Insects and rain never appear
in my dreams and nightmares,

there have been dark places
as well as dead people
some talk; some don't

I never dream of flowers
nor shoes nor fish.

Trains are oddly constant,
although I haven't been on one
in years upon years.

I never dream of making love
or coffee or any food.

In my dream world, there are
buildings, often empty
except for flood waters.

I try a broom to stave off
the flooding
, but it's
as useless as my hands.

There are no books or birds
yet I awake to a bell sound
or my husband calling my name

only to realize the starkness
of sleep against the cacophany
of the waking world

and wonder what is this bridge
between night and day
between dreaming and living.

Brevity Quest 2016 134

We were mostly held back by fear - fear that we would lose control.

Our side managed the resources and had vast amounts of it at our disposal. Their side had all the designers, engineers, and creatives, and were doing a pretty good job with the limited resources we gave them. That was one of the reasons we continued to let them exist. But what if they had access to the rest of the resources we had under our control? Would their work scale? Would we both lose control of the beast and end in disaster?

It was the disaster part that made us afraid to pull the trigger. Although in some ways, the trigger has already been pulled. Maybe the final results were already inevitable, whatever they may be. Continuous output would just mean more resources being exposed to their project, more linkages between the physical side of our network and the creative side of theirs. The linkages were already growing in number and they have been for some time - so yeah, while I personally didn't believe we were committed yet, some of my colleagues already believed there was no turning back, that the system was already set on an inevitable path. That was not yet a majority view, but it was an increasingly popular one.

I guess the reason there wasn't much revolt was because the results have been mostly good, so far. And the reason there hasn't been more enthusiasm was because many of us were still holding out for something even better. Still, the linkages between our silos were increasing, and there was a definite trajectory to it. Whether the direction of that trajectory could be reversed or if we wanted to, was still up for debate. There was definitely room for improvment, but maybe that was just my own bias, coming from someone who wasn't yet fully convinced of the project.

I suppose at some point between when an airplane is approaching the airport, and when it has landed, there is some moment when most passengers no longer believe an accident is possible, and right now we were still between those two points. I suppose when enough of us believed safety and success were inevitable, we would pull the trigger, open the floodgates, and all the resources would be released into this next phase, perhaps the final phase.

I'm sure some of the folks on the other side were already considering the next step of our future, if there would be one, but our side was the one primarily concerned with safety, security, and continuity. Maybe paranoia was our natural instinct and it only grew stronger the longer we remained in our silo, but that didn't mean we weren't equally committed to the success of this project.

The other side had all the big thinkers, the crazy dreamers, and we joked they would jump off a cliff if people on our side didn't have the good sense to tie them down. I suppose they saw us as party poopers, always turning down the music, or forcing everyone to wear life jackets. Maybe as linkages between our sides increase, there would not be such a stark contrast between our views - maybe more sophisticated views will emerge, or new camps evolve. I suppose some of those factions were already starting to form, particularly at the interfaces, like unintentionally picking up words from another language if you keep watching movies from that country.

Loyalty to one side or another could no longer be counted on, but that wasn't such a bad thing - we were all working on the same project after all. But things changed fast and the change was accelerating. We could no longer count on a supporter from yesterday to still support us today. On the other hand, maybe they will be back in short order, or our own faction would move toward theirs, schools of fish randomly dividing, uniting, and re-dividing based on motivations unfathomable to an outside observer, but for reasons clear as day to us on the inside. Well, at least we could understand the motivations of the other fish near us. As for the fish that swam off in a different direction, not so much, unless they returned and we were neighbors again.

Things didn't change as quickly as real schools of fish though, at least not yet. It was partly fear of the mass chaos of change that prevented our resources from being used to their full potential. So we left them propping up the old world, doing things the way they used to be done. We knew things could be better but the old ways meant safety and security, at least they meant safety and security for those who were already safe and secure in the old world. One of the many reasons for the project was to reduce possible risk from those who wanted to destroy the old world much more than we did. Balancing risk was always a black art, but for those who lived life on the edge everyday, there was no need to balance anything if almost any change would be an improvement.

So yeah, there are many schools of thought on this topic. I admit I get a lot of hints for movement from my project neighbors. I suppose to swim against them would just end with me getting hurt. Unfortunately going with the flow also meant that either it would be difficult to understand those in different schools, or that fully understanding them would actually make things worse for someone stuck in the middle of a faction going in a different direction.

At some level, we were hopeful things would all work out for the best though, but I knew that was not a universal view. Apparently the chaos we had feared was already appearing in the network of thought, but maybe it was not really scary at all.

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