into a sparkling grin.

The man with whom I’d spent a year exploring the galaxy and all of time and space, the man whom I’d never seen look too smart or too scruffy in a pinstripe suit and converse boots, the man who’d disappeared without a trace after he’d saved me and I’d saved him so many times – Was eight inches in front of my face. I could have kissed him I was so relieved.     

But my relief didn’t last long, that feeling came back. Something was very, very wrong. I looked outside the train and even though darkness had fallen, I could easily make out that we weren’t nearly at the next town like we should have been. We’d been looped and brought back into the same station. They knew I was onboard and they knew what I’d seen. I glanced from The Doctor to Sherlock and his triplets. If I were going to be taken, I couldn’t ask for finer men to fight alongside me.

The clouds that had threatened to break earlier were now unleashing a downpour. This, in the end, was a saving grace, since everyone rushed off the train to get under the cover of the platform roof. They all had their jackets pulled up over their heads to protect against the rain and with a trainful of people to check for just one man, they never stood a chance. 

The five of us and Lady Kathleen (now wearing a very impressive dress and steampunk lace-up boots as befits a woman of her figure standing) regrouped in front of the warehouse. The rain sluiced off us but we stood firm. The Doctor took the lead naturally and subconsciously, he took a step forward and with a “Come on then” led us into the blackness to find out what was really going on.

Oh, and by the way...

...the northern lights are EPIC.

The One With Charlie Sheen and Snoop Dogg

So, yeah, it's been a while. Give me a break, I was in the Arctic.

Which was epic, by the way. I took photos. They look like this:

 

And like this:

And also a bit like this:

So, yeah, that was good. And cold.

While I was there I only really remember one dream I had and that was wet-shaving a terrified Justin Long with a Stanley knife blade. 

However, I've been back a day or two now, time for a dream to pop into my head. And since it's very odd, I'll relate but one scene:

Snoop Dogg, Charlie Sheen and myself were on a moon mission driving Nasa's most recent attempt at a moon vehicle. Which looks like this:

And, to cut a long story short, they were both blazing up and not giving a damn that we were on the moon. As we bounced along at low g and flung up moondust from our 12 wheels, Charlie kept getting bong water on the controls and Snoop's continual attempts to open a window and "let some air in" were becoming un-nerving. Luckily the windows didn't actually open, but the double doors did, and given that he was lounging on the bed right next to them, I couldn't just relax and enjoy the ride...

So, yeah, that's my dream for today.

The One Where Naz Hides In A Cupboard

... was set in a war-torn middle-eastern city. I’m not sure why. Possibly because my friend, the extreme photographer James Appleton just went to Jerusalem to take photos and get tear-gassed, possibly because him doing that brought back memories of worrying about my ex-girlfriend living in Sudan during Darfur tearing itself apart. Her reports of riding buses riddled with bullet holes, bombs in the buildings and getting repeatedly gassed still haunt me on occasion.

So, yeah...sorry...got side-tracked there. So, imagine if you will dirty, dusty, with a blazing sun and shattered concrete. Stray dogs on the streets and the scent of smoke right at the edge of detection. People trying to get on with jobs and make a living while the world eats itself around their ears.

The camera (oh yeah, this dream also heralds the return of disembodied camera style dreaming) follows a band of soldiers moving down what used to be a concrete quayside. An upturned lorry gives them partial cover and dropped containers are dry, rusted and looted. Soldier to dusty, beaten, unshaven soldier, commands and questions flow in hand signals and pointed looks like impulses up-and-down the spine of a creeping mouse. Looks made round corners are quick and darting. Move-stop-look-move the mouse moves forward.

PUNGG!

The impact of a single bullet into the corrugated steel of the container sends rust and faded yellow paint flakes everywhere and splits the mouse once more into soldiers diving for cover. More follow. The staccato report of weaponry comes softly from the other end of the street, vastly overpowered by the cacophonous noise of the hailstorm hitting the steel sheeting feet from the soldiers’ heads. Looks are exchanged. Plans are formulated. Soldiers move, silently. Shots are returned. Blood is spilt on both sides. The camera retreats up a side street away from the quay.

