Orangutan Vehicle Testing

I had just stepped out of a typical suburban strip mall. I was carrying a large box in a plastic shopping bag. The box was white and covered with pictures and markings that convinced me I had just bought some kind of countertop kitchen appliance. I was waiting to be picked up by either my mother or aunt. I had agreed earlier to wait by a certain mailbox for one of them to pick me up. As I stood and waited I saw each of them drive by and take turns that led away from the shopping center. I was dissapointed by this, because it was very bright out and I was ready to go home.

Suddenly I noticed a small sort of vehicle coming up the sidewalk. It was made of green plastic and reminded me of the kinds of toy vehicles made for small children. It was clearly moving under its own power, however. Instead of typical wheels, it had spherical casters in a sort of ball-joint configuration. On the front, it was labeled “Ford iMini.” It was piloted by an orangutan. The orangutan got a little excited as his vehicle was clearly becoming out of control. With its spherical wheels free to rotate in any direction, it was up to the driver which direction the small vehicle faced. This Ford iMini was sort of travelling with its front right corner foremost. The orangutan threw up his arms and made a sort of squelching noise with his mouth as his vehicle crashed harmlessly into the mailbox post. The orangutan made a neat pratfall and rolled out of the vehicle. He continued on his way under his own power.

The iMini made a sort of humming noise for a while, then went into what I supposed was its power-saving hibernation mode. I found myself mildly disgusted by the vehicle’s futuristic pretension and totally unreasonable wheel design. I snubbed it. As I continued to wait by my post several more Ford iMinis passed by. Some of the vehicles showed slightly different designs. All had orangutans at the controls. I had to admit that the orange fur of the great apes looked smart contrasted with the toy green of the little cars.

It became clear to me that Ford had chosen the little suburban neighborhood as a testing ground for some kind of inter-species vehicle. Or perhaps they were attempting to make the vehicle so autonomous that anything with hands could drive it safely. I don’t like that sort of thing, so I decided to look further into the mystery of my purchase instead.

Opening the box, I found a large black piece of electronica. It had been so snugly fitted in its cardboard that it made a sucking sound as it slid out smoothly onto the grass. It was wrapped in thick plastic; but I could clearly determine that this was, in fact, a playstation 3. I was completely mystified. The box also yielded a small host of cords and connectors of many standards. Some I did not vaguely recognize. The last thing to come out of that mislabeled box was a gigantic joystick controller. Its base was quite literally the size of two dinner plates. It had so many buttons, many of such strange shape and movement, that I was a little bit disturbed by it.

I was completely mystified as to why I had such a thing. I had no recollection of buying it, or ever having wanted to. Despite this, I was dissapointed to find that this was the low-end version of the machine. About this time, another orangutan parked his vehicle carelessly on the grass near me. As he loped away, I failed at putting any of the pieces of the playstation back into its box; packed as it had been with perfect Japanese efficiency. I just lumped all the bits into the plastic bag and left it sitting in the hot sun. I decided to see if the Ford iMini lived up to all the fuss it was getting in the ape world.

I was pleased to find that the recently abandoned vehicle only had spherical wheels on the front. On the rear it had pneumatic tires on small traditional wheels. It also had pedals like a bicycle. Clearly this was some sort of power assisted recumbent bicycle of the future. I set it upright on the road and boarded. I started pedaling away. I found the handles awkward. They were mounted at my sides, below the seat. They were also rigidly fixed and not used for steering. I came to realize that using the pedals drove both rear wheels. The handles each had a large trigger. Pulling one of these would drive the rear wheel on that side only. The spherical front wheels allowed this input to effectively steer the vehicle. Pulling both handles drove both rear wheels electrically and gave the pedaling a significant speed boost.

As soon as I started moving along, a color display appeared in the front of the otherwise open air vehicle. It displayed my position on an animated road map. There were green icons moving about the map. I came to realize that these were other Ford iMinis and that they were all networked in some way. Was this a crash-avoidance concept from Ford? I was just getting the hang of the strange steering method of my vehicle when it suddenly spoke to me. An insistent woman’s voice alerted me, “Attention, a large truck is approaching from the rear.” Without my command, the iMini started veering into the gutter. I tried to keep it straight, I could see that I was not far from a place to enter the sidewalk. The iMini continued its message of safety and overrided my attempts to steer. I glanced over my shoulder and could see that the street was completely empty behind me for several blocks. I was suddenly much less interested in it. Like the orangutans who had gone before me, my relationship with the Ford iMini was becoming much less enjoyable. As the iMini continued its nonsensical safety campaign by grinding into the curb, I took the opportunity to roll out of it. At this point, I awoke.

