Search Results for 'dream'

“Well, this makes no sense,” Thiram opined flatly, squinting at the glitching news stream on his homemade device.
“What now,” Carob drawled, dropping the case and a mushroom onto the floor.
“Biopirates Ants. Thousands of queen ants. Smuggled by aunties out of Kenya.”

Amy raised an eyebrow. “Lucid dreamers saboteurs?”

“They’re calling them the ‘Anties Gang.’” Thiram scrolled. “One report says the queens were tagged with dream-frequency enhancers. You know, like the tech you banned from the greenhouse?”

Ricardo leaned forward, and whispered to himself almost too audibly for the rest of them “That… that… wasn’t on Miss Bossy’s radar yet. But I suspect it will be.”

A long silence. Then Amy prodded Carob — “You’re silent again. What do you think?”.

“Caffeinated sabotage by insect proxy?” she murmured.

Fanella let out a short bleat, as if offended. The rain fell harder.

Key Characters (with brief descriptions)

Amy Kawanhouse – Self-aware new character with metatextual commentary. Witty, possibly insecure, reflective; has a goat named Fanella and possibly another, Finnley, for emergencies. Often the first to point out logical inconsistencies or existential quirks.

Carob Latte – Tall, dry-humored, and slightly chaotic. Fond of coffee-related wordplay and appears to enjoy needling Amy. Described as having “frizzled” hair and reverse-lucid dreams.

Thiram Izu – The practical one, technologically inclined but confused by dreams. Tends to get frustrated with the group’s lack of coordination. Has a history of tension with Amy, and a tendency to “zone out.”

Chico Ray – Mysterious newcomer. May have appeared out of nowhere. Unclear loyalties. Possibly former friend or frenemy of the group, annoyed by past incidents.

Juan & Dolores Valdez – Fictional coffee icons reluctantly acknowledging their existence within a meta-reality. Dolores isn’t ready to be real, and Juan’s fine with playing the part when needed.

Godric – Swedish barista-channeler. Hints at deeper magical realism; references Draugaskalds (ghost-singers) and senses strange presences.

Ricardo – Appears later. Described in detail by Amy (linen suit, Panama hat), acts as a foil in a discussion about maps and coffee geography. Undercover for a mission with Miss Bossy.

The Padre – Could be a father or a Father. Offstage, but influential. Concerned about rain ruining crops. A source of exposition and concern.

Fanella – Amy’s cream goat, serves as comic relief and visual anchor.
Finnley, the unpredictable goat, is reserved for “life or death situations.”

“What were you saying already?” Thiram asked “I must have zoned out, it happens at times.” He chuckled looking embarrassed. “Not to worry.”

As the silence settled, Thiram started to blink vigorously to get things back into focus —a trick he’d seen in the Lucid Dreamer 101 manual for beginners. You could never be too sure if this was all a dream. And if it was, then you’d better pay attention to your thoughts in case they’d attract trouble – generally your thoughts were the trouble-makers, but in some cases, also other Lucid Dreamers were.

Here and now, trouble wasn’t coming, to the contrary. It was all unusually foggy.

“Well, by the look of it, Amy is not biting into the whole father drama, and prefers to have a self-induced personality crisis…” Carob shrugged. “We can all clearly see what she looks like, obviously. Whether she likes it or not, and I won’t comment further despite how tempting it is.”

“You’re one to speak.” Amy replied. “Should I give you some drama? Would certainly make things more interesting.”

Thiram had a thought he needed to share “And I just remember that Chico isn’t probably coming – he still wasn’t over our last fight with Amy bossying and messing the team’s plans because she can’t keep up with modern tech, had to dig a hole, or overcome a ratmaggeddon; something he’d said that had seemed quite final at the time: ‘I’d rather be turned into a donkey than follow you guys around.’ I wouldn’t count on him showing up just yet.”

“Me? bossying?” Amy did feel enticed to catch that bait this time, and like a familiar trope see it reel out, or like a burning match in front of a dry hay bale, she could almost see the old patterns of getting incensed, and were it would lead.

“Can we at least agree on a few things about the where, what, why, or shall we all play this one by ear?”

“Obviously we know. But all the observing essences, do they?” Carob was doing a great impersonation of Chico.

“Where are they again?” Thiram was straining as he waited for his friends, or rather colleagues.

“Typical of them to get us all excited, and then bailing out to some mundane excuses.”

