Weird Dream

When I have dreams, some stick in my mind until morning and some don’t. I know I dream every night but my dreams have changed in my *ahem ahem* years. Instead of action dreams where someone or something is chasing me or I’m going someplace or fighting some battle, I’m having Emotion Dreams. I’m not a fan of emotions. They are difficult to interpret and hard to control. There are times when I yearn for Vulcan philosophy or for a chip I could turn off like Data’s. They’re messy and complicate things that should be simple.

What do I mean? Well, yesterday, for instance, I was working on a project and the Things I Used To Do that were simple and straight-forward were now multi-step processes. I was writing a workbook and after rewriting it and editing it, I saved it. I needed to retrieve it for my meeting, and went to click it and it says, “Cannot find this file, did you rename it or delete it?” And THERE, RIGHT THERE, I was looking at 4 different copies. I clicked on all of them and got the same message. It was getting down to the wire and I was getting mad. I did a search for the thing and nothing came up. I had sent copies of this workbook to everyone in the meeting, including me (which showed amazing foresight on my part), and clicked on that link and it popped right up. After I taught that night’s session, I wanted to go back into my directory and eliminate all the false leads. I couldn’t just click a box and hit the delete button. It was like Mickey Mouse and the brooms in Fantasia. I’d click on it, get the “did you change this?” message, and then it added itself to my already over-populated directory. So I went to the help section and looked up how to delete a file.

The instructions came with a video, but of course, clicking on the video just started the video and it was 2″ by 3″ so I couldn’t actually see anything. And the instructions included those dreadful words: You simply… If it were simple, would I be in the help section? You SIMPLY go to the dashboard, select the file, and hit delete. It will go to your recycle bin. My dashboard doesn’t look anything like their dashboard. So No, I haven’t figured out how to clean up my list of amazing tomes.

I want something unimproved that doesn’t “help” me by doing stuff I know how to do. I want to push a button and have stuff happen, and not have messages saying that what I’m doing could be done quicker and easier by adding another 21 steps! I was mad and frustrated. I wanted to throw things. I scrolled through FaceBook for another hour and then crawled into bed.

So, my dream:

I go to the bathroom and I notice the roll of toilet paper not mounted on the dispenser. I take a good look at it and discover that it has been dropped in the toilet and quickly retrieved. I also deduce that the toilet water was not unspoiled as the paper is discolored and has a slight odor. (EWWWW) By fishing out the roll and putting it back on the dispenser without mounting it, I now have a puddle on the floor and a streak where the water (and other stuff) dripped down the wall. I feel Mad and Confused. I cannot fathom the logic of someone thinking you could use partially wet, definitely soiled toilet paper. I’m upset because it’s a mess I dread cleaning up as it makes me gag to even think of it.

The previous day, I had watched episodes of Dexter, the 1st 2 episodes of Game of Thrones, Forged in Steel and Forged in Fire episodes showing wicked swords and daggers, and finally the latest episode of Supernatural. You’d think I’d be dreaming of solving crimes, running a D&D scenario, catching Dexter (and surviving), and rewriting all the Sam and Dean stories without the “We have to kill God and his Sister” themes. But no, I dream of dirty toilet paper.

If Only I’d…

I remember when my Uncle Mick died. I wasn’t there, but I heard the story. It was Halloween.

One of the little neighbor boys went over to my Aunt Rose and Uncle Mick’s house to show them his Halloween costume. Mick bent over to see it a bit better and just went to the floor. The trick-or-treater’s mom was there and performed CPR and as a RN, she was good at it. The truth was that Mick was dead before he hit the floor. It was particularly painful for me because my cousins, Jimmy and John, were the ones we saw the most often and of course that made them closer than my other cousins. So our family adored Rose and Mick.

After he died, there were the questions that come up. What if I’d been trained in CPR? What if we’d gone for semi-annual check-ups? Why didn’t I see the signs earlier? You know, the “If Only I’d” questions. Those were put to rest because the professional health care worker was RIGHT THERE! and she didn’t see the signs, and no amount of CPR was going to bring him back. Mick’s doctor was surprised that he’d had this condition. Had he gone to more doctor’s appointments, it most likely wouldn’t have shown up on any of the usual tests. So all of this expertise basically shut down the questions and allowed my aunt and her boys to live without the regret of what could have been “If Only I’d…”

The election is over. Well, mostly over. There were irregularities in the process.

