This memory fragment came this afternoon, although I have had different variations of this memory previously.

We are all standing in line in front of a large glass box.  There are armed guards everywhere. Everyone is terrified. The person who looks to be in charge is surveying the crowd.  He looks like your typical movie villain evil professor with glasses, a shiny slightly bald head, and a clipboard. 

There is a makeshift command center in front of him connected to the glass box. The glass box is full of different colored balls.  The whole thing seems dream like but not a good dream, more like a nightmare.  I have a memory of sitting in my cube at my laptop and hearing the fire alarm go off,  and then instead of the typical announcement that we should evacuate building or that this was a fire alarm test, the voice announced that we should all go up to the top floor of our building where there is a large conference room.  After the announcement, we all stood up asking each other what was going on and then the doors opened and the armed guards walked in signaling everyone to get to the elevators. One of the talky people on the floor asked what was going on, and we saw the guard put his gun to the man's head and motioned him to elevator bank. After that, no one said anything and we silently walked towards the elevators with our heads down.

When we got to the floor, there were more armed guards to direct us where to go.  I looked at the guards, and they were wearing US Army gear so I didn't think we were being held hostage by some terrorist group but it was frightening.  Why hadn't management said anything?

The evil professor motioned to one of the guards, and he came over. Evil professor started saying something and the guard had to bend his head down to hear him because he was at least a foot taller than the professor. The guard nodded and walked over the first person in line.  He motioned for the first person to stand in front of the glass box.

Evil professor walked back to the makeshift command center and lifted up what looked like some kind of helmet.  He walked over to the man standing in front of the box and motioned for him to put it on. The helmet had all sorts of antennas all over it. Evil professor went back to the controls, and nodded to the guard. The guard said very loudly, "See if you can lift the balls up with your mind. The helmet will help you".  This is the first time I think I have heard the guard speak.

The first man in line looked into the box, and closed his eyes.  Poor guy. He lifted his hands up and they were trembling. He raised both hands up as if he was willing the balls to move, but nothing happened.  After what seemed like a few minutes, the guard said to stop and told the man to take the helmet off.  Another guard came up and directed the man to stand in the left corner of the room, where another guard was standing.

One by one each person in line put the helmet one, and no one could make the balls move.  Finally a woman put the helmet on and the balls started rolling around, and when that happened there was a loud collective gasp in the room.  The guard told her to stop and motioned over to stand by another guard in the center of the room. There was no one by that guard. The other people who had failed to move the balls were all standing together.

And so it went on and one.  Some people were able to make the balls move and some were not, and they were separated into groups of people who could move the balls and people who could not.

Finally it was my turn. I wondered vaguely what group I would be in when I was done.  As soon I stepped within one foot of the box, the balls started bouncing up and down. I stopped and watched them. Then I could hear little voices popping into my head.  The voices kept saying "Hello Brenda", which sort of freaked me because they knew my name.  Then a more powerful voice said he was the leader and said they were a civilization of nanobots, and that they weren't balls at all but they have were told by the evil professor to turn themselves into balls.

I heard the guard say keep moving forward, so I stepped closer to the glass box and the balls formed themselves into letters spelled out "Hello Brenda". I heard gasps behind me. Evil professor got up from his console took his clipboard and started making notes.

I put my hands on the glass box, and the nanobots spelled out "redrum, redrum", which was murder spelled backwards from the The Shining movie. The leaders of the nanobots told me they were being held prisoner. I turned and looked at the evil professor who was now standing three feet away from me and said to him, "They are sentient." Evil professor said "Yes".

The nanobot leader told me that some of them could escape if I would be their carriers. I asked him how, and he said they would come through the glass. I nodded and I felt them coming through the glass and something coming into my fingers.

Evil Professor said "Are you talking to them?" The nanobots leader pleaded with me not to tell the truth.  I took my hands off the glass box and turned to the evil professor and said "No. If I put the helmet would be able to talk to them? They knew my name. How did they know my name?". Evil professor stared and me and then wrote something down on this clipboard. He motioned over to one of the guards, and the guard told me to come with him and led me away to another part of the room. The guard stood with me, and I watched more and more of my fellow workers putting on the helmet and trying to make the nanobots move. 

The nanobot leader after awhile said to me in my mind, "Thank you. We will make a home inside you.  We can help you. We can repair your body. We can return your vision to what it was in your youth so you don’t have to wear contacts.  We can fix that pain in your knee from that skiing accident. We can do many things."

I could feel someone staring at me and I looks to my right and saw the evil professor staring at me. I wondered if he knew that the nanobots had escaped and were not inside me.  The nanobot leader, as if he could read my mind, said to me, "Don't worry about him.  They don't understand us and our species, but they are trying to.  They are looking for people like you, who can talk to us, but they are ignorant of our true capability."

