Posted by The dream I had last night takes place in the past, during the golden age of space-travel firsts.
It turns out the landmark Apollo mission–the one supposedly going on now, with a man in orbit, and with the fanfare, parades, and cheering children on earth–was really fake, though in the dream its not clear why, exactly.
We do know that the guy who’s up there now doesn’t know what he’s doing. And apparently he’s in trouble.
I am in the military. My commanding officer explained my mission is to fly up in a secret rocket, rendezvous with the actual Apollo capsule completely in secret, then descend back to earth. There will be no fanfare, no parades.
When I land, I am to fire two burst fire shots from an M-16. This signifies to my handlers that the mission was completed.
The trip up was terrible. The ladder up the gantry was thin and high. I ended up dropping one of my M-16 magazines. It just falls into nothingness below me.
The rocket was rickety and unstable. But its executed, and whatever it was I was supposed to do for the incompetent, fake astronaut already in orbit was done.
My space capsule hit the ground with a thud. I am landed. I fire the two burst shots from my M-16 to signify my secret mission’s completion.
I wander over to the Thrifty’s next door to the landing zone, where they sell sell souvenir Apollo gift sets. I buy one.
I find, to my dismay, that the book that came with the gift set is even bootlegged. It’s clearly Xeroxed. The text is barely readable.