THAT DAY

Read volume 6 of the manga Frieren. The graduate test for first-class mages is to defeat a grayish clone of... yourself! Several quite skilled mages wash out fast, through sheer bad luck.

Next I try "the filthiest poetry book ever written", Pybrac by Pierre Louÿs. A collection of quatrains, each starting with the same censorious quote from the original Pybrac, a 16th-century moralist: "I do not like to see..." and then turning gleefully depraved. I find some verses gross, some sexy, but many just sad; they reflect the poverty and short lifespan in France after WWI and the flu pandemic. People are drunk, horny and reckless for good reason. Grab it now--tomorrow we die.

BOOM! An explosion across the street. Alarms for two blocks. Did someone in a passing car throw a cherry bomb? Go check; no damage, not even a scorch mark. Baffling.

At bedtime, I set an intention: to recover my dreams. Since getting Covid six months ago, my recall's been horrible--many nights with zero, mean wordcount 1-200 at best. Lifetime, I've averaged several dreams a night and 3-400 words. I was drained for weeks, yes... but still? Maybe I'm just out of the habit. Set out a journal, pen, glasses...

THAT NIGHT...

Mind what you wish for! I got it, and more. At least seven dreams, nearly 1200 words with notes. Here are three.

DREAM 1: GENTLY, CAUTIOUSLY

I visit a house where two girls I know live. Unrelated but similar--slender even delicate, pale skin & brown hair, good-natured. I'm attracted to both. Talk. Tease one, touch her, she touches me back, and soon we're play-fighting.

We snuggle up on a bed. Not alone though, another housemate near. My left arm's around her. Gets a bit numb, not painful or tingly, and I still can move it, but feels like it isn't quite mine. I say so.

Confess I like her and kiss her shyly. Is that too much? Her aura feels mildly surprised but not upset.

We proceed... cautiously. Gently. Unlike Pybrac.

NOTES IN THE MORNING

• Two attractive, similar girls: in Frieren, two such sorceresses failed the Class One test through simple bad luck. But they're patient. "We'll be back in two years for the next test."
• ACTION, IMMEDIATE: just bad luck finally getting Covid. I'm still convalescing; be patient, it takes months. Don't push.
• ACTION, GENERAL: I acted on my feelings in the dream, but cautiously. Does this reflect how I felt about Pybrac? Some of it turned me on, but I'm just not as reckless as his lovers a century ago. With good historical reason. Twenty million died in the Great War, twenty million more in the flu pandemic. The survivors learned caution's pointless. But during Covid, masked-up California's death rate was half to a third that of no-mask states. We learned caution can work.

DREAM 2: LEARN TO SAY NO

A fair. Find a booth--well, a sort of outdoor bank counter--where a cult gives psychic readings. I ask for my fortune. Their reader takes one look at me and says "No need to read your aura or your palm! No subtlety here. You just need to deal with the obvious--quit trying to please others, learn to say no, decide things for yourself!"

I leave thinking glumly "Pretty accurate for a carnival psychic." Too accurate to dismiss. And too blunt to misinterpret archetypally or symbolically.

Wish I could. For me, saying no's hard work.

NOTES IN THE MORNING

• A psychic: in my dreams, this is usually a prompt to consider that dream as psychic itself--as containing literal, external elements not just symbolic, internal ones. So take this advice literally.
• Appease others: true lately. I've been beta-reading, editing, website-building and doing graphics work for friends who ask--and ask, and ask. It's slowed my own art. As the song says, "I am a girl who can't say no..."
• ACTION: Deal with the obvious! Limit time spent on others' projects, and take on no more such obligations. Learn to say no.

Two sides in a drama escalate to a small war. I get drafted, along with a horde of extras. We're issued weird bulbous binoculars. They look like ...boobs?

We peer out the nipples.

We're told they're weapons, too--squirt guns full of water. Well, I hope it's just water. Test-fire. More like twin dribbles out of those nipples, not twin squirts...

I think our side's cause is just as stupid as the enemy's agenda, but I play along because I'm curious about these breast-guns. How are they even weapons?

I find out. Officers order us to climb a rickety framework like a painter's scaffold. It shakes. I worry we'll overload it--built for just a small crew, not hundreds! And it's a good 15 meters high, so if it falls, real danger...

We prepare to fire all our boobs in one giant volley. Like a wall of dairycows. "FIRE!"

Dribble dribble drip drip.

Yep, that'll scare them.

NOTES IN THE MORNING

• Why breasts? I'm nourishing others. And milking myself--my time and energy.
• Drip on the enemy from high above: in one of Pybrac's grosser poems, a girl sucks off a guy in her upstairs room. Spit or swallow? Neither! She steps out onto the balcony, and gleefully drools semen down on the hats and heads of the bourgeoisie below. Why? Well, why not?
• Let myself be drafted: uh-oh! Under the comic absurdity... why did I let them use me as a minion?

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