Sierra City Vacation
Day 4 - August 21, 2002

The cat-creature from Red Dwarf is hanging out in a bar. Actually it's not the Cat, it's only the same actor, Danny John-Jules. He's playing a different part in this dream. Hence the additional makeup, turning his head into a wrinkled lump like a rotten apple, with an extra row of teeth studded across his face like a shark turned inside-out. Despite his gnarled appearance, his eyes gleam, and his humor is healthy.

I sit down at his table, on the opposite bench. Suddenly I have a gigantic stein of beer in my hand. So does my friend. "Sure, we can wake up the kid, if you really want to," he says, leaning his weird head in close to mine. "But he doesn't like being disturbed, you know."

"I don't care. We really need him now," I say, brusquely.

He puts down his beer and gets up from the table. "Okaay... But if he's cranky, I'm blaming you!" He grins. I'm not sure how I can tell.

I stand up and follow him out of the dank bar. Oustide, we meet a huge centaur fellow, with a longbow and a bucket of arrows slung across his back. The three of us walk across town in the moonlight, and come to a terraced building with metal stairs spiraling up around it. The stairs vibrate under the weight of our centaur friend, but the three of us climb anyway, circling the four corners of the building twice, arriving at the last door on the uppermost landing.

Danny tiptoes up to the door and raps his knuckles on it. He waits, and knocks again, louder. The lock rattles, and a black gap appears in the doorway. Halfway up is the sleepy face of a ten-year-old boy.

"What?" he says.

"We need you for a quest," says Danny. "Actually it was his idea." He jerks his head back at me.

The kid recognizes me. He nods, knowing that I wouldn't disturb him unless it was important, and disappears back into the apartment to dress and gather his things.

I am in a large, domed, firelit chamber. The huge room is empty except for a table and two chairs. I sit in one chair, and the proprietor of the fancy hotel sits on the other. She is a middle-aged woman in casual clothes, like my previous boss except older. Her face is lined at the brow and cheekbones, giving an appearance of many hours spent in concentrated thought. Stern, but fair. Her long hair is brushed back behind her shoulders.

The huge centaur man is standing at the table, across from me. He caught me trying to escape without paying for my food, and brought me to the woman's office when he discovered what I was carrying. My backpack is on the table. Silently, he reaches in and pulls out a single sheet of music.

"I see." says the woman, staring at it.

This sheet music is the only copy of the debut performance that her in-house orchestra is set to perform tomorrow. Without it, they would be helpless, and the gala dinner that the boss is planning would be a disaster. Was I out to ruin her business?

The centaur man reaches into my backpack again, and spills a wad of cash into the table. Fifty-five dollars and fifty-seven cents. The cost of my meal, down to the penny.

"Ah, see?" I say. "You can trust me after all."

Odd that I would carry the exact amount. The boss pauses, thinking about this. Then she dismisses the centaur from the room. When he is out of earshot, I turn to face the boss.

"Why did you steal this?" she says, pointing at the music.

"So that the centaur would see exactly what I wanted him to see," I calmly reply. "But you need to see something else."

I stand up, pushing the chair back, and walk to the corner of the room. Suddenly the sloping roof is gone. We are on a flat round mesa, in the center of a mountain range at night. The fireplace still stands at the edge of the mesa, illuminating it's grey surface with yellow light.

The woman stands up, still near the table. I speak to her from the edge of the mesa.

"I am a very powerful being, of a kind you do not know. An evil force is gathering in this land, and I am determined to stop it. I need you to help me by spying on your visitors, and reporting what you see. You don't need to tell me everything, just what you think is important. In time, that will become obvious."

I'm suddenly aware that I am making a speech to an inanimate object. The woman has vanished, and been replaced with a small, stiff voodoo-doll, propped on a stick a few feet from the fire. I am explaining myself to empty air. To myself, perhaps. Justifying my own actions in my dream.

Troubled by these thoughts, I hunch over, lean out over the cliff, and jump. Concentrating, I fling my arms out, and begin to change shape. I fly off over the mountains, as a giant eagle.

Aerobraking with precise jerks of my wingtips, I stretch my legs out and land gracefully on the cobblestones of a crowded town square. People part around me, wishing to avoid the claw-range of a five-foot-tall eagle. I fold my wings, concentrate, and become human again. The crowd encircling me is terrified beyond speech.

