When Worlds Collide

Thanks to a comment in Elaine's journal my dream just came rushing back to me. It was based on "When Worlds Collide." I was living in a brownstone townhouse and it was the day before the launch of the rocket that would take people to the new planet. I was outside on the front steps chatting with the driver that was going to pick me up the next day and take me to the rocket. It was a strangely casual conversation about the pick-up time and what I should do if there was some delay with the ride to get myself to the rocket. We knew, but did not mention the fact, that the driver was not going to be going on the rocket. There were a couple of little kids playing in the otherwise empty street a few houses down. At one point we both just looked at them for a moment, but said nothing about it. I watched the doomed driver leave and carefully make sure that the equally doomed kids got out of the way and were "safe."

I went inside and looked at Tharsis and Jazz sleeping on a pillow. I began trying to think of ways I could sneak Tharsis along and felt a wave of misery when the futility of bringing a neutered cat to a new planet. I didn't know who else was going to be going. I began to wonder about the people who were still doing their jobs, like the driver, when the world was doomed. There was still running water and electricity. I fired up the computer and started to make an LJ post and wondered why, when in a few more days there would be no LJ and no one to read it. I thought about all the lines and wires and machines on the Internet and wondered how much of what I was using had just been left on, untended, because there was no point in even shutting things off. At that point I began questioning why I should even go. I began to consider what was going to happen to the Earth and the chances that some people could and would survive the disaster, but then what? Which was worse: the burnt out husk of the old world or the harsh, empty unknown vastness of the new one? Build or re-build? If I went on the rocket I would stand a better chance of surviving, but the thought of surviving "the easy way" was becoming more horrifying than taking my chances and sticking around the help the lucky few that might survive. In the end I wasn't sure I could live with the guilt of leaving everyone and everything I'd ever known to an uncertain and perilous future when my own was to be assured.

I didn't come to a conclusion in the dream.