The desire to hold a dream diary is in large part inspired by Georges Perec's <i>La boutique obscure</i>, which is a compilation of 124 dreams.
My dreams are not nearly of the same quality nor is my writing on par with Perec's, still I hope they have some entertainment value. If not maybe going the extra mile with the presentation can make up for it.
Much love, Maliface.I am extremely tired, with terrible brain fog.
It is late into the night, or maybe the early morning, but I still have essays to write. I stumble out in the street and walk around in search of a café. The night is cool, blue, dimly lit by neon lights.
I finally find a place, it is an American-style 24/7 diner, I go in and ask for a coffee.
The waiter, visibly displeased, tells me they don't have any coffee left, in fact, the only drink still in stock is <em>ant juice</em>.
Despite my disappointment I order the juice, it'll likely be better than nothing and I can't afford to be choosy at this time of the night...
The waiter sighs, leaves, then comes back a few minutes later with a cup of coffee.
I realize the ant juice was a ploy to get me to leave as the waiter didn't expect anyone to willingly choose it. In fact, the <em>ant juice</em> itself might have been a lie...<p>
I wake up quite late in the day, I hate this feeling of having wasted a lot of precious daytime. I open my window and look outside to see how high the sun is in the sky. A smooth and pillowy coat of clouds flows gently under my window, blanketing everything below. The sun is about to set and casts a pink hue on the sea of clouds, making it look like cotton candy.
</p>
<p>
Even in dream, this view amazes me and I stand by the window, watching as the sun slowly fades to orange, then purple. Finally I go downstair and leave the house. The world below the clouds is dim, cluttered with things and people, but in a comfy way. People are standing around, talking, it feels a bit like a crowded bar where each group of friends is its own microcosm.
</p>
<p>
Near one of the exits, an old woman is standing in front of an inflatable plastic pool, there is no water in it but a dozen baby goats wrapped in towels. She is talking to a captivated crowd about how to care for the them, she states : "They're defenseless and cold, they need bodywarmth and love". Immediately she turns to me and hands me one of the baby goats.
</p>
<p>
I quickly press the animal against my chest and feel it moving, it's very cute. I will care for that baby goat!
</p>
<<summon 'Back' 'Start' 500>><</summon>>Soup is served from a large pot in an arid country. Charity to the outcasts, I get my bowl and notice another girl whose story will matter.
This girl is an orphan, approached by some kind of corrupt political figure, she is tasked to make contact with the outside world beyond the red desert. She defiantly agrees to go. She leaves with a protecting robot that serves as muscles and a talking, very wise, feline.
On my end of the dream, I'm trying to date a maid in a wealthy family. Working a job in a restaurant, the backroom has a door leading into this family's house. I sneak into the house coming into the room of the eldest son, some kind of tech youtuber, has lots of nice stuff but I don't really envy him and quite like his content, don't even think about stealing anything. Only thing that matter is getting to the maid. The family comes home, I have to hide under a table, they feel very German.
The girl crosses the endless desert, from oasis to oasis, then onto the long stretch of red dunes. Whenever the situation arises, she chooses violence and the robot 'goes loud'.
Square stones sit here and there. The girl, the tall robot and the slender cat walk endlessly under the scrotching sun. At last, the desert turns into a beach, they have traversed desert toward the wide world.
The beach is littered with abandonned dingies, the crew takes to the sea the robot rows toward a cruise boat. The delegation comes on board, the boat is empty but has all the accomodations of a modern cruise boat. To the girl, the crowded furniture of the boat feel strangely homely, they even is a library. It becomes obvious that she doesn't care about making contact with the wider world, she savours having a home for herself for the first time in her life, yet this pleasure is soured by the resentment of acquiring it too late...
---
My friend Rodolphe told me a while back that he often dreamt as an 'observer', which I found very strange as I am the main protagonist in the vast majority of my dreams. This dream is the first one in which I experienced this observer viewpoint.<p></p>/* Friend's farm, tasked to find the elks and bring them back so they don't freeze to death. Marshes, carry a boat */
<p>
I am tasked with working on a video game. Many coders and designers have tried to tackle it over the years but development was always interrupted at some point, leaving an unfinished and incoherent skeleton of a game.
