memorable

…Still in my hospital gown, I stand barefoot on the cold tiles of the nursery and stare down into the plastic box holding a new born baby—my new born baby girl. The longish hairs growing out of her legs don’t go unnoticed by myself or the nursemaid standing next to me.

“Oh…” Says the nursemaid, “I guess she’ll have really straight eyelashes…”

My only response is to pull out a set of tweezers and start plucking the hairs from the child’s body. The nursemaid is appalled.

“Stop! Stop it! What are you doing! You’re gonna hurt her!” She tries to grab the slender metal from my hand but I brush her aside.

“It’s fine,” I gesture to the child who hasn’t even fidgeted as a result of the grooming, “besides, what I think doesn’t matter. All that matters is what he thinks.”

The nursemaid looks stunned; there’s fear in her eyes. I pinch the tweezers a little harder and dutifully pluck another hair from my baby’s ankle…

November 10 2014
I was in bed and heard two people outside my door talking about a job site. They both seemed like authority figures from my job. The one said to me . Can you get up now? I said yes sure and hopped out of bed. Then they said that I wouldn't be doing what I did yesterday, that I would be helping the laborers. Next thing I know I have what seems like a bunch of produce, bags of carrots tomatoes and other things and I'm in a grocery store. I see my mom and sister and a few dcs near a shopping carts and I took an item out of the cart and asked my mother where TL put it. I walked over to the isle and saw shawna Williams ( girl i know) sittin by the produce section and when i put back the carrots she said sorry. Now Ive jumped to another location and I'm at the beach. I have a backpack, towel and some sort of book. I was in the water and saw james hetfield from Metallica standing on a platform going crazy either throwing people of f of it or killing them. Eventually he was starting to make his way back in there were a few people around him. I got back to the top of the beach and began to walk up one of the paths to wherever. I walked by my belongings. I stopped and went back. My stuff was covered in sand. There was also a statue that said Randall Cobb(a player on my fantasy football team) on it. I then put my belongings in the bag and a voice was telling me that my objects were holy and that this was a holy area since they had been blessed by god. I said ya ur right...I'm an idiot for not becoming lucid during this one haha. The dream ended. dream and learn i guess.

So after a WBTB I found myself in a field where people were stretching like a girls soccer match or something. I had assured myself i was going to be dreaming before i fell back asleep and without even doing an RC became lucid. I immediately looked at my feet to stabalize for a few good seconds. I looked up and looked around and put my arms out while stretching and taking a deep breath. A coach DC was too my right but i quickly stopped paying him any attention and turned my focus to flying. My first lucid dream ever i Flew without any problems at all, and i flew for a while too. But this time i started lifting off, my vision got all fuzzy and i woke up.

Another dream sequence I was sitting at a table with a few dcs and it seemed like we were at a company meeting. This old guy said a few words and then we continued on doing whatever. All of a sudden I think there was a thump and the old guy that I guess was the boss hit the floor. As soon as that happened everyone began singing the Star-Spangled Banner, in unison.

my last dream of the night was in a casino setting but i cant recall too many details. Pardon any spelling errors i did this all half awake

Traversing a rocky landscape with a friend, we descend a slope, scramble past some boulders and find a massive hole. Hundreds of feet wide, it has no apparent bottom. My friend urges me to taka closer look to see how deep it is. Nearly slipping on the steep rocks in the dark, I amble my way closer until I am right near the edge. With a flashlight, I attempt to light it up to get a sense of its size, but this doesn't work. I step even closer, dangerously close to the edge, and risk my life to look forward inside.

Far down below, what seems like a mile, I see Buddha Avalokiteshvara run past, glowing with radiant white light. Wishing to be closer to Buddha, I jump into the massive hole. Landing on the bottom, it is a labyrinth of cave tunnels, filled with demon beasts. Most of them are asleep, but those immediately next to me are awakened by my mere presence. I run before they fully awake, but the caves are thick with demons, hardly even a gap to step my foot. I know Avalokiteshvara is in here somewhere so I call out his name continually as I run, waking up a massive horde of beasts, just at my heels now.

I reach a large chamber and am spontaneously armed with a gun. I shoot many of these demons and free up some space, but countless more keep coming. I shoot to keep them at bay rather than to kill, partly out of compassion, and partly to save ammo and time. Even so, my situation starts to look hopeless as I am losing ground against them, even as I run and shoot like the best gunman who ever lived.