 Dream of Toby Lunn, 7 May 2007.

Golf Ball-Sized Basketball

I’m playing basketball with the guys at Kansas City Christian Church.  I’m having fun and doing very well.  I’m thinking, “Wow!  My ankle feels so strong.  I’m so glad that it bounced back so fast.”  We play for a while.  Then I realize that all along, we’ve been playing with a golf ball.  Suddenly all of my shots are way too hard, and we’re all just scrambling around the gym trying to snag the golf ball.  Finally I grab it, and have another revelation: it’s not in fact a golf ball but a golf ball-sized basketball.  This makes me extraordinarily giddy.  I start laughing.  I drive that tiny basketball down the lane, leap into the air, and dunk it over Brett W____.

Here’s where everything slows down immensly, if not stops entirely.  As I dunk the tiny basketball, I peer down through the net and see that W____ has fallen to the floor beneath me.  He’s laying on his side directly under the basket.  I let go of the tiny ball.  It slowly floats downward, toward Brett.  Then, to everyone’s surprise, it falls into his ear and makes the rattling sound of a real golf ball dropping into a cup.  Everyone, including Brett, just starts laughing like crazy.  It’s the funniest thing we’ve ever seen and heard.  No one seems concerned that Brett now has a golf ball-sized basketball somewhere in his ear or head.

I actually woke myself up laughing.  I was sitting up straight. This never happens to me.

Dream of David Huffman, April 2007

Trapeze Catcher

I had just graduated from nursing school and started working. I was working in the Intensive Care Unit. I dreamed that I was standing with the manager of a circus. He had just given me a job as a catcher in a trapeze act. I told the man, “That looks very dangerous, and I only know a very little about it.” I woke up and started laughing very hard.

Dream of Deborah Lunn, 1990

The Brilliant Sun

I worked for the newspaper and I came home, and the children weren’t yet home from school yet. I was taking a nap. I was volunteering at a community center for youth at that time. I was newly saved. I did not know you had visions or dreams from God.

I saw a brilliant sun. I was crying hysterically, but no sound came out. It was crying in my spirit. It seemed the sun was Jesus. I called out to him, “Won’t you help them?” I was thinking of the teenagers in the youth center and the sins they were facing.

He was saying to me, “Won’t YOU help them?”

Dream of Margie Wilson, early 1960’s

Guard Leopard

My boss Walter was complaining about “varmints” in the AIM-Tech shop. We looked around and discovered a leopard cub under some scrap metal. We raised it and it became the watchdog of the AIM-Tech compound. It even killed and ate all the stray dogs around. Soon word got out that the compound had a killer leopard hiding in the trees, and no more thieves ever came to the neighborhood again.

Dream of Toby Lunn, 2005?

Khrakhala

A young, pretty Hindi woman had invited me to come to her temple. I found myself sitting in a dim cube of a room with no windows. In one corner there was a sort of idol or sculpture or something. It looked like two giant bells, one sitting upside down on the dome of the other. It was the color of dull brass. There were people sitting cross-legged all around the edges of the room. A graceful elder Hindi woman with white hair and a pale green sarhi approached the bells. In her hand she held a small jar of pure white lard. The girl I was sitting with told me the lady would now “decipher” the names of the gods.

The lady began to write on the surface of the bells by dipping her fingers in the lard. Obviously, she had done this many times before. She wrote many words, but it was obvious whenever she wrote a god’s name, because a young woman would come out of the shadows, and either touch the name and start dancing, or bow down in front of it. A pale green smoke seemed to be coming from the bells also.

This went on for a while. Then the girl told me the lady was now writing the name of the god “Khrakhala”. This seemed to make her worried for some reason. As the lady wrote the name in lard, it began giving off yellow smoke. At that moment, I was struck full in the face by one of the silver platters used to carry the house blessings on in an Indian home.

I woke up to find that a picture frame, which had been sitting on top of my window for nearly two years, had suddenly leapt off and landed flat on my face. I suffered only a small cut on the bridge of my nose. Khrakhala!!!

