Friend 1 and I
Anyway, I was walking through a city and I came across a small student protest behind a little fence. A Libya protest - I explained I couldn't take part because it was too dangerous. I- and S- were among them - I gave them each a massive hug and a kiss on the cheek which was, retrospectively, a sensible thing to do. Kept walking. Came across another, smaller protest. Of all the people, Friend 7 was in this one. Kept walking through darker streets. All of a sudden, there were a small group of streetsoldiers running across the end of the street, who threw an "IED" in our direction.
So. Not London. And note for the military nerd - the thing my brain labelled "IED" looked like one of those long, pipe grenades, had a blast radius of about six metres and just about enough time for them to be outrun if you were paying attention. I screamed for the other people in the area to run also - I was safely out of the blast, they were a bit more Bond ("SLO MO JUMP!").
I kept going. Went through a tunnel. Came to a grassy valley, thinly lined on either side by protestors who meant business. The mood was far more Les Miserables down here, although I still recognised many of the protestors, including Samir who turned out to be quite the quantum boyfriend* in the dream. I gave him a hug and a I'm-Never-Going-To-See-You-Again kiss too. Oh dear me. I gave them some news - the newspapers up top were saying they weren't organised enough to win, so they really needed to organise. I don't know by what power I was just a floating rambler, but I guess I'd made the decision not to die. I don't know, though - everyone I met seemed to be aware and supportive of me not being heroically massacred. I carried on through a building where the coordinators were planning. They seemed really quite dour about their chances. They also informed me there was no way out this way, and that heading south was my only chance. So, back north the way I'd came, then south by a different route.
*had I a hundred billion lives, quantum boyfriends are people I'd quite like to date. As it stands, they are people I like a lot and am curious about the experience and what the rest of my life would look like. But not sufficiently in-love-with-and-attracted-to to actually be bothered with the trouble of asking in this life. Not so much because it'll be trouble for me, but trouble for them - it seems I feel bad dumping all my emotional issues on people I like unless they've explicitly asked me to. So the attraction remains more a cerebral one. Pity, though. As I'm sure I'll feel a tad mifffed if any of them ever found anyone else. I'm basically just posessive. And greedy.
When I got outside it was dark. I tried to stick to the deeper shadows back through the valley, but when I got to the tunnel there were lines of armed soldiers running towards the defenders in the valley. I nipped into an abandoned house. Became a camera for a while. In the cafe, the owners who had run away to avoid the fighting had returned a few days later, more in optimism I think although it was true - the fighting wasn't heavy here. More like mopping up. They discovered the dog they had abandoned was still alive, and feral - attempting to attack and eat them. Like any dream, they got several attempts to contain the dog before they were eaten. They failed, all three times - the mother got munched, but the little girl survived. What sort of survival is this, thought my camera eye? I floated up the side of the valley, where the protestors were in dugouts and being efficiently butchered by passing troops. One group was actually a tour group from the future whose bubble failed and was picked off with the rest of them (with an exception of one member, who was an archangel).
"I" returned, back where I'd started near the first protest. Near the river. OK, going south. I ran across the bridge - it was morning now - ignoring the rather large group of protestors posessing it. When I was nearing the end, another one of those "IED"'s struck, and I regret not doing the sensible thing - chucking it over into the water - instead of outrunning it to the other side again. It's quieter down here. So I move between buildings, all very Southbank. When I turn, the bridge has been destroyed - it's easing itself into the water, then crashing, and then a ridiculous amount of screaming as everyone falls, then flounders, then drowns.
Eventually, I get to an area which can not be passed. Lots of people bumbling around. We passed into more of a dreamstate again here. Fortunately, the Doctor was there to figure out how to traverse. He and Amy rigged up little rafts across the floor, to an area where there was supplies - joy of joys. I followed, so did a few others. We were trapped there. Oh, and one of our companions turned out to be Gadaffi's son, the poor wretch. I say "poor wretch", because being trapped with a bunch of angry escapees isn't anything an ex-evil-dictator wants, and some very PG-level, Doctor-approved torture took place with the items we had around - including eggs. Note to self - G jr. has a serious allergy to eggs. We persuaded him into releasing a regime-approved carriage and boat, with which we could escape from the building. The Doctor told Amy to drive with G jr. ahead in the carriage. Like, an expression of trust thing. The rest would follow through the canal to the river in the green boat.
Amy took the carriage out of the front. Well, yeah. The building was totally surrounded, as if for a state procession. Hundreds of joyful supporters cheered as it left the building. With that distraction, the Doctor and the other survivors slipped out carefully to the river. G jr. reached his own boat, but he had been so - wait for it - touched by the Doctor's kindness (egg-torture ignored?), and trust in leaving Amy with him that he allowed them to escape in the boat in exchange for releasing him. As his state boat sailed away, he was looking quizzicaly joygul in a totally implied change of heart sort of a way.
Which is the type of thing which happens when you let Doctor Who do real world events. Libya gets a happy ending.
There were some other bits, more unpleasant bits, including yet another my-house-is-under-attack dream. That was interesting by virtue of Steel being its central character - an angry Steel, whose Sapphire had gone missing, and was attacked in Horned hallway by two equally strong villains, who he despatched with great difficulty, firearms, and serious wounds afterwards. I can make sense of most of the fragments - the dog, the archangel, the whole shebang. But I'd rather just leave it for you as a fabulous little string-of-dream-sausages. Good morning, world!