1. The voter turnout…the number of people actually voting was 30 million people more than last election. The biggest difference up until now was in 2004 when 17 million people more showed up to vote than the previous election. George W Bush was elected for his second term.
2. The percentage of voters that were eligible and voted was also unprecedented. The average turn-out is about 55% with the exceptions being 1952 with 61.6%, 1960 with 62.8%, 1964 with 61.4%, and 1968 with 60.7%. There was a whopping 68.97% this election!!!
3. There were record numbers of mail-in ballots. Because of the Corona Virus, some processes had to be modified. Not all states had mail in procedures that were consistent with the situation we found ourselves in due to the pandemic. Some required witnesses, some didn’t. Some ballots were mailed out by the state government, others had to be requested.
4. There were unprecedented returns to be counted and procedures in THAT part of the polling process that needed to be addressed.
5. The race was not called on the day of the election by the media. They didn’t have a clue. Most projections in the previous years were based on exit polls. Well if that many people are voting by mail, the projections will not be accurate.

Mr. Trump MUST challenge all the perceived and actual irregularities so there can be no “If only I’d…” questions about the legitimacy of the election. If he just acknowledged that the race was over and he had lost, there would be some conspiracy theorists that would debate the legality and the validity of the results. This way, the legal challenges that Mr. Trump is mounting will actually go to assuage those who doubt the outcome of the elections.

If you go back and read the Foundation Series by Asimov, you recall the Future Historians who make use of statistical tools to make the right calls and take the society in the correct direction. The fly in the ointment was the Mule who was the exception to the rule and messed up all the calculations. Donald Trump was our version of the Mule. According to all our society expects in an presidential candidate…most of that prescribed by the media (both social and news), Mr. Trump should not have even made it through the primaries. He said everything wrong. His actions were the opposite of what his pollsters and advisers would have proposed in order to gain the support of his target market. He tweeted so much that his campaign managers were running in circles trying to spin and put out the fires he started. His statements were obnoxious and offensive. His makeup artist was insane.

The machine had determined that after a POC president, the next should be female. Hillary was supposed to win. And yet… Things that should have incensed women didn’t deter them from voting for Mr. Trump. Things that should have outright shocked people of color didn’t dampen their enthusiasm for him. Things that should have distressed fairly intelligent people didn’t dissuade them from supporting him. His lies and his questionable character didn’t detour the Religious that supported him. That was precisely the opposite of what was supposed to happen. Mr. Trump should not have, under any circumstances, won the last election. But he did.

Yesterday, the machine triumphed once again. We have a cool, calm president, not a bombastic short-tempered narcissist. Granted, he’s old. But Mr. Trump was 70 years old when he won the presidency so he was old too. If he mounts an election for 2024, he’ll be 78…about the same age as Mr. Biden is now. We now have a president that has 50 years of political experience, not someone who was basically a businessman who’d had several questionable ventures and several bankruptcies. We have a president who is versed in the art of diplomacy and not into the “My button is bigger than your button” type exchanges. We even have a POC FEMALE as a vice president. But, are these good things? We have yet to see.

Now Consider: We already have a new normal due to the pandemic. We also have a new normal when it comes to interpersonal and intergroup relations. We don’t discuss anything, we just start throwing stuff. We seem to consider over-legislation and a corporate aristocracy to be the default. This may or may not change since we have a Democrat in the White house and Republicans running the House and the Senate…though only 2 votes separate the Republicans and the Democrats in the Senate. If the Republicans do to President Biden what they did to President Obama, it could be a rocky 4 years.

But at least it won’t be because of the “If Only I’d…” questions.

UPDATE: Yes, it would have been necessary for President Trump to challenge the elections and remove all doubt of fraud and impropriety. But when all 63 lawsuits were dismissed or thrown out, he should have stopped. But, much to my confusion as well as that of the rest of the country, he didn’t stop.

