#ROW80 1ST QTR SUNDAY CHECK IN - POST 21 – THE MEDIUM AND THE MESSAGE

Our regularly scheduled #ROW80 post will begin in a moment, after this update on goals or status or whatever we're calling it. Firstly, I'm so behind, my behind is behind. This is only Post 21 and I've done precisely 1/4 of mediocreness and that is being kind. What with pneumonia, JC falling, JC having cat-scratch fever or something, me having had some kind of horrid, awful part of my "Parkinson's Disease, or not Parkinson's Disease, that is STILL the question" the part where you are on the verge of tears, but just being on the verge of tears causes worsening tremors, choking, blinking lights, horrible sounds and this unrelenting black, black depression where all is lost, and what not, until I finally gave in with 2 tears and a squeak in the shower, then the angels sang, well, you can see not much has gotten done. I have all of the parts from when I was homeless pulled down and am trying to edit. This shit is hard and I've never done it, so there we are.



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In something akin to a cold open in a movie or a television series, I find myself in the midst of a scene of confusion and hellish sound. The air is heated and smells of diesel and metal. I seem to be near an industrial district and close by a bunch of underpasses. I know I’m on or near the West Coast, far from Tampa. I also know this is another dream, but not like the previous couple of dreams, which I am starting to think were dress rehearsals for something. Or were the dreams priming, much in the way, water used to be used, a cup or two sluiced through a kitchen pump to prime it for use.

Anyway, for some reason, I know that our country’s networked systems have been compromised and disabled over time. Much in the way a Trojan will replicate and replace 8 bits of data at a time over many thousands of iterations to slowly cripple the innards of an entire operating system as it morphs, this works with networking as well. In my dream, I have like this instant knowledge of time, place and the situation I'm in; none of which are really germane to the particulars; I just know what is coming.

Once the usual culprits (CIA, NSA, Pentagon and other Military Ops) have been disabled on the ground, I begin to see broader scope of the devastation; planes begin to fall from the sky (dream imagery in the Islamic world refers to illness, plague, smallpox, pleurisy. An aside; I’ve had death falling from the skies dreams all of my life, even as a small child and both of my parents were pilots.)

All planes are falling; big commercial ones, small private jets and as they fall, great plumes of fire and smoke billow from their wings and the backs of their fuselages. The newer ones fail first. They come down with huge, tearing impacts and grind the earth beside and slightly ahead of the underpass I am trying to shelter beneath. The noise is ferocious and jarring. The tempo of the falling planes increases, as more and more of them fail. You can see by the motions of the planes that some of their pilots are valiantly trying to “deadstick” them as they augur in. The heat and noise becomes too intense for us (who in the hell is in this car with me, driving?) to stay. Traffic is at a standstill on the expressway anyway. We are all sitting ducks. People are abandoning their cars and run for the underpass. We join the exodus.

We ( I still have this shadowy person tagging along and he's still unknown; amazingly, I am still blind and toting whackamole with me) run up under the cement abutment, because now, the newer vehicles are starting to falter and then explode. We both look at our phones. They are dead as doornails. Whatever is going through every computer system is acting like two things I know of, but was unaware they could be done together, although it was probably just a matter of time. The first part of this seems to be like a typical Trojan worm and just causes havoc as it cripples systems. The 2^nd part seems to more like an EMP, an electromagnetic pulse disrupter, which once detonated, fries every piece of circuitry in its perimeter; it makes ATMs, gas pumps, phones, everything dependent upon electronics unusable. I wasn’t aware that such things could be bundled together and maybe they aren't here, either. Maybe it's just me and my slap-happy, paranoid imagination. Me and shadowy guy just look at one another. Fade to black.

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 I’m sitting in a movie theater for one. Up on the screen, Nosferatu, the 1928 version is giving a spirited rendition of… something. Not sure what it is. He does some sleight of hand nonsense and one of his legs falls off and goes down a chute to the laundry room, I guess. He’s babbling away up there on the stage, but I’m not really paying attention. I’m too busy trying to decipher what in the hell was going on on the West Coast a few minutes ago and why it didn’t really happen and why it was just a message and why was it told to me.

Nosferatu does some other sorry shit and loses an arm this go-round. If this is a magic act, he needs to step up his game. Back to what happened-didn’t happen-happened only in my head. Trying to decipher all of this dream-within-a-dream crap. This hasn’t happened yet. But, I need to tell someone, but who and how. Prince of Lies loses his other 2 limbs. That is so sad. Hang it up, there, Count.

He promptly folds up into one of those little popcorn boxes, all foldy-like and falls to the floor. Curious, I get up out of my seat of one and go to pick up the box. The paper carton looks familiar. That widow’s peak hair and white visage. I turn the box over and it’s Nicolas Cage. Great. This is either going to be the greatest dream ever, or it’s going to go down in history as the suckiest thing ever, alá “Wicker Man.” I’m relieved when Nic plays it straight, well for Nic, and just gives me one eye roll and says “You must tell the Pandas, they will know, but you must be the one to save their souls! You must tell Panda 1 and 2 and Burkholder Panda, the Sensitive one.” I look at Nic, and shake my head. “That’s Sensei, Nic, m’kay?” Now, he goes all eye-rolling and crazed.

“You fool! IT has not happened yet! Tell them! Tell the Pandas! Tell them all!” He’s jumping around, his little cardboard tantrum is ridiculous. I put him on the seat. “Okay, okay. I’ll tell them. I promise.”

I have some vague impression, more like a sense of relief. I told Panda 1 and Panda 2, actually, I am telling them now. Lois, too. Panda Burkholder as well, although he does not really understand. But then, neither do I, with the exception that I have some work to do.