I dreamed that I was attending a party in some penthouse. there was a mix of people there, some dressed extremely casually in co-op style shorts, tshirts, etc, some looking like they lived and breathed in formal wear. like guys in dress shirts and waistcoats, but with the tie hanging undone. I think I was in the former group, but was a little uncomfortable. there were children around, and some of them were "special" as in special olympics. the party spilled out of the penthouse and onto the roof outside, in the bright sun.

Elena's mom was there and she was pretty old. she was in charge of watching one or two of the kids. she wasn't, really. I was concerned, becuase there were drugs present, and the kids wouldn't know any better. I went looking for her. I found her sitting in the bottom of this closet-type space that reminded me of the closets in the back of my junior high school rooms, but narrower. she was staring into space, her eyes unnaturally wide. I realized she was on some designer drug like some of the formal-wear people were taking at the party. then I left and went outside. I was in a camp area near the Black Point Forest faire site. the oak trees dappled the ground in the sun. some folks were wandering around who were also participants in the party.

Heather, Karine, myself, and one other person decided that we would leave and go on an adventure. we went to a nearby train station. I was looking across the train station and the sun was shining in the windows; it was late afternoon. as I looked I realized we were trying to reconstruct some movie plot from a 40's type black & white movie. as I watched the black and white image of the trainstation superimposed itself on the sunny station. it was quite weird; in black and white it seemed like everything was overcast, the sun just went away. I spent some time trying to figure out if the black and white viewpoint was the same plance & time, different filter, or a different time altogether, and it really was overcast.

then we were on the train. we were in North Korea, and we were travelling with some Army unit. uh, the North Korean Army, not the US Army. we were going north to the forest, where we would be logging some trees to be used by the Army for something or other. everyone in the train car faced the same direction. at the fron of the train car there was a place for someone to speak, a table. behind the speaker a little more than half the width of the car (on speaker's left) was a wall possibly a little sleeping space. in the nook between it and the side of the car was a woman with a sewing machine.

our clothes were on the table in a big stack. they were of fantastic like shiny purple fabric, and some velure, etc.

the guy in charge of our mission came to speak. he asked Karine which of the pile of stuff was hers. she pulled out the army shirt, and left her other clothes in the pile. he smiled and said ahh, that is exactly right (as if to imply she had forfeited the right to her other clothes).

he called Heather to the front. when she was there, the woman with the sewing machine pulled out a football jersey, which was mostly yellow with black shoulders. it had the Nike logo on it and the words "Earth First!" added to the right, and EARTH SEPARATIST in bad lettering to the left. the lady cut the bottom of the jersey, which was long, to fit Heather's body. the leader made Heather put her left hand flat on the table, and with a jigsaw cut off whatever parts of her fingers were beyond the first joint of the middle finger. it was very shocking.

when he called me to the front, that's when the four of us realized, we were going to be taken to the woods, and killed because we were Americans, and the whole thing staged as an action to defend against eco-terrorism. then I cut off my fingers too. I cut them a little
lower than Heather did. the cut itself hurt but they sealed up really fast, and I started playing with the blunt tips (like you always play with an injury).

meanwhile Karine had quickly bought a new shirt from the person seated behind her, who was more than happy to make a buck. then she got called to the front. I sat there playing with my fingertips, deeply unhappy but with a sense of the inevitable, as Karine was up there tring to convince the sewing machine woman to keep the fingertips on ice (so when the Americans came they could be reattached).

I woke up, and have not been able to get the Glenn Miller rendition of Sentimental Journey out of my head since then.