Hiding in a ditch, sand blowing overhead. The sky was washed out, with shadows at the edges like a dark storm approached. I crawled out of the culvert on to a cracked pavement road. Around me there were the remains of storefronts, all with blown in or missing doors and windows. Beyond were dark, featureless hills.

I came across a group of people surviving in a gymnasium, the remains of a red cross camp, or something similar. There was no rooftop, it was open to the sky. I coroutched near a fallen file cabinet as missiles flew by overhead. For the first time in many years, I felt a deep, chilling fear in my dream. Everyone felt they were nuclear - and knew if you can see the missiles flying overhead to it's target, you were within the blast radius.

The missiles detonated kilometers away, leaving only a plume of fire and smoke. Non-atomic. A dirty, ash smeared man crouching nearby looked visibly relieved.

* * *

I left the camp, and wandered into the hillside. A tall man wearing a black top hat was following me. Accompanying him is a much smaller man, rotund with ugly features. They're hunting me through the tunnels. As I exit the other side, there's a farm gate. The area beyond it made the surrounding area seem less saturated - as if this world was a pale reflection of what laid beyond. I understood without reason that the men could not follow me past this gateway, as only children are allowed inside. Without thought, I was again a child. I enter this place, and realize it's an alternate world version of my old high school. This one was built against the shore, and had four extra stories. Aspects of it's pre-renovation structure existed, yet hallways connect to places they shouldn't.

The halls were abandoned, and old. Yellow water stains were the only decorations on the once white walls. No ones has been here for a very long time. I climbed down a set of stairs, and out on to a balcony. I looked down at the dark waters below, and notice a steel door near the water. I climbed down a ledge, and perilously down a drainpipe. I need to know where this door lead to. Inside, it was unlike any other room in the school. Where the outside is saturated in browns and yellows, this room is clean - giving off an almost sterile blue look. The lighting functioned, and there were bald men in hockey gear sleeping on the floor, near benches. I quietly walked past these men, and up a flight of stairs. It exited on to the main hallway.

The rooms are shifting now, the whole building is becoming smaller, collapsing in upon it's self. Where there were two rooms, there are now one - there was only ever one. I'm only aware the merger happened for the briefest instant as it occurs - then all that remains is a sense of unease without meaning -- until it happens again. I enter the staff room, and into the front offices - now office. Now cubicle. There's a window.

* * *

I'm standing on an outdoor escalator, in an old market. An attractive Asian girl stands next to me, flat bangs, and a noticeably rounded nose. She's smiling. We're going shopping.

The market square is lined with shops in antique looking houses. We enter the shop on our right as we get off the escalator. Inside the sliding wooden shop door are books, CDs, clothing, and costume items scattered among old shelves. Together, we try on costume items, laughing at the more ridiculous items. Masks, feather boas, tacky jackets. A faceless person - the store owner -  silently places a stained cardboard box from under the counter on top. Within the box are objects that shouldn't exist. A geodesic cube I remember from another place, another time. Also within it is a Nintendo Power Glove. I never owned one of these items, so I try it on. It fits my left hand, although the fingers feel too short. On the outer fist are 3 slanted, glowing bars, which is unusual - this item was never manufactured with such a feature. They cast a fluorescent blue light, which fascinates me. I take it off, and put it back in the box. I continue around the store with the girl, and examine some old books on the shelves. My eye keeps wandering to this unique looking power glove. I buy it, and we leave the store together.

It occurs to me this girl has been with me the entire time - my memory of the desert apocalypse area, and of the alternate universe high school are rearranged. She accompanied me the entire time. 

I wonder to myself, "How could I have forgotten?"

I'm in an open field during the fall, next to a grove of birch trees. A man holds me at gunpoint, and a police officer escalates the confrontation  The hostage man struggles physically with the cop, and his gun goes off, directly into my head. For the first time in a dream, I die.

I'm in an office building without windows. Beige walls, yellow counter tops, with 1990's era computers and CRT-monitors arranged on desks. I believe I'm at work, and sit down to operate one of the humming machines. I'm confused, as weeks seem to have passed, and all my files are gone. Nothing seems right.

I go into a break room, lit by harsh florescent lighting. The room is eerily silent. A girl is sitting down to eat lunch, and I move to join her. I can't hold a fork, or chopsticks to grasp the noodles. My ears buzz, and vision blurs whenever I try and interact with anything. I focus, and the vertigo goes away, allowing me to eat lunch with my chopsticks. The girl silently ignores me. I look away, and back - she's gone. Hours have passed on the wall clock. The food I was eating seemingly never existed.

I return to the computer, and attempt to move files around. An Asian man, wearing a white short sleeved dress shirt and tie approaches me. He looks remarkably like 'Harold' from the film 'Harold & Kumar'. He explains that I'm dead. 

Disbelieving, he shows me a series of work orders, each with elements missing from them.
"Were do you think this stuff goes?" he remarks. "We quietly manipulate the manifests, shaping the company - controlling the world."