My meditation teacher appears around the corner where I expected to find Avalokiteshvara, and at the same time as daylight quickly dawns. He is operating a flying robot, built by google, using facial recognition software, motion sensors, and laser cannons. This machine easily obliterates all the hostile creatures in an instant. I only notice it now mopping up the few stragglers who run at us from around the corners. Really confused by all this, I notice that I feel more peaceful now that I'm not running for my life. But those demons... Were they living beings or just personifications of something abstract?

Guiding someone along a path, I send them around a river as I navigate the rocks and earth in the middle wearing waterproof boots. I slip and fall in the icy water up to my waist, feeling the water get in my boots. Happy they are dry, I ignore the accident and we move on. Reaching an adorable old city made from red stones, we take a break to eat. Many meditators are also relaxing here for a lunch break, having a good time together.

A woman tells us all that it's time to go back for the next meditation, and we all get up and start walking along the road. I follow them this time rather than taking the cold river pass.

Suddenly, I am somewhere else almost like a time traveler, but without the continuity, rather a gradual fading out and back in. I think it would be nice to go back to that town from earlier, and set out down the road toward it, this time in the evening. I find myself on a longboard, and enjoy the ease of travel along the flat road. As I approach the town, I see it is now fenced off, and a van is parked just inside a chain link gate. I roll closer and some people see me. They are doing something that would upset others and cause trouble if more people knew about it. To protect themselves, they try to kill me in case I might tell someone.

Quickly turning around, I kick off fast and tuck into a speedy position on the board. Despite going uphill now, I manage to gain speed just through willpower as I outrun those guys in their van. I turn down a dark road, and lose them. Hopefully for good. A guy approaches me as I am looking at dark places to hide along the road - in a tree, next to a fence, etc; and he tells me there is a key to the car right underneath it, and points to a car in a nearby parking lot.

Dream
Lucidity

I was in an apartment complex talking to people I recognized. I moved around the area a lot, seeing some man-made ponds of water. I entered a building and saw a girl and asked when she was moving in, "In a few weeks" she replied. I looked at my watch, which showed the time 38:38. I wondered if I was dreaming and looked around. I asked the girl I was talking to "Hey, the time is 38:38, right?" She giggled and said "Sure?" which made me realize I was dreaming!
I flew up and around the cafeteria-looking area and had fun. I climbed to the roof of a place where food is cooked and as I scaled it, it broke, almost causing me to fall. I felt scared and the girls yelled out for me to be careful. I pulled myself up and decided to jump down. It was a pretty long fall but I reminded myself "This is a dream! Nothing can hurt me!" I jumped down the tall place I was standing on and when I landed, I felt a slight jolt of pain on my feet, which made me do a parkour roll. I ran on some walls and flew around, doing whatever came to mind as the area got more populated. Again, the thought of playing with water came to me.
I raised my right hand and tried to conjure an orb of water. Nothing. I wasn't going to give up in this dream. I ran and hovered over the floor, passing through people looking for any sort of water. I was in a college campus so I looked for a water fountain, eventually finding one outside. The water inside the water fountain was dirty and had mud, it wasn't clean so I flew away in search of another fountain with cleaner water. Again, I flew around and through people and found a water fountain that looked like the one in my apartment complex. There were many people sitting in tables talking to each other. I brought my right hand up and attempted to control the water in the fountain, but nothing happened. I stuck my hand in the water and as I brought it out, I noticed the water fly from my fingertips. I repeated this a few times and eventually said "I can control water like I control telekinesis!" I stuck my hand in the water and brought it out, again noticing the water come out of my fingertips. I had an idea: That's where the water will come out from.
I shifted the palm of my hand upward, pointed my fingers towards the sky, and expected water come out of my finger tips... It did! Blue water kept shooting upwards from my finger tips as I finally succeeded in controlling water. I yelled out "I did it!" and heard people starting to cheer. I decided to wake up into a false awakening.

Wake from an NLD. I lie still and wait to DEILD. Body begins to roll to the side, which signals beginning of REM sleep. I roll off of the mat and fall through space. Eyes flicker open somewhat, and I can see stars in a black sky. I accidentally open my WL eyes, though, because I can suddenly see light streaming in from beneath my sleep mask. I close them and wait for my "dream eyes" to open on their own. They do, and I see I am flying swiftly over a dark, deep purple ocean. The stars are still out. I can feel the wind on my face. Ahead of me, on the horizon, a white number one appears.