He started to pace around the shed where they were supposed to meet. He wasn’t clear about all the details, Amy, or Carob would have them. Chico would be here for the ride, but the master plan this time was for the girls to come up with.

What was happening at the plantation? Something unusual for sure; the Lucid Luddite Dreamers and their Silly Intelligence devices were always looking to disrupt the flows of coffee of the remaining parts where they still grew. That was why their mission was so important. Or so he was told.

“Bugger… they could at least answer their damn phones… AI might well be everywhere, but you can’t just be all cavemen about it.”

A rush of ruffled dried leaves and a happy bleating caught his attention at the moment he was about to leave. A panting Amy arrived, with her cream goat “Fanella” in tow —the bleating was from her, obviously. She didn’t take “Finnley”, the black one, she was too unpredictable; Amy would only keep her around for life or death situations that required a fair deal of rude practicality, and a good horn’s ramming.

“Sorry, sorry!” Amy blurted out in hushed tones. “I couldn’t get away from the Padre. He’s too worried about stuff…”

Thiram shrugged “at least there’s one. And what about the others?”

“Oh, what? I’m not the last to arrive? That’s new.”

Thiram rolled his eyes and gave a twig with fresh leaves to Fanella to eat.

Mars Outpost — Welcome to the Wild Wild Waste

No one had anticipated how long it would take to get a shuttle full of half-motivated, gravity-averse Helix25 passengers to agree on proper footwear.

“I told you, Claudius, this is the fancy terrain suit. The others make my hips look like reinforced cargo crates,” protested Tilly Nox, wrangling with her buckles near the shuttle airlock.

“You’re about to step onto a red-rock planet that hasn’t seen visitors since the Asteroid Belt Mining Fiasco,” muttered Claudius, tightening his helmet strap. “Your hips are the least of Mars’ concerns.”

Behind them, a motley group of Helix25 residents fidgeted with backpacks, oxygen readouts, and wide-eyed anticipation. Veranassessee had allowed a single-day “expedition excursion” for those eager—or stir-crazy—enough to brave Mars’ surface. She’d made it clear it was volunteer-only.

Most stayed aboard, in orbit of the red planet, looking at its surface from afar to the tune of “eh, gravity, don’t we have enough of that here?” —Finkley had recoiled in horror at the thought of real dust getting through the vents and had insisted on reviewing personally all the airlocks protocols. No way that they’d sullied her pristine halls with Martian dust or any dust when the shuttle would come back. No – way.

But for the dozen or so who craved something raw and unfiltered, this was it. Mars: the myth, the mirage, the Far West frontier at the invisible border separating Earthly-like comforts into the wider space without any safety net.

At the helm of Shuttle Dandelion, Sue Forgelot gave the kind of safety briefing that could both terrify and inspire. “If your oxygen starts blinking red, panic quietly and alert your buddy. If you fall into a crater, forget about taking a selfie, wave your arms and don’t grab on your neighbor. And if you see a sand wyrm, congratulations, you’ve either hit gold or gone mad.”

Luca Stroud chuckled from the copilot seat. “Didn’t see you so chirpy in a long while. That kind of humour, always the best warning label.”

They touched down near Outpost Station Delta-6 just as the Martian wind was picking up, sending curls of red dust tumbling like gossip.

And there she was.

Leaning against the outpost hatch with a spanner slung across one shoulder, goggles perched on her forehead, Prune watched them disembark with the wary expression of someone spotting tourists traipsing into her backyard garden.

Sue approached first, grinning behind her helmet. “Prune Curara, I presume?”

“You presume correctly,” she said, arms crossed. “Let me guess. You’re here to ruin my peace and use my one functioning kettle.”

Luca offered a warm smile. “We’re only here for a brief scan and a bit of radioactive treasure hunting. Plus, apparently, there’s been a petition to name a Martian dust lizard after you.”

“That lizard stole my solar panel last year,” Prune replied flatly. “It deserves no honor.”

Inside, the outpost was cramped, cluttered, and undeniably charming. Hand-drawn maps of Martian magnetic hotspots lined one wall; shelves overflowed with tagged samples, sketchpads, half-disassembled drones, and a single framed photo of a fireplace with something hovering inexplicably above it—a fish?

“Flying Fish Inn,” Luca whispered to Sue. “Legendary.”