Instead of conceding, he incited a riot. He insisted he’d won in a landslide, but he’d lost by 7 million votes. You cannot manufacture 7 million votes. The fact that he lost the popular vote to Hillary and still won four years ago, he should have known he had less than 1/2 of his constituency supporting him. And yet, he had a great crowd of supporters in bizarre costumes and carrying weapons and confederate flags and instead of telling them not to do something violent, he ENCOURAGED them with references to civil war. What did he think he could have accomplished? He threatened the governor of Georgia to nullify 11,000+ votes so he could win Georgia’s electoral votes. The governor did not comply. 16 votes would not have changed the outcome of the election. He still would have lost. 232+16 is only 248. He needed 270 to win. This is not a landslide.

Then his supporters stormed the castle. You cannot brandish firearms and breach a federal building being guarded by armed police and not expect to be fired on. Some were carrying American Flags, some the “Don’t Tread on Me” flags, and some with confederate flags. The supporters of this rash act and the perception that all the insane rantings and accusations made by the president were true resulted in posts saying, “This was Antifa and BLM, Not us!” And yet, nary a black face in the crowd. Lots of weird white guys in costumes though…It looked like the studio audience in “Let’s Make a Deal.” So…who were those masked men? Certainly not the Lone Ranger and his buddies! We were lucky cooler heads prevailed or it would have been a blood bath. Did you know one of the protesters tazed himself to death? Had it been a BLM riot, there would have been dozens of deaths. There were 4. One was self inflicted, and one was a heart attack. BLM could have attacked the capitol building with cell phones and pool noodles and would have been mown down by automatic rifle fire. So these were Trump supporters who wanted to see him in office for another four years. Antifa groups do no support Trump.

Interrupting the counting of the ballots which ensures that a fascist dictator does NOT come to power would seem to be counter productive to an Antifa group’s ideology. If the plan was to frame Trump supporters, it was badly done. There were too many “True Trump Believers” in the crowd to indicate there were any Antifa sentiments. These believers would have trounced anyone they suspected of being members of BLM or Antifa.

13 days until the inauguration. I would suggest that the Secret Service assign many many more units to protect President-elect Biden from an Assassination attempt because you can bet your bottom dollar, there will be one. And there may be an attempt on Trump as well. Someone has let the crazies out of the box.

Son of a Bit…

Dragon (pronounced DrayGon) and Tenielle, FBI. Nobody gets it, except that guy down the hall. He stopped, then he turned around and looked at us. Did you see that Dean? Yes, he looked like he recognized us. I don’t know him. Do you?

Hmmm.

Very little signs of a struggle. Yes, I know you’ve given the story to the police. We’re not the police. Shane is a monster, and we hunt monsters. No, Nothing you say will make us think you’re crazy. Have you felt any cold spots? any odd smells like sulfur? Flickering lights? That’s right, the lights were off. Anything seem off about Shane? No? Did you notice anything weird about his eyes? Ah, yes, it was getting dark wasn’t it. So tell us about his attacker. Did he splash any water on him? Shhh Dean, I have a theory…

He didn’t. How did he take him down? Just threw him? Then he injected him. Thanks, we’ll get back to you when we know something.

Which way did that tech go? Who’s that parked on the crime scene? Why didn’t they rope off the back? I got the license plate. Let’s see where our guy is going.

Quickly they ran down the stairs and got into the Impala. They followed at a distance. No one would ever suspect FBI guys driving an Impala. Wow. Well we can rule out going home. This is really a blighted area. Perfect for our friends in low places. Wait, where’d he go? Dam! Followed too far behind. Park over there, and we’ll split up. Are we thinking the tech guy is the demon? Yes he sure looked suspicious.

Hey? It’s dark. My eyes won’t open and my hands are restrained. My feet too. Cement floor. I try to call out to Dean, but my mouth is taped shut too. I hear a scuffle and a plop and a sigh that sounded a lot like Dean. He’s close. Someone is using duct tape. How long have I been out? I hear the knife come out of its sheath. He’s got the demon knife now. Dean’s out. I feel the guy’s presence near my head. He roughly rips off the tape over my eyes, but I can’t see his face. He’s wearing an apron and a blood shield like they do in the morgue.

