Amelia

Dreamed I lived in a post-apocalyptic sci-fi landscape. I was sitting on a weather-worn wooden bench trying to pacify Amelia until her grandmother returned. She was having none of it; wiggling and wriggling trying to escape my gentle restraint. It was a warm, sunny day and the desert air was dry. The small population wandered to and fro gathering materials, repairing that which could be repaired, and generally living their daily post-apocalyptic life. Amelia was ready for a nap - you could tell by her increasing frustration - so I swaddled her in a blanket and rocked her in hopes she would give in and nap.

[Aside]

In 1993 as a young airman moving off base I bought my first couch, a sectional; $3600 in 2026 money. It was assembled by hand and came with a lifetime guarantee (the company went out of business long before the couch did, effectively nullifying their guarantee). But that couch looked good and held up for 17 years. I think we sold it in 2010. In the dream, I was looking for two parts of the sectional to create a more comfortable arrangement for Amelia; I didn't want her to have to lay on the hard wooden bench for her nap.

When Amelia finally went down, I laid her down and went foraging for the couch sectional pieces I knew were separated, but close by (in this post-apocalyptic setting there was no fear of Amelia's safety - being abducted or wandering off - as ours was a small, tight-knit community). I find the first piece easily enough, lug it back to the bench, and place the napping Amelia on it before going out to find the second piece, which remains elusive throughout the rest of the dream.

At one point, having wandered in a complete circle, I find myself back where I started only...Amelia is gone. For some reason a sense of foreboding comes over me. Like, I'm not immediately worried, but something is niggling at the back of my mind; something larger is going on but not enough to warrant panic. I'm peripherally aware something is different, but not nearly attuned to know exactly what. So I do the only sensible thing and push it to the back of my mind while I continue looking for the second piece - but not before I decide to relocate the first section to a more suitable sitting area I'd past previously on my circular journey.

As I move the sectional piece into place I consider location against other buildings and direction we'd be facing so as to not have the sun directly in our faces. I also find a small table to place adjacent the couch sectional so I will have easy access to coffee and vape while holding a napping Amelia. I think I even found some dried daisies and a dirty vase in which to place them. I was creating a whole outdoor baby napping nook. I was getting just a little concerned that Amelia's grandmother would return before I was able to reacquire her, but nothing pressing yet.

That's when I noticed it had grown unnaturally dark, and eerie, toxic green "spots" were "opening up" in the space where reality was supposed to exist exposing a hive of insect activity crawling upon the edges of the subconscious before disappearing completely. It was, as one may expect, rather unsettling. As time passed and it grew darker - all the while I'm still seeking that second sectional piece - the flashes of toxic green holes exposing the incessant movement of the unsettling insects grew not only more frequent, but in larger spots, and in more areas, as if we were being taken over by something yet unseen. The foreboding grew and grew.

Someone, somewhere, figured out these breeches were a result of radiation flowing into the (apparently our entire world was nothing more than an enclosed spaceship) via a micro-crack in the hull. Workers rallied to rush to the source and fix it. That's when I saw Amelia. She was sitting upright, still swaddled, and wide awake. She communicated with me telepathically, "Take me to Joe, the tinkerer." I unwrapped her, picked her up, and carried her along a winding dirt path through town toward what would be a more industrial area - a place I hadn't often visited.

It was fully nighttime now, and we approached the end of the dirt path. There was a red barn/workshop enclosed on three sides at the far end of a large lot with an electric fence zapping interlopers who attempted to cross the threshold into the lot itself. This was no place for a baby, and I was surprised at the number of...well, they weren't any citizens I recognized - which tried, and failed - to breech it. Obviously I wasn't going to cross the fence line holding Amelia. But as I turned away, another voice telepathically commanded me to, "Bring me the child."

I turned and noticed the electric fence had visibly deactivated. I looked at Amelia who nodded in agreement - she knew what she was doing even if I didn't understand any of what was transpiring, but I trusted her, so walked to the red barn/workshop. I was shocked at what I found inside: a three-by-three plot of shallow holes, most of which were filled with green-skinned babies - not quite toddlers - completely motionless, with a complex array of wires over the entire plot connected to their heads. One of the babies was purple-skinned, a rarity. That's when I noticed Amelia was also now a purple-skinned baby. They were communicating telepathically with one another, though I was privy to their conversation. Amelia was thanking, "Joe" for discovering the cause of the psychic crack and repairing it so quickly. "Joe" was seemingly subservient to Amelia. She was - seemingly - the chosen one, and I was her caretaker.

Just then a group of the not-recognizable citizens, broke through the defenses and actually managed to destroy several of the remaining babies before Amelia neutralized them all with her mind. They dropped, the assault over as quickly as it had begun. Only one green-skinned baby remained, the one in the center of the three-by-three plot. Amelia and "Joe" concluded and we departed. As I carried her back to the sitting area I'd been working on I asked (aloud, as I did not know how to communicate telepathically), "When is Jennifer coming back?"

Amelia replied, "She's not. You two do not have that kind of relationship. That is only in your reality." I struggled with how I was the caretaker for Amelia in a reality in which Jennifer and I were estranged from one another, let alone from Amelia. But soon realized it wasn't estrangement, not really. Jennifer was on a very different mission than myself, yet I was still saddened that an entire reality had to be created for me in which we still had a relationship. I wondered what I went through that such a requirement was necessary.

As I approached the sitting area, I was flummoxed that the second sectional piece was in place, right where I would've placed it had I ever found it. Amelia was no longer a purple-skinned baby, just a regular baby, and no longer communicating with me with superior intelligence. I gave her a hug, and sat down on the couch piece, going over the events of the past day in quiet contemplation.