It's a clear sunny day with a small breeze blowing in from the ocean. It's neither hot nor cold.  The whole scene is there; pillowy clouds moving slowly across the sky, the pleasant smell of the salt water and sea air, the sounds of the water and the birds swooping and diving overhead. I am walking along the rocky shore with an old battered canvas satchel over my shoulder scanning the broken ground in front of me for an eyeball of particular brilliance. Seeing one, a sophisticated green and blue affair, I stretch my arm down in front of me to retrieve it. I can tell the eyeball knows I am reaching for it and am puzzled at how I know this. Since it is only an eyeball, devoid of lids or anything else, I don't know how it is communicating to me it's severe apprehension at being picked up and put in my satchel. Never the less, I know it is terrified along with the thousands of others that cover the shoreline. I retrieve it with no sense of sadness at picking something so beautiful and I'm pretty sure that the act of gathering the eyeballs does not mean their destruction. As I begin to straighten up, I raise my gaze down the beach and observe a carpet of eyeballs as far as I can see, tracking my every move in unison. The sight of all the eyes watching my hand as I'm picking up the one and the feeling of stark terror that is emanating from all of them is enough to make me very dizzy and I have to concentrate on not looking down the beach but instead at exactly what I'm doing with the eye I've just picked up. The orb does not feel wet or jelly-like in my hand. It is not rock hard or glass-like either. It feels like a small bouncy 'super ball'.

        I open my satchel and the eyes I've collected so far are looking out at me. Now, the feeling I get from them is not terror, but a feeling of waiting. I also realize that it is a little strange that none of the eyes in my satchel are squished or smashed from being jostled about in the bag while being carried. I'm not particularly careful putting my most recent acquisition into the satchel, casually dropping it in as it lets out a long loud eerie howl that seems very out of place in the beatific setting. My gaze drops to my feet again as I proceed onward in search of other specimens trying to block out the feeling of the thousands of eyes tracking my movements in unison.  I hear a faint splash in the background and look around quickly. Peripherally I can see the carpet of eyes tracking my sudden movement...... I realize now why I was collecting the eyes.......

        It's dark and wet out again today and I know I've got to make a trip over the top of one of the steep ridges that hem the deep valley I'm in. The thick vegetation is a dark green and covers all surfaces except for large gaping muddy spots connected by narrow steep switchback roads that look like parts of some giant strip mining operation. The heavy rains washing away the soil in these areas are forming dark muddy streams that are sluicing down into the valley. I'm not sure why I need to get out of the valley but I know that I've got to do it today. I start up the big D-9 CAT I'm sitting in and listen to the reassuring sound of the big diesel thrumming in front of me. I begin slowly up one of the narrow roads watching the mud collect and scrape of the tracks as they slowly advance me. I'm not paying attention to the road in front of me so I don't notice the big Harley-looking motorcycle that has pulled in front of me until I am almost on top of it. The rider looks around but I can't see much about him as he is wearing a brain bucket and aviator goggles. He looks really big and bald and appears to be wearing a costume out of a Mad Max movie. The mud is no problem for the CAT I'm in but it's gotta be hell on the motorcycle and to make it worse the motorcycle has a stone tire on the front of it. Not just a hard tire or one that is designed to look like stone but an actual stone tire. I throttle back and get off his ass a little but not too much because I'm in a hurry and this guy should let me by. We continue this way up the road with the motorcycle guy glancing back occasionally, obviously uncomfortable with how close I am to him. As we come up to a switchback landing, the motorcycle pulls off to the side and I begin to move past him. Roaring by, I glance down and I can see that the guy is shouting at me. I throttle back and pull the torque converter into neutral to see what he wants knowing he is going to bitch about me driving too close.

"You're going to hafta slow down", he yells.

"Why", I yell back, "I gotta make it over the ridge and back today".

"Well maybe so", he says, " but this whole area is very unstable. There's not much dirt left. Look what you've already done". He points, obviously seeing my confusion as to what he's saying. I look back and see a spot where, as I was turning, my track had torn open the ground and a gaping blackness remains.

"Damn, that's weird", I think to myself and get down off the CAT to see what's in the hole. I crouch a the opening and look though. A sudden feeling of vertigo overtakes me as I look down into a vast dim cavern. The hole I have made close to the edge of the ceiling is like a pinprick and I can barely see to the back wall where there is some faint lighting and some giant shapes I can't make out. The whole thing has a very alien feeling to it; something about the construction and the faint symbols I can't make out. Directly underneath me there are what appears to be remains of human architecture that has been mostly and recently destroyed by a giant mudslide. I survey the scene for a minute not sure what to make of it and start to pull back from the opening when I hear a sound like a child's voice calling for help. I hang down the hole a little ways and see a large, strong, muddy hand pushing up through the rubble. I grasp the hand and pull as hard as I can. The hand has a desperate grip and it clings to me with amazing strength. A large well developed arm and upper body begins to emerge and starts to struggle out of the debris by itself, yelling and shouting with relief.

        But something is wrong.....off....skewed.....The person is moving in a sloppy uncoordinated way that at first I attribute to the conditions but now I recognize as the movements of a child and the happy gaze that looks up at me is on the smiling face of a little boy set on the large body of an adult. There is movement all around in the debris and large strong bodies are struggling up though the wreckage all yelling in happiness at each other in their eerie child voices. The bodies are lurching uncoordinatedly; pushing past me into the open air now, touching me gladly as they pass around me in their excitement. I struggle out of the hole backwards and turn to look into a crowd of mud covered adult bodies with little children's heads on them. All staring intently; silently at me........waiting........