Zombies in my Dreams

Actually it was one zombie, maybe two, in my dreams last night, zombies that catapulted me from the dream when the zombie was outside the bathroom door. I couldn't get the lock to catch and was braced against the door looking for a way out when I was hurled from the dream. Something saved me and I'm not sure what.

My zombie dream wasn't the usual variety of being attacked by hordes of moaning zombies gnashing their rotting teeth. A man I knew stopped by to ask my help. He had a few yellow pods in his hand and the pods were wriggling and jiggling. He threw them on the floor and stomped on them releasing a squirming mass of slug-like creatures. He stomped and stomped on them as he explained they were difficult to kill -- and he had just released them in my room in my house. I stomped on them, grinding the slimy creatures into the carpet. As soon as I thought they were gone, the creatures would inflate and go wriggling off.

That is why the man came to me to help him figure out a way to destroy them -- so he said. What he really came to do was to infect me and bring me over to the slug side. From somewhere, a corpse that had obviously been laid by for the purpose was reanimated by the slugs. It came to me that the slugs couldn't enter a healthy living body easily unless ingested or the skin cut and the creature inserted, but the creatures could easily invade the decomposing flesh of a corpse. Instant zombie but with a purpose -- and it was coming after me to either kill me or hold me down while I was forced to accept one of the creatures.

I ran for the bathroom because it was close and I could lock the door, but the lock wouldn't catch. Hard as I tried, the lock failed to keep the door from opening and that is when I woke up with the zombie at the door and me on the other side looking for something to brace the door closed.

I realized as I was sitting on the toilet in the bathroom after I woke that I could open the window and get out that way and run for my life. And then another thought occurred. If the creatures looked like slugs, maybe they reacted like slugs when doused with salt. Despite what could be the answer to the dream I stayed up for a while, wrote down the dream, and then worked on some cross stitch before going back to sleep at about 4:30 AM. I am intrepid, but don't usually actively court nightmares. No, siree, Bob. (I wonder if that's bob or Bob? I don't really know.)

What I probably have is a short story or maybe the beginning of another novel. I get stories like that from my nightmares, especially when the theme is horror. I get safer books from the usual dreams, although those dreams can be pretty far out in space. That's where I get science fiction and some fantasies, like the one with the faeries, wormholes, and worlds held stationary at the event horizon of a black hole where the time dilation effect works. But that's another post -- or more likely another story.

I don't really care for zombie literature, except for World War Z, or zombie movies and series, except for The Walking Dead, which also goes for the graphic novel. Once in a while, I find myself pondering a zombie story, like the one that takes place on the battlefield at Gettysburg. I have one favorite zombie novel, The Rising by Brian Keene, and a few zombie short stories, like Almost the Last Story by Almost the Last Man by Scott Edelman, and a flash fiction story about a southern family trying to get zombie Grandma to tell them where her money is, by Mary Ann Peden-Coviello that is deliciously wonderful.

I see zombies as a metaphor for how the wealthy are devouring the earth and their fellow man like ravening revenants. Most people just see walking, moaning corpses with rotting flesh and putrid innards chasing the living to devour and infect them. I do try to avoid zombies, especially since I don't care for them, but then someone will talk about a really good book or story and my curiosity gets the better of me -- and now that curiosity has infected my dreams. Oh, what a world! I suppose it could be worse. I might not get a story out of it. I just never know.

So, while I'm climbing out the bathroom window looking for a big truck full of salt before the zombie attacks, I'm going to stop thinking about zombies and think about something safer. Fluffy bunnies maybe. No! Pink wiggling noses and white fur and . . . .

That is all. Disperse.

Humpty Dumpty Fell Off the Wall

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall;
All the king's horses and all the king's men
Couldn't put Humpty together again.

Humpty Dumpty should have been more careful and it's his fault he fell off the wall. Eggs, especially big eggs, have rounded bottoms. Without some kind of support, they fall over and roll all over the place just like they do on the kitchen counter -- and anywhere else they tend to be. It was Humpty Dumpty's fault he fell off the wall. He should have been more careful since a broken egg is not something that can be put back together with the insides intact, unless they were hard boiled, which negates Humpty's living existence, and we're back to the main point. It was Humpty Dumpty's fault he fell off the wall.

As in everything else in life, we are responsible for what happens to us, even when random violence strikes, because nothing is really random. It's all about behavior and foreshadowing and the choices we make. Had he not been walking down an alley in the middle of the night in a bad neighborhood to cut short a long walk or taking the garbage out at 3 a.m. because she forgot to do it earlier in the day when the sun was up, neither would have been harmed. Of course that does not negate the situation where someone drives a car through the front of the house, but, honestly, how often does that happen? 

