The dream starts in a large park. I am standing in the depth of the night, the sky completely dark and illuminated only by shrill manmade lights. I don't instinctively know where I am, but looking around I feel like it's perhaps Southbank in Brisbane. It is a large green space with manmade paths weaving through, and people are everywhere as if it's new years.
But it's not new years, and I realise this is a end of the world party. If everyone knew that they were going to die, wouldn't they want to come here and have fun with their friends before they die?
At first I am alone but soon I see some people I know. I can't remember who they are now, but they are sitting on picnic blankets enjoying food, and they invite me to join them. I chat with them for a while then get up and walk around again. Though there must be thousands of people in the park, I manage to find a few friends to say goodbye to.
Then I see my high school friends and they are all in one group. I wonder momentarily where their partners and other friends must be (we haven't gone back in time because they all look as they do right now). They tell me about an exhibit in a museum of the lost treasures of Tibet. I am excited by this and decide that if the world was to end, I definitely want to see this.
So we start walking there, and along the way I am telling the group stories of the Dalai Lama's escape from Tibet and how he had stored some treasures in Sikkim prior to his actual going into exile. I am recounting stories of how they avoided the guards and soldiers by going over the high mountains, all the while worrying about exposure and hypothermia. As I am getting more animated, we enter a dark building where all the lights have been dimmed. We strain to see as we move forward in a narrow corridor, which barely fits two people at a time.
I look around me to see if I can recognise anything. There are shadows of display boxes in the distance, but it is so dark that I can't make out what's in them. I start to think that perhaps we have gotten to the exhibit too late and it has already been looted.
We emerge into a bright lecture theatre packed with throngs of people. I have lost my friends and can't see them anywhere. First I look for them all around, then I give up and just look for an empty spot. I finally find one in the middle of a row and squish through people to get there.
Just as I sit down the lights are dimmed. I look to my right and it's Andy, Charley, and Henry sitting in a row. Wait a minute, I think, if this is the apocalypse, they must be really good friends to be still sticking together?
The man on the lecture podium names himself as Nakashima. He is a short balding middle aged man with a slightly stooped posture. His voice is quiet and steely as he starts speaking about the end of the world. Emphatically, he tells us that we have all been inflicted with a disease that remains unnamed and unqualified. It is incorporated into our DNA and has been part of our genetic destiny since we were bonobos. No one knows what triggers it, and why we are all dying from it.
Lies! I want to shout. The Japanese are trying to take over the world and they are telling us these lies so we will give up and die.
Then I wake up.
But it's not new years, and I realise this is a end of the world party. If everyone knew that they were going to die, wouldn't they want to come here and have fun with their friends before they die?
At first I am alone but soon I see some people I know. I can't remember who they are now, but they are sitting on picnic blankets enjoying food, and they invite me to join them. I chat with them for a while then get up and walk around again. Though there must be thousands of people in the park, I manage to find a few friends to say goodbye to.
Then I see my high school friends and they are all in one group. I wonder momentarily where their partners and other friends must be (we haven't gone back in time because they all look as they do right now). They tell me about an exhibit in a museum of the lost treasures of Tibet. I am excited by this and decide that if the world was to end, I definitely want to see this.
So we start walking there, and along the way I am telling the group stories of the Dalai Lama's escape from Tibet and how he had stored some treasures in Sikkim prior to his actual going into exile. I am recounting stories of how they avoided the guards and soldiers by going over the high mountains, all the while worrying about exposure and hypothermia. As I am getting more animated, we enter a dark building where all the lights have been dimmed. We strain to see as we move forward in a narrow corridor, which barely fits two people at a time.
I look around me to see if I can recognise anything. There are shadows of display boxes in the distance, but it is so dark that I can't make out what's in them. I start to think that perhaps we have gotten to the exhibit too late and it has already been looted.
We emerge into a bright lecture theatre packed with throngs of people. I have lost my friends and can't see them anywhere. First I look for them all around, then I give up and just look for an empty spot. I finally find one in the middle of a row and squish through people to get there.
Just as I sit down the lights are dimmed. I look to my right and it's Andy, Charley, and Henry sitting in a row. Wait a minute, I think, if this is the apocalypse, they must be really good friends to be still sticking together?
The man on the lecture podium names himself as Nakashima. He is a short balding middle aged man with a slightly stooped posture. His voice is quiet and steely as he starts speaking about the end of the world. Emphatically, he tells us that we have all been inflicted with a disease that remains unnamed and unqualified. It is incorporated into our DNA and has been part of our genetic destiny since we were bonobos. No one knows what triggers it, and why we are all dying from it.
Lies! I want to shout. The Japanese are trying to take over the world and they are telling us these lies so we will give up and die.
Then I wake up.
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