Dream with characters from "Lost"

Intense dream featuring characters from ABC's "Lost":

First, Linus setting up his own capture from season two--on the forest floor, tugging at a trip wire and pulling a baloon close to him to make his story believable. John Locke finds him as he's faking his own injury, but instead of Linus being captured he captures Locke.

Locke is in one of Linus' bunkers, as Linus begins discussing various details with him: the island, Locke's destiny, etc. Locke is in full health, walking spry, etc., as Linus shows him shelves of materials--he is in a warehouse room underground, stocked full with useful tools from lighter fluid to boxes of nails. Linus tasks him with building a "mast-head" out of some of the tools he has just seen, and then cuts the lights and walks away. But he leaves a flashlight on. Locke asks if he can use that, Linus laments his forgetting to take that away.

Locke finds a bucket and looks for a long pole. After this, Linus shows Locke a shelf of various poisons, and tells him as he pulls a bottle off the shelf that Locke will be using it to 'clean' the leg Linus is going to make him cut off to make sure he doesn't escape.

Then a 'flashback'--Locke is listening to a French song, sung by a woman with words that sound like 'two' and 'four,' and once these words sound there is an image of two young children in an iron boat like the Normandy-storming infantry carriers with a dying mother. The older girl (not the mother) says "You saved me, you got me off the island."

Then the ship lands on a different island--sandy, rock covered. There is a huge airport. The children are in military fatigues, and there is a third child with them. They carry assault rifles.

Locke sees them walk through a heavily-guarded gate, weary that children are carrying firearms. Indeed, a four-year old boy carries an RPG and begins wearing a more and more discomforted look as he is ignored by various adults running about. At some point he is holding a rifle instead of an RPG again, and he makes one very precise but accidental shot, causing an explosion "that destroys over half the base" as a narrator explains.

Locke is on the outskirts of the base, and is one of the survivors. Firetruck-like vehicles begin driving about, piloted by ben in white hazard suits. The trucks are spraying a liquid all over, and particularly at any people they pass. One passes Locke as he finds a plane that's boarding survivors. He joins a line of scared civilians who aren't sure what's going on, and is sprayed with whatever anti-radiation liquid is in the trucks once more.

Locke boards the plane, and finally I'm not sure if I'm still watching the character or I am the character. I find a small radio in my things, and take it out and turn it on on the food tray in front of me. I'm sitting very near the front of the passenger cabin. There is only one or two more rows in front of me. The song on the radio is the same French song from earlier in the dream. A businessman in the seat in front of me looks back and I ask if he wants me to turn it off--"no, up, turn it up" he says quietly, making a strange hand gesture.

There is also something about a girl on the plane--I think it's something about her first time flying. Perhaps she is sitting next to me. Her role is hazy. I remember long dark-red curled hair and bright green spots on her dress.

The plane begins driving around the remains of the airport as I listen to the song. I'm much more focused on the song than on the plane. The man sitting next to the one guy in front of me voices a fear, about the plane rocking about a little much for standard take-off procedure. I assure him it's nothing.

The plane begins lifting off the ground earlier than expected. I think, "what? I guess this scared guy is right, there's no way we'll make it into the air," and, sure enough, the plane corkscrews instead of taking flight. I see both the inside of the cabin and the outside of the plane as it skids upside down along the runway. I wonder if more people are hurt (after all, the reason we're all on the plane is because of a small 'nuclear'--or at least radiation-producing--explosion). About this time I wake up.

"If the sun never shows its face again . . ."

The blood in veins crawls up north. There is whiteness, and jibber-jabbing of foolish nonsense from vents and windows. I spend 90% of my time in three rooms, often finding myself amazed in the rare moments life encourages me into the wilderness.

I wonder if my phone might ring had my parents never moved to the forest. I lament tinted memories of darting across dark roads to steal friends from family for frivilous experiments, and taking for granted the light-pollution of the night sky.

There are messages I mean to write, but I don't know where to start.

There are responsibilities creeping ever closer, poisoning sleep and making phantoms of the truths I used to hold dear.

For another week, I am alone, but with the two people closest to me in this world: mom and dad. As hopeless as their efforts are, I cherish their attempts . . . but the plagues that rumble through me cannot be cured by the simple sentiments of blood relations.

I fear I face a nothingness of eternal depth back home (because this is not home). The necessity of Career--of Work and Job, the housings of Paychecks and Standard Ethics . . . or betting on the fantastical illusions that have pulled me along, so rarely with emotional ballast, all these years.

Periods like these, I consider it a wonderful acheivement that I killed off my ability to cry. My parents wouldn't understand the tears, and I could not explain them, and they would just cause more despair in the end.

For now I keep things simple, really only lifting my fingers--only working towards anything of substance--for maybe an hour a day. Otherwise, I am lost in false worlds; dreams and digital fictions.

I'd pray for a savior, but seven years of broken hopes have taught me better.

This year, the roller-coaster

After building and tumbling, lurching through sharp turns and unexpected directions; after leaving the track, expecting the car to explode from the betrayal of gravity, I again plunge and begin to climb another hill.

Decided to walk to the theatre building to see "A Child's Christmas in Wales" last night. Was stopped on the way by a girl trying to get to the same place, so we joined up. We talked for hours after the show, exploring and sharing each other's views--philosophies, future plans, aesthetic approaches.

A new face. Again, I'm not sure exactly what to make of it . . . she's not a student, she's living in the area with extended family following studies in Minnesota. I can't begin to pierce what she makes of me, and I've decided nothing about her either . . .

Times are strange. My emotions rush and fill, translating into moments of despair, of triumph, of peace, of confusion. I am without short-term expectations, I exist, for the moment, seeming to misunderstand most of the simple systems surrounding me.

I know what I want, I know I don't know how to get it; I feel closer than ever to compelling conclusions, I feel the year beginning to close.