💾 Archived View for republic.circumlunar.space › users › joneworlds › 2021-11-05-so-useful.gmi captured on 2024-08-25 at 01:38:50. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
⬅️ Previous capture (2021-12-03)
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I had this dream the other night, first one in a while. I'm in some kind of open-air workshop, with long work tables set up in rows, and lots of us are around them and working on these things I can't remember. We're all tinkering away, and talking and co-operating and all that, but then awful gruesome stuff starts happening. Like, people's skin starts sloughing off, fingers snap in two, ankles break, and so on. But nobody reacts, and we just carry on. And some of us are wrapping rags around big wounds, limping around on crutches and splints, standing on one foot, using one hand. But we just keep on going and working.
It gets worse and worse, everyone falling to pieces. Until eventually we're all crumbled and crawling around on the ground, trying to hoist ourselves up to the tables again to keep going, but we're all so broken that we can't even. I sort of roll onto my back, and see that a bunch of elfs had come by. They're wordlessly picking up and carrying away our work tables. And I remember trying to cry out, "Hey, wait, I was working on that!" But I'm such a shambles by then, that it's barely a whisper and nobody can hear me. I can't hardly even move. They carefully step over me.
Then I notice I am looking up into the branches of an old elm tree. Also I see members of my family standing nearby. It's my mom, and my dad, and Beth and little Evan and Lara. They're all looking down at me as I lie there, falling apart on the ground. But they aren't upset. Not horrified or scared, not angry or sad or panicked or crying, not grieving or sympathizing or reaching down in assistance. They're just there, recognizing. Recognizing that this was a thing that was happening right now. Recognizing that it was... well, not "okay", but it was just like, a thing that was happening. I don't know. But for that, in that moment, I felt so loved.
And then, two birds fly down out of a nest in the tree above me. One tears out a tuft of my hair, and the other rips a strip of sinew from my side. And through my one eye that still points upwards, I watch them take these pieces of me, fly back up to their eggs in their nest, and repair the side of it. I break into a wide, toothless grin. And I feel so, so... I don't exactly know. So useful.
And then I wake up.