“What the hell is this? And why were you following me?”

“How do you not recognize a demon knife when you see it?”

“A what?”

“I’m not saying another thing. I’ve been tortured by the devil himself, you don’t scare me.”

“Good for you.” He put the tape back over my eyes and mouth and just walked away.

I heard some screaming. Then, “Ah. This works much better.”

Dean started to stir. We’d been in this position so many times, we had a box knife blade sewn into the back belt loops. We quickly got the tape off and snuck into the room where the screams were coming from. Then we heard laughter.

“You can’t do that. How can you do that?”

“Boy, you have no clue what you up agin’ do ya white boy.”

The demon was loose. Dean signaled that he’d take out the tech and that I should go for the demon.

Dean ran to tackle the lab geek and the lab geek threw him against the wall. I went for the knife.

“What…three against one?”

“Hold on. You’re trying to kill the demon?”

“The what?”

Dean came up from behind and put the tech in a choke hold. This always works. Dean is on the floor groaning and the geek is still standing.

“Are you a hunter?”

“You could say that.”

The demon charged. The geek ducked and grabbed his arm, twisting it behind his back. The demon caught him on the side of the head with a head butt, and the tech loosened his grip. The demon grabbed an iron rod and was going to pound Dean and the geek with it. Dean dodged and swept the demon’s legs out from under him.

The geek grabbed the demon knife and started to cut the demon’s throat. I yelled, “Stab him in the heart so he doesn’t smoke out! Then close your eyes!” And he did! He didn’t even hesitate. The demon glowed and screamed and disintegrated.

“Thanks.”

“We have the ID of the owner of the meat suit and just have to burn the bones.”

“What?”

“What?”

“You said you were a hunter.”

“Yes, I hunt monsters”

“We hunt monsters, and you hunt people.”

“I hunt people that are monsters.”

“We hunt monsters that look like people.”

“Ever hunt anything like this guy?”

“Yes, um, no, and then again, yes.”

“Sam and Dean”

“Not Captain and Tenielle?”

“Not exactly…”

“Dexter Morgan.”

“Here’s our card, if you ever come up against a meat suit with a monster in it.”

“Here’s my card, if you ever come up a monster that doesn’t explode when you hit it.”

Sonovabitch

Because…you never know.

Some never know…

I picked him up on my radar when I read the details of the rape. I recognized those cuts. Even the blood spatter was similar. He’s developed a ritual.

Rituals are not a bad thing if they protect you, but if it just serves to humiliate and intimidate your target, it can lead the police right to your door. Or worse, it can lead me to your door. Then he has the audacity to post these videos on the site? He thinks that it might go viral if there’s more blood.

They trampled the crime scene. There was not enough evidence to even hold the guy, let alone prosecute. The poor forensics nerds crawling on the floor with their tweezers and micro baggies looking for something, anything to tie this poor excuse for a human being to the crime–you can see the hopelessness in their eyes.

3 cases in 2 weeks. That makes him a prime target for someone like me. He thinks that because he can rape and cut up someone with a knife, he’s a predator. He has no idea. He’s a jackal. His prey is vulnerable and unable to fight back. I hunt predators. Some of them are lions, but I am still here. True predators show fear when they encounter me. They recognize me because they see themselves in me and realize they are in way over their heads.

I figured out where he was shooting the videos. So I just waited. It was yesterday, he came and he prepared his “studio” to receive a new guest. I followed him to his apartment complex. It wasn’t long before he came out of the apartment and stood on the sidewalk arguing with the manager and threatening him. I thought to myself, “Nah, not his type…” Then I overheard him talking about the lady that turned him in. I knew who his next victim was. I didn’t have my tools or my room set up. I had my needle and my gloves though. I could even use his studio for the execution. Oh the irony of that. I couldn’t go and prepare because his next victim lived in his building. I went in through the back.

