Rogue Epoch

So, I had my first nightmare in over a decade last night. It was the most horrible dream I’ve ever had.

Now, before I continue, I suppose I’d have to define a “nightmare” for myself. A “nightmare”, to me, is a dream that scare the living shit out of you and leaves you feeling uneasy, hours after waking up. A truly heart-pounding, unnerving dream. Now, I have dreams that many would consider nightmares and I have them often. Dreams about monsters chasing me; dreams about wild animals, such as snakes, wolves, and the like, all chasing me, hunting me. I’ve had dreams where someone was out to get me, trying to kill me. And there have even been a few where I was in a fatal accident and I wake up just before the final impact. To me these dreams are simply odd, or even interesting. Nothing about them tends to really frighten me or have any lasting effect after I wake up. I just look around, realize where I am, and then I get a drink, wet my throat, and easily fall back into my slumber.

Now, there was one dream I had this summer that almost freaked me out while I was training with my military unit. But I just forgot where I was and woke up in pitch-black darkness. Once I remembered I wasn’t home (and therefore wasn't drugged and kidnapped), I went back to sleep (but not before helping myself to a nightcap from my battle-buddy’s wall locker).

But this dream I had last night was unlike any of those experiences. It wasn’t very long, from what I can remember, but it shook me to my very core. And the ironic thing about this is the fact that the dream was completely impossible and totally unrealistic. But it kept my heart racing for more than 2 hours after I woke up. It took the breath away from me and kept me in an irrational state of panic for longer than I care to remember. It left a hole in my chest and a knot in my stomach, making me feel both numb and sick, trembling and scrambling to collect myself.

Before I tell you what the dream was, let me give a little background about myself, for those of you who don’t know me. I’m 29 years old, married to a beautiful and artistically talented woman who simultaneously drives me fucking bat-shit crazy and pushes me to be the very best man I can be, and I’m father to four amazing children, 3 boys (9, 7, and 3) and a 9 month old little girl. I’m also divorced. My oldest 2 sons are from my previous marriage and they live with my ex-wife and visit me as often as she allows (which is only exactly the bare minimum the divorce papers require). We all have a good time together, and the boys are as close as can possibly be, much closer than I ever expected, given the amount of time they get to spend with each other. And they all look after their baby sister like she’s a treasure to be protected. I couldn’t ask for better sons. My 7 year old is a football player, and he’s really good!! He and I share a love of the outdoors. My 9 year old is more of a geek, and that’s something that he and I share. He is a HUGE Legend of Zelda fan (my wife recently made him a replica of the Champion’s Tunic from the Breath of the Wild title) and he’s currently making his way through the Harry Potter books. We talk about them all the time and carry on conversations about all the games they play, the books they read, and the sports they play. We have always had a very close bond, despite our lack of time together. And I love them and their brother and sister with all my heart.

Now that you have that, on to the nightmare:

In my dream, I was on a spaceship. It was traveling from our solar system (the Sol System) to another, unnamed star system. This new system was several, possibly THOUSANDS of lightyears from ours, but the technology we had was so advanced that the trip only took a few weeks. Hardly a noticeable about of time in the grand scheme of things. And no one had to be put to sleep or in stasis to make the trip. We all experienced every minute of it from launch until we arrived. As we orbited this new planet we were going to explore (and presumably colonize) a voice came over the ship’s intercom and announced the arrival time. This disembodied voice announced that 320 Earth years had passed since our launch to our arrival. That was so cool, I thought. Time dilation was a bit of a mind fuck and I was curious to see what had happened to my home planet by the time I got back.

And then it hit me.

320 years had passed on Earth since I left.

320 years since I said good-bye to my eldest sons. To my firstborn.

320 years since I held them.

320 years since I hugged them. Kissed them.

The world around me spun, wobbled, melted away, came back, and started over.

I stumbled around the ship, just repeating the word “No”. First mumbling it, them muttering it, and then, eventually, screaming it at the top of my lungs.

“No! No!!! NOOOOO!!!!!”

I burst into tears as I searched for my family. My wife, my youngest son, and my daughter. Assuming they were with me. Trying to process the fate of my other sons. The fact that they grew up without me. Got married. Had children. Grandchildren. Lived full lives. Without me. And then...died. All within less than a month of my own life. They were gone. And I couldn’t undo it. I couldn’t go back. I couldn’t see them. I gave them up. For what? My whole life was gone...and I was hollow..lost.

