The Wedge

This is the dream I had last night which I thought really good but is probably a bit boring for you, but anyway, lolz. Like most dreams, events can co-exist and time can collapse or stretch and both events and time can inter-relate holistically, however, to write them I have to write linearly. As well, this dream is in a whole different time and place but I carry myself as now in the dream and also, since I am in the dream ego dominates and I am the centre of the dream; or at least part of it. So, we begin, a bit pedestrian at first but I hope it gets more interesting:

It is the day and I’m at home, not where I live now but a different house. I’m doing something and realise that Peter is not with me, so I go look for him. A long time after my dog died, I knew that I could have another dog so I now have a puppy. I got him from a friend and he looks like ‘Snowy’ from the TinTin comics – but a puppy. When I held him up on first meeting him, wondering what name would fit, the name ‘Peter’ just came to mind and seemed to fit.

Peter is not like Aria and seems less playful and more curious and watchful, prone to exploring and observing, so I can look up from my work and he’s not there. So I go looking and I find Peter sitting in front of the TV watching it with his head cocked to one side, he’s an unusual puppy. I pick him up and as I walk back through the house I pass the lounge-room and hear my girlfriend in serious discussion with a few others.

She’s a member of the Uni Student Union and like some student unions the student politicians have direct responsibility for union employees. It seems that a service-level employee had been travelling on routine union business to another city but when the union was invoiced the ticket he had travelled on charged almost double the usual fare. Not exactly double and they couldn’t work out why.

The thought was that he had taken a friend and tried to put some of the cost onto the union, a possible theft of student funds; fraud was suspected. The student union was going to meet for a committee-of-enquiry with him that afternoon. I wangle my way onto the committee and attend when it convenes. At the meeting, there are suspicious student unionists looking to lynch, so I manage to run the questioning myself and the others become the audience (see, it’s all ego!).

‘So, Alan, you are not under arrest and this is not a trial. This committee is here to ask you some questions and find out an explanation as to why the ticket you travelled on charged almost double the usual cost to the union. I can see that you are understandably anxious to be here so I would like you to write down the questions I will ask you before you answer as this will give you time to understand the question and give a considered answer.’

(I did this for two reasons: Firstly, although the student union committee did not realise this, it gave Alan his own ‘record-of-interview’. Secondly, in real life, I do watch reality cop shows occasionally. People who see me doing this tend to sneer somewhat because I’m watching such low-brow shows as COPS, Border Security, or the Australian ‘Behind the Force’ or whatever it is called. Actually, I’m not interested in all the hyped real-life ‘drama rah-rah’: I’m studying the cops behaviour and attitude, it is more a sociological documentary for me; I couldn’t give a toss about over hyped crimes done by ‘perps’ who are captured dramatically by ‘hero’ cops live on camera.

One thing that I’ve noticed (and had confirmed by other sources) is that people answer quickly to the ‘authority’ of the cops but when a critical question is asked they pause, which triggers the cops to know they are onto ‘guilt’. So it is good practise to pause for a couple of seconds before you answer any question, even something as simple as, ‘Your name is?’ This pause gave Alan the chance to appear unperturbed.

You can also debate the issue if you can. I was once pulled over (blues and twos), and was told that I was going to get a ticket because I had turned right on a corner without indicating. I debated the issue and won- I didn’t get a ticket. Of course, don’t try to be a lawyer to a cop; even real lawyers don’t get away with that! But on with the dream.)

‘Also, Alan, wherever possible just answer yes or no.’ (This is also good strategy in real life; you don’t have to chat with or explain anything to the cops and anything you do say will be taken down and used in evidence- even comments about the weather!)

‘Alan, you travelled intercity on routine union work?’
‘Yes’
‘For two days?’
‘Yes’
‘Yet the travel invoice is almost double the usual fare?’
‘Yes’
‘Hmm… you are a service-level employee?’
‘Yes’
‘Yet you are clearly a bright man and you could be professional-level, do you agree?’
‘Yes’
‘Back in the day, where did your family live?’
‘They were Farside’
‘So you are an Edger?’
‘Yes’
‘Do you have any family?’
‘I have a younger sister, and Mum and Dad’

At that moment I knew he had rorted the union and why he did it. Peter and the vague rumours drifting around coalesced in my mind and I decided to end the committee-of-enquiry.

