I am in a loosely boarded house with a back room and one front door, among a group of confused people. Many seem terrified or confused - no one knows how they arrived here. There are no windows, but someone opens the door to look outside. A soft night breeze blows through an unseen jungle. There's a group of three thin, manic looking people outside, down a gravel path near a crumbled pavement road. Illuminated by moonlight, they hurry excitedly toward the door and greet the man looking outside. The strangers are let inside, and they carry a brown paper bag that smells like chicken nuggets. They present this as a gift to the large group of people inside. Some ask the newcomers questions, others wander around nervously, eying the bag of food. The three bring it to the back room and set it on the table. They present it as a welcoming gift for "new friends" to this place. I don't trust them, and politely declined their food. The three slip out the front door and stand on the road, watching the house. Many people eat the food hungrily, but others like me just watch. A scream from the back room and commotion - I get to the back to see people wreching and see why: the nuggets were battered human toes with the bones still inside. It's chaos in the small building. Some shouting, accusing, others flee the building in terror into the night. I understand now what the strangers did - divide and conquer. They gave the 'food' to break a large group of new people into smaller packs. Already, the three are attacking a man outside and stealing his shoes. I make eye contact with a girl and a man - we are staying inside the building, as others run past - some to attack the manic bunch. Others simply flee into the night. Wake to an early alarm, and fall back asleep immediately. I am back in this dead world. It is a grey-blue twilight outside, and I am in the backseat of a pickup truck's cab. The girl and one of the men from before are in the truck with me. Someone I don't recognize is driving it. .my sudden reappearance gets everyone talking about this desolate world - and why I disappear and reappeared months later. To me, it has been a minute. We pull up to a shanty house, and climb up on top of the roof from the truck cab's roof. Strange animals graze in tilled fields beside the house. In the hazy distance, the shape of a low mountain. There are no stars in the night sky. Inside, an old man and woman sit at a card table, lit only by candles. They look haggard, and project an aura of disdain. Despite appearancea, they are non threatening. To stay, we must give them objects we have or those we find. Barter to stay safe and hidden from those outside in the jungle. I show the old man a soap dispenser. I was holding before I was transported here - he takes it, and scuttles away with it to his room. "It's a start" he says. The two guys are out somewhere looking for things to trade. The girl goes to the bunk in the side room to sleep. I remain in the main room with the card table, cautiously watching the old man through his half-open doorway on my left. The old man is in his room, lit by the glow of half a dozen monitors and flat screen TVs. He seems to be watching security cameras. I awake to another alarm, and fall back asleep. It's just the girl, but she looks injured and dirty. We're in a dusty jungle, surrounded by thin, manic looking people. One recognizes me from before. He urges me to join them, understanding that unlike most who arrive here, I come and go - and can return with specific objects or supplies. This is valuable to this group of scavengers. I agree, as long as they leave the girl alone. I walk away with them, looking back at her. She's sitting in a jungle clearing, lit only by a fading torch when I awake. I wounder if the scavengers kept true to their word when I disappeared. This dream reminded me of another long ago with time dialiation occuring in an old house. I feel it is the same world as the timelooped ghost house I visited with my brother as well. It is an empty world, populated only by dreamers who arrive there. Time moves differently for many - a few hours for are years there for most. Yet for me, minutes.

I am in my grandmother's Lakefield downstairs living room, her chair is in the corner. A small child's table with a painted checkerboard sits in front of the fireplace.

My family is asking for my advice about how to best accomplish a task: "how do you best sort the recycle?", and other seemingly mundane household patterns. I answer and show them - for recycle, I crush waterbottles and reattaching the caps so they fit more to a bag. 

* * *

I am in the same houses' kitchen, sitting on a desktop computer facing the stairs. I am working on a Photoshop document with multiple layers. I composit together different sources to create a unique image - one that represents something else from an earlier dream. In it, there are 4 characters, 3 of which are in the top right corner. They are looking/speaking to 1 other in the bottom left corner. The creatures are blue, and are saying something to the person, who I think represented me. 

My mother stands in the room while I work. She is very angry about the state of her kitchen. She points to dishes, and the organization of cabinets. This is not my home, but I listen. I stop working on the computer and give her calm advice about the kitchen, much like the recycle sorting I gave my sister and brother earlier. 

I return to my work on the computer - there isn't much time left: I need to finish it, as another document exists just out of frame. This unseen one feels important and could reveal information that can help my family.

