Blubber and Tweak

In the middle of our small circle was a rectangular blue tank/pool filled with water, with things bobbing around it - flags on floats as path markers. We all had some small polystyrene hemispheres which had to be filled with the perfect combination of materials (which were provided) to enable the hemispheres to balance themselves and move along with with the current in the tank. However, this seemed much more challenging that it seemed, and after a few trials and errors, one of our team members had managed to get the right combination which he then proceeded to teach the rest of us who were there by accident as we were supposedly supposed to play a game of Risk!

On another day, I was very inconveniently informed that I was required to travel to another country at the very last minute. Grabbing my suitcase, I rushed with another person who seemed to be in the same boat as me. Somehow, without going through normal airport security, we managed to land in that other country with a whole bunch of people and I was terribly worried that I had not packed my passport with me. We were then ushered into this big van where a few of us in similar circumstances were placed. The vans had no seats to speak of and we were huddled in our own corners while being driven to an unknown destination. I noticed with a sense of doom that even our suitcases had been left behind.

Later on, I found myself having a book in my hand, a book where a photograph of an extremely rare turtle (I forgot the name) was taken by a ten year old girl who dabbled in photography. She shares name with one of my old friends from school, and it somehow seemed to be my destiny to go and look for her. While travelling around in that foreign country, I found the shop which her family owns and I spoke to a bespectacled old lady about the book, the photo and the girl. And then another not-so-old lady with hair cropped short spoke to me. They sadly lamented about how the camera and the original negatives of the photos were all now with the Sultan of (a very rich oil country in the island of Borneo) It could have been just my feeling, but it seems as though they referred to this 10 year old girl in the past tense. Could she be dead?

I can't begin to describe how relieved I was when I finally managed to wake up from this.