</p>
<p>
The player stays in a decrepit gas station which gives off strong post-apocalyptic vibes. The game is lacking in every aspect : textures are missing, the buildings and roads feel extremely barebones, roads end abruptly or lead to invisible walls. The gas station itself has an upgrade system, most do nothing however, I am able to get a car to work but janky physics makes it unusable. Some zombie-type enemies exist but they lack textures and AI.
</p>
<p>
All this contributes to the uncanny atmosphere, the game is grey, barren, lacking any life or activity, yet it feels like there is more content to explore. I play as far as possible until I finally encounter the first NPC, it is a secretary residing in a seemingly endless corridor full of offices.
</p>
<<summon 'Continue' '' 600>>
<p>
This NPC has the start of a storyline, her dialog infers that my every actions are being watched. Her questline ends very soon however and doesn't bring any closure. At that point, a dark silhouette starts following me and some of the office spaces in that long corridor are deemed 'unsafe for the player'.
</p>
<p>
This ominous NPC is obviously meant to be the antagonist. I come back to the endless building with better equipment. From this point, the game suddenly becomes more fleshed out with more vivid and polished rooms. Furniture can be interacted with, moved, the ventilation system can be explored. I meet another NPC, a woman, who exhibits a lot more character and motives.
</p>
<p>
She knows places that the shadow cannot see and has her own plans to defeat it. Follows more interactions with higher quality items, the world appears more real, but as it does, the shadow also becomes more threatening. There is also the sentiment that the game is actively trying to hinder my progress, it is resisting in some way. The woman dies at some point.
</p>
<p>I wake up, quite confused as to why the most effort has gone into the least accessible part and barely ties in with the starting gas station...</p>
<<summon 'Back' 'Start' 500>><</summon>>
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<</script>>My name is Charly Monos.
Commit some kind of mass shooting, surrender to police, answer all the questions in a very resigned way, honestly, feels kind of freeing to have no antagonism against the inspector, the guy himself is really nice and soft spoken. Lose a tooth.
In some way, this way unavoidable, as I'm led to prison, the inspector shows me a list of killing committed by people with the name 'Monos', it happens every few years. I don't recognize the name, they're likely from distant branches of the familly. A figure stand out of the list, the one with the highest death count, a woman.
Prison is weird, more of an appartment complex. I visit prison dentist about the tooth I lost, I doesn't look good by I don't care.
I quickly meet this 'Monos' girl who has killed so many, this *sister* I never knew.
Lot of time spent hanging aroung, getting acquainted to her, gaining familiarity. Things there feel at peace, no stress, no tension, it is not a prison but some kind of afterlife, free of stress or pretenses. We don't speak much, just spend time hanging around, cooking, in the vast empty flat. It feels like home.<p>
I am walking downtown, must be early December, snow is melting on the sidewalks.
</p>
<p>
For some reason, I am painfully aware that the world is about to end very soon. Scientists have discovered a new state of matter in which atoms convert all of their potential energy into a fractal web of frozen tendrils. It spreads to neighbouring matter at the atomic level and cannot be contained. The web-like structure is perfectly inert and sterile as it doesn't have any energy left, its entropy is the lowest possible one.
<br>
By theorizing and observing the process, the scientists have made it a reality.
</p>
<p>
I know that very soon, all matter on earth will turn, causing it to expand a thousand fold and spread to the rest of the universe. Downtown, people are totally unaware, they walk around, go shopping. I try to buy clothes at a dollar store but give up. I meet some friends, we talk for a while but I don't tell them about what is going to happen, wouldn't make any difference.
</p>
<<summon 'Continue' '' 600>>
<p>
At last I am back home, staring out of my bedroom's window, the sun is setting. The last scene is that of a gigantic pillar of 'matter rot' shooting up toward the sky. It is off-white, incredibly light as existing matter has puffed up to form this fractal web. It doesn't burn, doesn't corrode, it is perfectly stable. It cannot bear life.