I produce a small paintbrush from my robe, and stride around the town square, painting red marks onto everything. Most people leap to get out of my way. As I sweep the brush across an object, a word appears, glowing white, which only I can see.

I paint it across the sweaty forehead of a beggar, staring up at me in confusion. The word "Foreign" glows above his eyebrows. I swipe it across a mustachioed shopkeeper, standing in a white tunic with his arms on his hips. "Foreign" it says. I draw the brush across the cantaloupes in his cart. The red marks are intense, but no white words appear.

I mark the head of a large wolf-like dog, panting on a bench against the wall. "Familiar" glows from it. I reach out and grab the scruff of his neck, pulling him roughly to my side. The dog stands up, and walks obediently along as I stroll up the crowded road. Now that I have the dog, the townspeople are no longer staring at me. I am blended seamlessly into the throng, and can go where I please.

I walk further up the street, and encounter a large stone stairway. The dog and I climb it to a broad avenue between a collection of imposing grey buildings, all very clean in contrast to the grimy city below. Farther along this avenue, at an intersection, a parade is underway. Colored streamers and bright paper lanterns hang from the archways, and ribbons cascade down the thick columns between. Well-dressed people are milling about, chattering. Occasionally they cheer or break into applause.

With the dog still near, I elbow my way to the head of the crowd, and then step casually into the parade. No one appears to notice. I walk along, next to a large man beating a drum slung around his waist. After a few hundred yards, I pass a narrow alleyway, and slip into it. As I examine the walls, the dog sits down, grinning and panting.

Shelves are carved into the high stone walls. Lined up along the shelves, each oriented exactly the same way, are thousands upon thousands of bananas.

I whip out the paintbrush and touch it to the nearest banana, then begin to walk, drawing a stripe across the entire shelf. A red mark appears on each banana. Just as I am about to reach the dead-end of the alley, I stop and look back. One of the bananas did not show a mark.

I turn back and look at it. Sure enough, no mark. All the bananas before and after have red paint on them. I reach out and draw the brush across the one banana again. No mark. I squiggle the brush all over it. No paint appears.

I put away the paintbrush and pick up the banana, then sit down on the bench that runs the length of the alley. Carefully I peel the banana, then break it in half, and stuff half of it into my mouth.

Yup, it's a banana. Good one, too. I swallow it and regard the other half, still poking out of the peel. I grab it and place it in my mouth, chewing much more carefully this time. Near the end of the banana, my teeth encounter some hard objects.

Using my tongue I separate them from the rest of the banana, which I swallow. I then spit the objects into my hand and clean them off with the corner of my robe.

In my hand are three rings. One is small and nondescript iron. One is large and has a creepy-looking jewel like a cat's eye. One is a large brass ring, like the kind you'd grab for while riding a carousel.

The cat's eye ring is the One Ring, of Tolkien fame. To me, however, it is worthless. I stuff it in my pocket. The brass ring I throw away. It pings on the cobbles, and rolls to the end of the alley. The small iron ring I slip on my finger. My hand vanishes. I stand up. I am entirely invisible, except for a subtle wrinkling of the air.

I walk out into the parade and elbow my way to the head, just as it stops in front of a raised double-throne under a canopy at the end of the street. The Barbarian King is there, a horribly cliche fantasy hero dressed in furs, with no shirt on. He is leaning over the shared arm of his throne to the other seat, a wider, padded one on which Xena the Freakin' Warrior Princess is lounging. She is smiling enigmatically at her soon-to-be-husband. This is their wedding ceremony. He is about to take her hand and make a speech.

I tiptoe up the steps of the throne, invisible to everyone. From the Barbarian King's furred pants is hanging a small gold key, on a ribbon. I reach out and cautiously pull the knot of the ribbon, freeing the key, which becomes invisible as I grasp it. The Barbarian King stiffens momentarily, as if he is aware something is up, but he continues his speech.

I pocket the key and leap into the air, morphing into the eagle. My wings beat a momentary wind down on the crowd, but I am still invisible. Besides, everyone is ogling Xena and her groom.

