THAT EVENING

I watch What We Do in the Shadows, a mockumentary about four shabby vampires in Wellington, New Zealand. They kill nightly; don't even try feeding nonfatally. The banality-of-evil schtick gets old for me, though I like the side plot about their human friend Stu who everyone inexplicably likes (he ends up a peacemaking werewolf).

It's not really about vampires. It's about the stupidity of men in gangs. Nothing new here. Male bonding, dominance, huffing & puffing at rivals (wolfmen. All men, men, men...) I'm nearly as repelled by their boys' club as by their murders. I have to agree with their maid/pimp, "It's a sexist homoerotic lovefest over there; if I had a dick I'd be immortal now, but they'll keep me cleaning up their blood for years."

I agree, and yet I find her the worst character of all, morally. The guys don't think; maybe because they're stupid, maybe their brains are infection-damaged, made to feel less guilty about their prey; but what's her excuse for complicity in serial murders?

Or of course I may be feeling my family's reverse sexism--the belief guys aren't quite morally adult. My feminist mom raised me to believe that double standard. I still buy into it.

So I judge Miss Bloodpimp harshly, when ALL the guys are just as scummy. Women, the model minority.

Thanks, mom!

THAT NIGHT...

I wake to find I'm on a stretcher being treated by a cute Latina nurse. Apparently I caught that alien infection spreading globally from the robotic saucers that landed last week. They just sit there, ringed by soldiers. Big, but apparently no aliens inside.

Their plague is weird. Primary exposure makes you tear off your clothes and run straight to the nearest alien landing site. Orgies on the doorstep! Secondary exposure, caught from primary victims, is a milder compulsion but still pretty strong. Heightened sexuality, tendency to strip, compulsion to seek out the saucers. But at least you stop to get a room to fuck in, instead of doing it on the sidewalk!

But my case is something new: tertiary! First case they've seen. "How do you feel?"

I report honestly: "You do look sexy to me. But my sexual feelings were always strong; I don't feel much different. I'm not attracted to any of the other staffers; YOU look sexy because you ARE sexy!

"The change I notice is... I'm more open about admitting it. See, growing up I was shamed cruelly for that, so I usually hide how I feel. I might've hidden how I felt even though you're asking diagnostically, not personally. But with tertiary, I can answer honestly. So for me, the bug's a benefit! May be bad for people with no impulse control, but for me, less inhibition is an improvement."

She tests me to see if I can talk of other things; am I a one-track mind like primaries and most secondaries? "What have you been doing at work?"

I mention the set of what-if globes I'm making, Planetocopia. "People don't realize how active the Earth is, how many features are volcanic; so much is hidden under our deep oceans."

She lights up and tells me of the spectacular volcanoes of Montana. "I just got back from a tour. I had no idea how many! Dozens of them, as big as Alaska's, just rising from the sea!"

The sea?

From her description I slowly realize she doesn't mean the Rocky Mountain state, but a Patagonian province of Chile also called Montana! I ask and she confirms it.

But it isn't our Patagonia she describes, either. The 'Montana' she visited is narrower, more broken, winding, longer, wet and green at sea level. With monster volcanoes the size of Denali rearing out of the sea...

I know this Patagonia! Years ago I visited it in a dream. It was gorgeous! I blurt out "I dreamed I was there once--so vivid!"

I feel sad that dreaming's the only way I can safely travel right now. A recurring Lyme infection (or something like it--diagnosis hazy) makes me too fragile.

But this alien infection's helped me psychologically--maybe it'll help physically too, suppressing rival infections. Dunno yet. Tertiary is new, unknown.

Wait, I do know ONE thing about tertiary--it definitely helps me sense other infected people, and even the field the alien ships are putting out. And that's useful! I'm able to tell the nurse and her boss that the so-called field around saucers is generated as much by the soldier-guards as by the ships--it's not a defense at all! The alien ship senses their alarm and wariness and apparently mistakes the Terrans for passengers or crew to be protected! We must be emotionally very similar to the aliens if their ships mistake us for them...

Anyway, the ships try to soothe us, but they do it alien style, and we mistake that for plague! It's not a virus, but a communicable emotional state--"Make love, not war"? The aliens must not use clothes... and they must use sex for reassurance and stress reduction--well, humans do too, but we're rarely so public about it. Aliens are bonobos, but we're chimps!

The saucers aren't attacking us--they're trying to help. To ease what they think is mass hysteria!

And in a way they're right.

I propose a changing of the guard. "Soldiers naturally assume they face enemies! Get hostage negotiators, astronauts, female cops, Buddhist monks--anyone trained to stay calm & positive, seeing their job as peacekeeping." If I'm right, calm guards will relax the field--primary cases will ease to more like secondary, and secondary to tertiary.

And I can live with tertiary. I... like tertiary.

NOTES IN THE MORNING

• Infection: lycanthropy & vampirism in What We Do in the Shadows. Vamps & weres prey guiltlessly on victims; but I cater to others and totally deny my wants. The dream argues a mild dose of vamp selfishness would improve me!
• Compulsive nudity, wake on stretcher: in Shadows, werewolves gut poor Stu. He revives on a stretcher & runs off hairy and howling. The pack tracks him and offers him... pants!
• Dream within dream, of an alternate Patagonia: I think I really did dream it, years ago. But I can't find it--some years of my dream-journals still aren't transcribed & machine-searchable.
• ACTION 1: Relax. I'm wary as a soldier on guard, and it causes problems.
• ACTION 2: Admit when I'm attracted. Sounds paradoxical, but for some of us, sluttiness may actually strengthen the immune system!

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