Apocalypse Now

In recent hours, days, months, I've been having the most horrific and detailed end-of-the-world dreams. I don't like this very much at all, yet it continues night after night. How do I stop this? I try to think of sugar plums (which sound disgusting, though they look pretty delicious in this here picture to the right - and by delicious I mean if you're a carnivore and love eating raw meat - YUM!) and fairies, but it doesn't really work. And I no longer take the Advil PM, so I think the stomach bleeding has subsided, for now.

Anyway, I was thinking about these dreams last night... before I went to bed (I know, I know! But I didn't have one last night), and how I could translate them into my writing. My last undergraduate full-length was this semi-abstract post-apocalyptic allegory on US foreign policies and global climate control, called "The Sandstorm" ooooooooh!

Most of these dreams give me time to know that I am going to die. It's not quick. There's warning. There's panic followed by a strange calmness, an acceptance of one's fate. It's something everyone, all over, is doing together. There's no escaping. What a way to show humanity we're all in this together. In the dreams the TV reporters stop reporting with 5-12 hours left, to be with their loved ones, and for those lonely people out there, if they choose to stay indoors rather than watch the spectacular sun approaching, there is a looping tape playing on all channels of loved ones greeting each other at the airport (like in "Love Actually").

I was thinking about that above scene last night, and how I could work it into its own piece, but then I remembered that I've already seen it. There was this 10 minute play, "The Kiss", I saw last summer at a Chicago Dramatists play festival. The sun was engulfing the earth, I think, but I remember everything was growing really dark... so maybe it was the moon colliding. Anyway, there is the guy and a girl (who didn't know each other before this moment) who both escaped the craziness of the city to watch from atop a car in this junkyard on the edge of society. They discuss the lives they've lead and how it might feel to die this way, and (here comes the title) the guy says he imagines it will be like a kiss, perhaps a goodnight one.

So I'd have to do it differently than that.

Also, I love the "Twilight Zone" and there's this really crazy episode where this same thing happens... kind of. There's this woman living in an apartment in NYC and the heat keeps going up, up, up as the sun gets closer, closer, closer. People are fainting and dying, and it's bad news bears. Then, the thermometer breaks and you think it's all over for everyone. No. They do those dream waves and you see that this woman is lying in bed, dressed for a fever, which just broke (explaining the thermometer). She comes to and tells her dream to her caretaker. Oh yes, how scary, indeed. Then the caretaker tells her to sleep, sleep and she does. The caretaker walks over to someone else in the room and mentions something about how the poor, stupid girl doesn't even know, but the exact opposite is true. The sun is moving away, away, away and it's getting cold, cold, cold. Like the end of the Dinosaurs, the show, not the real things. They're still around. Duh! Jurassic Park!
I found the above when searching for the "Twilight Zone" - very bizarre. I think the latter part of #1 can be explained when you mention the housewife was on acid and a combination of other drugs she acquired from Amy Winehouse. The same can be said for #2, or Iran's missile testing. #3, a LION! How about a Cougar?! That happened here! Let's say people in Leicester like to watch a lot of movies... maybe Arachnophobia and Lake Placid - yeah. CRABS falling from the sky? That sounds like a mean prank Richard Branson would play... and also a bunch of hooey! I should look and see if this came from the National Enquirer. Just thought I would share the head-scratching goodness with you.

Adieu.