The crew spent the day fanning out across the region in staggered teams. Sue and Claudius oversaw the scan points, Tilly somehow got her foot stuck in a crevice that definitely wasn’t in the geological briefing, which was surprisingly enough about as much drama they could conjure out.

Back at the outpost, Prune fielded questions, offered dry warnings, and tried not to get emotionally attached to the odd, bumbling crew now walking through her kingdom.

Then, near sunset, Veranassessee’s voice crackled over comms: “Curara. We’ll be lifting a crew out tomorrow, but leaving a team behind. With the right material, for all the good Muck’s mining expedition did out on the asteroid belt, it left the red planet riddled with precious rocks. But you, you’ve earned to take a rest, with a ticket back aboard. That’s if you want it. Three months back to Earth via the porkchop plot route. No pressure. Your call.”

Prune froze. Earth.

The word sat like an old song on her tongue. Faint. Familiar. Difficult to place.

She stepped out to the ridge, watching the sun dip low across the dusty plain. Behind her, laughter from the tourists trading their stories of the day —Tilly had rigged a heat plate with steel sticks and somehow convinced people to roast protein foam. Are we wasting oxygen now? Prune felt a weight lift; after such a long time struggling to make ends meet, she now could be free of that duty.

Prune closed her eyes. In her head, Mater’s voice emerged, raspy and amused: You weren’t meant to settle, sugar. You were meant to stir things up. Even on Mars.

She let the words tumble through her like sand in her boots.

She’d conquered her dream, lived it, thrived in it.

Now people were landing, with their new voices, new messes, new puzzles.

She could stay. Be the last queen of red rock and salvaged drones.

Or she could trade one hell of people for another. Again.

The next morning, with her patched duffel packed and goggles perched properly this time, Prune boarded Shuttle Dandelion with a half-smirk and a shrug.

“I’m coming,” she told Sue. “Can’t let Earth ruin itself again without at least watching.”

Sue grinned. “Welcome back to the madhouse.”

As the shuttle lifted off, Prune looked once, just once, at the red plains she’d called home.

“Thanks, Mars,” she whispered. “Don’t wait up.”

Epilogue & Prologue

Paris, November 2029 – The Fifth Note Resounds

Tabitha sat by the window at the Sarah Bernhardt Café, letting the murmur of conversations and the occasional purring of the espresso machine settle around her. It was one of the few cafés left in the city where time still moved at a human pace. She stirred her cup absentmindedly. Paris was still Paris, but the world outside had changed in ways her mother’s generation still struggled to grasp.

It wasn’t just the ever-presence of automation and AI making themselves known in subtle ways—screens adjusting to glances, the quiet surveillance woven into everyday life. It wasn’t just the climate shifts, the aircon turned to cold in the midst of November, the summers unpredictable, the air thick with contradictions of progress and collapse of civilization across the Atlantic.

The certainty of impermanence was what defined her generation. BANI world they used to say—Brittle, Anxious, Nonlinear, Incomprehensible. A cold fact: impossible to grasp and impossible to fight. Unlike her mother and her friends, who had spent their lives tethered to a world that no longer existed, she had never known certainty. She was born in the flux.

And yet, this café remained. One of the last to resist full automation, where a human still brought you coffee, where the brass bell above the door still rang, where things still unfolded at a human pace.

The bell above the door rang—the fifth note, as her mother had called it once.

She had never been here before, not in any way that mattered. Yet, she had heard the story. The unlikely reunion five years ago. The night that moved new projects in motion for her mother and her friends.

Tabitha’s fingers traced the worn edges of the notebook in front of her—Lucien’s, then Amei’s, then Darius’s. Pieces of a life written by many hands.

“Some things don’t work the first time. But sometimes, in the ruins of what failed, something else sprouts and takes root.”

And that was what had happened.

The shared housing project they had once dreamed of hadn’t survived—not in its original form. But through their rekindled bond, they had started something else.

 

True Stories of How It Was.

 

It had begun as a quiet defiance—a way to preserve real, human stories in an age of synthetic, permanent ephemerality and ephemeral impermanence, constantly changing memory. They were living in a world where AI’s fabricated histories had overwhelmed all the channels of information, where the past was constantly rewritten, altered, repackaged. Authenticity had become a rare currency.