And then I woke up. I looked over at my wife. I checked on my children. And I grabbed a cup of coffee. Then I sat back on my bed and mourned the loss of my sons. The terror of this loss gripped my heart for over two hours as I waited for my wife and kids to get up. Then we watched a movie called DAYBREAKERS on Amazon, one about vampires who took over the world. I hugged my youngest son and my daughter tighter than I usually do. And I held them there longer than I usually do. And I kissed my wife, deeper than I usually do.

Family is a precious thing. It can be fleeting, as the world is unpredictable. You should cherish every moment you have with them. Love them with everything you have. And then love them with more. And don’t stop there.

This past weekend my wife and I traveled up to Atlanta for the day, mostly to look into a job opportunity, but we decided to make a day of it and take in the city. We had our two youngest with us and at about 12:30 or so, we were all getting pretty famished. I mean, we started at like 6:30, that’s a long time between meals!!

We found ourselves right outside the Mall at Peachtree Center and decided to walk in and see what the foodcourt had to offer. Now, the last time I was in the area here was about 5 years ago on a trip with my college’s Philosophy Club for a conference of the APA (American Philosophical Association). Not to be confused with the other APA (America Psycological Association). But when I recognized where we were, and I smelled a certain aroma in the air, I knew exactly where we had to go for lunch:

Aviva by Kameel, Mediterranean Grill

Now, if you’ve never been to this place on a visit to Atlanta, you are missing out on the experience of a lifetime! And that’s no exaggeration. Upon entering the establishment you are instantly family, and Kameel, the owner and head chef, will not hesitate to let you know that and make sure you feel it, too. Once you get in line you will be greeted amiably and plied with samples upon samples of food, to include soups, cakes, and fresh sliced fruits, almost until you are full, and that’s before you even reach the counter to order. And everything offered to you at this point is vegan and gluten free, so there is absolutely no reason not to accept it, regardless of your dietary preferences or restrictions!

When my family and I entered, we were loaded down with cargo. We were carrying my book bag, my wife’s camera bag, the diaper bag, our 7-month-old daughter (in her carseat), and our 3 year old son. Kameel saw us as we entered and when he approached us said, “Shabbat shalom, my brother! (Kameel addresses everyone as ‘brother’ or ‘sister’) Will you be having lunch with us today?” To which I excitedly responded with, “Yes, of course!” That was before I noticed the line...which was so long it led out the door and wrapped around almost to the other entrance. The last time I visited this place, it had just opened a few months prior. It was much slower that day. It had certainly grown it popularity since!

 I must have let the slight anxiety show on my face, but our gracious host wasn’t going to leave us hanging. He smiled warmly us and waved his hand through the air like he was sweeping away some small problem. “Let me make you comfortable. You don’t need to carry all those things. Your hands are so full. Let me get you a table.” At that, he called to one of the employees and had the young man get a table ready for us to sit at. We got ourselves situated and then I took orders from my wife. She asked me to surprise her, trusting in my (impeccable) tastes in cultured foods to delight and satisfy her (obligatory egotism). I went and took my place in line, at which time we were all given samples of various dishes while we waited. My son ate 2 full plates of fruit while I was in line!

To say that you are full when you finally get to order is a bit hyperbolic. But you certainly aren’t starving when you get there like you may think, dealing with such a long line. The environment is so welcoming and you just get to chit-chat with everyone there. You hardly notice how long the wait is. But the line does actually move rather swiftly. When you get close enough to order, they offer you MORE samples straight from the serving area, to make sure you’re going to enjoy what you order. On this particular day, there was a delicious salmon kabob on the line. I passed this up to satisfy my craving for authentic Lamb Shawarma, but I was honored to have tasted the dish. Everything they served tasted so fresh and light, and there is a reason for that. All produce is obtained locally from nearby farms and not a single ounce of butter is used in the recipes. All food is prepared using the healthiest ingredients. You can definitely taste the freshness in every bite of the food, too. And when you are finished, you feel refreshed, not sluggish. So don’t be expecting to succumb to “the Itis”. You’ll be ready to hit the streets of downtown Atlanta with a new found vigor you didn't think you were capable of!

[Fun Fact: You’ll see that on several menu items it says that the meat is halal. For those of you who are not familiar with the word, it’s okay. This is a term which loosely translates to “permissible”. It’s used in Islamic law to denote something that is okay or allowed. Not to oversimplify things, but when used in reference to food preparation, it’s very similar to the term kosher used in Jewish dietary laws (though there are differences in the laws for certain foods).]

