Vampire Putin

Dream the morning of 6/24/06.


It is a warm summer's day. I look out over my back yard, through a tall chain link fence, and see the woman who lives behind us watering her lawn. She is a short, older woman, with blonde hair. I know she is water her lawn in defiance of a water conservation ordinance. But then I realize it's not her entire lawn she is dousing...merely a particular plant in the middle of it, over what appears to be a very large grave.

A crowd begins to gather, both inside and outside her yard. The woman begins yelling about her right to water. Then, the enforcers show up. They are not police men. They are men in black suits; but look more like businessmen than government agents. They begin pushing the crowd away. One wraps his arm around the woman's neck and tries to pull her away. I begin yelling, ''Assault! You're assaulting her! I am a witness!''

Soon, the crowd is fighting back, and drives the enforcers off.

The grave has been trampled, and is now a deep, open pit. The fence separating our yards has been pulled down.

The woman raises her arms in victory, and goes back into her house.

Night falls quickly.

I walk to the grave and peer inside, and see a man fighting his way out of the soggy soil. I pull him out. It is a vampire, but he does not threaten me.

A film crew arrives, and a director begins setting up a shot. Now, my house is no longer behind the woman's. It is a long patch of unlighted, empty land, and in the distance a building that may be a small school. I am told to go back into the shadows, and walk toward the light, while the vampire stalks me.

I do as I'm told, although I don't quite trust the vampire. I sweat with fear. I notice the earth here, by the far building, is also wet soil. I want to be on the grass that lies between.

I make it back to the area lit up by lights. Soon, the vampire jumps into the frame and roars. The director yells, ''Cut!"

The scene is over. Time to move to a new location. I change into clean shoes, and get into the passenger seat of the old white station wagon I used to drive. One of my coworkers, Floyd, is driving. We arrive at a building. Film extras standing around outside.

Floyd comments on my tennis shoes. I tell him they are the 3rd pair the film company has had to buy me for this production. As I tell him this, my old friend Alfredo comes up. I greet him, but he is standoffish. He climbs into the back seat, and asks about pulling it down, to make extra room. "Go ahead," I say, "we're not carrying any film equipment this time."

The next thing I recall, I am sitting at a diner, with the vampire and another coworker, Rachel. It isn't until now that I realize the vampire is Russian president, Vladmir Putin.

On the table, I have two metal plates I picked up during filming. I am not sure what the purpose was in the film, or why I have them. But on closer inspection, I realize there are very vivid, full-color holograms printed on them.

I tell Putin that I am going to cut these into ornaments, and give them to him and his wife as anniversary presents.

"That's right," Rachel says. "You were married in space."

Putin nods.

I look closer at the holograms. One is of a Russian spacecraft. The other, a map of a continent...most closely resembling Europe, although none of the names were familiar. There were a series of numbers moving across the map, but they were all backwards.

I asked Putin what the numbers meant. He explained that they were taken from a book that showed "residual radioactivity" tables; in essence the numbers on each country showed their age via carbon dating. I knew this didn't make sense, that Putin was lying, but decided I was going to make he and his wife the ornaments anyway.

This is when the alarm went off and woke me up.

Sixth Anniversary

I've been thinking about Sunny all week. Saturday would mark our sixth anniversary.

I dreamed about him vividly, and disturbingly, last night.

He had come home from the hospital after his bypass surgery, but had severe neurological damage. There was a black and blue car that was built like a buggy, only larger, and he got excited when he saw it and wanted to go for a ride. We did, but we had an accident, and he died.

I woke up, and when I went back to sleep, I had the same dream again. I don't know what that means, but perhaps the message is that I was destined to lose him no matter what.

In other news, Milton goes in for an angiogram Tuesday. He has a blockage in his heart. It's been causing him to have very low energy lately. This will be his third one. Wish him luck.