Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Dreams of a Startling Display of Light

I go back to bed after being awake in the early morning, and somewhere have the following dream: that I am going to a Safeway, and, in the parking lot, hear a strange sound and see something flash in the night sky. I turn and watch a remarkable display of light: a young man and woman - I can see them in the distance - are standing, each shooting parallel streams of sparks into the sky, which rocket up in two sometimes straight, sometimes gently curving lines, rising high above Vancouver. They're playing music, a glowing electronic hum, to accompany themselves; part of the show is that their separate strands, which glow a bluish white, are in synch with each other, timed to shoot up together - though I notice that the woman's shoots much higher than the man's, that his stream tends to sputter and fail before hers. Their display catches everyone's eye and lasts several minutes, with several pulses shooting up above the city, but it's clearly an unsanctioned, off-the-grid performance, and after they finish, they pack up they leave the area quickly. I watch their flight with interest. To my surprise, they walk directly to the Safeway, hurriedly ducking inside, where I fall into pace behind them. She has long dark hair, he has short blonde hair; they walk quickly while I follow them.

"That was remarkable! Totally beautiful! I want to write about you - do you want to be in the Georgia Straight?"

He looks over, hostile. The woman is more receptive to attention but says no, they don't.

"Can I know your names?"

"No!" he says. "Leave us alone!"

"We're quite well-known on the scene," she adds.

"But... what scene is that? I don't even know what to call it."

"Call it what you like!" This from the stressed-out guy.

"But how do I look it up? What should I Google?"

He says, still irritably, like it should be obvious - "maybe try 'fireworks scene?'"

There's a Vancouver fireworks scene? I wonder. I've never heard anything about it... a guerrilla underground of fireworks enthusiasts, planning art projects with fire? 

I follow them the length of the Safeway - not sure why they even went inside - and they come out a different exit and head to their vehicle. I can hear sirens in the distance - someone is looking for them. In fact, there are cops parked nearby, a uniformed constable standing in the lot talking to someone. I sense they may be more receptive to the fact that I am walking with them because it clashes with any description the police may have of two people, a man and a woman. So I try to relax and function as cover - the least I can do is walk them to their car. I don't recall what gets said from this portion, but they get in their Land Rover and I say goodbye and thank them for the moment of unexpected beauty.

I return home to sit at my computer. The article I'm working on can wait, I think. I start entering in combinations of words - "unsanctioned fireworks Vancouver," "underground fireworks scene," that sort of thing. I do image searches to see if there are photos online of what I saw, but there's nothing up yet. Who are these people? What shall I write about them? I feel the excitement of a breaking story...

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