It's an involved story about a group of young adults - their futures, relationships, society vs man, betrayal, and murder. Not an easy dream for me to recount coherently, to untangle, nor to understand.
Untangling the story
Summary
I'll try to highlight some of the key observations made in my 1 hr 40 min recollection about my dream, because needless to say, no one (perhaps least of all me) wants to listen to that whole recording. Time stamps in the descriptions below refer (roughly) to the section of the recording that explains it.
The cast of major characters:
Green.
an average guy with zeal for integrity.
The Bachelor (a.k.a Smart Guy)
a young man with bright future prospects. somewhat naive. he is the focal point of other character's interests in partnership, and his decisions with whom to partner creates turbulence and tension among his peers.
Anne
a young woman with equally, or perhaps even more, bright prospects as the Bachelor. a calculating and manipulative talent with an insatiable desire to advance, come out on top, and control the political landscape.
Jealous
a slighted and forgotten lover who formerly had a homosexual relationship with the Bachelor. murders the Victim.
Braids
an air-headed girl with a loud voice who spreads gossip and influences her protegee younger sister.
The Victim
starts a riotous protest at Graduation, during a disbursement of Social Benefits. is murdered by Jealous during the disorder. there's a very likely possibility that the Victim is the same person as Green.
Major events in the story
1:17:00
#. Bachelor has a decision who to partner with for the capstone project. He decides between Anne and Green to partner with. He chooses Green over Anne.
6:30#. Bachelor's romantic affair
Bachelor: Let's start on the Blue (honors) project.
Green: I'm going to work on the Purple (mandatory) project. If I can get to your 'normal average' level of competence on that, to me that would prove that your choice in me as a partner was the right decision.
Green: If you wanted someone to give you new ideas, challenge your abilities, and take you beyond your own capabilities on the Blue project, Anne's the one who can do that. That's beyond my capabilities.
Bachelor: Working with Anne, she is always your rival, even when you're on the same team. She may have the abilities, but she's always looking to one-up you and betray your best interests for her own.
- 'Partner'-ing on projects in this planned, and controlling society is an indication of a romantic and rest-of-life relationships between two people.
- It is revealed that Bachelor's first relationship was a secret homosexual affair with Jealous.
- Bachelor separates from his partnership with Green after he realizes his own capabilities extends well beyond Green's.
- Bachelor partners with a woman in a passionate affair. They briefly escape the politics of their peer group during their trysts, but their mutual passion fades for no other reason than the passing of Time. They thought their love was forever, that their partnership exempted them from further involvement in politics, but when their love evaporates, Bachelor is in the aftermath of an even more complicated and contested political landscape.
- Green climbs up a slope to talk to Braids. She rebukes his approach, just based on hearsay,
without having any personal contact with Green.
Green does not retaliate or become defensive. he says something to the effect of 'my presence has caused you ill feelings, and I'm regretful for this. so i hope with my departure you can have a good day'
- 1:20:00 Braid's little sister throws stones at Green on his way up to have a talk.
She voices her learned, acquired, and ground-less hatred of Green, no
doubt influenced by Braids.
1:27:00 The 'twisting of the knife'. Braid's influence is destroying the world of the innocent. Braid's little sister is too young to be working hatred unto others, from listening to prefabricated opinions of people.
- After her 'encounter' with Green, and new rumors exculpate Green of accused villainy, Braids starts harping on how good a guy Green is. This change in Braids is hardly a saving grace for her previous blame; she is still spreading gossip without any grounded factual basis
#. Bargain with the devil between Green and Anne
- Anne tries to get Green to change his submission for top choices of Partners, but Green maintains his integrity by declaring his picks based on his true preference, not what Anne persuades is impossible or likely for him to attain.
#. The Protest
- the Victim rejects being bought off at Graduation by a worthless box of 'Social Benefits', which are scandalously inadequate. He starts a rioting protest, destroying all the boxes in the hopes of making people wake up and see how they are being bought off with worthless promises.
- 1:09:00 Social Benefits box contents, distributed annually: Healthcare: 18 aspirin tablets for 9 allowed sick days (2 aspirins for each day). Food: 4 donuts, where the measure of its quality is its flavor!