My mother continues to be agitated about her mother's kitchen, and begins to act strangely. She stands increasingly closer to me, staring me down while I work. She begins to strongly jab me with a finger, then angrily stare at me, seemingly trying to provoke an angry response. I finally lose my temper,a stand up telland  her "Please, stop that! Why are you acting this way?", she immediately becomes hurt and gestures to the kitchen, saying nothing. Having transfered blame for the kitchen to me for my provoked reaction, she stands near the sink, and continues to stare me down. 

I sit back down to finish the work I must. I take a cartoon image of "Garfield" and photoshop-remove everything except the tail and position it hanging down from the top over the 3 creatures. They now appear to be a single blue cat - the whole scene resembling an old Garfield comic with John Arbuckle, speaking to Garfield on the ceiling. 

As I colored the orange blue, and set the layer style to "color", it blends with the cartoon. However, Brody sits next to me. He studied the true nature of the image, and suggests that I change the layer's filter settings to another blending mode. I do, and it integrates better into the overall image, clarifying the whole. "Why is that?" I ask. "Because our filters are based on those we used in childhood," he responds.

I sat in a small room with a box of old books and papers. I sit on this military-style bunk with a single lamp overhead, and open  up one of the comic books. It was similar to "Dante's Inferno", rendered in a black and white "ashcan" art style. It reminded  me  of some comics my father used to buy when I was a kid. These independent titles  were not always made for children.

This one story seemed like it was from another place - it was not meant for this world. As I pages through it, the book seemed to reveal disturbing truths One page showed a view of heaven - a white cloudy sky over top of long ocean horizon. There were what appear to be angels flying through the sky in layers - all circling like birds, riding the air currents above the ocean. A girl appeared to fall into them from high above, as she had died, and was sent to heaven. However as the comic panel reveals all the creatures in this area are harpies. They are all monstrous humans with bird wings, each covered in what appears to be seagull poop; flies buzzing around each. Two harpies grab the falling wingless girl. This is intensely disturbing for me. I'm reminded that some things in life cannot be unseen.
In the comic, there is another group of these creatures further below heading into a cave. The comic's narrative box reveals they are going into the cave to "help keep up their numbers".
In horror, I close the comic, discarding it back into the box. 

(...)

It is night time, and I exit out of this small room. I stand in my father's parents dining room - their grandfatherclock chiming 3, then fading to silence.
I have a collection of papers in a basket, each detailing strange knowledge. I want to share this with J-, as she expressed interest in it at some point before. I call her to see where she is, and she's outside - but leaving. 

I rush though the kitchen, and the house is a hospital ward. The power flickers, and many banks of lights remain off. I can't go down the right hallway. A female medical technician or nurse stops me, saying I can't see J-, forcing my exit into a stairwell. 

I need to get to J- in time. She's leaving, and seemed distraught. I run around each bend in the concrete stairwell. I go so quickly, I swing around corners - pivoting on a central pipe at each level. I run past a group of people who seem surprised I am there.

I bust through the push-bar doors into a beautiful sunny day. People are celebrating, with soft music in the distance. Many sit on picknick blankets, quietly enjoying the afternoon.

I'm frantically looking for J-, but I can't see her. My phone rings, and it's her. She doesn't want the papers I collected. She doesn't want to see me, and she has to - my phone screen garbels and breaks, disconnecting the call. I try to bring up the last call number, but it's not listed. I try the last number, and it's a restaurant.

This sunny place reminds me of my old elementary school yard playground - an innocent time when I was able to live in the present moment, not shackled by the past. I stand on the concrete outside area, surrounded by beauty, and feel the happiness and warmth of my surroundings - and the crushing sadness of my circumstance. I'm sad for my loss, but more worried for J-, I don't know what happened to her, or if she's all right.

Under the sunny cloudless sky, I sit down on the pavement. The festival continues on around me. I know in that moment how wonderful life is, and how innescapeable the loss and pain are for me. The sky darkens as the sun sets.

A small child offers me a lollypop as he walks by because I looked sad. I accept it from him, and he waves at me as he walks away, shilouetteted by the setting sun.

[...]

Any time life gave me exactly what I wanted, I realize was only ever seeing what I wanted - not what truly was.

I've gotten exactly what I wanted in the past - but it was an illusion, painted on the inside of my own head. To mourn that is to be sad a dream ended, rather than happy for the experience.

