June 14, 2023

We could see the shoreline slowly being consumed by the rising waters as we crowded onto the roof. The big flood that people had been warning us about for years was finally here as parking lots and old churches alike sank below the waves. It seemed like our apartment was the only building in the area high enough to last until sunset.

We were called downstairs to check the basement which was now more than ankle height under water. There were already two people there trying to keep the office dry. I was asked to help with sealing up a window in the concrete wall. When I said that I didn’t know how, I was told to just look it up on my phone.

“How long do you two plan on staying here?” I asked. They were in a rush to move cabinets of files somewhere dry. It seemed to be a lost cause - water was leaking in through cracks in the wall.

After a few moments of frantic activity, the water seemed to slow down and eventually started receding. Some neighboring children came running in through the garage door. One of them was in a clown outfit. They seemed to be singing in a language that I couldn’t quite make out to the tune of Caramelldansen. “How many of you are high right now?” I asked. I clarified that they weren’t in trouble.

–

I tried to record my dream but my keyboard wasn’t working. The keys would flash when I pressed them but the letters wouldn’t show on the screen. When I realized it wasn’t working, I tried to record what happened by pressing into the back of my hand with my thumbnail until I found a suitable notebook.

–

A teacher wanted me to record my voice for the purposes of voice synthesis. I was asked to talk about myself into the microphone. I said that I was kind of autistic and that I liked detailed monotonous work. I kept a dream journal which has accumulated thousands of entries over the years.

I was also passionate about archival: the preservation and organization of information - especially of content on the web. I talked about how in recent years we’ve seen the institutions we took for granted were no longer as permanent or as open as they once were.