100 - So useful.
joneworlds@mailbox.org

I had this  dream the other night, first  one in a
while. I'm in some kind of open-air workshop, with
long work  tables set up  in rows, and lots  of us
are  around them  and  working on  these things  I
can't  remember.  We're  all  tinkering away,  and
talking and  co-operating and  all that,  but then
awful  gruesome  stuff  starts  happening.   Like,
people's skin  starts sloughing off,  fingers snap
in  two,  ankles break,  and  so  on.  But  nobody
reacts, and we just carry  on.  And some of us are
wrapping rags around big wounds, limping around on
crutches and splints, standing  on one foot, using
one hand.  But we just keep on going and working.

It  gets  worse  and worse,  everyone  falling  to
pieces.  Until  eventually we're all  crumbled and
crawling  around on  the ground,  trying to  hoist
ourselves up  to the  tables again to  keep going,
but we're all so broken that we can't even. I sort
of roll onto my back, and see that a bunch of elfs
had come  by.  They're  wordlessly picking  up and
carrying  away our  work tables.   And I  remember
trying to  cry out, "Hey,  wait, I was  working on
that!"  But I'm such a shambles by then, that it's
barely a whisper and nobody  can hear me.  I can't
hardly even move. They carefully step over me.

Then I notice I am looking up into the branches of
an old elm tree.  Also  I see members of my family
standing  nearby.  It's  my mom,  and my  dad, and
Beth  and  little  Evan  and  Lara.   They're  all
looking down at  me as I lie  there, falling apart
on  the  ground.   But  they  aren't  upset.   Not
horrified or scared, not  angry or sad or panicked
or  crying,   not  grieving  or   sympathizing  or
reaching down in  assistance.  They're just there,
recognizing.   Recognizing that  this was  a thing
that was happening right now.  Recognizing that it
was...  well, not "okay", but  it was just like, a
thing that was happening.   I don't know.  But for
that, in that moment, I felt so loved.

And then, two birds fly down  out of a nest in the
tree above  me. One tears  out a tuft of  my hair,
and the other rips a  strip of sinew from my side.
And through my one  eye that still points upwards,
I watch them take these  pieces of me, fly back up
to their eggs  in their nest, and  repair the side
of it.  I break into  a wide, toothless grin.  And
I feel so, so... I don't exactly know. So useful.

And then I wake up.