I came upon a sloping hill that led toward a cliff face overlooking the ocean. Sparse evergreen trees  dotted the slope, and between two was a bird's nest with two giant birds guarding a nest of blue broken eggs. One was a white swan, and the other a bluebird. The birds were angry, and were pecking and biting at each other over the broken eggs. While they appeared to be birds, I knew neither could fly.

Now they were very small, small enough to fit into each of my hands. It was my job now to carry them up a long winding set of stone stairs that ran parallel to the sloping hill.  The birds were struggling to get away, and my hands strained to contain them. They pecked at me and each other, struggling to break free. I needed to bring them with me up the stairs away from the dangerous cliff face. The birds attack intensifies, and I can barely hold them within each of my hands. As I climb the steep, winding stone stairs away from the ocean, my body experiences vertigo and it's very difficult to move forward. I forced myself to continue onward and upward towards my goal.

* * *

I realized upon waking that this was a metaphor for my job -  the two divirgent international offices that were large are now very small. When I came on my tasks it was like broken eggs with other squabbling about them. Now it is my responsibility to bring them back from the cliff's edge. I cannot fix the damage that was done to the company before me through bad decisions on the original owners part, but I must bring them up the stairs to the future and beyond in my role as content manager and course designer.

Interestingly, when I thought about what happened prior in the dream, finding the large birds was something I saw on my way to somewhere else,

I was walking toward a house that was part of a grassy sloping hill. I had walked around to the right, and on top of the roof-hill slope, and was moving toward a group of people around a camp fire on a cliff overlooking the ocean. 

I recognize this area as the Stone bowl/Stone stairs of Jeju Island. I may have returned there if I hadn't found a job at this company back in 2017.

A doorway stood tall and silent on my grandparent's driveway. Far outside in the country, under a visible dome of stars.

The doorway was not connected to any building, framed in old wood with fine wrought iron spades and steel squared nails. Across it's edges were a number of deadbolts, all of different designs and keys. They pointed up, to the left, to the right. Others were centered in the middle of the door. Some mortis, others modern in their design. Each faced inward, allowing me to open each in turn.

The doorway, rather than providing a view of the sloping yard and trees beyond opened into a low ceiling room. It was lit by unseen candle light reflected from innumerable ticking clocks. Amidst the tables were various mechanical clocks. Among, them I saw movement. I entered the room, but glanced back out the doorway. The gravel driveway still stood, with the hazy indigo night beyond.

I approached the nearest group of clocks, and saw my grandfather. He stood up from his carved wooden stool, silver hair reflecting yellow in the light. He smiled the same flat-jawed smile he cast in life. He said nothing, but I sensed only goodwill from him. He bobbed his head slightly in a nod, turning and looked to the clocks again before shuffling off past the perimeter of light.

The room felt cold, and the clocks ticking slowed until the last clock stopped. A grandfather clock's soft chime sounded in the distance as I shut the door and engaged each of the locks in turn.

A stillness hung in the entryway, with a dusty, unlit chandelier above. A raised coffin, piled high with linens stood in the center on the well worn red rug. The runner ran from the front door, and back down the hallway, receding into darkness. I recognized this place, this house. Further down the hallway was the kitchen and a living room of some kind from another place, another dream.

To my left was a different hallway I’d never explored before. It was lit by light streaming in through open windows in each of the rooms. The back wall of the hallway was filled with sliding closet cupboards and hardwood.

A man had died, but he was only a boy. My parents were gathering linens to wrap his body in and lay him on top of this coffin-like canoe so he could be moved. Two layers down, was a tapestry-style woven blanket with Transformers on it. Old and faded, it had raised reliefs of the robot faces cut from longer wool, the edge in blue and white. “You can’t lay a body on this.” I said and pulled it off, scrolling the blanket for myself. The man’s body was placed on the blankets, and wrapped lightly by my mother. She and my father waited for someone to arrive, and I walked off down the hallway.

In the first of three rooms, light streamed in on two bunk bends, and toys littered every shelf and surface. Small Lego buildings and figures stood silently on shelves with their dog-eared, faded boxes behind them “Only at K-Mart!” many exclaimed. Old Transformer figures laid in toy bins, and on shelves.
The man had been autistic, but with the mind of a child. He had lived in this place with his family for thirty or forty years, and this had been his playroom. The whole house was abandoned now, as that man had no heirs or other family. 

