That title reminds me, just from the cadence and word similarity, of something my grandmother used to say as she shoo’d me up the stairs to bed.
          “Shadrach, Meshach – now to bed you go!”
Yes, I do know where the names are from – the three devout men thrown into a furnace for not worshiping a statue: Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. Some witches do know other stuff, ya know. <|;^) Went off the track there a bit, didn't I? It's that early in the morning, and I've had little sleep the last couple of nights, I'm rambly... if only that little chant would work now, to get me to sleep peacefully. Granted, I've made up the loss by sleeping during the morning while Care's at school, but still, even that hasn't been entirely restful. New Bedlam has been sneaking in, and in more ways than just building the town in Total Miner: Forge (XBox Indie Games). Four times in the last week or so - and when I think about it, several times since Yule, actually - I've dreamt of the museum/rec centre in my home town. We (meaning Glas Celli, some friends and family and even folks I only know online...) live in the museum, and there are tunnels out from it to the school, to a house that looks a bit like the Arlington Hotel, to 'Thelmo Mansion' (which instead of being in Winnipeg is where the ball diamonds/curling rink are), a compound that looks kinda like where I live now, and my grandparent's old house. Yeah – definitely New Bedlam.

Some of us return from scrounging/foraging and head into the bathrooms to wash up and discover a HUGE bloody mess all over the place, with a lot of body parts. For whatever reason, we go to the old rink and on the ice is an altar – and we’re expected to sacrifice something that looks like a really small version of Bruce (Morden’s Mosasaur). Seriously. Okay, it could have been a very large northern pike, or a combo? *shrug* Whatever it was, it was definitely not extinct. Yet.

Skipping past that, I’m in the tunnels between the high school and ‘Thelmo Mansion’, bartering with some guy for a few tins of soup and a crystal. This is where it all goes ‘Thief’ because Garrett – voice, mechanical eye and all – sidles up and gives me a key. As he’s holding my hand, I feel a burning sensation and when I pull my hand back, I’ve got the keyhole sigil on my palm.

I have to use that key to put the crystal where it needs to go so that D. can take a car down to (somewhere mumbled) to get Greg and his family. I can only imagine what kind of conversations those two would have if they ever met in real life. (note to self, never let Greg meet D. LOL)

Anyway, that was last night. Tonight’s stopped pretty much at the bathrooms, but only because a cat woke me up.

I know my subconscious is working through something, it’s obvious. I just wish it was more obvious what it is, so that I could process during daylight hours, too. It could be something as simple as getting back to my own writing, or something more intense. I seriously don’t want to think about the implications of some of the people showing up in these dreams, or their relationship to me. OR of that one person showing up when I haven’t dreamt of them in ages – and then getting a phone call from them later the next evening.

Creepy.

Two good things about all of these recurring weird dreams: #1 – gran & gramps are there, too. Dream visitations are always welcome, even if they border on nightmares. #2 – it was dreams like this that gave me the inspiration for a lot of the stories in Into a Long Ago Future, particularly Days, Hours, Minutes, Seconds.

Any thoughts, anyone?