Tuesday, December 12, 2023

"Space Cowboy" - 10/16/2007


"Space Cowboy"
10/16/2007

(Had a multi-vitamin, and a really messed-up dream, last night. The weirdest thing about it was that the time period kept jumping - first I would be in the Old West, and then I would be in futuristic space, with mixed up elements of each, in between.)

It seems that I was a Special Agent, and pilot of my own space ship. I also had a beautiful, possibly-Spanish wife or girlfriend, who was very pregnant with my child.

In the beginning of the dream, I remember working on my ship - which was docked on the water - when an assassin had come in and tried to kill me. We had gotten into a firefight, and he dove into the water through a portal in the bottom of the ship. I chased him down, swimming through this long, glass tunnel of water, but he closed a heavy, electronic door at the end before I could get to him, sealing me off and making his escape. I returned to my ship and continued doing what I was doing.

The dream skipped ahead and my girl and I, along with a bunch of others, were now in the Old West. We were shacked up in some hotel and my girl was in the room by herself. I'd gotten a phone call (yes, a phone call, in the Old West!) and it was the leader of the organization that had sent the assassin - my nemesis. He told me that my main priority should be looking out for my wife/girlfriend - in a way that could only be taken as a threat - and then he abruptly hung up. Frantic, I got to the room as quickly as possible and, without alarming her, began to check all the different quarters within our hotel room (which was about the size of a large apartment unit).

In one of the bedrooms, I found a guy who was nearly naked, sitting on the floor, Indian-style, with his back facing me and his head bowed. Gun drawn, I moved upon him slowly and ordered him to get up. When he did, he was completely calm - submissive. He didn't do or say anything, and he just kind of looked at the floor the whole time. I took out a pair of handcuffs and brought his arms up behind his head. This guy was so skinny that I was able to put the handcuffs around his biceps, somehow running the chain through a necklace he was wearing and keeping the handcuffs positioned behind his head, which I'm sure was very uncomfortable. I, then, walked him into the bathroom and sat him in the tub, figuring that, with his arms the way they were, it would be hard for him to get out. I can't remember if I called somebody to pick him up, after that, or what, but the dream skipped ahead again.

It was the next day, and the intruder had been taken care of. My girl was in the shower and we were getting ready to go down to this huge festival that was right outside the hotel. Once outside, everybody in our group was sharing a big table, and we were listening to some live music under the festival tent. After a short while, my girl started to say that she wasn't feeling very well. That her stomach was upset. One of the other ladies said that she would walk her upstairs and stay with her while she lay down.

Some time passed and I decided to go up and check on her. There was a lot of commotion going on, upstairs, and I could tell that something was wrong. When I got to our room, there was a ruckus coming from inside, and a sign was on the door which said something close to: "Please do not disturb. Medical emergency due to miscarriage" (paraphrase). I ran into the room to see my girl laying on the bed, and she looked very sick. There was a doctor already there, and he/she (can't remember which, because I know there was at least another female there) told me that my girl had been poisoned, that she was fighting for her life, and we had already lost the baby; who couldn't have been any more than a month or so from birth. Immediately, I flashed back to the assassin. He had poisoned the water while he was in the house. I had rationalized that the assassin had, somehow, been able to do it after I had put him in the tub.

The doctor didn't allow me to stay, because I would only get in the way, and he told me that they would do what they could and update me on her condition.

Time skipped ahead, and everything was now in the present, though as far as the story-line, it was the same day. Mom was driving me to my best friend T's house, and then she was going to take us both out somewhere in order to try and get my mind off of things. Now, apparently, the girl with whom I was in the relationship was also one of T's ex-girlfriends (though not a real one, from waking life). When I went inside and told him what was going on with her, he didn't really seem to care. I stressed with him that she could die and asked how he could be so cold. He replied with a scathing comment about how his feelings for her ended way before her and I started dating, and he simply didn't care anymore. We'd almost gotten into a big argument about it and decided to just call off hanging out for the day, until our tempers settled.

Later, I had gone back (to the Old West) and got the news that she actually had died. I remember falling to my knees and crying uncontrollably. Shortly after that, I got called on a mission. Still anguished, I flew my crew to a planet where we had to kill these huge aliens (I think the time jumping was more a jumble of ideas than static adherence to any time period. I didn't even think about it being funny that I still had my Space Ship in the old western period). There was a big war that ensued, and it was wild as hell. The aliens were like 15 foot tall porcupines that stood on two legs and, instead of spines on their backs, they had actual soil and leaves and bushes and plants. This entire area was a vast jungle, so what was on their backs was actually camouflage. When they were down on all fours, you couldn't see them at all. Then, they would just appear out of nowhere and, from the underside, they looked like mutant grizzly bears or something. These guys were nasty, and they were just mutilating us - grabbing men and then just disappearing into their surroundings, making themselves really hard to track and shoot. We did end up winning, though, but I was becoming more and more unstable, over the course of the battle. Depression had taken hold of me and, even after we'd declared victory, I refused to talk to anyone.

Back on the ship, I was walking, through its hallways, I was consumed by despair, and I just couldn't take any of this, anymore. The only thing I could think about, at all, was losing my family. It was eating away at me. I couldn't help but blame myself, convinced that it was after I put the guy in the tub that he was able to pollute the water supply. Crawling into the Captain's chair of the dimly-lit cockpit, I just sat there, staring out into space and thinking about all I'd lost. At one point, some of my crew members peeked in, because they knew that I was going under. They didn't say anything, and though I didn't acknowledge them, I could feel their concern. The door eventually closed and they just left, in silence.

I was too far gone, though. Nothing really seemed to matter anymore, and I wanted out. I got up and left the cockpit, making my way to one of the cargo areas and strapping myself in to one of the smaller, single-pilot ships and firing up its engine. Once I left the main ship, I set a random co-ordinate on this personal craft, having absolutely no idea where I was going (as far as I knew, I was just going to the farthest, uninhabited corner of the universe), no food, and no idea how much fuel I had.

Basically saying "f*ck it all," I hit the warp-drive, jumping my ship into the unknown - with no plans of returning or reaching any destination alive.

I just didn't care anymore.

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