muse intern shift

Too much peppermint syrup again. Maybe it’s time to stop going to that coffee shop, he thought to himself as he changed into a raccoon.

Wow, I’ll be able to eat hot dogs again, he thought as he wondered if he was still a he. He? looked down to see and unsurprisingly forgot all about his internship that technically was over moments earlier.

Much more covered in fur than he was a minute before, he/she couldn’t tell so decided to ask one of the very shocked looking customers in the waiting room in front of him/her/it.

“Are raccoons sex easy to figure out?” he asked the room.

“Does this mean you’re not going to look up my existence account?” a large and very newly hatched bird with a polar bear’s head said, her cracked egg all around her.

“What’s wrong with it…” the raccoon said, running a hand scanner over the sheet the bear-bird left on the desk. “Ah yes, you definitely exist. Or wait, you DID exist. Roughly a hundred million years ago. Do you know anything about raccoon gender?”

The bird bear’s eyebrow shot up.

“Pomini gonna be pissed if you leave and there’s birth fluid all over the floor.” ArJee the possom from down the hall said, carrying a filebox into the room.

“Hey, my internship ends when it ends. I don’t control when I change, I was a cat a minute ago.”

“Whose fault is that, probably the same fault as baby bird-bear there. They making realities off schedule again and you’re here so you know what Pomini say. Hey, this my song.” ArJee turned up the computer speakers to Nine Inch Nails’ Pinion.

Knowing Pomini, officially known as Melpomene and one of the original Muses, firmly believed in the mantra “You broke it you bought it” and used it liberally, if not always correctly. It happened on your watch, it’s your business.

“Are you a bird or a bear?”, Raccoon said, turning down the music and sitting down at the computer.

“I started out as a bear, next thing I was in this egg. And my papers are no good they said.”

“Ok. Here’s the bathroom key, clean up and decide what you want to be, I’ll get your paperwork squared away as soon as I figure out my gender. You sure nobody knows a raccoon’s gender?”, Raccoon said this last to the room and looking down at the computer

“I’m told not to get close enough to find out, they’re supposed to be wild. And you’re a lady raccoon.” this voice came from the tall german shepherd, watching the bear move off into the bathroom, dripping egg fluid behind her.

Finding this out was welcome, but the smart-ass dog knowing it first was annoying. “Damn right we wild, not like you ever gonna find out, pup. Whoever’s putting their own reality in the gallery, are they signing their own name at least? And where’s there a hot dog cart?”, the raccoon found it easier to get settled into her new reality when an attitude was percolating. Some things didn’t change at least.

“You’ll have to ask the hot dog vender hisself, out in front. He’s your reality forger.” the dog said, jotting something down in a little notebook, and walking toward the door.

“Oh, a detective then. Before you arrest them, can you hold them so we get our existences filed, also I want a hot dog.”

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graphing a dream

If reality lives in a cube riding on a rail (time) and dreams live in a cube on a rail right next to it, it stands to reason that an occasional function may be applied on one cube such that it’s content maps to the other.

I dreamt later tonight and saw some of you in the dream. I’m in the library I remember most fondly from my youth, in the Frankford section of Philly. I’m in the front and I heard you guys fussing over something so I went back and recognized you. After a little discussion we agreed to work together even though we didn’t all start out on this adventure together. [see also: Chance meetings in dreams (Hypatia) pp. 110-309, 402-417, Appx B. – annotated by Chaucer]

Apparently, there’s a book in here somewhere of some inordinate degree of power that is the target of some disreputable character. Our goal is to keep this book out of that person’s hands by any means possible. The book is not necessarily always available, but it’s insisted upon that it is physically present in this library. So, to secure the safety of whatever future we need to find the book and then hide it. (I seem to recall some argument about this part, especially because I remembered it the most after waking later)

Some parts I remember vaguely while others are more vivid. For example, I remember little of climbing up the bookshelf and going up through the ceiling to drop down in the restricted office space in order to let the rest of you in. It’s all a blur, like fragmented images. I remember more the mathematical discussion we had about how adding advanced string theory to simple algebra negated the need for derivative calculus and more than half the functions of quantum theory. You guys told me about my apparent ease of getting into the library’s restricted rooms which prompted wonder from all of us because I don’t think we were in the same library, at least not after the fact.

Anyway, once inside the locked room, we found the book in question and moved the shelf. Quickly: we made a hole in the wall behind the shelf to hide the book in. We patched up the wall from plaster found in the basement and the hole itself was accessible through removal of the whole shelf making us move all the books on it then putting them back carefully. The discussion and argument that accompanied this part of the project was what fulfilled most people’s anxiety quota in dreams.

It was a relief to get out of there finally, though not a great neighborhood in the middle of night. I think we all wondered how we could be as familiar with our surroundings, some more than others, but I was assuming it would all work out.

It would take almost six months to find out from a trusted source that the disreputable person from the dream was indeed thwarted, though it was a painting in Chartres and not a book that he was after.

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