We are tiny bots on a heist. On display at the Grand Palace is the world’s most coveted mineral hanging on a wire, suspended 80 feet high. Our plan is to laser cut the diamond from the wire, catch it, and drive through the laser beam security system in our invisible, laser shielded vehicle.  We made it, except we left evidence behind - a package from our toy bot manufacturer.

A group of us are at some sort of fancy office building, where the staff are all geisha. A woman introduces herself as mama-san and leads us downstairs. We realize we are on a mission impossible type heist. Mama-san brings us to a basement and points to an incinerator door. It’s tiny and packed with garbage. She tells us below there is the entrance portal to hell! But we only have a short time to complete the mission. As i remove the garbage from the chute, the opening widens. the garbage becomes more putrid and muddy. I see a dark hole dilate and i squeeze myself through. The air is thick and green. I yell up to mama-san, “a monster is giving birth to me!” The slime adds to the simulation. 

I’m in and see two others from the group. I see a door to a freezer box, which we learn contains the sperm from the ancient sacred whale god. One of the others says that this is how Satan is able to pay for the heating bills down here. I laugh and say, “Why not just let him pay his bills?” But no one is laughing and we agree we need to confiscate the frozen sperm. We learn that if you touch or even lay eyes on the sperm, you will destroy the world. 

Too late! We hear the voice of the devil and he’s not letting us out. We are forever trapped!   

Mama-san, devil’s bride

We were at someone’s houseboat. You were playing Guitar Hero and you rocked so hard, that you killed the beautiful (mythical) lady fish. Her translucent silver, red spotted koi body came afloat and turned the water around her silver and gave the air this sort of shimmery bokeh effect. We then see this powerful man fish circle around her. He must be her lover. He eats her, but not aggressively, and throws himself on the dock of the houseboat. I take it as a self-sacrifice and slice him up in chunks.

Everyone who has had a taste reacts differently. A girl, also on the houseboat, becomes obsessed with her appearance and her vanity consumes her. She wants to leave human world and live in the underworld. We have to keep her from throwing herself in the water. You and your Mike had shared a bottle of the fish bile and were laughing hysterically, while you continued to rock harder and harder. Everyone on the houseboat was possessed!

I am in an abandoned museum, piled floor to ceiling with a pastiche of paintings and other recognizable copies of Cezanne, John Singer Sargent, etc. Somewhere, I know there is an original but a needle in a haystack. So I get to work and create THE ORIGINAL…I drive myself mad (channeling a conversation…can the brain actually create anything? Do we just rearrange what already exists? Are we capable of pure creativity?) 

Regular paint medium isn’t working, so I search for something else and jump into part two of giant iridescent water creatures. This time the creatures displayed some sort of trippy anamorphic effect. One creature with pearl-like scales rose out of the water, like an enormous tidal wave about to crash down on me. As I get sucked in, I peek out the corner of my eye, the creature is really just a massive layer drawn over the water (like when you spill oil on water). The scene becomes placid and shimmery. Pan out until I become a tiny speck and hundreds of these iridescent creatures take on full form, tails and scales in and out of the water. Zoom back in. I feel another tremor and the tidal monster scene happens again, only this time I get fully sucked in under the creature-wave and flipped upside down. My top half is sucked under water. The bottom half is where my top half should be. Instead of under water, I see a polygonal space-scape, zero gravity it feels like. My hair is floating around me like silky seaweed. I am now right-side up.

I found oasis to be a short line at Shake Shack (after a long arid journey through the Atacama Desert…I think so b/c there were abandoned test rovers everywhere). It was my turn to order, only to find out it wasn’t really Shake Shack, not even a food joint. Disgruntled, the man behind the window tells me oil prices are going up. Wait, am I human?!

I woke up so dry mouthed that I drank an open can of Arizona ice tea…which I think must have been there since the last time I came to visit (spending a few days visiting family in Virginia). Yikes!