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What if an alien planet with life had a solar system with a large, rocky planet between it and the sun? And this planet was so close to the sun that it circumnavigated in only two days? What effect might it have on the lively planet’s temperature (assuming it is quite large)? How might people have adapted?
Last Friday, after belatedly catching the season-finale spectacular for Lost, I spent the night dreaming the show.
Largely, my dream time was spent re-watching the finale. Honest. It was like my head had turned into the television (or Slingbox software, in my case), and I was totally sucked in. I played no role in the dream except as the passive observer.
Part of my dream, though, I was actively involved somehow. I was either reading materials online about the show and putting it all together or I may have become part of the writing staff. At any rate, in my dream, I knew what it all meant. All the secrets, revealed.
Of course, I forgot all that when I awoke.
Girl walks down the street carrying her groceries, passing a twenty-something guy shouting over her head in some random language. Then, suddenly, the words switch to English: “Yo guys, what’s up?” She shakes her head with a smile at how multilingual Europeans are.
She walks up to a tobacco kiosk to buy some tram tickets. The clerk sees her approach and asks, “Yes, may I help you?” The girl raises her eyebrows at being addressed in English, but it’s a touristy area and the locals are often good at making her as an American from her clothing’s non-neutral shades.
“Yeah, I need five ten-minute tram tickets, please,” she says.
The clerk looks at her quizzically. “Excuse me?” he asks.
She must not have spoken loud enough. She did tend to mumble. The girl repeats herself, more strongly.
Now the clerk’s face evidences some frustration. “Listen, lady, I can’t understand you; I don’t speak English. Here, point to what you want,” he says, gesturing.
The girl’s eyebrows might have flown away by this point. “But you are speaking to me in English.”
“What do you want from me, girl! Point, point!” he shouts.
“Maybe I can help,” a bystander interjects. “What are you looking for?” he asks the girl.
“I need five 10-minute tram tickets,” she says faintly.
“She needs five 10-minute tram tickets,” the bystander repeats to the clerk.
“Ah, yes. It is no problem,” he responds, relieved. “Tell her it’ll cost 100 with the service fee.”
The bystander turns back to the girl, who’s already digging through her purse, emerging with 100. He looks puzzled. “But I thought you didn’t speak the language?”
“I speak English just fine, thanks,” she mutters.
“I meant our language,” he replies, gesturing from himself to the clerk as she pays.
“I read some, but I don’t do oral,” she answers. “Listen, thanks for the help.”
She hurries away, wondering if it would be possible to ever learn to speak the language now if she’s lost the ability to differentiate. Then, she stops.
Lost the ability to . . . ?
I’m at my parents’ house. We notice some nasty roaches crawling around, a new and highly unusual sight, and one that definitely turns my stomach. But something is wrong. People and animals in the house start showing cockroach features — hands turning insect-like, and so on. A few of my brothers and I escape to my grandparents’ house, leaving behind my mother, some other unlucky brothers, and the family dogs (Zoe, Oscar, and Elvis in this dream) who have turned into giant roaches.
We investigate the calamity from the safety of my grandparents’ house, where any roach-like features fade away. One of my distant cousins (Doug or John) has knowledge of extermination in the dream and devises a formula that will kill the small, real roaches while only knocking out the big, human-and-dog roaches. They return to their normal state.
We find clues as to who and what was behind the roach invasion, especially a few keychain-sized film cameras scattered through the scene, but we can’t get the film developed as the enemy knows we have them and will intervene to steal the film from the developer if we are not careful.
The pressure starts to close in. Two people figure out that the roach faction has discovered us and is striking again. They pack a sack full of anti-roach chemicals and the precious cameras. The more experienced one tells the other that they must leave, paying no attention to what anyone says on the way out. Unfortunately, he doesn’t get this and is deterred when the once-trusted relatives at my grandparents’ house ask where they are going, eying the sack. The roach disease has started to strike here too, and they know what’s coming if they don’t get the chemicals. Apparently, Dr. Rodney McKay has a lab in the house that is starting to show signs of infection, and he begs for some of the liquid. The inexperienced one starts to open the bag, but the experienced one works faster, tossing away the small liquid bottle toward the others to distract them and make a getaway as they lunge for the evidence — they have been compromised.
Meanwhile, back at my parents’ house, my dad has returned from a business trip and doesn’t believe the story of the roaches. I notice that the sickness is returning as I find some roaches invading. I run upstairs and stuff a suitcase with whatever clothes I can grab most quickly and shout at my dad to get back in his car. My arm is already starting to turn. I try to save the pets, as I find them looking pretty normal by the door, but on picking Elvis up I notice insect-like arms starting to poke out from his underside, and he turns vicious as I drop him.
I run to my dad’s car and beg him to let me in as he starts it up. Eventually he yields but is surprised to see my arm. I explain that he is safe as long as I don’t bite or something, and that it will fade. In fact, having resisted transformation once before made it slower to happen for me the second time.
We drive to safety, and I attempt to explain what’s happening to my distant cousins, who won’t believe it’s happening again. I show my hand, but there are barely any traces left of the insect change. But it’s enough to get them worried.
Here, I woke up. The dream was interwoven a bit with some sort of exercise in finding a hotel for a bus full of people in the parking lot of a German- or Dutch-run shopping center in Britain with some ticket-happy parking police.
