onomatopoeia http://www.onomatopoeia.org Hear that? Copyright 2001-2006 Matt Musselman Sat, 25 May 2013 21:55:09 +0000 matt@onomatopoeia.org matt@onomatopoeia.org Morning Ritual http://www.onomatopoeia.org/OE/dream//106-morningritual
My brother's voice came toward me, seemingly from nowhere. This didn't strike me as odd. "Do you always wake up like this?" he asked.

"Like this how?" I responded. "After snoozing for an hour or so? Sure."

He continued to talk to me as I stood up out of bed, and I maintained a sleepy conversation. I walked along the wooden floor of the upstairs area of my apartment toward the closet. There was no railing on the side overlooking the lower level, and I noted that now that my bedside bookshelf had been moved elsewhere, the little walkway seemed very precarious, especially early in the morning.

"Do you ever worry about falling off that thing?" my brother asked, almost as if reading my thoughts.

"Yes, I do now anyway. I don't know why it didn't bother me before. I guess with the bookshelf there I felt like I had something I could hold onto in case I fell. Funny that it should make so much difference."

I retrieved some clothes and walked downstairs to the bathroom. A sleepy hot shower later, I was pulling on jeans and a t-shirt, rather than work clothes, and heading down the elevator to my car.

Not long after that, I found myself driving south down what appeared to be Main Street. The sky was still very dark, and I was practically the only driver on the street. I reached the block where I thought I needed to be, pulled into the left lane, checked for oncoming traffic, verified the green light, and made a U-turn onto the other side of the street. Halfway through doing so, I spotted a police car sitting in the parking lot next to a beige-painted cinderblock shop building. My heart leapt into my throat, and I was convinced the officer would come ticket me. A half a block later, there was still no sign of life from the patrol car, and I pulled into a parking lot.

I miscalculated, and my right front tire bumped over the low curb next to the driveway. I wondered if this would make a traffic stop even more likely. The police car still did not move.

"Good thing I needed to pull off the street anyway, just in case," I said to myself.

"Yeah, but just hope he doesn't think you're trying to hide from him," my brother answered, again seemingly as if from the air around me.

I rolled to a slow stop and looked around at the parking lot, a little perplexed. Instead of the gym I thought would be on the corner of the lot, there was a locksmith shop.

"This must be the wrong block," I said.

Then a crowd of people drew my attention. Probably 50 or 60 men, most of them wearing construction worker clothes, were gathered around the outside of a small café. The café was dark, but looked to be opening soon, judging by the occasional movements inside. A few of the workers were munching on donuts or sipping coffee. Others looked at me warily.

I turned my car around, drove out of the parking lot, and made my way down the street to the next block.
Morning Ritual

"Is this the one?" my brother asked.

"I think so," I said. "These blocks all look the same sometimes anyway."

I pulled into a second parking lot, but again the gym I was looking for was nowhere to be found.

"What are you looking for anyway?" my brother asked.

"The gym, where I go to take my morning shower," I answered.

"Why do you do that?" he asked.

"Because my apartment. . . . Because I. . . . Um, I already took my shower, didn't I?"

My brother's voice remained silent.

"I'm not even sure why I would have ever taken my shower somewhere else in the first place," I added, quite confused by this point. I could vividly remember going to the gym on a daily basis to shower before work, but I couldn't at all remember why. Concluding that it didn't really matter, I decided to return to my apartment and get dressed for work.

My car had now become a mountain bike, and I pedalled it up the sidewalk back toward my apartment. My feet worked hard against the pedals, and thinking that I was in the wrong gear, I tapped the shift lever with my right thumb. Now I pedalled easily, but was barely moving. I continued to shift back and forth, never finding a gear that seemed to work.

"This is the gear I like," I said aloud to my brother, lying in a poor attempt to cover up my ineptitude with the gear shift. As I said it I looked down and saw that the caster and small wheel bolted to my immobile front tire were misaligned, as on a shopping cart with a bad wheel. It then occurred to me that this was not the proper configuration for a bicycle wheel in the first place, and that it might explain the poor performance of the bicycle.

"Why. . . ." I started. "Did you do this?"

"The wheel stuck," my brother said. "But this seemed to work okay."

I sighed with exasperation, stepped off the bicycle, and walked it up the street.