It's like this morning. I have 10 days until the next VE session and have to send out emails to make sure we have a room, ham radio operators wanting a license or an upgrade, and the volunteers for the session are informed or there will be no session. Since we hold our licensing exams at Colorado Technical College and since they tend to change the person I need to request a room from changes quite often, and the person currently in charge does not respond in a timely fashion, I chose to send out the email this morning instead of waiting until Saturday, the way I have done in the past. I don't like surprises when I don't have time to fix the situation, so it was a no-brainer; do it now or get surprised and maybe not have a room. Good thing I chose to do it this morning because the person I've been reporting to recently is not longer at CTU. Luckily, there are always other people copied on emails, so I send out a group email to all of them so that someone will respond. Now, I have asked many times for them to inform me when they are no longer in charge of assigning rooms, but no one listens and I am never informed. This is my last exam session to arrange before someone else takes over, and I'd like to go out with a quite whimper and not a chaotic big bang, hence my need to be careful.

Life is full of small moments like this, moments that can be tracked back to me when someone decides to assign blame. If I had followed the usual method of emailing CTU the same time I email the volunteers and the public at large, then I would have been in a world of trouble and would have had to go into last resort measures to get things done. When the volunteers don't respond, all I need to do is add a dash of guilt and another feminine plea edged with tears welling (metaphorically speaking) and they respond. I can't do that with CTU and whoever is in charge this month. I get it. I need to plan better, and so I do.

My sons are always asking why me when trouble finds them, as it inevitably does. I have no sympathy for them. It's always them because they set up the situation. When they spend their money on frivolous things instead of paying the bills, then they are going to get caught short and have to scramble to keep the lights and phone on and not have to move. I learned that one a long time ago when I was a live now and pay later kind of gal. I was immature and irresponsible and always running one step ahead of trouble. It's what happens when a child goes out into the adult world without the proper preparation, and I was not prepared. I learned and I eventually figured things out, like sending emails ahead of time and being ready for trouble or putting off buying more stationery when the phone and utilities have to be paid. I've learned a new one, which is not all that new, and that is to put some money aside in savings every week so that when trouble comes, and it always comes, I will be prepared and the phone, utilities, and rent will be covered. It's another one of those no-brainer situations.

Everything happens for a reason, just as in a novel, television show, or movie. If you read and watch carefully, there are signs that what you see is not what is actually going on, that there are clues peppered throughout the book or show or movie that lead to the big ah-ha moment, like last Sunday on Dexter. It shouldn't have been a surprise that Gellar was dead and that Travis was actually doing the work and setting up the tableaus. Yeah, we saw Edward James Olmos doing the work, but it wasn't really him; it was Travis. He had taken on the persona of his mentor and his personality had split. He was still fighting that part of his personality, but one of the first clues should have been a dead giveaway. Dexter found a piece of parchment like Travis uses to restore old manuscripts that was used to repair the angel's wings. Why would Travis repair the wings if Gellar was the one who made them? Bingo! And there were other hints.

Another big surprise shouldn't have been a surprise on The Walking Dead. Shane is a jerk, a big, honking, Neanderthal, gun-toting jerk. He shot Otis and left him for the walkers so he could get away and he nearly killed his best friend and partner, Rick, when he rejoined them up in the mountains outside of Atlanta, so it should not have been a surprise that he would've have taken control of Herschel's farm with a gun in his hand. It's why Dale was going to sink the guns so that Shane would not have the firepower to do what he did at the barn. Dale was right when he said Shane was made for the world of the walkers. He's a violent man with no conscience, a law unto himself, and the zombie apocalypse freed him to be all he was and was meant to be. Dale should have killed Shane when he had the chance.

That's the thing about life and creative works. Even though it is said that what happens in real life would not fly in a novel, it's not true. It would fly because it does fly. Novels are the mirror image of life, pared down to the essence of things, but a clean and shiny mirror that shows everything, good and bad.  You just have to know where to look.

Unless you had the key, what you see in da Vinci's Last Supper or one of Ellis Peter's Cadfael mysteries is all a mystery. Look closer. All the clues and the evidence is there, just as in life. Set aside the emotions and outrage and look with clear eyes and a clear mind; you will see that it all tracks back to choices.

Why me?

Why Humpty Dumpty?

Isn't it clearer now?