.
Was it... a quarter after four? I think so. Fresh water for Sassy, then food. Fresh water for me. I'll get medicine in as well. That stuff seems to be helping. It's cool indoors, and out, in the low 70s' everywhere, I think 71 was the highest reading. Outdoor is down to 51, which was "parka" weather, in Charleston, S.C., as I remember it. I still laugh at those folk, but that... is their winter. It is, or was, shorts weather for an Iowan. Though Utahns seems to think 30 F can be shorts weather. If... not always as comfortably as they always suggest. :p Teens. Bah! Laughing with, and at. Been there done that, or close enough.
Blood sugar is 241. And for food that had a back-taste of vomit, rotten meat. Never again. Wow. They are absolutely dropping quality. Selling very old meat, if it even is meat? Wow. And charging bank for it. Those workers have to know what they are putting out. Perhaps they don't care, for the wages and "benefits" of "free food"? Terrifying. Lovecraftian dining? I think so.
Oh, and dreams. So many extreme dreams in this last week. I have been avoiding writing them up. But... need to get rid of them. Get them out of my head. But first. mosquito spray, to keep those little monsters off. Cool enough, outdoors, to put them down. But they just come indoors and get me. Nice, that should help. Couldn't find that spray, this time, after a few attacks, I spend the time finding it. Sticky, nasty, stinky. But... it works.
------
In the first dream, my team was sent onto one of the subs I had been on before. A team onboard had gone rogue, taken it over, killed most of the crew save a few of unknown loyalties. Were they just considered necessary, had they switched elegancies, or had they always been on the traitorous team?
My memory of the sub was good, but not good enough to really get the drop in the team. Which had been assigned to the sub, for coastal insertion training. Just in allied countries, but clandestine. How or when the idea to take over the sub was hatched is unknown. Or, if it was a foreign state sponsored event, or purely internal, too, wasn't known.
Reports suggested at least half the original crew was dead. Most or all of the officers, many of the ncos. We were sent in. There is... often a backdoor, or one can be clandestinely arranged with the push of a senior command button. So it was, which is how we got on board.
They didn't realize we were onboard until the three aft compartments were ours, and the four and really fifth were falling to use. Surprised, almost, that they didn't rig something to take the sub out. But the forward torpedo room was being held by friendlies, and the aft torpedo room was the second taken, and without report.
Also surprised a few of them surrendered. It wasn't a blaze of glory thing. No one on our team was lost. Two thirds of their team was gone. If a lot of those weren't given a chance to surrender. Until we came upon a larger remaining group, the option wasn't offered. Singles were terminated without negotiations.
------
Similar event, in the next dream. But, this time, the whole crew were part of the attempt, or most of it. In this one, though, there were MacGyver like traps, everywhere. Between what SEALs do, and know, and what nuke and a-ganger submariners can put together, it was a brutally lethal path from entrance to the end.
Some where like massive mousetraps, some with explosives, rigged this or that. Lost almost the whole team, only I survived. They lost everyone too. This one, we go in through a torpedo tub. It had been left ajar, and the "torpedo tub ajar" signal had been disabled. Once in, with a bit of work (careful not to pressure, mind you), the thing can be drained and opened.
While I hated the task, the challenged was unparalleled. Oh, and I got why they were doing it. Truly. But it's... not our equipment, it isn't our say, it doesn't elsewise matter.
There were three remaining, but in bomb traps. Opening them would have likely caused a minor to massive explosion. So I didn't. Which means they would probably die in there. I let the clean-up crew know what they were dealing with. Most likely? They would leave them to die in there, just because cutting out the hull, to get the bombs out, to try to work with them, would take days. Trying to even open an airhole might cause it to go off. So... just... nothing to be done.
------
Then, I was back in college. Taking some language course? Business based, to understand business meetings, or such. I was sitting beside a fine young lady. Nothing developed, save a very simple relationship. Then I was in the next course with her, same arrangements, sitting nearby.
She started missing classes. I asked if I could help her, by sending homework, reading assignments, or such. Which helped. I also began sending my finished homework, just to give her a chance to understand, even copy if need be, for occasional use.
Finally, she let me know here problem. She had an aggressive form of cancer. She was going to fight it, and continue with school. I continued to help her. In time, she told me about the pain, from the illness and the treatments. I listened, patiently, over time. I kept helping her.
Eventually I explained that I have been in pain, and such, for forty years. That I did understand. And would help as I may. I suggested that she now understands most of my adult life. Though maybe worse? At times? Or similar, even now?
In time, it became clear that she would not make it. I stayed friends with her, and just visited, or allowed her to call when she could, wanted company, or such. As it came close, I told her I would continue to live, even in suffering, for her. But if she must go, to rest in piece. Then she was no more.
------
Then, finally, also tonight? I dreamed that several of us decided to head south. The world, politics, weather, had changed. Danger was approaching. The younger of us thought this would be the adventure of a lifetime. I saw this as an escape plan, with grim numbers. I enjoyed their enthusiasm. They didn't see my foresight.
We ended up some distance from the border with Arizona. Gasoline had been cut, electrical probably? We ended up on foot. Only twenty five miles, one chuckled. I pulled out the terrain map. No, I said, anywhere from fifty to two hundred. We had belay gear, but enough for five, ten, twenty fresh belay points? Some half down a cliff? Either that or hella walking. No water. No going back north.
And... some of the canyons? if it rains a hundred miles away, we wouldn't know until we were trying to swim in a stone sluice. Well, and again, no water. There might be a few places to dig, in some of the river bottoms. But... water was going to be hella tight.
Not... complaining, just letting folk know what to think about. If they see water, or signs of it? If they see a way up. To be looking at ways to higher land, even short term, and be reading to access it. And, like in a plain, know where the closest 'exit' point may be, and be ready to sprint to it, belay up, etc.
A lot of belaying, some tight calls with water, falling, and just being thirsty bugs. But working together, being patient with the events and each other, and keeping going, resting when needed, we go there in time.
Not a bad gig, as it turned out. Thankfully it was fall, so not nearly as hot. And it had rained several times, so there were pools of fresher water, and some ground water closer to the surface of the riverbeds. Slept, sometimes, up on the cliffs, and a good thing once. Made it through the Utah badlands, and then on to a safer path. The threats from the north had no interest in hunting fleeing 'bugs'. So... we kept going and on south to catch up with others.
A new, different, life.
------
The last two dreams were tonight. The others were a week ago, then a few days ago. But, now, out of my mind.
Later.
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