I sail across the town, heading straight for a large square building with no windows, and vertical stripes of metal running up it's sides. I have to act quickly now, if I want to succeed. I dive down to the building, turning upward at the last moment and settling on my feet. As I complete my morphing, the power of the invisibility ring wears out.

Before me is a huge ornate iron door, with no handle, set in a very solid polished metal frame. In the center of the door is a small keyhole. I pull the key from my pocket and jam in into the keyhole, twist it, and immediately press a round button disguised in the decorations on the side of the doorframe.

I yank at the key, pulling the door open, and shoot electricity with the fingers of my free hand at a metal strip on the wall, destroying the mechanism that is supposed to fry me upon crossing the threshold. I switch hands on the key, yank again, and draw a sword with my other hand. I make a quick swipe and cut the trunk of a rapidly-growing carnivorous plant, that was intended to grow over the doorway.

I jump slightly, and concentrate, and instead of landing, my feet hover an inch above the ground on a cushion of air. Floating in this manner, I let go of the key and slip around the door, into the building. All the magical traps built into the floor of this place are now useless.

I storm across the huge square chamber that is the inside of the building, over to a stairway cut into the floor, leading sharply down. Fat green worms writhe on the rough stones all around me, but I shoot more electricity, which jumps from worm to worm and fries them all.

Down the stairs is a many-chambered hallway, leading forward into the gloom. Rotten banners hang at regular intervals. As I jog down the passage, long-decayed guards shamble out of antechambers, disoriented from sleep and surprised at my quick invasion. The grey metal sword is still in my left hand, but I merely run past the zombies. They are just minor distractions.

At the end of the hall I find a T-junction, with wide stairs leading up to the right and left. I turn left without hesitation, and take the steps two at a time. At the top I emerge into another large stone room, this one with high crenelated windows, locked and shuttered with ornate patterns letting meager sunlight through the rusty metal. It's another guard chamber, and beyond it some kind of living space in the next room. More guards approach, their dried brown flesh sucked in close to their bones. These skeletal figures are more alert than their zombie friends below.

I swing out, left-handed, at the nearest guard, cutting him in half at the narrow waist. He clatters to the floor and I switch hands, bringing the sword down to parry a second guard. I bring the blade around on the upswing and take off his head, then loosen my grip in the blade so I'm holding it backwards, and stab forward into the chest of a third. I stride forward, driving the guard before me, and heave him off so he collides with another. With a reverse yank I retrieve my sword before he goes down.

In this manner I carve my way through five or six more guards, killing them casually, not really paying attention, as my eyes are usually on the room beyond. I finally step into it, kicking behind me with one heel to behead the final guard, and put away my sword. Far behind me, I can hear the rapid echo of many bootheels running on stone. The Barbarian King is already in pursuit. He must be cursing me right now, since I stole his key at the one time in his whole life that he couldn't just jump up and give chase. If he had disrupted his wedding to Xena, she would have hated him forever. He really does want this marriage to work.

The windows are larger here, and look out over the town. From outside, this is probably just one of a hundred indistinguishable grey towers. An old Persian rug is just under my feet. I concentrate again, and touch down on it, no longer floating. There is a disused four-post bed against the left wall, a bedside table, and a thickly-polished dresser on the wall ahead. Against the right wall is a large sturdy desk, and beyond it an equally large table next to a window of thick grainy glass. Between the desk and the table, at the midpoint of the wall, stands a grandfather clock.

It's just like the clock that used to stand in my grandmother's house. Behind the tall narrow window on the trunk, a brass pendulum swings slowly in front of two hefty cylindrical weights, each on a brass chain. The face is marked with slim, black roman numerals and two iron-filigree hands. Above it, rocking in time with the pendulum, an iron plate painted as a Spanish galleon rides a painted iron sea. It's feathery white sails are taut, and it's dark prow appears to shine when it rears up from the foaming blue waves. The ship and the clock face move endlessly behind a slim glass door.

I can't hear the ticking above the noise of approaching footsteps, but I know it's there. The object I seek is inside the clock. I pad over the carpet to the clock, and open the large glass door in front of the pendulum. Taking a deep breath, I steady myself for a second, then reach in with one hand and grasp the pendulum, halting it mid-swing.

The whole world jerks around me, to a descending series of crackling explosions, each lower and louder than the previous one. The pendulum seems to writhe like a snake in my fist. The room balloons in and out before my eyes, pulsing in rings around the clock face. A hurricane of screaming wind assaults my ears. I concentrate on standing still and upright, my sense of balance reeling.

