The Man in my Dreams

I hadn’t dreamt in what felt like ages. At least, I hadn’t remembered my dreams. Apparently everyone dreams, but some of us just don’t remember. The last dreams I do remember where from when I was a kid. They were always nightmares, always of me dying somehow. It made me afraid of everything: stairs, trees, even oranges once. Except for the last nightmare. I don’t remember much from it, I was maybe eight at the time, but therewas a bright flash of white light and this … voice. It was saying something. I couldn’t hear it clearly, but it sounded familiar, like my father’s voice only… different somehow.

Since then, I haven’t remembered a thing from my dreams. I’d still wake up in the morning with a feeling of dread every other week, but apart from that, nothing. I figured I’d blocked it all out. Who wants to dream about dying every night?

Last week was the first time I dreamt –or remembered dreaming – in maybe 13 years. Anyway, it felt … real.

I was next to a small lake in the middle of an urban area. There was a man in a business suit sitting on a bench. When I noticed him, he started talking. He said, “So here you are again. You know I’ll just keep bringing you here until you remember, right? I tell you every night, and I still have to see you again the next day.” I was struck by the voice: it was the same as in my last childhood dream. “Actually, that’s not entirely true. This is the last time I’ll be able to bring you here, so I hope to God you’re going to wake up and remember.”

He was staring out at the lake. I didn’t understand what he meant, so I asked him, “What is it you want me to remember?”

I don’t know why I didn’t ask a more obvious question. It was the first thing that popped into my mind. He perked up when I said that. He sank back down and continued, “So you’re finally talking back. That’s good. Maybe it means you’ll remember. If not … well, it’s still nice to have some hope after so long.” He sounded happy, but his voice was bugging me, like I knew exactly who he was but couldn’t place him.

“Either way… you just need to remember this place. This lake. This city. Look around.”

It didn’t look at all familiar: just an average small town, with some bigger buildings in what I guessed was downtown.

“Why do I need to remember this place?”Again, I don’t know why I asked that. It’s like I was following a script.

He turned around to face me. His features were like mine, only older. His eyes, his voice, his build, everything was like I imagine I’d be in a decade or two.

And that’s when he told me, “You need to remember this place, because this is where you will die, and the last thing you’ll see is the world dying with you.” He turned back to the lake. I wanted to ask him what he meant, but then there was a bright flash of white light, like the sunrise times a million. Then there came the rumbling … And the heat. My God, the heat …

I woke up screaming, the picture of an atomic mushroom cloud stuck in my mind. Isn’t it funny how only a handful of A-bombs has ever been used, yet everybody in the West knows exactly what they should look like? I know what you’re thinking: It was just a dream. I’m panicking for no reason. It doesn’t mean anything.

Except, I moved to a new town this week. I recognized the lake. It’s right in front of my house.

I don’t know what I should do now.

Written by François-René Montpetit

Ultimatum

"We, the disillusioned youth of this twenty-first century, do hereby issue the following ultimatum: the Peoples of Earth have one year (effective from the publication date of this document) to recover their various space programs and establish permanent settlement on the moon. After this period of one year, if our conditions are not met, we will destroy the moon outright, as the people of Earth will have proven that they care more for internal struggle than outward expansion and survival."

It had started as a joke. The writers stood by the essence of their words, certainly, but the concept of blowing up the moon was really just meant to sensationalize the document a bit.

It came out of many nights of frustrated conversations: a manifesto crafted by jaded, post-space-age youths in the very living rooms where their parents had watched NASA’s momentous small step for a man. A small step for mankind as well, as it had turned out.  “If no one on this planet is willing to step up to the plate and take humanity back to the moon, then we, the youth of this world, see no reason why it should continue to hover there nightly, mocking us with its relative celestial proximity.”

Having been allowed to grow fat on depictions of the distant stars fed to them by a dying golden age of science fiction writers and filmmakers, each felt the wretched raw burning of dreams denied, and poured that disappointment into their joint declaration.