"Are they murdering your kind?" I asked because of the redrum message. "They are testing us, and sometimes the tests do not work, and so we are murdered in the name of science and experimentation. We are their slaves."

"Are you my slave now?" I asked him. I didn't really want a slave population roaming through my body. "What are the nanobots getting out of being with me?"

"You will help us. You will help us free the rest of our kind." A chill ran over me. "How can I help you do that?" I said. "We will show you. You will be the liberator. It is your destiny.  That is why we can talk to you and why we recognized you."

If you are a long time reader of this blog or have stumbled upon it, let me give you some background of what I am currently posting. I have these flashes of memory not of this life that pop into my head on a daily basis. It usually happens when I am walking to and from work, and any other time when I am walking. I am not sure if these memories are from a past life, a half-remembered dream, or some fictional character who has popped into my head showing me a story that they want to see written down. Whatever the case may be, I've decided to start writing these memories down in this blog as a sort of a free write exercise, to get myself back into writing and to store these memories somewhere so they are out of my head.

I should note that not all of these memories are from the past. Some of them are from some strange future and sometimes they happen on different planets.

And they won't be complete stories either with a beginning, middle, and end. They will be memory fragments, dream fragments, like half-remembered songs. In other words, they may not make sense because they aren't suppose to make sense. 

First past life memory. I was in junior high, and had read my first book about the concept of reincarnation. I cannot remember what I was doing or what triggered the memory, but this is the memory I saw in my mind which I can still see very clearly even today.

I am standing at the top of a castle. I look down and I can see that I am very, very high up. I look up and around, all I can see is land and trees far as my eyes can see. I look down at myself. I am wearing some type of long gown. The gown looks to be made of silk and it has pearls sewn into the fabric. My hair is long I think because it is done up in braids which have been wound around my head. I am young at least I feel young. I am not wearing a ring, which may mean I am not married. I have a necklace, a choker really, made out of some strange type of bead. I wish I had a mirror so I could see what I really look like.

I feel the top of my head and I have some type of cap on or bonnet made out of the finest wool. The fabrics I am wearing feel so different than modern fabric. I feel a draft underneath my skirt. I don’t think I am wearing any underwear, but I am too afraid to check.

Emotions come over me. I feel sad, heartbroken, but I have no memories of why these emotions are with me. In my vision, I see myself having a memory of standing exactly where I am standing now and wondering if I should fling myself off the castle wall. There is no moat around the castle, so any fall would mean instant death. In my past life memory, I have more past life memories of being this age and not growing any older. I think this means I have never had long past lives. The lives I have memories of were short, meaning I never see myself being older than 20 years old.  

I am not sure why there is no one about, but judging from the light in the sky it must be early dawn because the sky is a mixture of pink and yellow clouds.  If this is a castle, it must be poorly defended since I do not see anyone standing watch on this part of the castle.

I put my arms around myself so I can give myself a hug. I am not sure if this is a modern gesture or if people have been comforting themselves like this since the beginning.

I can hear a voice calling me. It’s a woman’s voice. I have a memory of this woman, which is dropped into my brain like raindrop. She's my nurse, which I guess means she is my servant. She has been looking for me, and has now discovered my hiding place. I want to scream at her to leave me alone, but I don’t. This version of myself seems so helpless. She is, I am fragile. I feel my waist. I don’t think I have been very well because I can feel my ribs sticking out. I take one more look around, at the land, my father’s land, our land, and head to the door which has just opened. 

Writing this post while typing on my iPad. It is strange to type on the glass screen. I am watching this horror movie called "Drag me to hell", and it is genuinely scary. Memo to self - do not rent horror movies to watch on Netflix because I get scared too easily. Parts of the movie are actually quite campy and funny, but the scary bits are freaking me out.

What else? I went to see the J W Turner exhibit at the de Young museum on Sunday. I knew Turner was considered a master in art, but I never quite got why until I saw the art in person. There is something about his work that is absolutely breathtaking. His depiction of light is amazing. His light has texture and depth. Who knew light had such substance to it. And it is different from Monet.

Monet depicted light as well, but his light was dappled and transparent. Turner's light is different. His light is so substantial. There are no words to describe his art. And seeing Turner's art in a printed book does not do the art justice. You have to see the work in person.

Art can be such a relevation. I am thinking of the time I saw Van Gogh's Sunflowers at the Tate Museum in London. The sunflowers leapt out of the canvas, and all Van Gogh did was layer the paints in the piece so it had depth. All previous art until then was flat. And then when you see the art of Jay DeFeo, you see paint layering in its extreme with her piece "The Rose".

So if you are in San Francisco, go and see the Turner exhibit at the de Young. I am now dying to see the movie about Turner's life that came out last year, and then going back to see the exhibit. That will be fun.