— 2005-12-12
]]> Wed, 15 Mar 2000 00:00:00 -0800 Matt http://www.haloscan.com/comments/mmussel/106_morningritual Fear of Ghosts http://www.onomatopoeia.org/OE/dream//105-fearofghosts
The truck darted back and forth through the sparse slow midnight traffic. Without warning it started down an exit ramp, and then swerved back across the grass, catching air on the incline, jumping over the small guard rail, and landing back on the freeway lane. I was desperate to hang on.

As we sailed past each grassy patch, I tried to think of a way I could jump off without killing myself. A downhill slope with lots of grass, I thought. And I'd have to roll, or else I'd tear myself to pieces. And I'd have to avoid hitting my head.

Each time an area which vaguely matched my requirements came scrolling up to the side of the truck, I still couldn't do it. I couldn't jump.

* * *

I found myself walking the opposite direction on the freeway several miles ahead. I couldn't remember how I'd gotten off the truck, but I did.

Ahead of me I saw a tiny beat-up trailer with a light on inside. The door was open. I went in.

In the middle of the tiny trailer stood my brother, in worn out jeans, boots, and no shirt. He had a large sketch-like tattoo on his back of an upright left forearm and open hand, palm facing out.

I asked him about the tattoo. He said it was new. I said it was quite good, but seemed not quite natural, as if the hand should be tilted outward a little bit. He didn't know.

I began recounting a story to him of where I'd spent the day. There was another trailer, out in the middle of a red dirt field, where a tattoo artist and porn director lived with two women. I'd been there most of the afternoon, trying to talk the man out of something I needed. It had been obvious I wasn't in a good bargaining position to get it and had finally given up.

My brother and I walked to the building which contained an apartment in which I had previously lived and was in the process of moving out of. The place was completely empty at this point, with bare hardwood floors and empty white wood panelled walls.

All the doors in the apartment had been violently kicked from the hinges, in some cases taking the whole hinges and splinters of the wall with them. The shattered doors lay around at various places on the floor.

"I think you'd better give up on getting your deposit back," he said.

I told him I'd be lucky if they didn't charge me, or even sue me. "Have you seen these?" I asked, handing him a stack of Polaroid photos of the apartment which I'd taken as an obligation to file any previous damage claims.

We looked at the top Polaroid together, which was a shot, from approximately the same spot, looking at the doorway directly in front of us. In the photo, not only was the door kicked out, but many areas of the hardwood floor were torn through as well, with dangers slivers of wood strips sticking out in all directions. The entire floor was covered with debris. Dust covered everything. The window in the living room behind the doorway was shattered, with tree limbs poking into the room. And, most strikingly, practically every inch of the white walls were covered with drawings of screaming, thrashing, grasping people, and angry phrases scrawled their way across all of them at various sizes and angles.

All the other photos were the same. New drawings, new words, and still all the debris and damage.

"Fucking ghosts," he said.

"Yeah," I agreed.

"You okay?" he asked.

"I'm fine," I answered. "Didn't even know they were here until they started kicking the doors out at night. Glad I'm getting out now, if that's only the beginning."

"No shit," he responded.

"Yeah."

"Well, want to fix up the rest of what we can, before you get out of this place?"

"Sure."

I walked around the kitchen, picking up various small things still rolling around in near-empty drawers, and putting them into a plastic bag.

After a while, I went looking for my brother. He was in the bathroom, reinstalling the original shower-head which had been in the tub. He turned the water on to test it. The angle had been all wrong, and water not only overshot the tub, but sprayed all over me and the floor.

"Thanks," I said. "Forgot to tell you, the angle was important."

I climbed up with my feet straddling the tub, popped off a small plug which covered a screw that held the shower-head in place, loosened it, and turned it around a few degrees. Testing the water again, it now landed in the tub. I replaced the screw cover.

Satisfied with this small but successful repair job, I shook some of the water droplets off my arms and hands, and we left the apartment, not bothering to lock it behind us.

— 2005-06-11
]]> Tue, 14 Mar 2000 00:00:00 -0800 Matt http://www.haloscan.com/comments/mmussel/105_fearofghosts Strawberries http://www.onomatopoeia.org/OE/dream//100-strawberries
Our mission for the day: Steal two baskets of strawberries from the downtown Safeway grocery store.

Our plan: Superhero protege number one, dressed in a purple turban, distracted people at the coffee bar.

Superhero protege number two, dressed in a middle-eastern veil and robe, weaved her way up and down each aisle, captivating the attention of everyone there.

Meanwhile, I, dressed in the outfit of a Hasid jew, complete with black hat, forelocks, and a prayer vest, carried two empty green plastic strawberry baskets toward the produce section. When people had been suitably distracted by the antics of my comrades, I swapped out the empty baskets for two full baskets of ripe strawberries. One the strawberries were in my possession, I used my powers to trigger a minor earthquake which prompted everyone, ourselves included, to run out into the parking lot.

As I ran through the crowd, strawberries in hand, forelocks brushing against my cheeks, looking down at my vest and coat, I thought to myself, "This has to be the strangest thing I've ever done."]]> Thu, 09 Mar 2000 00:00:00 -0800 Matt http://www.haloscan.com/comments/mmussel/100_strawberries Non Mea Culpa http://www.onomatopoeia.org/OE/dream//095-nonmeaculpa
I unlocked the door, and rushed to my computer desk, where I nervously shook the batteries out of the calculator, and continued to do my best to extract as much water from it as I could. I propped the calculator up against a shelf of my desk with the battery opening downward, so that any remaining droplets could drain out of it. Afterward, I absentmindedly checked my email and looked at Friendster to see if an anticipated message had arrived.

A loud knock on the door pulled my attention away from the computer, and I jogged into the front room to see who was there.

Looking through the door peephole I saw her, a girl who had been a friend for a long time, and who had often made advances on me but which I had always rejected. [This was a fictitious dream person.]

Although a little curious what had brought her by, I opened the door cheerfully.

"I've had enough!" she shouted, bowling me over as she stormed through the doorway.

I shook my head like a confused dog, the specific content of her continuing shouts not quite registering as I tried to take the entire situation in. Looking up, I couldn't ignore the appearance of a gun in her right hand, which she promptly pressed up against the side of my head, hurting me a little and pushing me to the side.

My heart jumped into my throat, and I found myself breathless with fear. I weakly tried to ask what was going on, but she continued to push me down onto the ground, shouting incoherently.

A tear ran down my cheek as I lifted my hands in surrender. "Please, please don't hurt me. We can work this out, whatever it is. Just let me know what you want."

"Down on your back!" she screamed. "Did I tell you to wait?!? No! On your back now!"

I rolled back the rest of the way onto the ground, and she pressed the gun forcefully into my mouth.

"This is for you!" she screamed, and I felt sure my time had come. Inexplicably, however, instead of firing the gun, she pulled it out of my mouth and stepped back. "What were you doing in there when I got here?"

"What?" I responded.

"At the computer! What were you doing in there?!?"

"Oh, I was trying to get the water out of my calculator, which I'd just dropped in a puddle," I said.

She looked at me quizzically. "You better not be fucking lying to me!"

"I'm not, I swear," I begged.

"Is that everything?"

"Oh, and I was checking email, too."

"I'm going to go see, and I better not find out you were lying!" She turned and walked into the other room. I heard her shuffling around the computer desk for a moment, and I contemplated my situation.

"Oh shit!" I muttered to myself. "Friendster was up, too! I hope she doesn't . . . I . . . Does that count as lying? Oh, no."

I waited on the floor, shaking and afraid to move until she returned.

"Okay," she said, walking back into the room, holding the gun loosely, but we're going to finish this off now. Take your clothes off!"

"All of them I asked?"

"No questions!" she shouted. "All of them. No sudden moves!"

I sat up awkwardly, with my hands far out to my sides, and then slowly removed my shoes, one at a time. Then my socks, T-shirt, and jeans. Sitting there only in my boxers I looked up at her. She nodded, waving the gun at me, so I took those off, too, and sat there cross-legged on the floor awaiting further instruction.

Seemingly from nowhere she produced a length of brown cord and began tying my feet together. She was having difficulty juggling the gun while accomplishing this, and, sensing an opportunity, I did my best to swallow my fear, and I reached for the gun. Her grip tightened, and she started shouting incoherently again, I unable to hear for the deafening roar of the sound of blood pounding in my ears.

In an effort to distract me she wrapped the loose end of the cord around my genitals and began to pull, but in the meantime I had managed to rotate the gun in her hands until it pointed vaguely at the head of hair I felt scraping above my left shoulder. I spidered one hand over to the trigger, and pushed forcefully against it as I looked up to determine whether my aim was good, in case another shot was necessary.