</p>
<p>
I don't remember precisely when I had this dream and whether I already knew of Nihei Tsutomu's <i>Biomega</i>. The manga follows a very similar theme in which a virus spreads and warps matter. Tsutomu's story takes a more optimistic angle as the post-virus world is able to sustain a life of its own.
</p>
<<summon 'Back' 'Start' 500>><</summon>>
<</summon>>I am in my mother's car, she is driving up a series of steep, winding streets, asking me for directions from time to time. The landscape slowly turns from urbanized to wild, the narrow sidewalks are replaced by strips of flowery grass. The road become increasingly verdent, more of a trail than a road.
The car stals and I need to get out and push, I notice many tombstones sticking up from the greenery, cracked, covered in moss. I wonder if the affluent people who live in the houses below choose to get buried here among the unkempt weeds and trees.
Pushing the car doesn't do much as we have reached the top anyway, it feels nice walking on flat ground again. The place stands at the top of high cliffs, it overlooks the city to the left, the sea to the right. As far as car travelled is concerned, it is a dead-end.
<<summon 'Continue' '' 600>>
I leave my mother and push through the tall grass into a forest. It must be late spring, early summer maybe, under the shadow of the trees, the weeds are still wet with the morning dew.
Up ahead, beyond the rusting metal fence, is an abandoned manor. It is the kind built from bricks and limestone blocks, with steep slate roofs. The hornate forged front gate is slightly open, just enough for a person to slide through.
I trudge through the thick grass, thinking it is the perfect environment for ticks. The manor's front wooden gates are also left ajar, they are painted in a shade of deep blue. I peer through the opening and behold the building's strange structure.
Instead of having a first floor at ground level, the manor is split horizontally between a concrete basement, barely tall enough to crawl into, and the upper floors, most of which have collapsed into piles of moldy wood.
I assume the square, bunker-like crawlspace is a recent addition which wasn't part of the original plan.
I am soon joined by friends and we decide to explore the dark underground of the manor as it seems to be the safest part. We ready the flashlights and climb down the sloped shaft, barely wide enough for a human to fit through. It leads into a maze of angular concrete rooms, here and there, discarded items litter the floor. We pick through them, in search of some antique.
Rats start to trail us, there are very large, more along the size of cats. It seems logical that they could grow big if left enough time undisturbed. As we decide to pull back from the maze of similar rooms, they get increasingly more aggressive.
With friend, try to crawl in, the inside looks more like a bunker, dark. Large rats, the size of dogs, follow us. Getting increasingly aggressive so we decide to back track, gotta fight them off to leave through a hole in the ground.
Fear that the bites might get infected. The manor's domain leads to a clearing full of broken statues.
Scary but nostalgic of the urbex days...
<</summon>><p>
I often dream of the sea, it is a recurring theme, which makes sense as I have lived most of my life close to the sea front. As a child I have played countless times on the beach, harassing crabs and catching this type of transparent shrimps we call <i>bouquet</i>. There is no greater treasure than rounded pieces of glass tumbled by the waves, shiny and alluring when wet, they fade to a mat and battered finish when allowed to dry.
</p>
<p>
The beach is constrained to the south by a massive concrete dike which protects the inner harbour from the storms of the off-season. Large stone blocks lay along its bottom edge, they only ever see the light at low tide, revealing countless mysterious microcosms. Crabs of all shapes and sizes, reddish brown anemones which fold back into bulbous growths as the sea recedes, starfishes ranging from pale yellow to vibrant orange, growing back their maimed limbs, sea snails protected by their porcelaine shells...
By pulling off a clump of string-bound mussels, you might catch a glimpse of the elusive green-leaf worm.
</p>
<p>
These intimate marine environments always inspired equal parts amazement and disgust. The squishy life of jellyfishes, anemones and worms grossed me out while I found crabs fascinating.
