Last night, I had a very vivid, strange, and oddly realistic dream.
I was a photographer doing a shoot in South America. I can't remember what I was shooting, but it wasn't anything major (girls on the beach, guys with palm trees... that kind of stuff).
For some reason, I needed to get out of the country without anyone knowing. I managed to sneak onto a ship with another photographer. He was a journalist--he was reporting on government corruption, human rights violations, deplorable living conditions; the kinds of things that dictatorial governments don't like publicized.
He'd run this game before. The ship we were on was a smuggler ship, and everyone there knew him. And he knew the rules of the ship--and the smuggler sub-culture.
We hid in boxes to get past customs. That was the easy part. The smuggler ships were old WWII naval vessels; destroyers, cutters, and other battle-ready ships. After leaving the harbor, our captain had to fight his way past other smuggler ships intent on capturing his cargo.
Once underway, I was allowed a degree of freedom in the ship. But every minor social transaction required a bribe. A candy bar was the typical payment.
The majority of the dream dealt with the minor interactions between myself and the crew. I was in an ancient--and poorly-maintained--war vessel, in the open seas, with a crew of outlaws who had created their own culture. The intricacies were fascinating. The details were precise. If I had the resources, this could be the basis for an intense movie.
As it is... it's just another world created and forgotten by my mind.