‘Alan used a travelcard and the union was automatically invoiced. He had no direct involvement with the transactions. There is no point in going further. We have suspicions (all student politicians thrive on scandal and conflict) but this could have easily been a computer error. In the spirit of solidarity, I will pay the difference in the travel invoice and we will move on.’

Now to the other parts of the dream, which were sprinkled through the committee-of-enquiry and form the atmosphere, the setting, of this conversation with Alan.

‘Back in the Day’ was several generations ago, before the Sun went nova. There was only a few days forewarning; people panicked, society began to collapse and those people who could tried to get to the side of Earth opposite the Sun in the hope of somehow surviving.

On ‘Nova Night’, the Moon began to shine brighter and brighter until it was sun-like itself as it reflected the first wavefronts of nova sunlight and night became day. People began to scream, an ululation that came from everywhere and everyone, becoming a single dominating sound of terror that seemed to come from the very Earth itself.

Then a thin strip of arc light, blue/white-hot, appeared on the horizon as the actual nova front hit the Earth; burning the atmosphere and the ‘Farside’. Anyone on that side of the planet died instantaneously as the planet was vaporised. There was no shock wave, as the nova wave front moved near the speed of light.

At that moment of arc-light a blood red point appeared in the sky above and time slowed. It would have been only a millionth of a nanosecond in time, but a membrane appeared like bloody soap bubbles, joining each other and travelling down to the horizon until what was left of the Earth was under a deep red dome. The nova wave front passed and the red dome flickered to a night sky full of stars, which disappeared as a tiny new sun began to shine directly overhead and blue sky appeared.

Aliens had intervened and, for whatever reason, formed some sort of impenetrable force field around what was left of the Earth; beginning at the very edge of the nova wave front as it burned through the Earth. What remains of our planet within the force field is the ‘Wedge’. Physicists now know that the field is shaped like an uneven infinity sign, one fat end holding the Wedge and the thinner smaller loop holding some sort of black hole that gives the Wedge gravity.

In the collapse and rebuilding of society, those who originally lived on what is now the Wedge became a privileged class, the ‘Wedgers’. Those people who had been refugees from the Farside, the part of Earth that was vaporised, eventually became second class citizens and are known as ‘Edgers’.

This is because they eventually – or were forced to – settled in shanty towns on the ‘Edge’ where the force field intersected the Earth. People didn’t like living there as infrastructure services are infrequent and harder to maintain given they have to travel from inside to the outside Edge and back. The Edge always seems colder and is odd as there is no horizon or any way of going further out as the Earth just stops.

The Edge itself can’t be reached and you can’t look over the Edge; you can get close but the closer you go some inversely proportional force repels you until no amount of force or energy can get you even a millimetre closer.

There was never any contact with the aliens, called by some as The Saviours and a religious cult, The Saved, worships the aliens.

The Edge is strange. Peter is an Edge dog and likes to watch TV, observe the world and think. Alan is from the Edge and had taken his young sister for a medical check in the City. He had painstakingly saved the fare himself and paid it separately, but he couldn’t afford the medical and had somehow tacked it onto the travel invoice, which was why it wasn’t exactly the price of a ticket and why the union was confounded.

‘Doctor,’ said the nurse, ‘her hair has purple highlights’.
‘So what? She’s an Edger and they have strange fashions,’ he replied.
‘No, I mean all her hair, even the little blonde hairs on her tummy.’

That is why I stopped the committee, because I was once an Edger myself. I won some money on a scratchie; my winning scratchie had TIX!!! written on it three times and looking at the fine print I had won ‘5×123’ more scratchies, which meant that I had 615 free scratchies to scratch- greatly improving my odds. It was done like that in the belief that Edgers couldn’t work out what 5×123 equalled and if they did they would be too lazy to scratch 615 scratchies. But I did and won enough to get into school and the professional-class, but I am an Edger in my heart. I hide it well and at Wedger parties where the glitterati giggle and breathlessly tell of their adventure tourism to the Edge where they looked out into space and felt the push-back from the force field, I can laugh along and share their experiences because I lived there. But now things are subtlety changing on the Edge; dogs and people, plants and other animals, and I am left wondering just where the Wedge will end up, generations from now.