Memory is fuzzy here. Certain I did not lose consciousness, but unsure of how narrative unfolded entirely. I land down in the water, and there is some sort of game being played by a bunch of DCs. I try to persuade one of them that she is strong enough to lift me up and throw me out of the water. She says she is not. "Oh come on," I say. "Look at those triceps!" She laughs and tries to throw me. She just sort of pushed me out of the water. She says she can't. "But really," I say, "You can." I'm trying to get the dream to bend to my will a bit! She tries again (and throws me a bit higher) and reiterates that she can't do it.

I mess around for a bit more (can't remember what I was doing--interacting with DCs, asking questions and what not, and I specifically remember rubbing my hands to stabilize--and then it occurs to me to complete the tasks of the month. I think about what the tasks are, and remember the leaf task. I am in a back yard. I begin thinking I will materialize the leaves by pretending they are on the other side of a wooden fence. I say, "You're around this fence!" and run around the fence. I briefly see the outline of what looks like a pile of leaves, but then that pops out of existence. I try two more times, and nothing happens at all.

I run around for a bit, thinking I might find a pile of leaves somewhere. Nope. I then think to call for help on my phone, and pull it out of my pocket. I figure it will take too long to punch in the numbers though and toss it away. Instead, I head inside to get help from a DC.

Near me is a blond girl. She attempted to assist me earlier in the dream, but I rebuffed her because DCs are too unreliable. I now ask her if she knows where any leaves are. We go inside the house, and she nods and points to some storage boxes. One of them is black and I open it up. Inside there are only Christmas lights. "These are just Christmas lights," I say, and then get annoyed. This always happens. DCs always trick me and waste my time. I run out of the house. The DC runs after me, trying to get me to come back. I ignore her. Looking around, I see a bunch of leaves lying around on the grass. I think I might be able to rake them up, but then pull an Ophelia and scoop some up in my arms. Some of them are crackly, but others are rotten and gross. I make a very small pile. I look at it and decide I'm not jumping in that.

I try to think of the other basic. Oh yeah, tell a kid they are dreaming. I am on a path in the woods, and a jogger is coming towards me. She is a kid, maybe like a high school student, but I check just to be sure:

"How old are you?" I ask.

She stops running and faces me. "16."

"You're dreaming!" I say.

"If you don't shut up, I'm going to hit you," she says.

I back off, and she continues jogging.

I continue on the path until I find a small cabin/mobile home (don't ask) in the woods. Inside are some DCs. More conversation that I can't remember. However, I hear voices up inside a treehouse-like loft. They are discussing someone messing up their abilities to dream. I ascend the wooden ladder up, and see two people I know semi-well from WL. However, I understand that they are DCs and not their real selves. They are crouched over a dream journal. When they see me enter the room, the girl (it's a girl and a guy) moves to cover up the DJ so I can't read it.

"It's just me," I say. "The dreamer." They are smiling now in a mocking way. I sort of lose it here, and demand to know "why you guys (meaning DCs in general) always tease me?"

"Because we can," the girl responds.

"But lots of dreamers get help from their DCs. They teach them fun things like how to fly. You guys always try to trick me."

The girl now laughs and says, "You can't even fly."

I get mad and grab the guy in my fist. He instantly turns into a small, faceless rag doll. The transition was seamless and sort of shocked me. The girl disappeared altogether. I fling the doll down on the ground and leave.

Back in the house, I remember the advanced task--cut off your hand and serve it up for Thanksgiving dinner. I look around and see a half-eaten plate of food: there is some cornbread there and some other stuff I don't remember. I realize that if I hadn't scared the DCs away I could have served them my hand. I leave and begin running back to the first house (where I tried to complete the leaf task.

Once inside the original kitchen, I approach the block of knives. They all appear to be light, serrated blades, and I am not keen on sawing through my wrist. I am hoping for a cleaver, and find a small one, but it is not heavy enough. I finally settle on a knife that probably does not exist in WL, but resembles a butcher knife. I RC to make sure I am dreaming. I then (to be honest, fearing the pain) test the knife by slicing into my index finger. I don't feel anything, and think maybe I missed (lol). However, a line appear on my finger, and I start bleeding. The dream quickly fades and I wake up.

I put a seed and water in a glass cologne bottle with a curve that turned downwards near the top, then held the bottle between my hands. The plant grew; I made it grow, then I asked my Father to open the top and he did. The plant grew outside the bottle.

Gee, It reminds me of the Bible Mustard Seed Verse.