Anyway, I was walking through a city and I came across a small student protest behind a little fence. A Libya protest - I explained I couldn't take part because it was too dangerous. I- and S- were among them - I gave them each a massive hug and a kiss on the cheek which was, retrospectively, a sensible thing to do. Kept walking. Came across another, smaller protest. Of all the people, Friend 7 was in this one. Kept walking through darker streets. All of a sudden, there were a small group of streetsoldiers running across the end of the street, who threw an "IED" in our direction.
So. Not London. And note for the military nerd - the thing my brain labelled "IED" looked like one of those long, pipe grenades, had a blast radius of about six metres and just about enough time for them to be outrun if you were paying attention. I screamed for the other people in the area to run also - I was safely out of the blast, they were a bit more Bond ("SLO MO JUMP!").
I kept going. Went through a tunnel. Came to a grassy valley, thinly lined on either side by protestors who meant business. The mood was far more Les Miserables down here, although I still recognised many of the protestors, including Samir who turned out to be quite the quantum boyfriend* in the dream. I gave him a hug and a I'm-Never-Going-To-See-You-Again kiss too. Oh dear me. I gave them some news - the newspapers up top were saying they weren't organised enough to win, so they really needed to organise. I don't know by what power I was just a floating rambler, but I guess I'd made the decision not to die. I don't know, though - everyone I met seemed to be aware and supportive of me not being heroically massacred. I carried on through a building where the coordinators were planning. They seemed really quite dour about their chances. They also informed me there was no way out this way, and that heading south was my only chance. So, back north the way I'd came, then south by a different route.
*had I a hundred billion lives, quantum boyfriends are people I'd quite like to date. As it stands, they are people I like a lot and am curious about the experience and what the rest of my life would look like. But not sufficiently in-love-with-and-attracted-to to actually be bothered with the trouble of asking in this life. Not so much because it'll be trouble for me, but trouble for them - it seems I feel bad dumping all my emotional issues on people I like unless they've explicitly asked me to. So the attraction remains more a cerebral one. Pity, though. As I'm sure I'll feel a tad mifffed if any of them ever found anyone else. I'm basically just posessive. And greedy.
When I got outside it was dark. I tried to stick to the deeper shadows back through the valley, but when I got to the tunnel there were lines of armed soldiers running towards the defenders in the valley. I nipped into an abandoned house. Became a camera for a while. In the cafe, the owners who had run away to avoid the fighting had returned a few days later, more in optimism I think although it was true - the fighting wasn't heavy here. More like mopping up. They discovered the dog they had abandoned was still alive, and feral - attempting to attack and eat them. Like any dream, they got several attempts to contain the dog before they were eaten. They failed, all three times - the mother got munched, but the little girl survived. What sort of survival is this, thought my camera eye? I floated up the side of the valley, where the protestors were in dugouts and being efficiently butchered by passing troops. One group was actually a tour group from the future whose bubble failed and was picked off with the rest of them (with an exception of one member, who was an archangel).
"I" returned, back where I'd started near the first protest. Near the river. OK, going south. I ran across the bridge - it was morning now - ignoring the rather large group of protestors posessing it. When I was nearing the end, another one of those "IED"'s struck, and I regret not doing the sensible thing - chucking it over into the water - instead of outrunning it to the other side again. It's quieter down here. So I move between buildings, all very Southbank. When I turn, the bridge has been destroyed - it's easing itself into the water, then crashing, and then a ridiculous amount of screaming as everyone falls, then flounders, then drowns.
Eventually, I get to an area which can not be passed. Lots of people bumbling around. We passed into more of a dreamstate again here. Fortunately, the Doctor was there to figure out how to traverse. He and Amy rigged up little rafts across the floor, to an area where there was supplies - joy of joys. I followed, so did a few others. We were trapped there. Oh, and one of our companions turned out to be Gadaffi's son, the poor wretch. I say "poor wretch", because being trapped with a bunch of angry escapees isn't anything an ex-evil-dictator wants, and some very PG-level, Doctor-approved torture took place with the items we had around - including eggs. Note to self - G jr. has a serious allergy to eggs. We persuaded him into releasing a regime-approved carriage and boat, with which we could escape from the building. The Doctor told Amy to drive with G jr. ahead in the carriage. Like, an expression of trust thing. The rest would follow through the canal to the river in the green boat.
Amy took the carriage out of the front. Well, yeah. The building was totally surrounded, as if for a state procession. Hundreds of joyful supporters cheered as it left the building. With that distraction, the Doctor and the other survivors slipped out carefully to the river. G jr. reached his own boat, but he had been so - wait for it - touched by the Doctor's kindness (egg-torture ignored?), and trust in leaving Amy with him that he allowed them to escape in the boat in exchange for releasing him. As his state boat sailed away, he was looking quizzicaly joygul in a totally implied change of heart sort of a way.
Which is the type of thing which happens when you let Doctor Who do real world events. Libya gets a happy ending.
There were some other bits, more unpleasant bits, including yet another my-house-is-under-attack dream. That was interesting by virtue of Steel being its central character - an angry Steel, whose Sapphire had gone missing, and was attacked in Horned hallway by two equally strong villains, who he despatched with great difficulty, firearms, and serious wounds afterwards. I can make sense of most of the fragments - the dog, the archangel, the whole shebang. But I'd rather just leave it for you as a fabulous little string-of-dream-sausages. Good morning, world!
Comments (1)
Stop writing blogs and write a novel, damn you!