Dec 22, 2006

On Tea

I had a bad dream last night. I had (somehow) programmed together a world where the seasons actually changed (this was a main design feature), yielding ice that formed and melted, temperatures that changed, differing day lengths - the works. I was extremely proud of myself.
The people who lived in my world weren't quite so happy. Instead of it being the idyllic, peaceful community I had envisioned, things began to go awry. There were attacks, killings. Eventually, even the cops cracked under the pressure of their charges being murdered, one by one, and began to perceive everyone as a threat, slaughtering indiscriminantly as well.
Every time a murderer hunted, I was there, watching him stalk his prey ruthlessly, and I wondered what was wrong with my world, that people had to do such things.
Every time someone snapped, I was there, watching their mind and their body as two separate incarnations of themself, and watching the former convince the latter to do terrible things.
And every time an innocent person had a gun pointed at them and the trigger pulled, I was there, looking out through their eyes, wondering why it had to be me, and sobbing at the unfairness of it all.
Finally, it was spring. The ice was melting. The last few inhabitants of the town were either dead or dying, having shot each other in a horrific encounter only moments earlier, and the air was once again silent, save only for a piteous moan from one of the wounded, and the flowing, gushing sound of the small, newly thawed waterfall.
I woke, yes, with a start, and lay in bed for a few minutes, clutching my comforter, which wasn't living up to its name nearly as much as I needed at that moment. There was no one nearby to hold me, nothing to give me solace from my own mind.
I looked at the time - it was 6:23 am. My mother had to be awake, at least, by now - she had to be at work at something like 7:30. I went downstairs, and while in the sink lay a used mug, by the stove waited the rest of the pot of tea my mother had made.
She had left for work already, so the tea was mine - I poured myself a cup, and sat down at the computer, ready to record the unsung fate of my ethereal world.

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