- the Victim is murdered by Jealous
- Voice (of the deceased Victim, possibly) in my head reassuring that showing the bullet hole will work. When I ask the voice, why? The voice answered, 'To show that you're a good person.'
- I roll back my right forearm sleeve to the foreman, declaring 'I am innocent'.
Thoughts:
1:28:50 The real villains don't perpetuate crimes. But they manipulate other people into causing crimes.
Writing some fiction:
Queen Anne
At the end of my verbal analysis, I make Anne out to be the 'villain' of my dream . But then I feel, that's telling a opinionated and somewhat sexist story with all the 'villains' being female.
I feel a more approachable telling of the story is that Anne not merely the devil, but another innocent guided by the 'right intentions' to act out the devil's work.
This revealing scene is intended to show that Anne's modus operandi is greatly influenced by her love for her ailing mother, and the philosophy her mother tasks her with. That:
'You must be strong in this world to survive.'
The squeeze her mother gave was so faint. Anne felt she was squeezing the life out of her mother by allowing their hands to touch.
I want to suggest that the mother has no understanding of Anne's world. The mother Tsui fled a harmful environment from different country and culture. Furthermore, Tsui instructs Anne by her failures rather than her successes.
Tsui has suffered and been the victim because she is weak. Tsui was left to raise Anne by herself. She labored helplessly under merciless masters to provide for Anne. Tsui concludes from her life that her daughter needs to be strong. Anne loves her mother and takes this lesson to heart.
But where Tsui, from her culture, understands 'strong' as ability to endure, and overcome hardship... Anne, in this new world, interprets 'strength' as 'power'... that she ought to strive to be at the top of the hierarchy, in the seat of the master, so as to avoid the cruelty and misery that afflicts those in the order below.
Pale sunlight filtered through the dusty blinds of the patient's room. Loose particles of dust floated aloft in the stripes of white across the woman's bed. She was not old, a woman of over forty, yet her toothpick frame and sunken eyes could not support the vitality her age afforded.
Tentatively, the daughter entered. The mother's head was turned away toward the window, but a slight jarring noted her presence. Then picking up her momentum with an acquired stride, Anne met the slow laborious turning of her mother's head at her far bedside.
She was awake, as Anne entered, staring toward the window. As awake as one could be under an alternating dosage of poisons and painkillers. Her gaze did not extend beyond the limits of her transparent barrier; unimpeded sunlight of an outside world would be too much an affront to her scope of existence.
Tsui's concern for her daughter is strong and deep, but at an instinctive level. Tsui does not have the mental acuity, the familiarity with culture, or social associations to make sense of what Anne is doing, why her child is in mortal danger, or how to care for her. Anne has exceptional talents and is capable to manipulate the system, but affixing her gaze to these avenues of conduct causes Anne's blindness to the compassionate side.
Her 'competence' convinces her that her actions are right, and she is oblivious to the moral implications of her mother's message. What Anne's mother fails to convey to her is that: just as important as you cannot resign a personal responsibility to defend yourself, as does the victim, you cannot become like the master, craven in the face of the devil, to act with cruelty.
In irony, Anne tries to care for her sick mother by following her misinterpreted guidance 'be strong to survive', by victimizing the weak. But in doing so, Anne is perpetuating the systematic societal evil, by strengthening the role of the master, a role that enabled men to maim Tsui in the past. The allegory is: in retaliating against the injustice done to her mother, by using 'fire against fire' on other people, Anne becomes as responsible for her mother's death as those who abused her mother. Anne's continuation of societal injustice, despite it being for her personal advantage, cannot save her or her mother.
In a flash of maternal instinct, Tsui felt a searing pain through her sleeping brain and a simultaneous cold paralyze her spine.
Anne sealed a manila envelope containing a letter, a cassette, and a verdict.
Tsui's outcry was drowned by her own choking breath. Her spastic fingers reached out for her daughter's.
Anne yielded her grip on the envelope to hands jealous with anticipation.
'Little Plum Blossom!', Tsui called out in her mind, to the young girl in a white summer dress she raised.
It was done. Jealous was on his way. Suddenly, Anne's thoughts turned to her mother. Now she would care for her.
The ambiguous pronoun, 'she', in the last sentence above is sloppy grammar, but I like its inherent ambiguity in this situation, because it's like Anne is caring for her mother through Yin, and Tsui is caring for her daughter through Yang.
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