I watched 5 episodes of a Russian sitcom yesterday, so it seeped into my dreams.

I was exploring the town of Hornchurch with my friends. I decided to come back home by plane from Hornchurch Airport. Before I could leave, my girlfriend Palna went missing as soon as she texted me that she was working there. So a guy in glasses sensed that she went missing so he helped me to find her.

Apparently, she was just hiding in a cafe from a guy called Igor because one of her friends rang a bell as a prank. I bought some pastries and coffee in the cafe and we headed for the airport.

When we went to the plane, it magically turned into a bus and decided to give us a tour of Essex "while we were there." It first went to Grange Hill and a group of fake tanned girls chased the bus at amazing speed. It was only when the driver confused them by making a U turn when we were able to escape.

Next, we went to Barking and the bus stopped there. "You know, I think you all can just take the train from there", said the bus driver. Then I woke up.

I switched viewpoints several times in the dream: I was the guy in glasses, the guy who rang the bell, the driver and even Palna. Palna and Igor are both from the Deffchonki sitcom that I watched last night. Here's how Palna looks like:

Finally had a lucid dream after WILDing! It was short though, but I did it

The "tornado" dream was the lucid dream. The horsebackriding dream was non-lucid, but it was kinda fun anyway.
__________________________________________________ _____________________________________

1: I walked on a footpath, in a housing development. Everything was blurry, so immediate I rubbed my hands and shouted: "Clarity now!". I was aware all the time, and decided to try flying. I just jumped, and didn't focus on the ground. The only thing I was thinking, was the air. Well, it worked. I tried flying like Superman and just flied into a different dream scene. I landed on a beach, and suddenly there was some other persons in my dream. DC's.
Something wasn't right, because I heard some loud sounds from the sea. And then I saw it - a giant tornado was coming (saw the "Into the Storm" movie last night, haha, I think that's the reason).
But i had superpowers, so that was no problemo haha
I simply raised my hands, and wanted the tornado to disappear. And, yep, it did. Then, I jumped high in the air and into another dream..


2: I was with a friend, she said that she had to go to her riding lesson. We went there together, and I sat playing audience.
But, she didn't ride on a horse. She rode a white, small, fast goat, and jumped around the area. It was kind of funny to watch, because she fell of the goat and the goat just ran around.

3: Had a nightmare too, but I can't remember the details. All I can remember, is that I ran from someone in a dark forest.

Standing in the street with a bunch of friends, we are all going to a skate park of sorts, but it is far away. They suggest I levitate to make the trip easier. I'm jump up in the air, and lay horizontally, levitating above the ground and slowly moving forwards through the air. I ask them how to go faster because I could walk this fast normally. One of my friends shows me that I can bang my fists together while holding them out in front of me to go faster. It works, but I only go a little faster. I keep doing it, and keep increasing speed, but only slightly.

A large crowd of people are walking in the street, and start tugging on me as I float past them. I think maybe they're jealous, so I stop levitating, and walk with them so they don't feel bad. They settle down when I do this, and we all walk together toward the skate park.

When we get there, it turns into a snow/ice version of a skate park, and I am on a snowboard. People look at me, expecting some fancy tricks. I realize I'm dreaming, and this seems fun, so I drop into a big half pipe type thing on my snow board.

Suddenly, the dream is in 3rd person, as I watch myself doing tricks. But physically, I feel myself doing all of it with first person tactile sensations. I manage to do lots of spins and flips in this way, and people are happy with the performance. I also retain a physical sense of observing all this from about 30 feet away, standing on the packed snow. I go full tilt with spinning super fast, and doing every twist and rotation physically possible.

Now the audience becomes loads of Buddhist monks and nuns, who all look at me at once and tell me it would be a good time to wake up now. I recognize that it's up to me, but I trust them, so I concentrate my mind on waking up. I feel a peaceful tingling, kind of dull and soft, as the dream fades back into my subtle mind, and my waking sense of my body in the dark room gradually exists again in my awareness.

About 30 seconds later, I get out of bed, and walk over to the desk to check the time on my phone. As soon as I pick up my phone, the alarm starts to go off, and I silence it before it wakes my room mates :-)

Being chased by super-human bad guys, I feel like I'm in the matrix. Running full tilt to get away, I turn a corner and end up in the street, with a hummer right in front of me. Without breaking stride, I dive forward through the air like superman, and smash through the windshield of the hummer, landing in the passenger seat right on top of a baby in a child seat, next to its mother.

