Sleeping is half the battle...

I've been trying to keep better track of these, but I'll only post them when I think they give some kind of insight into my own disorganized thought process.



I'm watching a "classic" famous episode of G.I. Joe. I'm playing Duke. I'm given the task of stopping what is described as a giant robot general who is organizing some of the more aggressive pre WWI European societies into a loose cabal, uniting various militaries. under his leadership and innovative technology. This is a desperate last chance measure, many assassins have been killed trying to take him out. They give me a ray gun that is useless against normal humans. It'll work if I hit him in the eyes, but he knows about the ray gun and won't look at it directly. I am in a sparse forest, having just watched the "good guys" lose a battle to his superior technology when I see him walking by. I thought he'd really be a giant, this guy is maybe seven feet tall. He also looks human, at least from a distance. He's got a special reflective control panel about the size of a pocket watch that he's using to control some machines remotely. I try to hit his eyes in the reflection. The first shot misses, I curse since I've just made him aware of me. He's smart, he won't look at me, but he's still holding the pocket watch. I fire at it, and the beam reflects into his eyes. Immediately he becomes stiff and robotic, saying in a stiff and calculating voice "fusion source detected." The gun is irresistible to him now, and he's mentally degenerating. He starts to quote H.G. Wells to me, tells me how Europe won't survive in its current state, and war is a necessary condition of human existence. He is blindingly intelligent and I'm afraid to drop the ray gun, but I'm horrified to watch his intelligence diminish as I keep the trigger pressed. What am I destroying? He threatens me and seems about to overcome his fixation with the ray gun when one of his generals bursts in and announces that all of their war machines have stopped working, what should he do? As the robot turns his gaze to answer, I point the ray elsewhere on his body, I can hear it tearing through internal circuitry, sizzling and popping as it heats up. He asserts his gaze and I again direct it into his eyes, mostly out of fear. As he deteriorates further he comments on my stoicism, saying that I'm some kind of soldier and I didn’t even offer him the classic "but you're one of us" argument to convince him to stop the war. "Never" is all I say as I shudder, watching his hollow mockery of humanity go inert. His generals are gathered, as are my commanders. None of them can believe it. They're finally free. Everyone is suddenly celebrating, joyous and drinking and united. I see Germans and English, Turks and French, Austrians, Russians, and even the occasional American GI and they're all joyous and celebrating together. "You did it! You're a hero!" Everyone congratulates me but I am strangely taciturn. "H. G. Wells was right," I say with grim certainty to a young, awkward German man next to me. "It's going to take a war to unite this continent." The show concludes and I'm back in the living room, watching a historian comment on how the episode was "controversial" and "ahead of its time." He goes on to characterize the formation of the European Union as an eventual part of Hitler's legacy. I become disgusted with the realization that fantasy is just as terrible a place to live as reality.