The clock convulses, and explodes. Fragments of wood and shards of glass cascade into the room, some at deadly speed, some turning lazily in the air with drugged slowness. The pendulum vanishes entirely, and my outstretched fist is holding nothing. In the chaos I observe a glowing sphere, hovering at eye level just where the face of the clock had been. It's about the size of my hand, bright green, and pulsing regularly. Wasting no time, I grab it and shove it roughly into the pocket of my robe, then turn towards the window, just as the Barbarian King and his royal enforcers spill out into the other room.

I put my elbow over my eyes, hunch over, and run straight at the thick glass. I dive and smash through it, letting my clothed arm take most of the blow. As I hurtle through the open air, I shut my eyes and concentrate. My arms become wings. My legs shrink. I turn into the giant eagle again.

Out across the city I make my escape, leaving the Barbarian King behind to fume. I glide over tightly-packed buildings with a maze of narrow alleys cut around them, all dirty glass, grey cobbles, and brown trim. Eventually the buildings become larger, the structures more urban. Workshops and guild halls appear, around wider streets.

I crest a hill and am gliding over another open square, this one with a raised platform at one end, on wide round steps. A troop of acolytes is packed close on the steps, each figure identical in a cowled grey robe. They are watching a half-man, half-buzzard creature perform some miracle on the platform, involving an altar, hot coals, and animal sacrifice. Nearby is an impossibly rusty limousine, it's windows covered in soot, it's engine idling very badly. The self-important buzzard-man's ride, apparently.

I can't resist. I strike out with a lightning bolt from my wingtip, and knock the buzzard-man backward off the platform, frying and killing him. The acolytes break into frenzied shouting. What has gone wrong? What sort of miracle is this?! Their shouts crescendo into a riot as I fly over the wall at the end of the square, leaving them behind.

A large four-story building looms ahead of me. The windows in this building are clear-glass, well engineered. Big swarthy men in leather are toiling at machines in this building, each facing the street. All have identical bald heads and long droopy mustaches, just like the shopkeeper with the cantaloupes. They are preparing for war.

Beyond this building is another one, again mostly glass, brimming with green plants and laboratory equipment. Dark, gnarled little men scamper about inside this one, researching magic.

I pass another building, and another. Each time it's a new creature, performing a new task. Each time there are hundreds, all identical in form and dress. They all move with purpose.

The buildings taper off, and the town ends. The soil turns black, and I find myself flying over a wasteland cracked with burning lines of fire. A volcano spews thick ash into the sky, turning it dark.

I fly in a wide arc, reorienting myself, and begin the journey to the north, and my next task.

Then, I wake up.

I lie awake for a while, cementing the dream in my mind, carefully following the memories and rehearsing them, so the morning doesn't tear them apart before I get a chance to write them down. I have to write this one down, it's just too detailed.

When I dress and emerge from the tent, the high angle of the sunlight informs me that it's much later in the day than I was hoping for. I've definitely missed breakfast, and it's probably too late to go on the big Upper Sardine hike. With my poor sleep of yesterday, it makes sense that my body would demand extra hours today.

I look around for Zeugma and Torrey, and spot them seated down by the river in folding chairs, reading books with towels draped over their heads to avoid sunburn. From the utensils on the picnic table, I deduce that they made pancakes quite a while ago. Yeah, pancakes would be good -- but right now I'm too lazy. I root around in the food box, and eat a random breakfast: Cereal, a powerbar, and the rest of a cucumber. I munch quietly at the table, as images from my dream occasionally bust out, like laundry from an overstuffed suitcase. I should start writing immediately.

As I'm tapping away on the laptop in the car, Zeugma walks up to say hello. He agrees with me that it's too late in the day for a big hike, but perhaps we could go up the river a ways later on? Sounds good, but first I have to finish this dream, or I'm not going to enjoy the hike.

The typing drags on, and on. Finally I finish, with just enough warmth in the day for a hike. Zeugma and Torrey and I march down to the river, then walk carefully over a downed tree to the opposite bank, and follow the shore.