"Ghosts?" I ask. He opens a concealed wall panel, removing a box, and showing me pieces that were repurposed or hidden away for future use. He holds up a set of brightly colored splice-cables. "Dye-set fiber optics. It slows down data transmission, lets us monitor things, and change what we need. I'm just low level. The old ones are pulling all the strings."

I look closely at the monitor screen, seeing two drives that didn't exist before. One labeled "Data", and the other "Dump". "We need to purge those drives. She's starting to see things." He pauses. "Your stunt at lunch didn't help."

The clock jumps again, yet the man and I are still in the same positions we were before. 
"Wh-what... why am I here? Didn't -" I stammer. 

"Die? Yeah. That sucks." He says. "The Older Ones put you here, to keep things running smoothly. Keep feeding them information, deleting other information. You and I help them manage the low-level business stuff." 

"What about lunch?" I ask. "I ate food. I... moved things around."  

The man walks over to a bank of server machines, and looks at the blinking lights. They seem to slow as he observes them. "You wanted to eat food, so your mind filled in the blanks. None of that happened. Nothing does, not for us. Not anymore."

A harsh, gray light began to filter in under the door. The man begins to panic. "Quickly! Dump those data drives. We can't let anyone find those. They'll know about us, about what happens after!" I try to move the mouse on the computer, but everything moves backwards, in reverse. My ears are buzzing, and the world becomes a blur.

_____

I awoke in the middle of the night, thinking about what happened in my dream. There was another aspect to the dream, but after the blur and buzzing in my ears, I have no memories.

In retrospect, I realized what my mind constructed was the idea of soul enslavement: using ghosts to power and shape not only one business, but global finance, politics, war, and the world. The Older Ones, perhaps were ancient ghosts. Of who, or what I don't know. The only knowledge I gleaned between the panic, and the blur was this: they silently shaped our world, but to unknown ends.

An old entry from July 2005:

Sitting in an office building, a police sting operation and drug raid had just occurred. The company CEO was screaming at his board members.

I looked out the window.

A guy who looked remarkable like actor Seth Green suddenly got up, and announced that the chaotic yelling in this room “needs a base track!” He whips out a black box with various sliders on it - looking very much like the back of a Film camera’s flash. A base track sounds, and the guy gradually adds in various electronic rifts. No one is noticing this but me.

The music crescendos. On the offbeat, everyone stops talking, and looks at the CEO as he says in an unusual monotone “ - and this is how it happened.”

* * *

Cut to outside the tall skyscraper, surrounded by a small 1950s style town.

The sky was pouring rain. I was with Mitch, the assistant manager from my job, and another guy I didn’t recognize. We were all barefoot, and running but I didn’t know why. The world lacks color, reduced to shades of blue and gray.

Lightening arced in the sky. I was wearing my motorbikes helmet, and wonder where all our shoes went. I also realized this helmet had metal in it, greatly increasing the chance I would be struck by sky electricity.

Running barefoot through the downpour, I’m staring at the murky form of Mitch ahead of me. As I pass into an area fenced by tall hedges, I remember we’re running to go get Ice cream cones. 

_____

I don’t remember if we ever got there. I woke up some time later feeling very disappointed.

I went for work at the Mall that day, but Mitch wasn’t working. On my lunch break I went downstairs and bought myself an ice cream cone. For some reason I can’t explain, it gave me a sense of closure.

I spoke with a man who purchased an eBay item from me. Somehow, this involved a webcam video chat as well. It was his step-son's birthday, and he needed me to hand deliver the item for it to arrive in time. I reluctantly agreed, and was further convinced by the pleading of his wife to deliver the gift to their apartment.

In the couple's apartment, which now becomes a business or office setting - I'm introduced to the son. He appears about 10 years old, and is being fussed over by his mother. The man comments to me that since he wasn't there for his step-son's 'birth', he will be there for the boy's "re birthing". Both he and the wife seem very proud of this notion. I feel alarmed.

Trying to make a fast exit, the man forcibly guides me to a room, and insists I "share this moment" with his family. The boy has a blank expression on his face, and together we're guided into a room containing from left to right, a 6 foot tall representation of a woman's face, and two domed glass units installed in the floor.

The large woman's face stretches grotesquely as it opens it's mouth, and the tongue extends straight out, which is used as a gurney of sorts. The boy, now dressed in pajamas, climbs on, lays down, and is retracted into the wall-mouth. I'm horrified by what's happening, but the step father and the boys mother proudly look on, gesturing to the 1st dome. The boy ascends from a trap door in the floor, covered in a viscous mucus or gel. His eyes are closed, and his parents take pictures. He then decends, and some time later, emerges in the second dome in a boys school uniform, all traces of 'rebirthing' gel gone. His hair is combed, and his eyes are now open. The father insists I take pictures.

Awkwardly, I raise my camera up and press the shutter button, but realize it's set to 'video', and record a few seconds accidentally. I quickly switch to a photo setting, and capture one blurry image before the boy's platform descends back into the floor. The parents walk me into the next room, and wait for their son to return from the process. When he does, he's dressed again in his casual clothing, and seems older.