</p>
<<summon 'Continue' '' 600>>
<p>
To the north, toward <i>Sainte Adresse</i>, the beach narrows and the band of moist sand vanishes under the pebbles. A series of increasingly steep groynes splits the coast into self-contained beaches, wholy uninteresting and barely fit for tanning. If you keep going however, you will reach <i>Le bout du monde</i> - World's end.
</p>
<p>
The world does continue beyond that point, you can walk along the bottom of the cliffs, through the crescent-shaped creeks, until you reach <i>Aquacaux</i>, <i>Antifer</i> even. It is quite a hike and most of it will be spent stumbling on pebbles.
</p>
<p>
The world doesn't end, yet it changes. Massive boulders stand among the pebbles, fallen from the ever-eroding cliffs. Of these boulders, a few come from a stratum of clay-bound glauconite dating back to the <<hover>>Cenomanian period<<tip>>Middle of the Cretaceous<</hover>>. The chosen rocks house remarkable fossils, preserved by the fine clay in stunning details. A hundred million years appart, I can feel the petrified pores of a sea sponge under my fingers.
</p>
<p>
The rugged silhouette of a German bunker, that once used to stand at the top, lies sideways, half-buried in sand. A network of fortified artillery points spread on the cliff's top, <i>La batterie de Dollemard</i>. One day all that reinforced concrete will lie among the pebbles, facing the neverending assault of the saline waves, rust will eat the rebar from the inside.
</p>
<<summon 'Continue' '' 600>>
<p>
Growing up means doing forbidden things, exploring the bunkers, pushing ever further up the beach to see what treasures await. There is no network coverage under the cliffs.
Few memories I cherish more than climbing down the German bunker for the first time. Inside, the slanted floor is covered in a layer of soaking wet debris, a small staircase leads up to a precarious viewpoint. It is fairly unremarkable, nothing but a concrete box toppled over.
</p>
<p>
We explored the bunkers on top of the cliffs too, they are surrounded by a dense-forest of bramble and blackthorn. We went to <i>Acaquaux</i>, by the road on bikes, then took the long, pebble-rich way. 500 concrete steps, steep and uneven lead down to another pebble beach where the large carcasses of three concrete barges lie in the shallow water. The boulders there are plentiful in fossils, whether by chance or because the lesser known place has no yet drawn the attention of amateur archeologists.
</p>
<<summon 'Back' 'Start' 500>><</summon>>
<</summon>>
<</summon>><p>
I am standing on the beach in my hometown, yet the landscape has changed drastically. Volcanos stand along the horizon line, to the right, the cliffs of steep basalt rise almost vertical. As the sea recedes, it reveals patches of coral-covered rocks and ruined buildings.
</p>
<p>
It is obvious that we are in the far future, the waves have swallowed the city I once knew. I am with an middle-aged woman whom I feel is a colleague of my mother.
</p>
<p>
At low tide, the sea unveils its ruined landscape of submerged houses and apartment blocks. These can be visited and it seems to be quite the tourist attraction. While the buildings are covered in algae on the outside, the interiors have been preserved in their 21st century glory.
<br>
We venture into an abandoned apartment complex, it lacks electricity yet each flat looks clean and tidy, staged as if its owner had left yesterday. Most flats have an expensive collection of alcohol bottles, seemingly used as mini bars, yet most bottles are filled with sea water.
</p>
<p>
My companion is eager to find something to drink. Her theory is that clear bottles are full of water but tinted ones could still contain some champaign.
<br>
I wouldn't mind a drink but the idea of having to sort through the many bottles doesn't appeal to me.
</p>
<p>
I watch the foreign landscape through a window-less opening. Colorful corals in the shallow water give an exotic and almost alien look to the beach. Where the town used to stand, there is nothing but a barren landscape of dark basalt.
</p>
<<summon 'Back' 'Start' 500>><</summon>><<listen 'change' 'div' style 'display:grid'>>
<label for='light'>Light intensity :</label>
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<label for='speed'>Spin speed :</label>
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<<then>>
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setup.spinAdjust(_event.target.id)>>
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<<adel 'Clear visited'>>
<<run State.metadata.clear('visited'), $visited = []>>
<<app>>Done!
