There were two cities. One stretched out along a peninsula, the other floating, an armada of skyscrapers anchored a gulf away from the other. During the night, they declared war. I was on a jet ski, zooming the still black waters between them, as the streaks of green and blue artillery began to arc between the two metropolises. The light from the trails of the projectiles made the water into a mirror of jet.
I was looking for a man. A third party. Somehow someone had orchestrated this conflict. It was a distraction. I had to find the culprit.
I chased him through the land city, disturbingly quiet streets, sounds of explosions in the distance.
I found the man high amongst the scaffolding, the giant steel girders, of an enormous bridge being built blindly out to sea. We could see the war clearly from where we were. It looked like a horizontal fireworks display. We could see the stars in the sky.
"You're too late," he told me, unslinging a large cylindrical object from his shoulder, a digital timer glowing red numbers on its side.
So, a bomb. A
nuclear bomb. Armed and dangerous.
We argued for a while, about the sense of it.
Why are you doing this? There was some sort of political reason. He had it in for the cities. He wanted to make them pay.
The clock was down to four minutes. I rushed him. We fought, grabbed for the bomb, and it tumbled out between us, struck the girders and was sent down into the darkness below. "It's over now. You're dead. We're all dead."
"No. I'm not a part of this," I told him. "I was just trying to stop it."
I leapt off the bridge, into the void, freefall. The void rushed in, filled me up; I caught it and flew. I flew as far as I could, out over the perfectly still ocean, counting the seconds. I turned around at the last moment, terrified that I hadn't made it far enough, and saw the bomb detonate. It impacted the air with a slow, red glow that washed over the land city, erased buildings into pixilated outlines; then it was like the sun rose, quickly, and following it, a pillar of fire.
In the light of destruction, the city on the sea looked like an animal, floating frightened in the sea, it's head just above the water.
In the wee hours this morning, half-waking... half-dreaming, after the glug, glug swallow action of birthday drinks; on Cobra's couch...
There is a young man with an elaborate tattoo on his back: smoke. Eddying; swirling; clouds in a tribal sort of pattern. They are what's left, the expellation from between the cracked jaws of a dragon, generations past. I have a new hero, apparently. He is a young savior, a little too late, a little too queer, a little over the mark. What power he has lies in illusion, but he's still about to save people.
He is the last of the line. There have been a score of young bravos, ready for action, gifted and prophesised and everything, but he is at the end. Diluted, and somewhat without focus. Every forerunner had had I different part of the tattoo across his back: the first, the looping tip of the tail; on the next, the clawed hind legs, followed by a sinuous midsection; then, the talons and jaws... but this dragon was a fire-breather. How does it work? Does the smoke precede or follow the flame?
The dragon was the originator, the primal force. He has since decrepitated, fallen to ash and sand. The legacy then, is his force, passing from generation to generation, trying to find a home and a purpose. Was the dragon human, or not? Just a symbol?
Uncertain.
There is this proxy, this avatar trying to find his purpose and his way. Extrodinary, but marginal.
In my half-awake state, I conceive a whole book. An anti-anti-hero tale, where my poor untapped hero gets out into the world, trys to help, finds himself just a little too late, a little too less, a little too
little to make any magnificent difference; but falls in love, saves his love, between monumentous and hyperbolic events. In the end, he makes a difference to the one who most makes a difference to him.
I decide that I'm going to write it as young adult novel for gay teenagers. My pen name will be Bastien Balthazar.
I make a notation, then
back to sleep.
Go figure.
Yes, the one from Star Wars. I dreampt that I was in the upcoming Episode III *pause for intake of breath due to providing evidence of hyper-geekdom*, which involved me running around Coruscant, climbing up the sides of buildings, and using the Force to safely jump down from balconies to vast arcades far below.
I think I was some sort of Jedi spy (although I didn't get a lightsaber... I think that might have something to do with the fact that AI told me that if I had one, I'd cut my own arm off), and was trying to keep an eye on the Emperor's dealings. He's a bad, bad man. Slaughtering people for no good reason with invisible planes of force, electrocuting little-girl Jedi... the dream opened with the evil potentate getting off of his transport ship and being met by a group of the Knights, ready to "take him in" (blatantly stolen from the
movie trailer -- the Sandman should be ashamed). He brandished his lightsaber, chased them out, and and massacred them all in hall of mirrors. Shattered glass and images everywhere. From there on in, it was just him consolidating his Empire with shady dealings, masterminding every little development, and turning good meaning Jedi to the dark side.
His private palace was this opulent maze of beautiful rooms, and each one was inhabited by a different individual, his "Private Court". Each person, no matter how comely or congenial they first appeared, turned out to be frighteningly degenerate in some way; although they were all willing to talk to me. A very handsome retired soldier, reclined on a large bed, turned out to be a drug dealer and poisoner, though his clients never knew which he gave them until they tried his wares. A young woman who at first seemed to be a prisoner, in actuality was some sort of psychic Force vampire, waiting for unsuspecting victims. The other's I can't remember now.
At one point one of my colleagues says to me, "We have to be victorious in the end. He can't
win."
"Oh, no." I say to her. "In this movie he does."