The boy insists I show him the photos I took, and when I decline, he becomes impatient. I promise that I'll email them to his father as I edge my way out of their apartment/office through the kitchen.

The father insists I stay and hang out with their son - I decline, telling him that it's already late and I have other commitments. The son (who now appears to be a friend I had in high school, and is much older) escorts me out of the apartment, and though a set of security doors with his key. The apartment building seems decrepit, full of peeling wall paper leaking water and mold. The boy seems oblivious to this.
Again, he asks for me to stay. I look out one window and see the sun is shining and it's day light, and out the front doors where it's now night. Without saying another word, I leave the building and it's weirdness behind.

_____

When I woke up, I actually checked my camera to see if there was evidence of this, thinking some version of it actually happened. Luckily not. The whole process reminded me of a situation I experienced years earlier while working at Blacks Photography: a woman came in with a dog photo, and wanted it printed. I did so while she waited, and looked for a frame to pick out. She used that opportunity to try and convert me to being a Jehovah's Witnesses, and left a stack of their 'Watchtower' magazines on the counter when she picked up her picture. 

People using a financial/customer service transaction as a preface to sell their strange personal or religious values is an innately uncomfortable experience for me. It's strange that it'd manifest in my dreams in such a vivid way.

I step off a 19th Century steam engine into a desert landscape. The rock formation feel wrong, like undersea eroded stone, filled with curious gaps.

I walk toward a house built into a cliff face. It looks like the porch to my grandmothers old house, but blended into the rock. It's windows reflect the grey sky.

I enter, and notice a side doorway to my left. Outside is a primordial ocean, filled with algae. In the distance, more alien rock formations. I begin to panic. I don't know where I am, and retconned into my dreamscape are two children. One is sick, and needs help.

Though the window, I notice two beings approaching in the distance. I mistake them for dinosaurs, but realize they are pink-skinned, with hides like an elephant. They walk on reverse jointed legs, with a long neck ending in a humanoid like face. I'm frozen in terror, watching these two beings approach the front door. One looks right at me, and speaks: Hello, do you need help? 

Confused, I open the door. I ask how it can speak English, and the second being explains. They are from a parallel reality where their galactic cluster is in close proximity to Earth. While lacking contact, they know rudimentary English communication. I don't know how this is possible. They gesture to the sky, and instead explain that this world is in the process of being adapted to suit their biology. The beings offer me supplies, including tube-like respirators for myself and the two children. We are to use these during the terraforming process to avoid suffocation.

As shock-waves sounding like fireworks explode in the sky, I hold the breathing tube over my nose and mouth. One child runs off down a darkened hallway, blending into an institutional setting. A janitor watches me from the unlit hallway. The dreamscape is rapidly changing, but I want to know more about the pink, long necked creatures. I look back, and the alien landscape is gone. Outside the hallway windows is a bright light.

Empty buildings, grey and dark are all around. I walk with a man who has dwarfism and two middle aged men. We all appear confused. The dwarf's cellphone isn't working, and flickers along with the neon street signs. We take refuge in a pharmacy, and are startled by discovering an animal testing lab in the back.

Biological hazard signs label most cages and workspaces. One man knocks over a tray of beakers, and another is scratched by an animal within the cage. The two men become noticeably sick. The dwarf and I leave quickly, and run off into the darkened city streets as one of the infected men begins to attack the other.

At the docks, people waiting to evacuate on military submarines, I'm the last to make it on before the hatch shuts. I don't see the dwarf anywhere.

I'm let off into a dark forest, jets flying overhead. An alien computer complex sits among the trees, an organic hexagon. Surrounding it are glowing singularities of light. I'm driven past them, and gape in horror - as people run past or though these spheres of light, they're pulled up and toward them, like the swirling of water down a drain. As the reach the foci, they burst into pieces, or are completely turned to ash.
These spheres don't move, acting like violent street lights in the wilderness.

I'm told to find an entrance to this complex, to deliver notice to the computer. It demands raw energy from all nuclear plants on Earth. I crawl down a long corridor, and emerge within a large rectangular room. At the far end sits a glowing eye. It communicates without speaking, and takes what energy it wants. A glowing fustian square descends from the ceiling, representing the power it's taken on. It's not enough - and I'm afraid. We haven't met it's demands, and we're unable to.

It shows me that it doesn't matter - it's existed in this world for hundreds of years - it exists outside time. It shows me a scene in Korea -- noblemen are riding a train. Before, they died in a crash. Now, a blond woman -- a circularium agent of the machine -- stands up and makes a small change onboard, altering the future outcome. These men all live, and eventually build reactors where none existed before. It comments that their lives are as controlled as a "Disney pet", serving no other purpose but the machines.

What the machine wanted with the power, I never found out. It releases me, and I exit back into the forest. It's empty, with a heavy blue fog creeping around the trees.