I searched through the room, excited to explore what was. It felt okay to collect these objects, as their owner had since moved on. The light outside had changed, and the sun was setting. The walls dimmed, and mildew grew, as if the house had stood unattended for years in a day. 

* * *

In the hallway, the body was gone, as were my parents. I walked along the hallway, and heard noise at the far end of the hall. I glanced into the 2^nd room that contained a children’s style bed and nightstands, and entered the large wooden door beside it – locking it behind me.

It was a room the size of my father’s old classrooms at Sacred Heart elementary school – tall ceiling, rectangular. This one had carpet, and was filled with sofas lining the room, and a large television on the right wall. Beside the television were inset cabinets and a door. Pressing the cabinets allowed runners to slide out – each contained hanging newspapers, ‘Cracked’ and ‘People’ magazines, among many others. I walked up the 4-steps leading to a room behind the television wall to find a bathroom/kitchenette. Dirty dishes lay unwashed in sinks long abandoned. I opened the cupboards, finding only bandages, Listerine, and various cups and plates. I exited the second set of four stairs leading back into the room.

It was night now, and no light shone through the windows. Suburban streetlights cast their eerie glow through the curtains, striping shadows across the dusty furniture. More noise from the hallway, sending a jolt of alarm through my mind. I exit the hallway, and examine the far wall’s closet cupboards, but they’re empty inside, just like the hallway. I return to the toy room, and open a small plastic drawer on top of a cabinet. It contains meticulously organized accessories for old Transformer toys. I begin to pick these up to bring with me, away from this place. More noise in the hallway, this time closer.

I exit the playroom to find a group of 5 people rushing down the hallway. One woman carries two old-style wood/metal school chairs. The others have backs and backpacks full of stolen objects. One man with dirty long brown hair and a beard stops, and slams me into the wall with both hands against my shoulders. “These are MY ruins now, what’re you doing here?” he demands. “Who cares man? Just let it be – we got what we wanted, let’s go” one of the other men says. I start to explain that I knew the man who lived here, but I realize that was a long time ago. The walls are rotted and water damaged now, and the carpet is thick with bootprints. Time has passed while I explored, but not at its normal rate.

The group of scavengers moves off, and out the front door into the long night. The raised relief blanket, with its Optimus Prime robot face on it still lays scrolled up against the wall. Holding it, I sit on the raised stoop in front of the hallway closets and wonder where I belong.

I'm on a hillside overlooking a sparkling ocean in Korea. It feels like the north east coast near Incheon, but everything is older, ancient. Wooden boats glide slowly through the harbor below, and Yui stands beside me. 

We explore the streets, looking for a house. They're all empty - devoid of even furniture. 

We're in a boat at sea, chasing another wooden ship. Aboard are Koreans, attacking the Japanese ship ahead of us. A man fires a bow and arrow, hitting the mast of the other ship, and angering it's commander. He wears riveted bamboo armor, like a Samurai. 
The dream splits in two - the chase continues, but we're simultaneously-  we're at dinner on a boat. The beams are made from solid wood, and the L-shaped table before me is lit by candle light. Yui, or a very similiar Korean girl sits beside/behind and to my right. The seafood on the table flickers between different dishes, even as I serve it. Yui pulls me around, and in close. [...]

We're back in the old city streets, north one block of where we we stood before. All the houses are dark, and crickets sound quietly in the distance. A park is behind us, with a white fence obscuring the memory of what occurs beyond. 

Yui and I are looking for a house - her house. / We're walking up a street, and into a 2nd floor house. The room is narrow, with windows facing outward into the night on one side. There are four beds, each with their own shelf to the left of it. The bed at the far left end of the room has a TV on the wall, but it is off. The room is empty, except for us. Yui tosses herself on to the bed, and begins studying a book in Korean. I notice a 3A-like figure on her bedside shelf, and begin to apply weathering to it by wiping off excess paint. She doesn't seem to notice. The robot looks like a thin 'Bertie', but wears a WW2 era german army helmet. I put it down, and join Yui on the bed. 

She teaches me Korean phrases and reading. She smiles back at me, and I realize this is just a memory - a closed loop within my mind. The rest of the room is falling dark, like a store in the mall as someone turns off the power for the night, bit by bit. Even she fades, transposed between memory and dream until it's only me on the bed, looking out into the nightscape beyond.