So, I was reading an article in Popular Science today that talked about the usage of Generation Ships to get to another star system. In this article specifically, we are going to the planet Proxima b, an exoplanet in out nearest star system neighbor, Alpha Centauri. Why? Because it’s the most likely scenario of travel, because even THAT will take us several hundred years to reach with our top technology to date.

But it got me thinking, if we did manage to build such a ship, what would it need to come equipped with?  It is clear we would definitely need to bring along some sort of ecosystem to support life, but what else? How would life aboard this ship pan out? Family life, romantic life, etc. How much would be freely determined and how much would be up to the governance of the people? Would there be a system of trade that develops on the ship?

There were a couple of ways this article talked about how the trip would work. One version involved including enough cryogenically frozen humans (adults and/or embryos) to populate the new planet, but the crew would be required to either live for generations on the ship, raising families to replace them or would be awakened periodically to run routine maintenance on the ship and ensure that it stayed on course to the new world. What would be some problems you think would arise from either scenario? 

Another version allowed for all the passengers to be awake and alive for the duration of the trip. How would that pan out? It could be assumed that only a certain number of people could live at a given time on the ship. Would we start with a small number of people (large enough to prevent the possibility of inbreeding, but small enough to build a tight community) and then allow the population to grow to maximum capacity over time? For example, taking perhaps 160 people initially, but the size and capabilities of the ship allow for a population of 2,500. So the population would grow until it reached this number, but then what? How would reproduction and coupling be controlled and maintained to prevent over population? Would there be a regulation in place prior to the embarkation? Would this be something that develops over time? How would these regulations change?

Concept and Story: 8.5/10 Scripting and Execution: 7.5/10 Overall Rating: 8.0/10 Solid B

***Mild SPOILERS lie ahead*** So, here’s a movie that’s currently on Amazon Prime as of this writing (that would be 12 March, 2018) called After the Dark. I definitely recommend it based on it’s premise. But the execution as the wrap up leaves a little to be desired, if I’m honest. Caution for the spoilers.

First of all, the synopsis is HIGHLY misleading if you read it, so don’t make you decision to watch it based on that:

“Faced with an impending nuclear apocalypse, a group of twenty college students must determine which ten of them would take shelter underground and reboot the human race. The decision quickly becomes deadly as each in the group turns against each other in a desperate fight for survival.”

It sounds like the kids are about to struggle with surviving the end of the world! That’s not even close to the truth. Well, sort of close. The plot of the movie revolves around a high school philosophy class of 20 students and their teacher who embark on a final thought experiment on the last day of school. The scenario? The world is on the brink of extinction via nuclear apocalypse. The goal is to survive extinction and save the human race. There is a bunker that is designed to support life for 10 people for 1 year. So they have to decide who goes in, and who burns in the fallout. Each student is given the opportunity to draw a card from a box that will tell them who they are, or at least what their skill set is. Then the group votes.

This, to me, is a very interesting take on the post-apocalyptic genre of films. Rather than actually facing the disaster, these student form a think tank where they contemplate the weight

of their decisions. They go through 3 iterations of the experiment. In the first, they are just given jobs, roles. In the second iteration, they are given some sort of trait. For some, it is a benefit that may out weight the uselessness of their given trade or skill. For others, its the exact opposite. So this changes the game quite a bit for some of the participants. Especially when procreation becomes a primary concern in the second round.

The third round is where things started to fall apart for me. One of the students was given the role of soldier and the trait of having a perfect eidetic memory, which is great. Until she is able to recall information from the previous iteration to help them in the final round. Seems a little cheesy and a bit of a deus ex machina, if you ask me. But no one did, so the movie was made with this big gaping flaw. The ending does a bit of an (not completely) unexpected (and not wholly necessary) twist. I won’t ruin that part for you if you intend to watch it. You judge for yourself how that plays out.

Another movie review.

Concept and Execution: 10/10 Scripting and Story: 5/10 Overal Rating: 7.5/10

***Mild SPOILERS lie ahead*** The film LIFE stars a stellar cast (pun, pun, puuunn!) in a unique and simultaneously

abused sci-fi horror story. With big names like Ryan Reynolds (of Deadpool fame) and Jake Gyllenhaal (End of Watch, Nightcrawler) leading up the crew, the bar set pretty high for

success, but there were some significant holes that caused the film to trip itself up. LIFE begins with a brilliant and exceptionally different concept than previously explored

in films of the sci-fi/horror genre. The creative minds behind this move wanted to examine the idea of what life beyond the borders of our world might be like, but they didn’t want to replicate any monsters we’ve seen danced across the silver screen in recent decades, nor did they want to just augment some frightful critter found right in our backyard. What they sought was something wholly unique and different, and in this they certainly succeeded.