Here more soldiers (this time better kitted-out, better shaved, all in black) are creeping up the staircase of an office-block to which they had gained entry at ground level using excessive force. The dream doesn’t show explicitly, but the feeling is that they’ve killed the old doorman or something. The old doorman who’s worked here for forty years. And always wore an old flat cap. And had a tin lunch-box filled with an apple and a sandwich made by his old wife. And they probably killed his old three-legged dog. You understand the mood?

Cut to an office on one of the higher floors. Here the dream is from my eyes. I am a tired government worker. I say government worker, and so does the sign on my door and the sign on my desk, but let’s be honest here were utilities – We build roads, lay water pipes, make sure people don’t go hungry. The politicians and soldiers do the fighting, the country changes hands, but in the end they just change the flag on our building, maybe the colour of the sign on the door and we continue with our work. It’s been this way for decades, always fighting, always un-rest, but in a way, always us.

Naz also plays an office worker on our floor, I guess my subconscious chose him because I can see him as J. Jonah Jameson: Stressed, acerbic, bossy but gets things done. His white shirt has seen better days, the red braces and tie are a little old, but the shoes gleam impeccably. I now remember him with the burnt down nub of a cigar, but I’m not sure if he had one at the time. Possibly.

Secretaries scurry in and out with memos and telegraphs. Placed into seventies style Formica in/out-trays, they constitute a paper information flow not unlike the information flow between the soldiers on the street below. Or the ones approaching silently up the stairwell in the centre of the building. Who make their presence felt at this exact instant: Shots ring out.

Close at hand.

I go to the door in the middle of our floor’s one corridor that opens into the staircase. Looking over the railing I see flashes on the floor below and before I can pull my head back I find myself staring down into the covered eyes of a soldier in a black gas-mask.

Sprinting back into my office I close the door. Naz in busily and cleverly hiding in the only cupboard in the room. Just before he closes the door, we exchange a glance that goes something like this: I know there is no-where else to hide. I know there is not room in the cupboard for two. You have as much right to it as I do. I do not begrudge you your survival, but when you make it through this tell me as a hero in your stories...

Things go quiet. I pace silently to the door. My heart is pounding so loudly I’m honestly afraid they’ll hear it. “Nonsense, man, it’s a heart. They won’t hear it: get a grip” I tell myself.

Cracking the door, I stare out onto the silent and deserted corridor. Suddenly, there’s a single gunshot and blood hits the beige (like, 1978 beige, not 2002 beige) carpet tiles. Once again I catch the eyes of the mad in the gas-mask. I throw myself backward into the room and lock the door. I’ve got seconds. I know that. Myriad solutions flash through my mind in a second: I look at the window. I could jump? I might even live, but I’d be on the street with broken legs – a sitting duck. I consider hanging outside the window, but I can see the sadistic delight he’d get from finding me there. Maybe, one of his colleagues on the floor below would shoot me in the gut while I was hanging there. I could hide under the desk? I could sit at my desk like I wasn’t afraid, accept the inevitable?

In the end, I’ve not made up my mind as the glass in the door is smashed in and the man in black is shooting a handgun into my office. I dive behind my filing cabinet (grey-green for those that were wondering) and hear six shots miss me by inches. He lets himself into the room and I launch myself at him like an animal, dodging and diving with enough vigour to impress Patches O’Houlihan. More bullets smash bourbon glasses and the framed pictures on the walls.

But a middle-aged office worker in a shirt and tie is no match for a strong, young soldier. After a second or two of grappling, he throws me back against the heavy wooden desk. I’ve always liked this desk, thought I. My hands stretched instinctively behind me to stop my fall and I felt my heavy, cut-glass ashtray. An angular, seventies monstrosity. A relic. I grip firmly with my hands to steady myself and look down the barrel of a black and menacing hand-gun.

Click.

(If I were to hazard a guess, I’d say that six + two doesn’t equal a full clip, but A, this is a dream and B, maybe he shot the old doorman’s dog a few time for luck?)

Without a second’s hesitation, I swung the firmly-gripped ashtray into the man’s skull. He went straight down and I went down after him. I knelt over him and time and time again I struck him on his shaved scalp. Long after he was knocked unconscious I continued to strike him. There was blood on my hands and arms and I could feel fragments of his smashed skull moving under the lacerated skin.

I could see Naz watching me through the door gap of his hiding place. Maybe he wouldn’t tell me as a hero after all.