I have been playing too much Oblivion lately. And I didn’t feed my cat last night before bed – he’d shared my chicken at supper, I didn’t want to confuse his tummy too much. And he has been sick with a horrid skin infection to boot.
So maybe that explains the dream.
Things were ticking along in the subterranean mecha-opolis I visit often in sleep. Is that why I always identified with the Morlocks? I dunno. I was with a friend; I am pretty sure this friend had once been a cat. It may have been Nostromo (the cat mentioned above). But as I write this, I think it may have been Lochinvar.
Lochinvar died of a thyroid condition a couple summers back. I knew he had it before we left Monterey, but after I moved to San Diego, I didn’t follow up on his treatment, and when he got sick again, there was nothing to be done, and he died. I promised Nostromo I would not neglect his health as I did Lochinvar’s… but I played Oblivion until late, and did not give him his nightly medicine.
So in dreams, I and my feline friend were on a tall building; an unfinished one, with scaffolding all around it, and we were on the scaffolding. This building was tall beyond measure. And after awhile, we jumped off it.
People can survive great falls. I think the record is over 30,000 feet. It helps to fall down a snowy mountain. My friend and I didn’t fall onto a snowy mountain, so we died.
But we were still around. No pulse, no sleep, no eating. Just not alive. People began to avoid us. And after awhile, people began to disappear from the world, and I realized it was pretty much all over.
Shades of Ubik.