<</adel>>
</span>
<<summon 'Back' 'Start' 500>><</summon>>Double-click this passage to edit it.<section>
<h2>Dreams</h2>
<<but [[Android flu]]>><</but>>
<<but [[Ant juice]]>><</but>>
<<but [[Childhood drawings]]>><</but>>
<<but [[Waterways and cemeteries]]>><</but>>
<<but [[Weed dreams]]>><</but>>
</section>
<section class='single'>
<<but 'Settings' disabled true>><</but>>
<<but [[About]]>><</but>>
</section><main id='passages'></main>
<div id='spinner'>
<div class='light white'></div>
<div class='light red'></div>
</div>
<footer></footer><p>
Tuesday, April 10th 2023 - A cylindrical tin box containing jasmine tea, gave it to my mother.
</p>
<p>
Tuesday, April 11th 2023 - Square metal tubing, 1.6 m with metal bracket.
</p>
<p>
Tuesday, April 12th 2023 - An electric kettle, nice stainless model but one of the capacitors is blown, need to replace it.
</p>
<p>
Friday, April 14th 2023 - An internet router, missing a power brick, works.
</p>
<p>
Monday, April 17th 2023 - An old winXP computer, salvaged the case and power supply. PVC pipe connections and short PVC lengths.
</p>
<p>
Tuesday, April 18th 2023 - Two empty 10L jugs, plastics folders, a few plates.
</p>
<p>
Wednesday, April 19th 2023 - A guéridon that needed its foot re-attached.
</p>
<<summon 'Back' 'Start' 500>><</summon>><p>
The guy living in the apartment across from mine wants me dead, it is not the first time he has attempted to kill me. This time, he throws molotov cocktails against my window which catches on fire.
</p>
<p>
As I go to leave the burning flat, the second part of his mischievious plan unfolds. He has ordered pizza to my adress, an extra-wide one, about a meter wide. The delivery guy is standing at the door and the width of the pizza is stopping me from leaving the burning flat.
</p>
<p>
After a minute long scuffle around the massive pizza (which I cannot afford), I manage to make it out. At the same time, the guy is coming up. I lunge at him and we fight on the stairs.
</p>
<<summon 'Back' 'Start' 500>><</summon>>I was working as a highschool teacher in a very large, square, building which stood in the middle of an industrial wasteland. The school was very modern, built in brick with wide windows overlooking the endless span of muddy rubble outside.
At some point, the French government passed a bill which required all public workers to swear personal loyalty to the president, I was thus forced to resign. I spent a few weeks living with fellow colleagues in the same situation, until we eventually got evicted.
This led me to seek employment in a private institution. The new school was a large Victorian manor on the shore of a foggy river. The place ass full winding corridors and narrow staircases, the floors and walls were all covered in grey, dusty wood.
My new job entailed some teaching but also a lot of carpentry and repair work, which the old house dearly needed... The classrooms were small, crowded with old furniture. The children, whose ages greatly varied, haa a mostly mediocre level and I found myself regretting my previous workplace.
I lived on site in a small bedroom which had a door leading directly to the slate roofs. The various duties were very tiring and felt neverending, still, as I had some free time one day, I decided to go for a hike up the river.
The weather was quite unpleasant, overcast, the atmosphere was humid. I trod through the tall weeds on the muddy shores. Wild hops were growing on either sides of the river, forming dense bundles of vines.
As I went on, the waterway grew increasingly marshy and forested, on multiple occasions I caught a glimpse of a tiger trailing me. My feet felt soggy.
I was about to head back when I met a short man laying crayfish traps. He seemed to recognize me and told me a man, who claimed to be my brother, had gone by less than an hour ago.
This preplexed me as I did not recall having a brother. I assumed the stranger could spread of kinds of fake informations about me, so I pushed further into the swampy forest.
I trailed the mysterious character for a while, following his footsteps in the mud, until the forested path slowly turned to a bleak gravel road leading to a small village. A small roadsign spelled a name which I immediately recognized as a place in Lower Normandy.
