Unrecovered Dreams

It is mid-morning. Spring or summer, everything is green. A cottage, not quite in the woods. Just out of town. Almost near a creek.

The elder strolls up. Wordlessly, silently he hesitates at the door. He knocks a perfect three times, hears them resonating throughout the structure. Obligatory footfalls after. Without a peek the door opens, thankfully by the boy, his younger by a precise number of years. The boy looks up, blinks his eyes away, looks up again. “Hullo,” he says (you can hear the uh).

“Mr. Harlowe I presume.” Without waiting for a response the elder produces an object from his coat, forcing himself a steady hand. “You’ll find that you have been missing this for quite some time.” He extends it neutrally toward the boy. Formerly solid wood, it’s been repaired many times, the latest a much finer wrapping of bark and vine than he would have been capable before.

Young Mr. Harlowe takes it without question, surprised by his own action. A distant look of familiarity softens his face.

“Um, thanks.”, seeming unsure of what to do with this newly found object.

Parental footfalls stop both of them short of saying anything more. Silently, wordlessly, they retreat to their starting places. Safely near the creek, the elder stops and lets out a fitful breath. “Let’s hope you know what you’re doing, Max.” and quite literally disappears without a trace before he can change his mind.

F-bombs

Boss: hey Frank.
Frank: hey.

Boss: Frank.. Frankie, F-man.. F-bomb. Can I call you F-bomb?

Frank: No.

Boss: I'm gonna call you F-bomb.



Boss: Okay I won't call you F-bomb. Except, once every now and then I'm going to throw it down and you'll be annoyed, but because we had this conversation you'll laugh and be a little bit okay with it until you think more about it deep down then you're really just going to hate me more and more every time I call you that. So seriously don't worry I won't call you F-bomb.

Frank. Um, ok. Thanks Boss.

Boss: Great. See you later F-bomb.

Flawed Fiction

Just watched the recent move “9”. Very frustrated in the plot. Let me see if can sum it up for myself:
Scientist invents intelligent machine. Machine is used to make more war machines. Machine turns on humanity, goes all Terminator/Matrix. Scientist makes nine sock puppets, puts nine different 'parts of his soul' into sock puppets. Before he dies and the last sock puppet awakens the Scientist ends up with the freaking On Switch for The Machine. Ninth sock puppet wakes up. Finds key. Plugs it back into the broken Machine. Machine wakes up starts mission over again. Sucks in 5 of the 9 sock puppet's essence. Ninth puppet grabs On Switch. Blows up The Machine with it. The 5 dead sock puppet 'soul pieces' vaporize happily into the air.
Uh. So. As far as I understand it, the world is not left in a better place. Nothing really changes. How did the Scientist end up with the On Switch to The Machine? If he had it, and the machine wasn't working (which is implied since the re-acquaintance with the On Switch brings The Machine back to life), why did he keep working on the sock puppets? So many plot holes for something so visually interesting. It wouldn't take much to spin it into an encompassing, cohesive idea but no attention was paid to that. So much potential, wasted. Alas.

More dreams

We were at a house, long used and recently abandoned by friends/relatives. A group of us were there, headed up my current boss's boss. It was afternoon, I had places to be that evening/the next day.
Somehow the call was made to clear out the house, prep it for sale/rental etc. I protested that there wasn't enough time in the day to get it done but the bigboss went through with it anyway
cut to: scenes of a group of people trying to clear out a desperately full house. All I remember was there was a portable vinyl record player so we had old music to listen to in part of the house while we worked.
Sub-plot arises: Somehow or other the city/country we live in has come under attack by it's nearest neighbor. Sending troops down one town at a time, through planned roads and intersections There has been noted that a covert survey team of foreigners has been spotted, scouting the roads the day before each assault. Rumor has spread a description of this scouting team, and they appear to go un-contested about their business (don't ask me, it's a dream).
As the clamoring cleanout continues (hell yeah I just did that), I notice three people at the road outside. Pointing, taking notes, and snapping photos. Immediately assume it's the 'scouts' and that we're awfully close to being the next target. My urgency hastens and I warn everyone, but business goes about as usual.
Night falls, long after I had intended to be home with my family. Inevitably the foreign assault begins. Troops with guns come storming down the road. We maybe find a temporary hiding spot in the house but are obviously trapped with an unknown future. Will we be captured/killed? Will we put up resistance? What exactly is going on? Only thing on my mind is "I have to get back to my wife and kid."
That's about when I woke. Just a dream with a combo of work-anxiety, don't-want-to-be-here-running-out-of-time anxiety, and a dash of did-Tom-Clancy-write-this-script anxiety?
All for you, uncensored, unedited, no regard to good writing conventions. Maybe I'll merge this dream with my Zombie-Apocalypse dream from before and we'll really have something.