As she graduated in anthropology few years back, she’d wondered about the validity of history —it was, after all, a construct. The same could be said for literature, art, even science. All of them constructs of the human mind, tenuous grasp of the infinite truth, but once, they used to evolve at such a slow pace that they felt solid, reliable. Ultimately their group was not looking for ultimate truth, that would be arrogant and probably ignorant. Authenticity was what they were looking for. And with it, connections, love, genuineness —unquantifiables by means of science and yet, true and precious beyond measure.

Lucien had first suggested it, tracing the idea from his own frustrations—the way art had become a loop of generated iterations, the human touch increasingly erased. He was in a better place since Matteo had helped him settle his score with Renard and, free of influence, he had found confidence in developing of his own art.

Amei —her mother—, had changed in a way Tabitha couldn’t quite define. Her restlessness had quieted, not through settling down but through accepting impermanence as something other than loss. She had started writing again—not as a career, not to publish, but to preserve stories that had no place in a digitized world. Her quiet strength had always been in preserving connections, and she knew they had to move quickly before real history faded beneath layers of fabricated recollections.

Darius, once skeptical, saw its weight—he had spent years avoiding roots, only to realize that stories were the only thing that made places matter. He was somewhere in Morocco now, leading a sustainable design project, bridging cultures rather than simply passing through them.

Elara had left science. Or at least, science as she had known it. The calculations, the certainty, the constraints of academia, with no escape from the automated “enhanced” digital helpers. Her obsession and curiosities had found attract in something more human, more chaotic. She had thrown herself into reviving old knowledge, forgotten architectures, regenerative landscapes.

And Matteo—Matteo had grounded it.

The notebook read: Matteo wasn’t a ghost from our past. He was the missing note, the one we didn’t know we needed. And because of him, we stopped looking backward. We started building something else.

For so long, Matteo had been a ghost of sorts, by his own account, lingering at the edges of their story, the missing note in their unfinished chord. But now, he was fully part of it. His mother had passed, her past history unraveling in ways he had never expected, branching new connections even now. And though he had lost something in that, he had also found something else. Juliette. Or maybe not. The story wasn’t finished.

Tabitha turned the page.

“We were not historians, not preservationists, not even archivists. But we have lived. And as it turned out, that was enough.”

They had begun collecting stories through their networks—not legends, not myths, but true accounts of how it was, from people who still remembered.

A grandfather’s voice recording of a train ride to a city that no longer exists.
Handwritten recipes annotated by generations of hands, each adding something new.
A letter from a protest in 2027, detailing a movement that the history books had since erased.
An old woman’s story of her first love, spoken in a dialect that AI could not translate properly.

It had grown in ways they hadn’t expected. People began sending them recordings, letters, transcripts, photos —handwritten scraps of fading ink. Some were anonymous, others carefully curated with full names and details, like makeshift ramparts against the tide of time.

At first, few had noticed. It was never the goal to make it worlwide movement. But little by little, strange things happened, and more began to listen.

There was something undeniably powerful about genuine human memory when it was raw and unfiltered, when it carried unpolished, raw weight of experience, untouched by apologetic watered down adornments and out-of-place generative hallucinations.

Now, there were exhibitions, readings, archives—entire underground movements dedicated to preserving pre-synthetic history. Their project had become something rare, valuable, almost sacred.

And yet, here in the café, none of that felt urgent.

Tabitha looked up as the server approached. Not Matteo, but someone new.

“Another espresso?”

She hesitated, then nodded. “Yes. And a glass of water, please.”

She glanced at the counter, where Matteo was leaning, speaking to someone, laughing. He had changed, too. No longer just an observer, no longer just the quiet figure who knew too much. Now, he belonged here.

A bell rang softly as the door swung open again.

Tabitha smiled to herself. The fifth note always sounded, in the end.

She turned back to the notebook, the city moving around her, the story still unfolding in more directions than one.

Matteo — December 2022

Juliette leaned in, her phone screen glowing faintly between them. “Come on, pick something. It’s supposed to know everything—or at least sound like it does.”

Juliette was the one who’d introduced him to the app the whole world was abuzz talking about. MeowGPT.

At the New Year’s eve family dinner at Juliette’s parents, the whole house was alive with her sisters, nephews, and cousins. She entered a discussion with one of the kids, and they all seemed to know well about it. It was fun to see the adults were oblivious, himself included. He liked it about Juliette that she had such insatiable curiosity.

