7/2/14
(bizarre dream, not blog worthy, hence posted in turdbin.)

A street - neither deserted nor particularly busy.

A fourth floor window spews licks of fire.

Beneath the window - no, not a fire truck - a garbage truck, the kind with the compactor. But the truck did not come to pick up rubbish - tiny rockets are flying from the rear, where the compactor ought to be, straight into the fourth floor inferno.

The world has been at war for three years. Not a proper war, with maps, strategies, pupils of von Clausewitz. No generals calling the shots, laying plans. This is a war that would make Limonov proud - a war staffed in its entirety by young idiots. Quite like the "raiding" style of warfare found among Neolithic savages.

I switch on a shortwave set. A peculiar, hand-made beast, it resembles a small Soviet washing machine. There are only two stations on the dial, and this fact seems obvious and inevitable. The first is a cacophony of voices - Russian, Czech, Hungarian - and raucous, pulsating music. The second - purely English, with occasional unfamiliar borrowings from the old Middle Eastern tongues. English - the language of Islam! (Somehow this did not seem peculiar at all. English, it seemed, has always been The Word of the Prophet. Merely in temporarily-distorted forms.) In my head, I entitle the factions the "reds" and the "greens," respectively.

This "world war" - really, a continuous state of localized urban riot (the combatants would never even think of venturing outside a city, as they relied rather heavily upon its somehow mostly-intact supplies of the kind of things youths normally consume in a city.

An engagement would begin when one side located an encampment of the other. This was normally a simple matter, as these encampments were invariably high-rise flats, pits of filth, the sounds and smells produced therein reliably driving off civvies for a block or two around. The ambushers would then undertake to help the ambushed "die young and leave a good-looking corpse." The civvies, by and large, looked the other way. (Not unlike the mechanics of real-life civil war of the slow-burning variety, incidentally.)

I follow a small company of what appears to be "reds" down a narrow stairway. Why - I do not know, given as I had aligned with neither faction. They, and I, descend into a mostly dark basement. The "reds" chatter amongst themselves, I cannot make out any meaningful words. In the basement, there is an enormous, antediluvian boiler. There are also concrete columns. Around each column is attached half a dozen of old rusty avio-bombs, with what appears to be a military radio hastily wired to each. My first thought is that the radio-detonators are tuned to the "green" frequency. They are to be set off if the block of flats is ever taken and "painted green." For some reason this struck me as a clever move.

The company of "reds" finds another stairway in the basement level. Going down! Disbelieving my eyes, I follow them, remaining unseen. We are now standing in a - sub-basement? An odd-smelling place, illuminated by a single electric lamp dangling from the rough concrete ceiling. The lamp must be at least a hundred years old. In the corner of the room, there is a statue of a figure dressed as a monk, stereotypical flowing robes. I instantly recognize him as Saint ???, the presence of the statue attesting to the absence of further levels below ground. (Somehow this "convention," in dream universe, was something everyone knew as a child.) Yet, not far from St. ???, there was a steel hatchway in the floor...

Having been preoccupied with the contradiction, I did not move in time to re-position myself behind the "reds" as they turned around - looks like they would not dare to descend further into a level that "could not exist." And so they end up turning to face me - I was still standing in the stairway. I search my pockets for a grenade which ought to be there, but only a handful of dirty coins - from some unknown land - turns up.

One of the "reds" walks up, puts a friendly hand on my shoulder, and with the other pulls out a very small black pistol - something quite like a Makarov. Before I can move, he aims it at my head and fires. It goes off with a light "pop" and I realize that some of the usual contents of my head are in disarray. For some reason, this doesn't bother me particularly much, and I carry on with my mission. Which appears to consist of gawking at whatever combatants appear to be nearest, with an occasional bit of free "help" provided to one side or the other, mainly for my own entertainment...