The ABC’s Game – C is for City

"sci-fi3" by Tencyo

I wanted to write something new, as well as create a new collage for this weekend’s ABC’s game entry. I didn’t have the time to do either, so it’ll have to keep. I’m happy with the way I think it will look, but in the meantime I’ll recycle a spectacular dream I had and shared at my old blog a few years ago.

C is for City. I have somehow connected part of my enjoyment of growth with a desire to protect the man for whom I have feelings, and the city in which he lives. That connection manifested itself in a dream I had once. I was shopping in the commercial center of a city, and the streets were packed with people as they entered the shops and skyscrapers that clustered to great heights every way I looked. I was moving along the sidewalk when a large crowd of people turned the corner ahead of me, screaming, running away from something, and heading my direction in a stampeding rush.

This vision was immediately followed by a thunderous blow to the ground, and an arch of rubble and crumbled cement that blasted away from the building that towered to my right as a huge fist hit its corner. As more booming footsteps shook the ground, I turned and ran with the terrified crowd, except I was groaning to myself, realizing I would have to deal with this monster. I didn’t mind the fighting; it was the changing into my superhero costume that I dreaded. See, I carried it in my purse, and I would have to change into it right there, in front of all those people. Funny how I was more affected by modesty than I was about being crushed by an oversized creature’s foot.

I fled for about two seconds before I stopped dead on my tracks; people flew past me without stopping to watch me undress (OK maybe one of them did), and take a slinky, pink satin suit that looked more like something one would swim in, out of my purse. I turned to face the humongous beast, who was a rampaging brunette (colossal humans have made it to every B-movie monster list I have seen) that rose 200′ from the pavement, wearing a pink fuzzy thing a la Edison. She stood and growled on that intersection while stomping madly on people and cars, bending to grab handfuls of victims just to fling them against surrounding buildings.

The dream changed from that sequence of events to my imagining (in the dream) what would happen once I put on my suit. I would grow instantly (the reason why I could not wear it underneath my clothes) to a height that matched this destructive creature’s, and the growth of my suit would “activate” the growth of my teammates, an Asian lady that wore a green suit, and a Caucasian blonde that wore a blue one. I pictured them both rushing to my side, and helping. Sadly, the dream ended with the certainty that the three of us would battle the female “monster” and save the city, but it didn’t move from dream imagination to dream action.

Because of the way it feels to imagine and dream of growing and fighting a scaly, furry, or skin monster, I would do it in an instant. Anything to protect my guy and the city in which he lives.

Well, at least I have nice dreams.

There I am, part of the crew.

I never had nightmares when I was a child. Never. Well, just that once when I was six years old, but it was such an unusual occurrence that I never forgot it. I only started having bad dreams in recent years. Last night I dreamed my son ran away from home, and later called me on the phone so I’d pick him up at a crowded place. The horrible part of the dream was getting there before anyone thought of kidnapping him.

But then the dream changed, and I was suddenly part of the Serenity crew, battling bad guys in space. Of course I looked like my normal self, and not a squid. Actually, I didn’t look like my normal self either, since I was wearing a combination of cowgirl and high-tech clothes. Ya know, the boots, but made of bantha leather; the pants, but made of space-age fabric, the sexy S&W .44 Magnum type revolvers, but the kind that shot ray blasts.

Anywho, after we beat the bad guys we were celebrating, somebody shouted in disgust, and pointed at the floor toward the kitchen. There we saw a flood of roaches and other bugs running away from the kitchen in one direction, heedless of the light and humans around them. Then we heard a series of terrible explosions, and we realized the bugs had sensed trouble before humans the way some creatures do. We opened the ship’s windows to look outside, parked about 20 miles away from the city. What we saw was terrifying: A colossal mechanical bug destroying the city with missiles and rays shooting from it.

I heard someone sigh and say (with regret, as though they had hoped it had been a different foe), “And I had hoped we were being attacked by Iraqis”, and someone else whispered, “And I had hoped we were under nuclear attack”. In other words, the city-sized bugs were much worse than either of the other possibilities. Then a third person said, “We have to call Dr Who!” at which point I felt great disappointment as I thought, But I’m in a Firefly dream! Not in a Dr Who one!

Then I woke up thinking it would have been tremendously cool just to grow in my dream as I’ve done before, and squish those mecha bugs. Some of my dreams do make it worthwhile to sleep like crap.