Monday, April 26, 2004

The Holocaust Museum, and Falling Planets

I remember starting out at a museum, and this museum had a Jewish Holocaust part to it. There were a couple of rickety elevators that went up a couple of floors, and they would drop as they got to the top because they were trying to scare the passengers, as if that was what happened all the time at Auschwitz.

I think I was supposed to be a with a group from school who was doing the tour of this place, but at the same time, doing the Holocaust tour wasn't required. Even though I knew it was supposed to be scary, I did it anyway. While I was waiting for my turn with my small group, I remember seeing the elevators going up to the next floor. The elevator cars were out in the open rather than behind any sort of wall or glass enclosure, but they were solid so you couldn't see the people inside of them. I would watch them as they went up, and then I would see them kind of jostle and swing a little bit, like it was supposed to be simulating the falling.

Pretty soon it was my turn, and so I got into the elevator with my group. Even though the elevators were solid metal boxes from the outside, once inside, you could see out. I was towards the back of the elevator, and as we went up, I looked out the back and down towards the floor. When we got to the top, we "fell", and I watched the floor come up towards us. The we stopped safely, and we were taken back up to the top again.

After we all got out, we were on a balcony that ran around the top of the big room I had been waiting in, rather than on an actual second floor that was separate from the rest of everything. There were a number of rooms that you were supposed to be able to look in to. One of them showed the big pits that they were throwing people in to. Another was a room showing a gas chamber. It seems that I remember hearing a woman yelling in the gas chamber room. I didn't look into any of the rooms, though, because I was scared of what I would see, and I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to sleep for a long time if I did.

Suddenly I realized that everyone was leaving through a hallway that was off to my right, past some of the doors. I followed, and as I did it seemed the people were moving quite fast. For some reason I was having trouble keeping up, like I was on crutches or something. (but I wasn't. Moving just felt labored at that point)

The hallway led directly outside to a brick or paved pathway that had lots of trees and greenery on either side of it. The right side was especially lush, and that went uphill. To my left, while there were still plants there, it went downhill. I was trying to keep up with someone that was right in front of me who was wearing a hooded sweatshirt. Everyone else was wearing one, too, and I think even I was. It was supposed to be our way to identify one another or something.

I followed the paved pathway, and it lead us to the area where our buses were parked to take us home. This area was like it was in a park. It was a very wooded area around us, and this parking lot was in the middle of nowhere. There were also a number of cars around.

Somehow, even though my movement was labored, and I was way behind everyone, I wound up being one of the first one's there. A couple of others were very antsy about getting everything together and leaving as soon as possible. For whatever reason, I decided that in order to help speed things up, I was going to move the buses from the back of the parking area to the road that left from the parking area. (which was to my left from that perspective.) But I didn't drive the buses. I grabbed the rope that was tied on to the front of each one, and I was pulling them. They were very lightweight, and pulling them was nearly effortless.

I pulled one, and then another, and I got them parked side by side, and then there was a white truck of some sort, like a tanker truck or big moving truck or a tractor trailer. I pulled it and was trying to move it, and for some reason I thought that in order to get it out of the way, I had to pull it in between the two buses and get that out onto the road first. When I did that, I wound up pulling too hard and misjudging the space between the buses, and I crashed the truck right into the back of the buses. I remember seeing the truck being fairly damaged, but for some reason I thought I had just mis-aimed.

I tried it again, pulling it over to my right a bit more (it had hit the left bus more than the right one), but it still didn't come through. I moved it back, and I hoped that no one would notice it. I think a friend or two of mine that were there were making fun of me for crashing the truck to a point that it no longer looked drivable. So I started walking back to the right side (from where I first entered) of the parking lot, along all the cars. Everyone was getting into their cars to go. As I came past a car, a motorcycle, and a big dark green pickup, a motorcycle helmet popped up from over the back of the truck. Don (the big gorilla-shaped guy from Mercedes) came from the far side of the truck, thanked me for catching the helmet, took it from me, and got on the bike.

