plague journal
b'
I was in one of the polar regions, North or South, I\\u2019m not sure \\u2013 though most likely the North, given the lack of any land mass. The ice here was largely melted, and any number of people were out on the water, like myself, in the now accommodatingly warm climate. The region, given how remote and normally inaccessible it is, seemed alarmingly crowded with pleasure-seekers in their boats. An important factor to both the atmosphere of the dream and the literal atmosphere in the dream was the \\u201crefractory index\\u201d \\u2013 the degree to which the bright, direct sunlight was bent or refracted in the air, caught by the tiny ice crystals or bits of water vapor that hung about, especially when broken free and released. Floating on the water in an inner tube, I could see this effect especially clearly and close-up as the hull of a large icebreaking ship sped around the thinly ice-crusted waters, out of control. I was also the pilot this ship, simultaneously to being in the water and in its path, and therefore the one both responsible for its control while unable to control it.
More about the \\u201crefractory index\\u201d \\u2013 this was an incredibly beautiful thing to see. The quality of light and color was sublime. The sunlight itself had an intense red within it, but this was only brought out in refraction: refraction through ice breaking, but also in the sparking of the ship\\u2019s hull as it scraped over and through the ice. There was this light like a laser light, and though it was very dangerous \\u2013 the precursor of something terrible to come in the compromised quality of the atmosphere, almost certain to kill the entire human race, perhaps all life \\u2013 it was unbelievably bright and simply incredible to see. Where this light was not direct, the refracted sunlight in water vapor, and somewhat also in the atmosphere itself, was rainbow-hued. Though this was deeply, sadly beautiful, and sublime in its detail, it was also inescapably the result of a global ecological sickness, and therefore a precursor of doom.
Now the icebreaking ship\\u2026 It nearly ran me over: I could only helplessly watch it approach, fast over the surface, crushing through the crust of ice, burning this intensity of red, focused light at the point it broke through, getting ever closer and closer to where I floated. I was unable to do anything to avoid being run over by it, though I was also and at the same time somehow driving the ship. But it pulled to a stop just in time before it hit me. I had already anticipated how it would feel to be crushed and drowned in the cold water as the prow loomed over, and what I would see as the hull hit and killed me. But that did not quite happen; the boat came to a sudden stop just before the fatal moment. I was safe \\u2013 and so were all the other vacationers out on the thawing waters in their small pleasure craft, here at the pole.
*The intensity of the \\u201crefractory index\\u201d was partly due to the low angle of the sunlight, as seen at the pole. Refractive index is more likely the correct term, given the property described in the dream, but the word that I awoke thinking was \\u201crefractory\\u201d, which refers to the human characteristic of obstinacy. But I often get words slightly wrong (that is, entirely wrong) this way. I don\\u2019t think the phrase was mentioned in the dream, but what immediately occurred to me as I awoke.
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