We arrive at the water processing station, and reach a vague consensus that this is far enough. My friends don't seem particularly interested in the hike, actually, and I don't really feel like taking off upriver by myself. I did that route once already, this year. I hunker down by the water's edge and shove the rocks here and there, industriously creating a dry bridge so I can hop over to the station.

This short hike has felt a little off-kilter, and I suddenly realize why. I'm a lot better at navigating the boulder-strewn shores of the river than my friends. Moving from the top of one rock to another feels almost like dancing, to me, and what has seemed like a casual jaunt to me has probably felt tedious and pointless to my fellow hikers. When you're nervous about overbalancing and breaking your head or your ankle with each new step, a hike upriver probably feels like a stupid idea, especially when there's a nice flat trail nearby that goes to most of the same places.

I finish my bridge, and hop across it even though I've already dunked my hiking boots in the creek while building the thing. Zeugma meets me at the shore, and we walk back together. Torrey has backtracked to the fallen log, and is ahead of us both. I ask Zeugma cautiously if Torrey is alright, wondering if perhaps she is frustrated with the hike, for the reasons I'd surmised. "Oh no, she's fine." says Zeugma. He appears to be enjoying himself, so I shrug inwardly and assume all is well. We re-cross the river, treating the chaotic scatter of dry stones like a puzzle to be solved.

I cook pancakes in style, with granola, meuslix, and chocolate chips. I stuff most of them in tupperware, as food for tomorrow. I'm definitely going on that hike tomorrow. The dream also needs a little touching up before I submit it to Zeugma for reading, so I take a few pancakes into the car, and set up the laptop again.

While I'm making various edits and fleshing things out, I look through the windshield and notice a middle-aged man wandering around the campsite in front of me. He walks up to the food box shared by this site and ours, and discovers our groceries in it. Then two kids, and two beagle dogs wander past the car, investigating everything.

"Damn, there goes our privacy" I think.

Well, if they're going to be our neighbors, I might as well establish a good tone. I save the dream and fold up the laptop. When I step out of the car, the man notices me for the first time. "Howdy," I say, before I can stop myself. Damn slang.

He's a plain-looking middle-aged man, not fat but not in-shape either. Something about him just radiates "Midstate Office Supply". "Are you guys leaving?" he asks, hopefully.

I find myself subconsciously searching his chest for a nametag. "Nope. Be here 'till Friday or Saturday."

"Ah. Oh well. I was wondering if we could park along your site, and get some of our stuff in here..."

My car and Zeugma and Torrey's car are parked side-by-side, occupying both spots of what is supposed to be a parking area shared by two adjacent campsites. He is asking if he can park in the spare area farther back, but he actually has a right to park where Zeugma and Torrey are. I inform him of this, and insist that we can move that car, so he can have his proper spot. He thanks me profusely and introduces himself.

"By the way, I'm Rich."

I shake his hand. "I'm Garrett."

"Nice to meet you, Gary."

Everyone does that. I don't mind it.

Torrey backs the car out, and drives around the loop. I walk over to the Bronco truck idling nearby, and see a grizzly old man, with muscular arms slouching out of a sleeveless black shirt. He's grinning sideways and showing a lot of sharp teeth, between which he's clamped a cigarette. He is unmistakably a 'character'.

"Back it on in," I say. I supress the urge to call him "Gramps."

"Hey, much obliged. Thanks fer takin' the trouble," he says.

"Oh that's alright. That parking space belongs to that campsite anyway."

"Oh really?" he says, his eyes just a bit too twinkly.

Something tells me that gramps has been here many times before.

While they're getting squared away, I wash the dishes. Zeugma and Torrey build a fire, and as night falls we roast marshmallows and talk about our new neighbors. The little girl is constantly grabbing at the two beagle dogs, whose names are Buddy and Nelly. Whenever they wander over to our campsite, sniffing around, she dashes up and apologizes, yanking the dog's leashes furiously, pulling them back into camp. "It's fine," we keep telling her. In her spare time she wanders around behind the dogs, chanting "Bud-dy, Nel-ly, Bud-dy, Nel-ly," in a lazy singsong voice.

"Funny how people will try to discipline a dog for being a dog," I say. "The dogs come up here, and one patch of dirt is just the same as any other, but they get yelled at for walking on some patches, and dragged back onto others. They must be so confused..."