The next thing I know, I'm on the patio of my apartment, and I'm looking at the sky over across the canal. I see the moon there, in the morning time, just as a crescent that is situated like a smile, and I see all these little objects circling the earth between us and the moon. They're moving to my left across the sky, and I remembered someone telling me about the asteroids that were coming. As I watched them, the got a little bigger, and I remember that they seemed to be somehow changing phases as they passed in front of the moon. (it was like each one was a perfectly round little moon). For some reason, when they passed in front of the moon, the side close to the moon got dark, almost as if the moon were casting darkness on the far side of the asteroids.

Then, as I watched, some of them were getting caught in the gravitational field of the moon, and they were circling the moon. These things were moving very fast. It only took them a couple of seconds to move across the sky or around the moon. Somehow I knew that with these things circling the moon, that was going to alter their path enough that they were going to lose stability and being flung about. I was afraid that they were going to be thrown to earth. Just as I thought of that, a couple of them did start falling to earth.

I remember that they hit and embedded themselves in the ground, and the ground shook as they hit. They were big, but not as big as they should have been to make them visible as they went around the moon. If I had walked up to one, it probably would have been about the size of a McDonald's or something. Anyway, a number of them hit, and I remember thinking that Texas might sink because of it. As I thought that, it DID sink for a moment. I remember seeing the water rise up and over me, and the Texas bobbed back up to the surface again. A lot of things had washed away at that point.

There was also some guy close by (who, for some reason, seemed huge, like he was also the size of a building or something) who was working out on something similar to a soloflex. He was saying something about how making it through the water was tough because of the exercise equipment he was on. (evidently he kept using it through the "flood", and doing so almost caused him to drown because he was holding himself down.

After this happened, I knew I had to go and start making sure that everyone was okay. I went out to the parking lot, and even though I knew that Cobbie (from Mercedes) was on the other side of the city, he was also here in the parking lot with his car. He was closing his trunk, and I talked with him a moment to make sure he was okay. This parking lot sat at the edge of the canal rather than being back from it a bit, and the building I was staying in was directly behind be, not a ways off.

I then turned around, and I walked into the front of my building. There was a small lobby area that I had to go through, and there was a lady sitting at the front desk there. I asked if I could go up to my room, and she asked me if I was already staying there. I said yes, and she said okay, that they just weren't taking any new customers right now. I said okay and thanked her, and since the electricity was out, I went up about 3 flights of big and grandiose stairs. I got up to my "room" (it was now kind a cross between an apartment and a hotel) and went in quickly to check on Nellie Belle, our cat.

As I opened my door, she was there, kind of skulking along the floor because of being scared by the falling asteroids. (which I forgot to mention above, we kept calling them planets as we were watching them, but we knew that they were actually asteroids) My kitchen and bathroom were supposed to be off through the left door as I walked in, and my bedroom and living room were off to the right. Nellie ran in to the door at the right and hid under the bed. I walked in, and things seemed a bit jostled, but otherwise okay.

I tried turning on the light, but there was nothing. I realized, though, that we had partial electricity because my fan was on (a square window fan sitting on a table) as was my radio. But the TV, lights, and other things would not come on. I walked back to the back of the bedroom/living room, and I glanced out the window. The sun was starting to set, and it was getting dark inside the room.

I turned around, and I was thinking that I wanted to check on the rest of the place, so to do so, I wound up seeing a projection in front of me of the floor plan of the apartment, and I was scrolling through it with my mouse, but the funny thing was that I wasn't at my computer, because I didn't think that there would be enough electricity to run it. I panned the page up and down, and I could even see Nellie skulking around back out the bedroom door and back in under the bed on it. I zoomed in and out briefly, and then when I was done it just went away.

I looked to my right at the door that led to the kitchen/dining room area, and then straight ahead of me, and except for the lack of electricity and Nellie being scared, everything seemed okay, amazingly enough. One thing that I noticed (a little earlier on, but I'm not sure when. Just before I went upstairs, perhaps) was that Em was not here with me. It was like she didn't live with me. I'm not sure why, though. I just know that I was living on my own with Nellie Belle.

No comments: