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Drilling for Oil
#1
Saturday November 8th, 2014

I don't know where I am, but it is poorly lit or night-time. I am here with two friends and we come upon a lake to our right, which circles around one third of a rock pile to our left. The rocks are each somewhat larger than a cinder block, but natural. The pile continues from a height of maybe twelve feet into the water at a 50 degree angle and descends to an unknown but substantial depth. The water is cold and black, obscuring the reality below. Someone had cleared some of the rocks along the waterline to create a small path between the pile and the lake. We follow the path around the pile and I see air bubbles materialize on the surface of the water. They move closer to the corner of the lake until a head emerges and the attached person climbs out and greets a small group of people standing on the back side of this rock pile. Another SCUBA diver emerges and joins the group. The group includes members of the SCUBA club from school and some people from the dive shop, including our instructor. I help them out of their gear by holding their tanks while they take them off. I see the needle on the air gauge is below 500 psi, pointing nearly to zero. There is some weird spring stretching across the gauge and the needle is oscillating. "Why are you guys diving on such low air? You could've just filled up between dives."
They were having a 'try SCUBA' event, or something similar, where they show off SCUBA to prospective hobbyists. "Oh, the needle looks cooler when it's moving like that."
"Oh." It does look cooler, but that is extremely dangerous.
...
I am with the same two friends. We are at a house of one of theirs standing next to a different, smaller body of water. Two of us stand adjacent to the lake, while the third stands in the lake. He reaches down into the water and performs some operations with the tools he holds. Finally he sticks a pipe into the water and oil begins to flow out. We take our sample back to his house. It is still night. His property is covered in large trees which surround and segregate the various lakes, the old house, the garage, and the truck in the driveway. The house is an old, two story wood building which has lost its color to the dark gray inevitable to wood fences. The second floor has windows sitting behind a small amount of shingles, while the first floor has a wrap around porch with recessed lighting which casts a warm yellow ambience on the surrounding land. These are the only lights except for the moon, which illuminates most of the dream. The driveway sits just outside the light and runs parallel to the front of the house. An old red truck sits on the far left side (facing the house) but the driveway continues further to a small one car garage.
We do whatever we need to do here and leave our sample in plastic tub on a table on the porch. I carry a clear plastic pipe about three feet long and a flat metal plate. The metal plate is a two foot square with a tail extending from the center of the bottom. The tail drips down another foot or so and concludes with a rounded end. The plate has something engraved into it, probably instructions. We walk along his land to a different lake. This time the three of us walk out into the lake, which is knee deep. I hand the metal plate to my friend, and he stabs the tail into the lake bed. He rotates the device gripping the square piece displacing rocks and dirt on the bottom. Soon we begin to see a hole develop. After a moment he pulls the metal plate out and plunges the pipe into the hole. Both clear and black oil fill the pipe, with far more black oil than clear. He puts his finger over the end and pulls the pipe out of the water, trapping the sample. We carry it back to the porch and deposit it in a different compartment of the same plastic tub.
This time I carry the tools to a third lake on his property with the two friends following me. This lake is the smallest of them all. We walk out to the center and I raise the metal plate above the lake bed. I can see that there are letters engraved, but I cannot read them at all. I tilt the metal plate until its level with the surface of the water and the moonlight reflects off the plate in such a way that I can read the writing. It's the Greek alphabet, inscribed with perfect CNC accuracy. I flip the plate back normal to the water and raise it over my head. I stab it into the lake bed and begin to twist counterclockwise. I twist for a minute or two as I watch the rocks, dirt, and sediment get carried out of the hole I am creating. After a moment I can see a murky emulsion from the hole so I pull the plate out and stab the clear plastic pipe into the hole. A small bubble of black oil escaped the pipe, but the rest of it flows upwards, along with three clumps of clear oil. It begins to spill over the top and we cap it again and take the sample back to the front porch. I dump the sample into the plastic container, separating the black oil and the clear oil into the last two remaining compartments. "What is that clear fluid?" I ask. I poke one of the gelatinous blobs I collected and collect data with my finger.
After a moment my friend responds "They're jellyfish!" I yank my finger back and look again. I can see it so clearly now! The ones I collected are small blobs, with maybe a few dozen flaccid tentacles stretching towards me. I'm lucky I didn't get stung. I look at the one my friend collected in sample two. It is by itself, but it has a much bigger blob. It also has less tentacles (maybe 8-12), but they're longer and fatter. That guy looks really dangerous! I bet he is deadly.
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