The threat the (fictional) crew of the (real) International Space Station (I.S.S.) faces initially comes in the form of a dormant, single-celled organism that visibly appears to be some form of bacteria. The organism is affectionately named “Calvin” by the students of one randomly selected elementary school (lucky!! Amarite?!). The organism was found in a soil sample that was retrieved from the surface of Mars and is central to the crew’s current mission, to understand what life may exist, or have existed, in extra-terrestrial environments.

The development of “Calvin” is where the creative talents behind LIFE truly excelled. It soon becomes apparent to the crew that “Calvin” is more than just a single-celled organism, it is in fact a colony of single-celled organisms that can operate in tandem with each other as a single, multi-celled organism. The cells that constitute this creature are described as each being muscular, neural, and sensory in function, capable of effectively operating as individual units. This augments “Calvin’s” ability to interact with and learn from its environment. This is truly terrifying when fully considered. The organism rapidly evolves as the film progresses and

becomes an even greater threat. “Calvin” metamorphoses from a batch of cells in a petri dish curiously exploring its environment to a massive organism with a high level of functioning intelligence that is virtually unprecedented. The creature problem solves and learns to understand its surroundings at an astounding rate. Each object, human or otherwise, is a new database it can learn from, and it grows exponentially, feeding on the air and the crew.

Where the film lost some of it’s traction was in the execution of the story. The suspenseful scenes were very tired and full of “tried and true” horror film trope. The outcome of many scenes that were meant to leave the audience in a state of suspense were entirely too predictable, down to which character would die and when. There were a few interesting additions that avoided the scenes from being too boring, but overall it’s nothing that hasn’t been seen before. The biggest downfall in this film is the twist for the ending. It’s one that viewers have a sense may be coming, but logically makes no sense in the realm of the story. In fact, its almost impossible for the ending to occur, making it obvious the writers simply threw this scene into the film to give viewers a convulsion to discuss leaving the theaters. Viewers more than likely left wondering how his could have made sense to the cast and crew.

So, I’ve been waiting for YEARS to finally get the opportunity to view this film, and I am elated to report it definitely did NOT disappoint. Please beware moving forward,  there may be some spoilers, but I’ll try to keep it down to a minimum. I just can’t talk enough about this film.

The first trailer I remember seeing for the movie was released about the same time as the trailer for SINISTER 2, around March-April of 2014. Maybe 2015. Either way, the trailer looked amazing and the story was something completely new: a little boy’s dreams become reality around him. But there’s a catch, so do his nightmares. So, already the movie is set up for you to expect monsters from hell or something, but the writer’s Mike Flanagan (also the director) and Jeff Howard chose to really focus their work on something else, our young protagonist and the foster parents who chose to take him in.

The plot follows Jessie and Mark Hobson, parents who lost their own little born previously in an accident, as they bring Cody Morgan into their home. These guys are great parents, just wanting the little guy to feel welcome and at home (he’s had it rough himself), so this should be a good thing. Everyone helping each other heal. Long story short, without too many spoilers, Cody’s dream’s cause a little tension in the home, giving these folks hope for something that can never happen, then things get bad when the nightmares start. Cody’s biggest nightmare is “The Canker Man”, who he tells the Hobsons took his mom from him. Ate her, more like. This fiend makes a couple of appearances in the home before causing enough ruckus to warrant Cody being removed from the home by Social Services.

That doesn’t stop his foster mom from looking for any answers to his past she can, though, trying to help him and her family. Rock on, Mom, amiright? Not quite. It’s not all altruistic, in the beginning. But she comes around. By the end of the film, everyone has more healing to do, but it’s set up for possibly one of the best, happiest endings to a horror movie of all time. Even if a little bittersweet.

This is not something you can often say about horror movies, but the screenplay is very beautifully written. I mean, it’s superb. Marketed as a “dark fantasy horror”, this film is so much more than that. It touches on the scar left behind by the loss of a loved one, and really zeroes in on how that loss can affect you. Especially the loss of a young child as opposed to the loss of a parent BY a young child. Piggybacking off of that, this film also touches on the horrors and fears young children face when the closest person to them is ripped away. Not how “the system” hurts them, but just that memory, how it changes, morphs, and mutates into nightmares, because that’s what loss is, a waking nightmare. At the end of the day, what saves the world in this film is showing a little boy that he is loved, that his mother loved him, and that, even though the world can be scary, there will be people there for you.