The super was just leaving this douche bag’s apartment and mentioning friends in high places. Now I knew who and where this new victim lived. I quickly went down the hall and let myself into her apartment. There were instruments all over! Music stands, stools, amplifiers. There was a calendar on the wall that said her next student was in 1 1/2 hours. I put on my gloves and grabbed my vial and my needle and hid under the bed in her room. Not more than 10 min later, someone came in. It wasn’t her. He strummed some of the guitars, tried to blow through the saxophone and it made a dreadful noise. Then he came into the bedroom. I tensed. He walked right up to the dresser and took a pair of her panties. Oh gross! He’s using them to get off. That’s DNA you idiot! And of course, no gloves so fingerprints too.

He left the bedroom and then checked out the calendar. Then the fool turned on the tv to watch Jeopardy. Little does he know how appropriate that is. The show finishes and he waits behind the door. He pulls out his bowie knife and plays with it. Wait till he sees mine.

I checked my pockets. Vial? check. Needle? check. Small roll of duct tape? check. No knife yet, though shortly his will be mine. I roll out from under the bed and into the shadow of the door. The sun is setting and since this is an east facing apartment, it’s getting dim. I memorized the layout of the floor so I knew where the furniture was and where the kid was. Then I heard it, the key in the lock. I wondered if she knew how many people had access to her apartment besides her.

She walked in and I guessed she sensed him. She called him by name. Shane. That’s not the name he uses on his site. He was using his “Batman” voice. Adorable. She’s not impressed. I almost laugh out loud! “I teach beginning banjo players, you can’t scare me!” He’s making his move. I’m making mine. She sensed me. She might be more formidable than I thought. It only took a couple of moves to put Shane down and disarm him. Gave him the shot. Got the hands and ankles bound. Take him to the basement until the police leave. They never check the basement.

I’ll leave the tape on his eyes and mouth for the time being. We’ll just sit here, quietly in the dark for a few hours and then visit his final resting place.

Ah, there’s the call. Well Shane I’ll be right back. I go to the fire escape. Look up expectantly just as the uni comes around the corner. I look at the ground then say, ” Well, he didn’t come out here.” Then I walk around to the front and show my badge. I go to the crime scene and make the observation, “No blood? Then why call me all the way out here?” I go down the hall and see these 2 guys that look like Feds. They flash their badges and announce “Detectives Dragon and Tenielle.” That pulls me up short. I turn around and I see…myself. They’re monsters like me, but not like me. I don’t know if they see it, so I continue on to my night’s activities. Time to move Shane. I pull my car up to the back of the building and drag Shane into the trunk of my car. Then we head off to Shane’s last adventure.

Some never know, and most never learn…

Hmmm. This is not working. It should work. My ritual is complete. The room is covered in plastic. I’ve chosen my knife. I’ve reviewed all his crimes with him, but he doesn’t seem worried. He’s secured on the table, and I know I sliced his cheek. I have his blood on the slide. But there’s no mark. I slice his hand and he cries out. But though there is blood on my knife, the wound has just closed up. He’s laughing now. None of my victims laugh.

WTF?

WTF?

So man, I just got kicked to the curb! Like literally! The Man just walks into my apartment without knocking, kicks over all my cooking and gets up in my grill about how “We don’t do that kinda thing here.” Well he should check out apartment 6 D… she’s no Hooters girl, she making some bucks there!

Then the Super comes by and says good riddance. Helps to have friends in high places! Like he’s got friends at all. So I says, “Yo man you drop a dime on me I’m a cut you up!” He grins and says there had been complaints to the man. And I know Exactly who. Walkin’ down the hall with his little banjo under his arm like Deliverance boy, goes for lessons with the bitch down the hall.

Got my cuz to help me move my shit, but I’m a pay that Hoe a visit before I leave. Maybe give her a parting gift. Huh, didn’t find my stash though so I got at least something to tide me over. I think I need me some of that now.

I’ll jes take a couple of hits and go bang on that door…or… better yet. Ya, that’s the ticket, I wait for her all quiet like. She’ll never even see me coming. Besides, with the key I got, I could get all up in her nasty stuff. Ya she thinks she has a panties gnome that steals her stuff from the laundry. Well, it’s not from the laundry.

We’ll see who gets the better end of this: me or her. I bet it’s not her.

