윤

I was preparing to leave with some acquaintances, but through a door looking out into the distance from our highrise we could see the monster himself approaching. Was more the Japanese original than the recent movie version, which, even though it was the first time in a theater for me this year, I honestly can’t remember anything about. Don’t catch his eye, I warned, but it was too late; he saw me and made a beeline towards us. Within moments the room was shaking violently, and as it tipped to one side, I wondered how we were possibly going to live through hitting the ground. My perspective turned to allow me to witness the building topple from the outside and hundreds of tiny stewardesses shaken out as it slid through the streets. I vowed revenge.

For two summers in college, before the advent of any respectable form of electronic media, I kept almost daily written journals of my dreams, which were obviously facilitated by lack then of distraction before the effort in transcription, but as they’ve returned to plague me again, I must reconsider the notion that the time of year plays some role in their occurrence, what with the television hiatus in full swing following the season finale of Game of Thrones.

Fargo was a disappointing follow-up to True Detective, but I insist it was Billy Bob Thornton’s malevolent character narrating the video on my phone that reminded me I was completely out of place among the beautiful cast in last night’s, even with super-speed. Maybe another man would’ve fallen for it, sold his soul or taken his own life, but I’ve grown too accustomed to my place in the alternative.

Night before this long-awaited reveal I dreamed I saw the 2016 movie, was underwhelmed by the moment, and life went on as usual afterward. Batman and Superman were lovers, and had just gotten out of bed together and left it unmade. In behind-the-scenes footage, a stuntman dressed as Spider-man did a backflip off a second-story platform, but he was much taller than it looked.

Last week I had a dream with Amy Adams and Laura Prepon in some exciting relationship, but the more salient aspect of it was the “re-do”, a feature that’s appeared before, where I will replay or rerun a series of events from that or another night, or at least try and most often fail. (The original hasn’t necessarily happened, but it’s understood to have.) I don’t think I got them on the couch right, so I forfeited any further progress towards that enticing goal.

I called it a “re-do”, of course, because that’s the term coined by this episode of Black Mirror for their perfect assisted recall, and the writer’s choice over more apt ones probably because he’s British. In the end, 記恨 gets at the truth and again it’s the pleasant memories that compel him to go spotless. The most frightening of the anthology for me, especially in light of my recent interest in Google Glass and GoPro to catalogue the excruciating minutiae of my everyday life for future viewing—not at all to appraise my appraisals or pierce jalousies, but foremost to convince my son to make a living instead out of what he enjoys.

Was dressing when I noticed my shirt was spotted with blood, quite a lot of it. I turned to the mirror and saw my chest was covered with open sores. To my horror, there were dark pustules all over my forearms and lower legs, the ones below larger with iridescent contents. I hobbled over to Mr. Lanni, my truck-driving elementary school PE teacher, and asked if I could be excused because of my condition. He seemed to be an expert on the subject and took hold of a few of the bulbs, then let the liquid burst onto the floor in a heavy splash. Surprisingly there was no pain from this act, nor any itching from the others.

You know, if this is my fate, just keep me alive until 2016 in a vat of acid.

It’s been too long a day, so the details are all gone, like the one where 할머니 was a surprisingly able rider, even on the old 1100, though she didn’t quite make her last running start and let the bike fall on its side ahead of her. I was a single man again, a prisoner in a two-room ground floor home in a community very much like Patrick McGoohan’s with a curfew announced over a loudspeaker in the evening. I wasn’t so much making a break for it, but I did want to take a walk, so I ditched the surveillance when the opportunity arose behind noisy neighbors.

Saw a preview for it on the Afro-centric “Bounce” digital channel, which must be how Kurt Russell showed up as the CEO of a high-end business whose first action with visiting Andy Hsu was to take him to his clothing shop and make new recommendations for his wardrobe. The proprietor produced them all from under his counter, such garish colors and textures, knit pantsuits and things, that I snuck off, but was cornered by another of his employees, who reminded me of Brent Spiner’s daughter in the episode of Criminal Intent I saw last night. We watched together from above as a huge ballroom became densely packed with dancers, then joined by giants, who grew increasingly larger, though it was apparent that they were Carnival-like puppets, all resembling Christopher Lee’s Saruman. I began slipping off the balcony and somehow grabbed hold of one of their long robes with her help, and we escaped through the crowds.

Been a while since this dream, and work’s killed any desire to write, even about True Detective, but the word was explained to me by a comely teacher to mean drooping on one side of a face (which I take it is an actual symptom of Bell’s palsy), illustrated by an image of affected Psyduck.

It was night-time, and I was in Portland for a job interview at a campus-like facility with a tree-lined parking lot.  There was at least one exotic car, an orange thing with a huge rear and a wheel-less front end that rested on the concrete base of a lamp post.  The body had a small dent or two, suggesting that it was in use everyday.  I felt even the least interested auto enthusiast should recognize the model, and thought that as the owner of something not too different, I might fit in well here. After all, the first part hadn’t gone too badly.  Two others, a man and sharp-dressed young woman, were also candidates, but I had stood out by challenging one of the two interviewer’s insistence we abide by a quirk of his that we sit in a certain formation.  As I walked to another building for a second phase, I thought I might have taken it further and very cleverly argued that the whole ruse was to show that bias or prejudice was anathema to the hiring process. [I had jerk-stored earlier this evening while running.]

It wasn’t a job; it was law school, a whole classroom full of new admissions.  Somehow the payoff made repeating the program worth it.  But there was something strange about this place, and a short film seemed to reveal it when at the end a PA derided evolution by mocking an exam with a beep for an answer.  The two main characters, representing myself and my comically-inclined slower-witted fellow candidate from before who now was a chimp, kissed each other with relief as they decided to leave.  Afterward, I still wasn’t sure they were serious, but remained seated as a guest speaker, another professional woman, began a demonstration of dramatic closing argument.  Each point made by the instructors was marked by a distinctive sound effect, and when they asked us to identify it, one person suggested it was a sample from a 60’s song called “Falling”, while my companion joked it sounded more like “Catherine” by the Cure.  I chuckled, as if to know it, then made him confess that he was a plant, and none of this was real.  He didn’t deny it.  A story began about women who were “de-feeted”, actually removed of their feat, and some nurses arrived singing while giving me a checkup with arms that were stumps.  They were obvious fakes, as I could tell from the feel of their actual limbs under their bosoms, but I had had quite enough. I wondered if this were all a big performance, and were they gonna kill me?

Trying to get (a) home but the parking lot was full of RV’s, packed together more like it was a dealership, and on the other side of the fence 媽 was preparing some meat for dinner. I handed her a pork chop I was carrying and she poked it to determine that it was acceptable. A crowd there was focused on something behind me, which I turned to see was a tunnel carved into the mountain revealing an alien base. A booming voice announced their existence to mankind, and a menacing fireball shot forth from within… but it doesn’t seem they were intent on wreaking global destruction in the usual manner: instead, their representative appeared and offered us a new television series, all the episodes at once, like Netflix. Occurred to me later in the shower that fanciful conquerors might in fact do this, set up their own production companies, hire away the best talent and take over the world on our terms. Their movies and shows could very well be better. All the more reason to welcome them, I say.