"It's always the little girl who keeps reigning them in," observes Zeugma.

"Yeah, probably she's the lowest on the pecking order, right? All the other kids get to order her around, ... she gets the dogs."

"See, I was an only child. I never grew up with any of that," says Torrey. "It was always weird going over to other people's houses and having to do stuff like eat at the 'kids table'. I just couldn't understand it."

This triggers an interesting discussion about the relative merits of growing up in a large or small family, and we pass several hours in pleasant conversation as the fire crackles, and we immolate the occasional marshmallow over it.

Later in the evening, I notice that the moon is out, and full. Now would be an excellent time to take some night photos with the camera. I slip on a flannel, and my iPod for mood music, and wander off into the cool blue world. For the first few shots I lie on my back in the middle of the road, with the camera resting on my face, to capture the constellations. All those shots turn out grainy. In fact, most of the pictures turn out grainy, and most of the rest are blurred from my hand-held exposure. Eventually I get the idea to prop the camera on rocks before I take a shot, building little piles of rocks as necessary.

When I get back I transfer the pictures to the laptop. I'm impatient to review my work. Zeugma and Torrey come over to the car to check out the photos, then return to the warmth of the fire. I remain in the car for a bit, messing with light curves in Photoshop.

Rich walks up, out from the circle of propane lights and loud kids defining his campsite. He asks if I have a wireless internet connection from here.

"No, I don't," I say, laughing. "But I wish I did. I can't even get a good celphone signal in town. Now, if I had a satellite dish on the roof of the car, maybe ..."

He laughs his own laugh, a comfortable nerdy hiccoughing noise.

I grin back. "... but I'm sure the service charge would be astronimical."

"Yeah."

Hands stuffed in his bulbous jacket, he leans on one of the large grey rocks that border the parking space, and tells me about his family. He's a widower, and he met his current girlfriend in an AOL chat room five-and-a-half years ago, and just two weeks ago they met in person, for the first time. The kids already refer to her as "mom", so things seem like they might work out. He's showing her all his favorite things about California, and one of them is camping.

I tell him I'm currently living in Carlsbad, and he perks up. Turns out he was raised in San Diego. "I was a street urchin for years down there. Then I got into a military career, and went all over." He used to do some serious surfing in the area, and still has the scars on his back as proof-of-purchase.

"If you're gonna move somewhere, try Sacramento." he says, enthusiastically. "It's a great place to raise kids, it's an hour-and-a-half from here, it's an hour-and-a-half from the bay area, there are plenty of things to do if you like history, politics, or nature."

I explain how I would like to live there, but I'm afraid I may not find a job. I describe my friend Andy's old multi-hour commute out of town, to find a decent wage.

"Yeah," he says, sneaking a hand out of his jacket to fuss with his grainy moustache. "If I had a choice, I'd still be living in Sacramento. But I just can't find the wages there that I get in Monterey."

Torrey stops by the conversation, on her way back from the privy. Rich introduces himself and they exchange pleasantries, then she continues her walk, up to the campfire. It's her last campfire of the trip, for she and Zeugma are leaving tomorrow. She seems determined to savor it.

Rich and I talk a little more, about the internet, about computers, about camping, about Sierra City. I show him a few pictures from the graveyard, and suggest he take the kids there for a little field trip. I learn nothing more from him, and when he excuses himself back to the propane circle to fix dinner, I am glad to return to my writing.

By the time I close the laptop it's late indeed, and I'm surprised to see Torrey lingering by the dim remains of the fire, gazing contentedly at it. As I gather items for my tent, she walks up to me and gives me a big warm hug.

I am quite pleased. "Hey, thanks for sharing the camping experience with me," I say.

"Thanks for letting us tag along on your trip! It was a great end to a decent summer." From Torrey, that is high praise. She grins from ear to ear, then strolls to her tent, where Zeugma is already asleep.

I take the laptop up into the tent to do just a bit more writing, making advance notes about the last few days. Hrmm, what if it rains tonight, against all indications, and my laptop is wrecked? I stuff it into the waterproof laundry case, along with my socks and pants, and stuff the iPod under the corner of my pillow.

A short, relaxing day. Tomorrow I should be all charged up for the big hike!

The headphones lull me to the edge of sleep, then I take them off, and am gone.