The village itself was grey, dreary and lacked any kind of charm. It had little in the way of buildings and the town square opened on a vast cemetery, deserted but quite tidy. Each part of the cemetery had its own Greek statue holding a numbered sign. Some tombs, instead of gravestones or mausoleums, have simple staircases leading straight down to underground crypts.
I seemed to recognize a large yew tree and went down the marble steps. Childhood memories came rushing back. Some of them involved growing up in the village, playing around a dumping ground. The rest were memories of attending my brother's burial which I had forgotten up until now.
This mysterious brother had died when I was six or seven.
At the end of the dream, I was under the belief the mysterious man was an impersonator who had learned about my brother and tried to get something from me.I smoked weed for the first time at 19, when I was in <i>prepa</i> class in Rouen. The experience was fairly enjoyable, felt relaxed and light-headed. I was sleeping at a friend's place that night, we took the last bus, had a last drink, went to sleep.
At first, I dreamt I was flirting with my then-girlfriend. We were standing on an extremely elaborate wooden staircase, each on a different step. The carved railing was shaped in marvelous gothic arches which sometimes grew to full-size windows. At some point, I fell through one of those toward the ground below, I had not released just how high the staircase was until now.
As I got closer to the ground however I managed to slow down to the point of levitating.
I was hovering above an large, flat, amphitheatre, ordered in thousands of shallow marble steps. On each of them was a malformed foetus, stillborn. Some were simply overgrown body parts, a foot, a hand or some unrecognisable organ, pale and wrinkled. Others had two, three, four heads or no limbs. One was a rendition, in flesh and bones, of the Sicilian flag.
Each monstrous category was represented, neatly sorted by size and deformity, laid next to each other on the stone.
The idea of reaching the ground terrified me and I did my best to levitate over the disgusting podium. I hung there, less than a meter above the ordered see of misshapen babies.
<hr>
I woke up and did not recount the dream to my friend. We had a very nice lunch then I took a train back home.
Years later, I found a very similar scene in Curzio Malaparte's <i>The Skin</i>.<p>
I am hiking in a forest, both the place and weather are lovely, sun rays filter through the leaves. It is a 'domesticated forest', maintained by man, from time to time I come across a fellow hiker.
</p>
<p>
As I keep going, the place starts to feel strangely familiar, it is a weird feeling since I'm confident that this is my first time there, yet I read about this place. The clearings, the size and species of the trees, the way the small paths climbs up toward a small hill, all these things bring up second-hand memories.
</p>
<p>
I realize that books I read were set here and described the place with extreme fidelity. These books had a very special meaning, read them in formative years of my life, they had introduced me to so many things. Along the lines of the <i>Story of O</i>.
<br>
With this realization, the peaceful hikes immediately takes the meaning of a pilgrimage. Going off the books, I know there is a Gothic manor on top of the hill, up ahead.
</p>
<p>
As I make my way there, I meet a young woman. We talk a bit and it appears she has a very similar experience with the books. However she only shares this reluctantly and I feel like she would have better liked to visit the place on her own. I resent that coldness. She seems to think it is some strategy to hit on her when I'm only trying to share what I genuinely love.
</p>
<<summon 'Continue' '' 600>>
<p>
We come in view of the manor. The back side appears as it did on one of the book covers. It feels surreal to finally see a place I thought only existed in fiction. Of course the building is abandoned and partly ruined as we are many years after the events of the books, it was to be expected.
</p>
<p>
We circle around the manor. Right at the bottom of the small hill, the town has also grown and spread, to the point that the manor's front side faces a busy street. While the forest-facing side still remains some of its Gothic charm, the front as been painted over in an horrible off-white which makes the grey traces of pollution especially apparent.
</p>
<p>
This view saddens me a lot. To think place which means so much for a few select readers is an abandoned, not only that, but it is an urban ruin which lacks any form romantic appeal or mystery. This sorry, dirty building serves as a painful reminder that soulless urban planning eventually takes over everything.
</p>
<p>
I guess the takeaway message is that whatever sense of awe we felt as teenagers can never be recreated witht the same intensity, seeking to do so only leads to disappointment.