Realizing that the agents can take over the mother's body in her spot if she is too startled, I lovingly move her baby to the other seat, and give her a reassuring look. Then I help her into the seat next to her baby, and take the wheel, driving very quickly to try to escape.

I've not posted here in quite a while! It's quite pathetic!

So I've been having terrible dream recall lately, so I decided to pull out all the stops, do everything I can to improve it.
Detailed dream journals, reality checks, improving awareness (which is pretty hard for me), and reading loads about lucid dreaming.

Not to mention reading all my old dream journals on here from back in the day!


So I decided to try Wake Back to Bed seriously for the first time ever. I had to make my own alarm clock program for this
I think this was pretty good for a first try

(note: there's a few swear words as this was right out of my dropbox dream journal)

non-dream
dream
lucid
-----------------------------
This is around 2:45 or so.


Dream 0:
???
I barely remember this.
I woke up, and the countdown clock said it had only been an hour.
I hear dad getting up, and going to the bathroom.
I lay there, trying SSILD. I try to do cycles but my mind wanders very quickly. I desperately try to keep on track but it's very hard.
I eventually hear bumping from the bedroom, which almost jumpscares me, but I lay there doing cycles, or at least attempting them.

I eventually fall asleep.


--------------

Dream 1:
So I'm in a car, going down a street. It's twilight out, the sky is really dark but you can still see the sun for some reason. You can see a bunch of woods, and a few farms from the road. I come to a rather drawn out turn, and I pull into this circular building.
I get out and walk into a bathroom. It's incredibly nasty in here, with at least one hobo in the bathroom as I walk in. The lighting is very yellow. The walls are mostly made out of tiles. I go into one of the stalls, but then walk out as it was nasty. I then see another hobo in the middle of the bathroom, shitting on the floor! WTF! So I bolt out of there as fast as I can. I then wake up.

I open up my laptop, and my countdown clock says it's been 3 hours since I fell asleep.
I try SSILD again, but it's very hard to keep focus. I eventually fall asleep.

--------------

Dream 2:
I'm in a blueish green field. There's lots of trees around and it's day time.
I see a monstrous bird under a tree, and I go near it. All of a sudden a DC comes and yanks me back, telling me not to go there!

He tells me about those birds.
They're cranes of some sort (forgot the name) that grow to 8 feet tall usually.
Males are larger than females, and have ornate colors below their necks. Females are just gray.
Their bodies are more vertical that most cranes. (similar to Praricrane?)

He tells me, that their eyes get radio active lasers before they're large enough to carry someone.
I then wake up.

I once again look at my laptop and it says I have less that 12 minutes to the alarm!
So I open notepad, type "6-33 12-19", then close the clock. I then lay back down.

This time I SSILD more seriously, and eventually become numb. Almost as if I'm hovering in the air. I then fall asleep.


-----------------------

Dream 3:
So I am in some huge thrift store. The walls are gray and there's some green plants on the walls. So I'm looking around and on the shelves I see some old gameboys! I see what looks like a gameboy color (with batteries!) which I pick up, and then I see what looks like a gameboy DMG but is a lot thinner and a bit taller. The screen is rather small and a very light green.

So I grab these, and then I turn on the GBC and I see the GBC bios, along with some garbled text near the bottom. :ding: So I look where the game is, and I see no game!
I then pocket the gameboys, and I look around some more.

Next thing I know I'm in the 22nd century, talking with DCs about bone implants and shit. It's my house, and it looks more or less just like my house, but there are floating platforms everywhere. So I get on one, and I think about those implants. So there's some kind of race to get one of those. So we run around the back yard (the tree is there), and eventually it's night time, and I have one of those. Not in me, but I have one. I go back on one of those floating platforms. It's night now, there's lots of bright stars and the sky is a deep blue.

So I now have a CD with me, along with some white music player with me. I don't play the music, instead just laying on the floating platform. I then get up, and go into the fort. Some DC comes with me, and starts talking about gay stuff. I walk into the top level of the fort, which looks like it was made out of netherrack.

So I'm sitting there, and all of a sudden I start mining the netherrack down with my invisible pickaxe. Once it's more or less gone, I go to the corner of my house, and there's a bunch of tables there. There, some DCs are making a gameboy demo. I take the cart and put it in the unreal gameboy and turn it on. I then hear deep tones, and music, while seeing some flying ships on the gameboy screen.

