Friday, June 1, 2012

Ray Bradbury dreams

I dreamt of walking through a small old house, one-storey, with a narrow veranda on the front, and a narrow porch (stoop?) on the back. When one walked out onto the porch, the outdoors were of another world, an empty small town on a hillside, the distance fading to grey mist. I explored some of the buildings and houses, which were all empty of people and mostly of furniture. No signs of hasty departure, more as if everyone had moved away. The houses were wood-frame, one or two storeys, with scruffy lawns and neglected gardens. Garages held rowboats and ladders and bicycles, no cars.
Other people could pass through to this world in the same way, and various people I knew began to move in to this empty town and world. They set up artist's studios in the houses and garages. One woman's elderly cat took on new energy and kittenishness and would dance back and forth on the cushion it had only slept on before. No clue was found of why the town was empty, or whether there were any people anywhere else.
Enough people moved into the town that it became necessary to hold townhall meetings and make decisions. One was whether to keep up contact with the original world, perhaps even recruit more to move, or just lock the door. Another was whether a substantial religious minority could leave and set up their own settlement in another town (assuming such existed). The minority group was mostly young single people, while the others were older women or young mothers and children, who were worried that spreading out might draw attention or bring calamity.
The debate was getting heated when I drifted into yet another dream about walking without the immobilizer and messing up my knee. Damn.

Recent big achievements:  with Mark as my spotter, went up and down the front and back steps on crutches instead of being hoisted. One nasty teetery moment. Important things to remember are 1) foot up first, crutch down first, and 2) step not swing.
Also, was able to  lie on my other side. Yay!

I'm getting better with the crutches, but it is frustrating that I can't carry anything while walking, and that I can't stand up reliably. Those are not skills I'm going to acquire, either, they're factors of not being able to put weight on both feet.
The upside is that my foot isn't confined in a cast, and I can move it freely and keep it clean. So I can't really gripe that much.
I can do 3 sets of 15 leg-lifts (good leg only), chest flies and curls with the 10 lb weights. My crunches are slipping, perhaps because it's difficult to do them on a soft sagging bed. I managed two sets of 30 in the first week, but now can't get past 20 for the first set, then down to 10s. Still, even that keeps me from the muscle twitches at night, which is the main thing.

Also able to sit up and write for over an hour now. I'm going back and forth in Storyline Two, adding in folkloric uneasiness, to make up for the vampires not appearing fully until the last part. I want to suggest that the restoration of the fenlands is strengthening the supernatural side as well as the natural. 
And that aerial photo from the Cambridge Quaternary Group is going to feature with symbolic value.  Look! All the old tangled waterways are still there, under the orderly gridmarks of fields.

5 comments:

fairyhedgehog said...

It sounds like an amazing dream. I always wish that my dreams would hold up well enough to make stories out of but one of my favourites involved riding an emu up the side of a building and I'm not sure how I'd make that work!

Hope your leg is healing up well.

batgirl said...

That sounds like a great dream - and it would make a fine beginning for a post-disaster fantasy :)

Terri-Lynne said...

That dream sounds like a story waiting to be born--mama!

Let's see if I end up in spam this time...

Terri-Lynne said...

That dream sounds like a story waiting to be born--mama!

Let's see if I end up in spam this time...

batgirl said...

Maybe I should use it as the basis for my next 3-Day entry?