Ya never know…

I knew when I stepped into the room that he was there. I could smell the old grease and the sweat on his clothes. I recognized the restless leg movements. Yes. Shane had come to kill me. I had told the apartment manager that he’d been dealing and so he’d bumped him out of his apartment. The super was pleased. He’d hated trying to keep the plumbing working and the fires out in there. His complaints had fallen on deaf ears, but the manager’s kid studied with me and he trusted me.

I wasn’t really surprised that Shane had found out it was me, though. And, I wasn’t surprised that he had come into my apartment to do me harm. He had a short temper and he didn’t really think things through.

“Hello Melody,” he rasped. “Does my presence…frighten you?” He was playing the predator card. I was his prey. He was an amateur.

“Oh, Hey Shane. Ya’ know, most people knock before coming in.” I didn’t turn around to face him. It’s usually not a good idea to keep your back turned toward a predator, but…I sensed another presence here.

“You’re not afraid?”

“Ha! I give beginning banjo lessons! There’s not much you can do to frighten me!” I tried my best to ease that feeling of dread, but it kept rising like lava burning away my sensibilities. I slowly cast my eyes around the darkened apartment, looking for that other…thing. I couldn’t put a label on it. It was malevolent. It was dark. It was hungry. I wondered why Shane didn’t notice it.”

“You got me kicked out the apartment you bitch!”

“You were the one that got a D+ in chemistry and you thought you could mix your own meth? You’re lucky you didn’t blow us all to smithereens!”

“Shut up! I’m gonna kill you.” He’d gone back to the raspy voice. I think it was supposed to intimidate me.

Something by the bedroom door moved…just a bit. I picked a spot as far away from both predators as I could– the window by the fire escape. I started to ease in that direction and he started to cross the room toward me.

“First, I’m going to slash up that ugly face of yours. Then I’ll remove your ears…”

I grabbed my coffee cup off the table. It wasn’t much but I knew it would hurt if I hit him with it.

He moved so fast. Shane never saw or heard him coming and he went down fast, without a word. The real predator looked at me and removed the needle from Shane’s neck. I got chills. He was so calm. It was as if Shane was a chihuahua and he was a lion. He duct taped Shane’s wrists and ankles and put a strip over his eyes and his mouth.

He smirked, “Banjo teacher…” he said under his breath as he pulled Shane out of the apartment.

There’s a hierarchy of sorts, I guess. There are the killers that kill for cause–passion, drugs, vengeance. There are the killers that kill because they can–the bullies, the contract killers…they kill because they want to and you’re just in the way of their plans. They’re cold. Then there are the ones that don’t get a thrill from killing ordinary folks, and those police and “heroes” that try to catch them seem so insignificant. These are predators that hunt PREDATORS. My rescuer was one of those.

The investigators found Shane’s DNA all over my apartment, even in my underwear drawer. I threw all those things out and am stopping at Penny’s after work tomorrow. There was absolutely no trace of the other intruder. They don’t know how he could have gotten in and no one had seen him pulling Shane down the front or back stairs. They haven’t found him yet, and it’s been hours. They keep asking me if I was sure I saw someone. Now one of the detectives has asked me if I was sure Shane had been there with me. The little perv could have come and gone a dozen times when I wasn’t home, so the fingerprints and DNA evidence were all over the place when it came to time and date. I know what I saw.

A couple of the FBI guys were asking if I smelled sulfur, noticed flickering lights or cold spots. This sounded familiar. But none of those things were present. They said they hunted monsters all the time. I wonder if they ever came up against a monster that preyed on other monsters.

I have mixed feelings now. I almost feel sorry for Shane. To think you’re the baddest ass player in the hood and then to come up against something like my rescuer has to be heart-stopping. Then I think “You know that punk would have cut you up. You might have gotten your licks in but there’d be a big pool of blood over there by the window and you wouldn’t be feeling sorry for anyone now.” 1 man can make a mistake and cost an innocent person his life. But on a jury, if that same person makes a mistake, there are eleven others that will make sure the truth comes out. When this vigilante is acting as judge and jury, he assumes he will make no mistakes. He may not for a long time…but there will be one mistake. The line between good and evil will get blurred. He’ll start killing for self preservation.

Ya never know…