</p>
<<summon 'Back' 'Start' 500>><</summon>>
<</summon>>I have always wondered if Japanese literature was as popular globally as it in France...
These things are always very hard to gauge, what I know is that researching Japanese authors always bring up frustratingly long lists of untranslated works. And it is not rare to find works that have been translated to French but not (yet) to English.
The opposite is also true, of course, to the point some works by Japanese authors are translated to French from English such as Yukio Mishima's <i>Death in Midsummer and Other Stories</i>. It saddened me a great deal at the time, that no translator could be found to work on one of the famous Japanese writers of the 20th century, especially as the resulting translation was strangely uneven...
Last year I found Haruki Murakami's <i>What I talk about when I talk about running (2008)</i> in a book-sharing box. This one book is decidedly unique as it is covered in thick red paint patterns, not unlike those under running shoes. It is a nice contrast on the mostly white cover and definitely makes for an interesting piece.
The book's contents I also deeply enjoyed, despite having read barely anything from this author - a hundred pages from 1Q84 9 years ago? Really, when it comes to Murakamis, I prefer Ryu. Would never claim that his is an any better writer, or that his works have more artistic value...
I was 16 when I read <i>In the Miso Soup</i>, then proceeded to read through most of Ryu Murakami's novels during my highschool years.
Surely some people would argue it is either too young or a perfect age for discovery.
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/* End of <<a>> macro */In the far future, a disease started to spreaded among androids, causing them to run amok and attack anything in sight. The infected fear the light and roam the lower levels of the infinitely deep city.
This has been the case for centuries.
Every day, fully automated factories produce thousands of combat androids which are sent down to fight their own kind. Some of them get infected, but statistical analysis has concluded that a sufficient number will be destroyed in the process, leading to a perpetual stalemate. Every step of the process has been refined - from resource extraction to mass production - to maintain this perfect equilibrium and stop the infection from spreading to the upper levels.
Humans living near the surface have grown oblivious of the never-ending struggle. Still, the resource cost is enormous, and despite its technological advancement, humanity subsists on a tight resource budget.
<hr>
In the first part of the dream, I am part of a crew sent down to retrieve clues about the original source of the infection. Using light to our advantage, we manage to push deep into infected territory, with few encounters.
Androids deployed to fight the infected have always ever been of the plain humanoid type - as developing new, more capable models would result in them suffering fewer casualties and eventually turning against their makers. For the very early days, humanity chose not to enter in an arms race...
The lower levels were once habitable and a few rooms remain untouched. One of them resembles my garage, with the gym equipment and workshop still in place. Power tools are missing however - likely due to the infection - which I resent.
Nearby is a large vertical shaft descending into darkness through the countless layers of the city. Looking at the levels below ours, we realise they were all filled to the ceiling with destroyed androids. Any effort to go deeper would require digging through the solid mass of infected robot parts which accumulated over the centuries.
The mission is a failure.
<hr>
Somewhere in a forest, a man is living in a shody shack. He is not human but an ancient type of sentient android that was created before the infection.
He has been living in total isolation since then, out of guilt. It is unclear just how responsible he is for the situation.
<hr>
The lonely man has been captured and detained. He answers questions willingly, shedding light on the causes of the disease.
These revelations are of little importance as they do not lead to any applicable solution.
Before we can stop him, he grabs a scalpel and carves multiple # symbols into his body. We try to stop the bleeding but fail and he dies in less than a minute.
<date>July 6th 2019</date>
I am in my mother's attic, sorting through old books. Among the dusty items I notice a large cardboard folder. It contains drawings, some in color, others in black and white.
They are <em>nice</em> drawings, they showcase an impressive level of mastery when it comes to shapes, shading, composition... yet they do not feel perfect, there is something relatable about them. Something familiar too.
I ask my mother about them, she looks at me with surprise and says:
"Don't you remember? You drew them for art class when you were 14."
<hr>
It might sound stupid, but this dream terrified me. To this day it causes me more unease than any other nightmare I have ever had...