Dream of Toby Lunn, 20 May 2006

The Wonders

Dream starts with myself and most of AIM-Tech at the home of the Middletons (AIM-Tech members and former supervisor). Walter serves everyone a glass of heavy milk. Shortly after the milk I pass out or fall asleep. I awake in Wild West era United States in Iowa. I am dressed as a hayseed or “country-bumpkin”. No shoes, coveralls, wild hair. I am aware that I was only recently at AIM-Tech, but new identity feels natural as well.

For some reason, I know I must set out east. I began walking through the warehouse section of a saw-mill, perhaps that my new identity worked in. The wood stored in the warehouse is very rough and unshapely. As I walk East through the warehouse, the lumber slowly seems to be of better quality. The warehouse is immensely long and crosses several states. I walk for days. Eventually I arrive at another saw-mill or workshop on the far end. This is my destination, apparently. In the workshop I find  a gentlemen doing some carpentry work. He is also wearing coveralls and a neat red moustache. I think he is possibly a man I used to work with at LPC.

The man introduces himself as Mr. Wonder. When he learns That I have walked from the other end of the saw-mill in Iowa, he offers me a job and a place to stay for the night. That evening I meet his wife, Mrs. Wonder, and their baby. Mrs. Wonder serves some very thick, creamy milk at dinner.

The Wonders have a safe room in their house. It has a steel door that I made. (I had been making steel security doors for Walter Middletons the past two weeks) I was disappointed because they had installed one of the exterior doors on the safe room. I had not yet finished the safe room door.

Shortly after nightfall, a gang of bandits lay siege to the Wonder home, which adjoins the workshop/saw-mill. I make my way to the safe room and call for the Wonders, who I can hear talking nearby. The Wonders never come, and I shut myself in the safe room. Eventually the bandits start attacking the door. This is strange, because the wall slats of the safe room are so sparse you can see through the walls in most places. It would be far easier
to beat through the wall than the door, but they don’t seem to notice. They go on attacking the door so long, that I fall asleep in a pile of old blankets near the door.

I wake up to find that the bandits have broken into the room. They don’t notice me under the motley old blankets. The leader is directing them to search everything in the small room. Eventually, he notices the pile of blankets and the pull them away to find me.

Almost at once I mention that I built the door they just smashed, and I could probably fix it as well. They seem very interested in this and decide to wait for the “Big Boss” to show up and decide what to do with me.

The Big Boss shows up directly. A strongly built man with dark hair and moustache, he engages me in a long conversation about where I come from and how I could fix the door. It seemed clear to me that he somehow knew I didn’t belong there. Shortly thereafter, we are all having dinner in the workshop. It seems that the Wonders are still alive, or came back from death, or something. This time Mrs. Wonder serves camel milk in plastic containers from a Kenyan health store called “Healthy U”. Immediately after drinking this, I fall asleep, and the dream ends.

Monyome

I was bartering with two Kenyan men to buy a goat. They had several in a small herd. One of the goats was nearly hairless and very pregnant. The two men kept pointing to it and repeating the word, “Nyati”. The odd thing was that I knew very well that this goat was actually a woman, even though it looked just like most goats. I bought the goat from the two men for 100 shillings, which is an absurdly low price. Then they pulled a classic Kenyan sale maneuver. They claimed I still had to pay for the unborn goat inside. I responded to this by leading my new goat away.

The further we got from the two yelling men, the more the goat turned into a very pregnant lady. Soon we rounded a bend and she looked just like a pretty, pregnant Turkana woman. She was smiling at me, and I removed the rope from her front leg (now wrist). It didn’t surprise me at all for some reason that she was a woman now.

We went on down the road and found a river. I suggested that she might need a drink. She told me the water was too dirty. This would not be a likely response from a Turkana lady. For some reason I felt a profound feeling of love and need to protect this gal. So I helped her cross the river and we eventually came to a sort of well, where she drank a great deal. Just before I woke up, I asked her her name, to which she replied, “Monyome”.

A Gun and a Mattress

I am working at a small grocery store near where I grew up. My father walks in carrying a mattress and a revolver. He comes directly to me, lays the mattress on the ground, and hands me the gun. I open my mouth to ask what is going on, but the gun goes off in my hand before I can speak.

Shot in the stomach, my father falls backward onto the mattress. He is bleeding badly, but a serene expression covers his face. I kneel by him with the gun hot in my hand. Weeping bitterly I ask him what this means, and why he brought these things here. His only answer is, “It had to be this way.”