Nightmare

I am in a two storeyed building, at the end of a long passage-way that seem to stretch into the distance. Tiny cell-like rooms open on to one side of it. The rooms are musty, the doors decaying. My friends lived here once, and happy times were had. The other side of the passageway has a railing overlooking a twenty foot drop, a railing that I remember walking on while drunk. Out on the grounds, where they shot the two, there are memorial plaques. The lettering is faded. Nobody now knows who the two were.

The earth in these parts is fertile, and rains have helped. Lots of trees, and grounds overgrown with untended grass. Days are bright and sunny, I see the occasional snake sunning itself on the grass. The other day, I even saw a fat twelve foot cobra. I tried striking up a conversation with it, but snakes are solitary creatures and they don't like company. It disappeared down a hole. I tried to follow, but got stuck and gave up.

As the sun descends, the girls with the cows come out to graze them on the fields. I have a strong urge to eat a burger, but I resist. I might get killed, and I must never allow that. A cat eyes me from the end of the passage. It is black and white, with green eyes that stare at me. The stare has already made me uneasy, but the cat takes me by surprise and attacks. I struggle to shake it off even as it sinks its teeth into my forearm. A violent shake of the hand unintentionally sends the cat tumbling over the railing. A look over it with some concern, even as it lands on its feet at the bottom of the valley thousands of feet below. I watch horrified as it shape-shifts into a million black and white dogs, who start clawing their way up the cliff.

They find the fire escape that runs up the sides of this building soon enough. They come barking up the rusty rungs of the ladder, slavering at the mouth. I struggle with them, hit them and push them off it one by one. And as they hit the ground, they multiply, on and on till the green grass on the grounds below is turned black and white by the hordes of angry and hungry rabid dogs who seek to attack me.

I must jump off this plane, but I have no parachute.

The last time i tried to be a romantic..

Stellar thoughts

When the core of an interstellar molecular cloud of hydrogen becomes gravitationally unstable, it collapses, gaining in density, and pulling more material inwards. If the cloud is large enough, it forms a large star many many times the size of our sun.

Much like gas-guzzling SUVs, large stars run out of fuel quickly (in a cosmic sense). When all the hydrogen is burnt up and fused to helium, they collapse inwards. Their density and temperature increases, and, desperate for fuel, they burn helium to form higher and higher elements, resulting in a further increase in density and temperature, till they explode into supernovae.

Supernovae are the only known sources for elements higher than oxygen in the universe. That includes almost everything you see around you. You, I, this chair, this computer - we are all made up of the same stuff that stars were once made of.

We are stardust, billion year old carbon, indeed.

ps: Been on a Joni Mitchell trip, arising out of Falstaff's comment on the previous post.