For some reason this made me run around the back yard frantically!
I eventaully get back to the hovering platforms, and I switch dreams.


---------------------

Dream 4:
So I am in this circular room, styled very similarly to the fire sanctuary. The room is open to the sky, though there was a metal grating on the top.

Ghirahim is in here as well. I have the spinner from twilight princess, and I am just messing around. I'm running into all these pillars that are in here, but I can't hit him. I eventually slow down, and I am right in front of him. I inch my way forward, and I start getting the spinner in him. The square protrusions just clip through his legs!

So I get off the spinner, and I start noclipping around. I noclip inside him, and turn off noclip. He all of a sudden juts back, as if he was hurt by that. He has a sad look on his face. He runs into this teleporter in the huge pillar thats in the middle of the room, and the door opens.

So I go through the door and I come out to a rather brown room, similar to the ending areas from the first skyward sword dungeons, but more designs around this area.
There's water everywhere, and a red metal path towards this structure that looks, almost like a slide. It had two openings near the bottom that when you walk through, you're teleported away similar to other zelda games.

I didn't walk through them, instead I noclipped around, and went onto the top of the waterfall. The water has no collision up there!

I try to slide off, but I can't and end up falling down to the floor.
I eventually wake up from here.

I wake up and it's noon! How did I sleep that long?

Either way, then begins loooooong process of dream recall followed by DJing all these.

My dream started with me waking up in my apartment, it was still very dark outside so I go to turn on the light, but none of the lights in my apartment work, further more no lights anywhere are working, but the power is not out, my computer is running but there's no light coming from the screen, no moon light, nothing, just darkness. I try to light a few candles but when they burn there is no flame, just that blue dim ember burning appearance, nothing that i light will produce a full flame...


If anyone can help me with the meaning of this I'd appreciate it.

I really want to know what my dream meant. Any help is thanked.

I started in the backyard of a house i used to live in when i was a kid with my mopm and siblings.

I walked in and the house was empty, except there were plants growing all along the walls and out of the ground. There were many different colors and they were all bright. Also, everything besides the plants were white. White floors, walls, cabinets, stairs, doors, everything. No furniture.

I walked upstairs because I wanted to know what else was in my old house.

All of the rooms were empty except for the plants. When i reached the attic door (which was brown) it started shaking violently, but there was a lock on my side of the door. My first reaction was "f*** that"
so i started walking downstairs. Then someone knocked on the door, so I answered it. It was a man that told me to check the attic. He closed the door and I decided to open it.

I unlocked the door (there was no key, just a chain-hook thing) and I went upstairs.

All white, just like downstairs, but there was a bed in one room (there were two) that had a woman lying on it. Except she was levitating over it and she looked like a skeleton in robes. All black. I went to her and i started choking her. Then i woke up.

P.s. I didnt go into the basement.

Standing on the roof of an impossibly tall and beautiful glass building, a city of green and glass stretches around us in all directions as far as the eye can see. The sun is setting just slightly to the left, reflecting orange off the glass city and bathing everything in a surreal light.

I’ve recently started work as an assistant to a big shot CEO. My partner in the job is a young man with wavy auburn curls and a genuine smile. I like him already. Standing before the railing a few feet in front of us, Big Shot gives me and the young man a stern talk about maintaining a status quo of outstanding work, all the while, looking out at the city and the setting sun. The only view we get is of his back. He has a nice pinstriped suit, and his hair is well gelled. I don’t hear much of what he’s saying because I’m trying to remember what his name is; Steven? Stefan? I can’t remember.

Big Shot finishes his talk and takes his leave. The muted click of the door as he exits emphasizes the silence between the young man and me, now alone on the roof. Mason is his name, I think, and as I try to remember his surname said young man steps forward to look out at the city from the edge of the railing where Big Shot stood only moments before. Turning back to catch my attention, he gestures out toward the sea of orange glass.

“Isn’t it strange to think that we don’t know how old these buildings are, even though we use them every day?” he shakes his head in amazement and returns his gaze to the golden city.

I know how old these building are, but I choose to let his question hang in the air. All our history was lost when the internet crashed in the early 21st century, so no one can know I came from 2014 or I would never hear the end of it. Besides, life is better in this future. There’s no need to remember the damaged past.

Before he left, Big Shot told Mason and me we had some chores to take care of. After another few minutes on the roof, we figure it’s time to get started and make our way toward the stairs. Behind us, the sun disappears below the skyline and the roof access door slides shut with a muted click.