Sailing the Noosphere

1. Mom and I are doing my back to school shopping at the mall. I wander off into the mall proper while she stays in the department store; when I return she has a $150 gift card to the store! We leave the store, and on the ride back she tells me how she saw a fight between a shopper and an employee. She was called to witness in a trial of the employee and got the gift card for her time. The prosecutor in the trial, however, was her former boss as a paralegal, and she expresses sorrow that she didn't continue her own legal career. When we get back home (to our old house), Dr. C from the research station is pulling out of the driveway in the station van. We wait for him to move, then I move in. As I do, however, I scrape the bottom of our new car.

2. The whole family, along with my (deceased) maternal grandma are going out to the movies. The film we see is made from a collection of short subjects. The first is set in the British Museum. In the movie, Mom and I often shop at their gift shop for ice cream and cupcakes. One day, after we buy our sweets, I'm suddenly attacked by velociraptors! I run and flail my arms wildly, still carrying my mom's credit card in one hand. Someone offscreen then throws ice cream at the raptors, which seems to pacify them. Relieved, I move to exit, but as I do I'm told that I owe over 24 pounds. Apparently waving the credit card orders food for whatever I "circle" with it. I refuse to pay, and finally it dawns on me to ask why there are dinosaurs in the museum. The film jump-cuts to a London park, where a young bird skeleton is shown stripped from escaped raptors. The short ends without resolution, cutting to a static screen where the audience is advised to use hand sanitizer. This I do, but the rest of the family looks at me rather oddly.

Soon enough, however, the second short begins. This takes place in Soviet Russia. The camera descends on a snowy provincial capital as a voiceover comments on the permanency of the ruling party. Something to the effect of if 30 members were removed from office, the party would still remain in power. The film cuts to inside the capital building, where the Russian government is in session. A senator from Kamchatka has something to say; one of his counterparts snarkily remarks how a disabled person could take the podium if they had wheels. The senator announces some sort of breakthrough, but promptly falls dead. His aide throws a white sheet over him, then pulls it off with a magician's flourish.

The senator is alive, but as the sheet is pulled further back, we notice he isn't quite right. In fact, he soon turns out to be hideous. He's a hermaphroditic freak, with breasts studding his body in odd places and an extra penis hanging off his chest. Somehow the whole family is now present in the movie and recoils at revulsion towards the sight. My grandma, a devout Catholic, starts screeching "That's heresy!" as I lose the dream.