It went online at 11:35pm, March 31, 2014. Not one of the five ever considered the effect that timing might have until it was too late.

On any other day their letter would have passed quietly into the vast reliquaries and sub-crypts of the Internet without a thought shed on the matter by the common YouTube junkie or celebrity blogger. Yes, any other day, and the joke would have stayed a joke and the humdrum days would have piled one upon the next unto eternity. As it was, however, April Fool’s Day made the whole thing all too real.

The vast collective of minds plugged in on the morning of April 1st, on the lookout for the great internet pranks of the day, honed in on the Manifesto and spread it like herpes to all corners of the earth. In a matter of hours, 4 out of 5 college students in North America had read and re-read the ultimatum and proceeded to pass it along to all their friends and family via their social network of choice.  By noon it had been translated into 14 different languages (with varying degrees of accuracy). The hashtag #blowupthemoon was trending globally on Twitter as the writers awoke the next morning. The story made the international news media in 17 different countries.

It was startling, but it was also April Fools’ Day.

The next day, people were still talking.

Three days after the publication of the document, there was a small gathering of young people carrying picket signs plastered with pro-moon messages outside of NASA headquarters in Washington D.C.
By the end of the week there were several hundred gathered, and similar crowds growing in other countries around the world. Governments were calling on their people to be reasonable in the face of what had clearly been intended as an April Fool’s joke, but a generation raised on the explorations of Jim Kirk and the writings of Clarke and Asimov would hear nothing of it. They, too, wanted to see Humanity ascend to the stars; joke or not, this manifesto spoke to the longing and the disappointment kindled in all of their hearts.

The whole time the writers never felt any reason to be concerned; despite their fascination with the worldwide fervour their ideas had spawned, they were confident in the fact that no one had the power to obliterate the moon. Movements were beginning to spring up in small towns; the Moonbombers (sometimes referred to as moonboomers) and their counterparts, the “Concerned citizens for the protection of the moon” were the two most common in North America, but every town had variants. Almost no one gave the groups more thought than they would the Kiwanis Club or the Shriners.

While some countries held stubbornly to their principles, others saw room for changes to social policy in light of the changing interests of their various peoples. The Middle East was almost eerily quiet as the Arab nations and Israel refocused their militaries to begin their own space race. The Russians and the Japanese produced a collaborative design for a device which could significantly diminish the concentration of harmful radiations within a variable radius. The International Space station underwent rapid expansion (entirely through private-sector funding) to accommodate the new Boeing “Stargazer” space planes which were also being rushed into development.

The momentum unleashed by the simple act of writing an open letter was unbelievable to the five young writers, and things had almost gotten to the point where they felt silly to have published their work anonymously as the anniversary of the ultimatum rolled around. It didn’t really matter, of course. They all agreed that the betterment of humankind was far-and-away more important than any kind of fame and recognition. No single group had ever so drastically and positively altered the course of history in such a short a period of time, and each knew that, without needing to have international media attention.

On March 31, 2015, the five gathered for a quiet celebration of all that had come to pass in the last year. As late-night talk-show hosts ran gag-reels of apocalypses gone by and marvelled at the progress humanity had made in the name of what, again clearly, had been a joke, the writers gathered in the back yard of the very house in which they had drafted their declaration. They shared champagne and gazed up into the starry sky at the moon which had inspired everything, laughing.  Humanity had not made it back to the moon.  No matter how quickly the machine moved, one year was not enough time to get that far, having started cold. Amazing strides had been taken though, unbelievable steps to a better tomorrow. They looked together at the cratered orb glowing above their heads. One raised his glass to make a toast, and suddenly the world shook and light filled the sky, brighter than day.

Ridiculous as it was, they couldn’t help but turn, each to the other, and ask,

“Did you...?”

It had started as a joke, but gazing horror-struck at the burning chunks of the moon flying wildly in all directions, the five knew that someone, somewhere had taken them far too seriously.

On April 1st, 2015, the real work began.

Written by Gordon Lambie