Limits of an Infinite Self

(This dream didn't seem very important at first. But the more I recalled of it, the more I realized how significant it might be – for its entertainment value, if nothing else. The following story is 95% straight from the dream, as close as I can get it and still have a coherent text.)

~

Buddy and I are messing around in the school gym. No one's around, so like the kids we are, we open up the bleachers and start running up and down, making kiddish little jokes. All of a sudden, I get this strong premonition, as if the fire alarm were sounding, even though nothing can be physically heard: “Danger, danger! Look outside!”

I run out, up the corridor, and through the two sets of glass doors to get outside. I look up. There's a gigantic thing in the sky, coming down. At first it's just a bunch of glowing straight lines, but as it slowly makes its spinning descent, its form becomes more solid. It's a friggin' alien spacecraft, and it does not feel friendly at all.

Before the thing even lands, I'm making to run inside to warn everybody, 'cause I got this huge adrenaline rush, fight-or-flight, and everything in me screams FLIGHT. But there's already a cascade of bodies piling out of the doors. People are going out to meet this thing. All they've got is curiosity and excitement, no idea that they're walking straight into the monster's jaws. I'm screaming at them as I fight the current to get back inside, but nobody pays any attention. I'm just an annoyance to them.

I watch helplessly as the crowd makes its way up to the ship, which has now landed on the grass of the playing field and opened up its large bay doors. A ramp bridges the divide between ship and schoolyard, nice and level. There's some kind of really weird mind control going on, like a voice in your head, and it seems to affect everyone but me. The message is basically that everything we could ever want and need is on board, and we'll all be so much happier if we leave our old lives behind and go along with the ship. It stinks to high heaven and I don't believe any of it for a second.

But everyone else is going. So what can I do except tag along?

~

I'm on the ship. It's a lot bigger on the inside, more like a city than a building. Earth is gone, we're stuck in outer space somewhere. Anywhere. Nowhere.

I have to say, they've got a pretty good set-up here. It's the perfect prison. There are no guards, no bars. But the conditioning! It was all done in stages, but now everyone's used to it. The meaningless jobs that they slave at for most of the day. The rules and regulations covering every aspect of their lives. The ugly, crowded accommodations. The sterile, artificial food.

I go visit my friend. He's still his happy old self. He's one of the first to have voluntarily moved to the new living quarters: a grid of concrete cells sunk about a metre and a half into the floor. Oh, but you can still move around freely, visit your neighbours. It's not that bad, really. He digs into his meal ration, a new and improved option: what looks like bread crumbs (but probably isn't), mixed with a chemical cocktail of different powders for enhanced flavour and nutrition and performance, with a little oil to make it stick together and go down. He offers me a taste. It's really good, he says, beaming. I decline.

Next day, there's an announcement: no work today. Just fun and good times. They call it Entertainment Day. They have these, what, once a month, once a year? Always a surprise, and it's such fun that nobody complains. Wouldn't dream of it. Aren't they so awesome for giving us Entertainment Day? I watch as everyone crowds into the coliseum. Not into the stands; their place is in the arena. Oh yeah, here they come: the bat-winged terror babies. Are they monkeys or babies? Whatever they are, we're all terrified of them. They swarm us and strafe us and swoop down to scrape us. We all run around like headless chickens, screaming, hooting and hollering. The masters love it. And somehow, so does everyone else. They like being terrorized.

I'm not like the others. I've never succumbed to any of the masters' conditioning. Oh, but I keep forgetting: they've got their own special conditioning just for me. You see, I serve them too. It has to be that way. In return, I get some pretty good perks. But I'm not a willing servant. I hate them for what they've done to us all. In my heart, I swear I will see their rule ended.

I suppose I should be thankful they let me keep at least part of my mind. I never remember any of the stuff I do for them, and maybe that's their sick idea of mercy. I'm not really human anymore; I'm something more... and less. I can appear in physical form, like the rare times I visit my old friends, but mostly I stay ghostly. It's a lot easier to explore places and observe what's going on when you don't have to explain your presence.

There are two of them, a male and a female. I belong to him, so I don't see as much of her. In my mind, I call them the Archons. Everyone loves them. Supposedly. Yeah, Big Mommy and Big Daddy. Nobody suspects the truth about Mommy and Daddy Archon: that all we are to them, and to their real children, is a big family food factory. We are their food.

Mister Archon is a giant, a four-metre-tall, reddish humanoid with a pair of long, black horns on his head. I have a hard time remembering what Missus Archon looks like. I think she's rather similar, except bluish. She tends to the demon-babies most of the time. Her partner is in charge of us slaves, it seems. I can tell their union is one of expedience and barely-disguised dysfunction. They both have terrible tempers, and I suspect they hate each other, but on the surface, everything is okay.

I only have one trick up my sleeve when it comes to getting back at them. Sure, I can play little tricks, get them to go at each other, but that's too sneaky for my tastes. I want them to know it's me.

I grab Mister Archon by the horns.

When I do that, he's totally helpless. It's amazing. 'Cause normally, he's this huge, intimidating beast of a being, and those horns are like the dot on the 'i' of his incredible fearsomeness. But they're so long that if I grab on close to the ends, he can't even reach me. He's reduced to a flailing, stamping, wall-banging, totally out-of-control, impotent mess. And who can respect a guy that suddenly goes apeshit like that for no apparent reason? His wife doesn't, that's for sure.

Maybe she'll take over from him, lock him up so he'll stop being such a public embarrassment. I daresay she could do it; despite his braggadacio, she does seem to be the one wearing the pants. I don't know how the slaves are going to react, but she controls the monkey army for sure.

I don't know what else to do. I don't have a plan. I don't see much hope for a revolt, much less a successful one. Maybe I'm a fool. But what do I have to lose? My life? Hah. I'm a ghost already. Maybe some miracle will happen, deus ex machina comes to set things right. The probabilities don't favour us, but maybe the universe does. That's my only hope.

In the meantime, all I can do...

... is grab the devil by the horns.