“It’s a life-changer, you know” she’d said “There’ll be a time, we won’t know about how we did without it. The kids born now will not know a world without it. Look, I’m sure my nephews are already cheating at their exams with it, or finding new ways to learn…”

“New ways to learn, that sounds like a mirage…. Bit of a drastic view to think we won’t live without; I’d like to think like with the mobile phones, we can still choose to live without.”

“And lose your way all the time with worn-out paper maps instead of GPS? That’s a grandpa mindset darling! I can see quite a few reasons not to choose!” she laughed.
“Anyway, we’ll see. What would you like to know about? A crazy recipe to grow hair? A fancy trip to a little known place? Write a technical instruction in the style of Elizabeth Tattler?”

“Let me see…”

Matteo smirked, swirling the last sip of crémant in his glass. The lively discussions of Juliette’s family around them made the moment feel oddly private. “Alright, let’s try something practical. How about early signs of Alzheimer’s? You know, for Ma.”

Juliette’s smile softened as she tapped the query into the app. Matteo watched, half curious, half detached.

The app processed for a moment before responding in its overly chipper tone:
“Early signs of Alzheimer’s can include memory loss, difficulty planning or solving problems, and confusion with time or place. For personalized insights, understanding specific triggers, like stress or diet, can help manage early symptoms.”

Matteo frowned. “That’s… general. I thought it was supposed to be revolutionary?”

“Wait for it,” Juliette said, tapping again, her tone teasing. “What if we ask it about long-term memory triggers? Something for nostalgia. Your Ma’s been into her old photos, right?”

The app spun its virtual gears and spat out a more detailed suggestion.
“Consider discussing familiar stories, music, or scents. Interestingly, recent studies on Alzheimer’s patients show a strong response to tactile memories. For example, one groundbreaking case involved genetic ancestry research coupled with personalized sensory cues.

Juliette tilted her head, reading the screen aloud. “Huh, look at this—Dr. Elara V., a retired physicist, designed a patented method combining ancestral genetic research with soundwaves sensory stimuli to enhance attention and preserve memory function. Her work has been cited in connection with several studies on Alzheimer’s.”

“Elara?” Matteo’s brow furrowed. “Uncommon name… Where have I heard it before?”

Juliette shrugged. “Says here she retired to Tuscany after the pandemic. Fancy that.” She tapped the screen again, scrolling. “Apparently, she was a physicist with some quirky ideas. Had a side hustle on patents, one of which actually turned out useful. Something about genetic resonance? Sounds like a sci-fi movie.”

Matteo stared at the screen, a strange feeling tugging at him. “Genetic resonance…? It’s like these apps read your mind, huh? Do they just make this stuff up?”

Juliette laughed, nudging him. “Maybe! The system is far from foolproof, it may just have blurted out a completely imagined story, although it’s probably got it from somewhere on the internet. You better do your fact-checking. This woman would have published papers back when we were kids, and now the AI’s connecting dots.”

The name lingered with him, though. Elara. It felt distant yet oddly familiar, like the shadow of a memory just out of reach.

“You think she’s got more work like that?” he asked, more to himself than to Juliette.

Juliette handed him the phone. “You’re the one with the questions. Go ahead.”

Matteo hesitated before typing, almost without thinking: Elara Tuscany memory research.

The app processed again, and the next response was less clinical, more anecdotal.
“Elara V., known for her unconventional methods, retired to Tuscany where she invested in rural revitalization. A small village farmhouse became her retreat, and she occasionally supported artistic projects. Her most cited breakthrough involved pairing sensory stimuli with genetic lineage insights to enhance memory preservation.”

Matteo tilted the phone towards Juliette. “She supports artists? Sounds like a soft spot for the dreamers.”

“Maybe she’s your type,” Juliette teased, grinning.

Matteo laughed, shaking his head. “Sure, if she wasn’t old enough to be my mother.”

The conversation shifted, but Matteo couldn’t shake the feeling the name had stirred. As Juliette’s family called them back to the table, he pocketed his phone, a strange warmth lingering—part curiosity, part recognition.

To think that months before, all that technologie to connect dots together didn’t exist. People would spend years of research, now accessible in a matter of seconds.

Later that night, as they were waiting for the new year countdown, he found himself wondering: What kind of person would spend their retirement investing in forgotten villages and forgotten dreams? Someone who believed in second chances, maybe. Someone who, like him, was drawn to the idea of piecing together a life from scattered connections.