Left (a #dream)

My daughters, my son and me were strolling around a marketplace in some foreign country. Perhaps India, an African country, South-East Asia? We stopped at a stand that had all kinds of different wallets in a handmade rush basket. My son told me he had just bought a clipping purse: 'It took me a long time to find one in plain black, dad. Hope you get more lucky.' Usually clipping purses are more square shaped but the only black one I found was an elongated one with a black tassle dangling from it. 'I'll just cut that off when we get home', I thought.  And bought it, while my daughters went for more colourful purses with handknitted beads and fine stitchwork.

Next moment I was in a hospital where I knew my children were walking around and so was I. In one of the pavillions I was walking around in my hospital gown when a nurse grapped me by my sleeve, dragging me and urging with handgestures, facial expressions and in a language I did not understand: 'Come, you must come. With me. Now!' Apparently the staff was ordered to find me because they could not reach me by phone.

We half ran through long, empty and pure white corridors and the nurse pointed me to a door: 'Open'.

To my surprise there were over a dozen people there, staring at me, not knowing how to look. Was it my birthday and this a surprise party? I smiled and took the only empty seat in a room. Next to a young female nurse who acted as an interpreter. One by one different specialists told me the findings of the tests they performed on me. I patiently listened to them all, occassionaly thanking the interpreter. Until she stammered: 'And the conclusion...the conclusion is...You have two, maybe three days to live.'

My immediate response was a big grin and happily exclaiming: 'Great! That's more than one!' Before I asked: 'Has anyone called my mom to tell her?', not realizing that even in my dream my mother had passed away some years earlier.

My next thought was to get dressed, see my children and to spend as much time with them as was left.

Baseball bat (a dream)

Because he drew the shortest straw, it was now up to him to clear the debris field surrounding the ship.

Looking at his monitor he saw how a living ship, attracted by The Tree, folded itself around the 'tree trunk' of the ship he had called home since his early childhood. Slowly the top and bottom 'hat' of his mushroom shaped ship sneaked up upon the unsuspecting, now almost liquid ship, gently squeezing the life out of her. It succumbed. Its wires and plates withering as if they were dying parts of a once beautiful plant.

A window formed a dew drop and in it, he detected a shape. A small, human shape. The drop burst open and out fell a baby. Which he caught in his arms. Although he didn't have to as the ground of the planet he was standing on, was mostly covered in a soft, dark green kind of moss.

They raised the baby if she were their own. Which of course she was. Knowing she would live a full live in just and exactly 311 days, they decided to skip basic survival training and only teach her the basics: how to read of course. Not only letters but also emotions. From humans and animals alike. Music and poetry, dance and archery were part of the daily curriculum. 

Her brother-in-law acted as her partner in a make-believe Prom they set up for her. Although schools were a thing of the past and there were only a dozen or so of them left. Although scattered around the planet and throughout the universe more groups of people were likely to exist. Resting on her mother's lap with her father next to them, stroking her hair, she realised she was fortunate, as she gently died. Smiling as she had just seen her brothers and sisters run off to play some game involving a wooden or metal stick that looked like it was an amalgamation of a hockey stick and a baseball bat. 

The moon (a dream)

A generic female figure, representing my mother and other women in my life, took me and a friend of hers on a trip. An adventure, really. We stopped over in Belgium. Where I used my phone to take some pictures. Some of the landscape and some of some tall building I was standing right under. It was a modern building. And I aimed my camera straight up to catch a ray of sunlight that was reflecting beautifully on the stained glass windows of the building that had mostly the colour of bricks but was smooth as concrete but also looked soft.

As the sun was setting, a couple stopped and asked me to have a look at the picture on my screen. They agreed it looked amazing and sharp. They also gave me tips on how to take better pictures. Next moment my mom, the friend and me were walking through some Asian country. At a local market, we noticed a return of punk. At least I did, for my companions were to busy with their conversation, smiling, and apparently reminiscing on the past.

A small group of young punksters were involved in a heated discussion at a small clearing on the market. Before they walked on I noticed one of them was wearing a kind of backpack, or maybe the shape was just part of his clearly homemade black, leather jacket. Which looked more like rubber to me. The figure/backpack was in the shape of a bat with the wings sticking out just below the man's shoulders. Two female punkers - not belonging to the first group - entered a clothing store on what looked like high heels. But looking more closely it was more like they were walking on 30cm high stilts. With the toes in the high 'boots' (black, with gold tribals and some other painted decorations), aiming straight down. So, it looked like they had no feet. 

We walked passed a small harbour that harboured a few fishing boats. I assumed most were out catching fish. Looking to my right and down a little, I noticed some young boys playing with fireworks. One of them threw a piece at us and it exploded in the air with a not so loud bang nearby us. My companions did not seem to notice and I smiled at the boy who threw it. He grinned. My company went into a shop and asked me to wait outside.

I presumed they needed to use the toilet. I planned using the time to look up - anticipating sharing the night with them - the Indonesian phrase "Good night, ladies". I already knew how to say "good night", so all I had to look up was the word "ladies". But before I could do so they had already returned and we continued on our journey.

Next, we were hiking through a jungle. And my mother's friend asked if we would make it in time to the campsite. My mother replied: "Yes, the mud will come. We will get wet and dirty." I pictured us covered in mud and shivering in our shared tent.

Next thing I knew I was on an operating table in a cleanroom. And subjected to some tests. My mother and her friend had already gone through the process and now it was my turn. Before I could take the final stage of the journey they had to be sure if I was able to withstand low gravity and other harsh conditions. Apparently to live on a base on the moon.

The mat (a dream)

The schoolmaster asked us to gather around Mr. Johnson's Mat. Which was yet unfolded, waiting to be revealed on the floor of the small empty patch of forest. Parents and children alike wondered but also seemed afraid to come a bit closer.

The teacher - a man with short, brown hair in his thirties and cleanshaven - sank down on his haunches, glanced around the group and unfolded the map which was made of some kind of thick plastic and showed no sign of hinches or folds when unfolded.

My first impression - or from the character I played in my dream - was that it vaguely resembled the playing board of Ludo. Because of the different coloured circles. The colours were orange, brown, yellow, blue, red and green. They resembled the different levels of learning from all different children in the school, regardless of age.

The colours matched the different places on the edges of the manmade open place in the woods. Children got assignments from the AI, put their hands on the mat, on a coloured circle that matched the level of difficulty of the question. Thanks to biometrics the software knew which student had answered which question and 'sensed' the answer. The corresponding circle would light up at a right answer and more circles would light up, indicating the number of points the student was rewarded. The student would then walk over to the appropriate spot at the rim of the field. About half a dozen students could simultanously use the mat.

Survive (a dream)

Some sort of giant alien loci had devoured all plantlife on Earth. Unsure if it were the aliens themselves or a genetically engineered lifeform they had unleashed unto the planet. 

Giant tsunami's swept the planet and the largest one hung over Kenia, according to the latest images I had seen on the last available television broadcasts, just before a worldwide shutdown of energy.

The last survivors were packed together in basements, churches, bars, underground stations and other (makeshift) shelters and people started to die from starvation.

All the while I was being tossed around by the winds and water, ocassionaly clinging to flagpoles and lampposts, realizing the end was near but still hoping at least my children would survive.