A startlingly loud report was accompanied by the veritable explosion of blood from the girl's right eye, followed almost immediately by a spray of blood from the back of her head.

Astoundingly, she continued to struggle for the gun. My grip on the gun hadn't slipped, so I pushed against the trigger again. This time, the bullet hit her in the left eye, and she jumped back a bit, releasing the gun.

I jumped to my feet, and, in a fit of panic seeing her still standing, I shot her one last time in the belly. She fell to a sitting position against the wall, leaving a smear of blood and straight black hair down the white plaster.

The reality of what had just happened now hit me. Oh my God, I thought. I just killed a girl. Another human being. She's dead. In my front room. What do I do?

I glanced around the room, still frightened. I began walking toward the back room again, and paced around, still working out the situation in my head.

Wait, this was self defense, right? She came into my house. She attacked me. She was trying to kill me. With a gun, for Christ's sake.

A faint shuffling sound caught my attention. Someone at the door? What could it be? Caressing the gun between my shaking hands, I fearfully sidestepped into the doorway, viewing a little more of the front room with each step.

With one final turn, I was met with the view of the girl, standing full up on her feet, stumbling blindly toward me with her arms out in front of her. Blood streamed from her eye sockets down onto her white shirt, and her hair was all tousled.

Reacting in panic to this terrible and grotesque sight, I immediately fired another shot, this one catching the girl solidly in the neck, causing her whole body to flip backward and land with a sprawling thump on the hardwood floor. While making a sickening gurgling noise, she reached about with her arms, pulled herself toward the front room's bathroom door a few feet, and then, with a prodigious sigh, finally came to a rest.

Oh my god. Oh my god. I did it again. Oh my god. And she was defenseless this time. She was unarmed. And I shot her again. I mean, I was still scared. And she's the one who came after me, but I didn't have to do that. What was she going to do to me. What could she have done? I've got to stop. I can't keep. . . .

The gun. The gun. I can't be found holding this.

I looked down to find the gun still in my trembling hands. I examined it briefly. It was dark gray and heavy, and the steel still felt cool despite having been fired. the handle contained a clip, with at least a dozen small bullets still remaining.

I tossed it nervously onto the top of the dresser, where it clattered to a stop.

The police. I have to tell them. Soon. Or they'll think this was my fault. They have to believe she was the one who attacked me. Maybe if I call them quickly enough.

I grabbed for the phone, wondering for a moment what the phone number for the police was, then muttered several words of self-criticism as I dialed 911.

The other end rang twice as I waited impatiently. "Hello, I'm Sylvia, your 911 operator. Unfortunately I had jury duty today and was unable to find a stand-in. I understand that you're probably calling with a dire emergency, and I apologize for that, but I'm currently not available. However, if you'll leave a message with the details of your emergency, I'll get back to you as soon as I can, most likely on Monday morning. Thank you."

I hung up. I didn't even know what to think. Trying the only thing I knew, I dialed again.

Busy signal.

I tossed the cordless phone handset on the bed in frustration, and put on a pair of jeans and a gray T-shirt I found nearby. I then picked up the phone again, and the pistol, and headed toward the back door.

I briefly considered the impression I would make on passersby emerging from my house with a pistol in my hand, so I tucked it carefully into the back of my jeans.

Still barefoot, and a bit desperate, I nevertheless ran out my back door into a hilly urban park behind my house. I ran up a set of concrete steps to the top of a small hill, and sat down on a concrete bench.

The gun poked harshly into my back, and I jumped back up and cautiously pulled it out of my pants, making sure not to let the trigger catch on anything.

This is dangerous. What if I accidentally shot someone? Or myself? Oh my god.

I turned the gun over in my hands looking for a safety switch. I found a protrusion on one side labeled "SAFETY," but the switch was part of the barrel, and didn't seem to actually move. Examining the rest of the gun, the only moving parts I could identify were the trigger and the catch which released the bullet clip.

The bullets. I'll take the bullets out. That's it.

I released the clip which popped out solidly into my other hand. I shook the clip firmly, attempting to extract the bullets. When they didn't move, I started removing them one at a time with my shaking fingers.

Suddenly finding myself with a handful of 16 or so small bullets, I looked up and saw a friend coming up the concrete steps with his father.

"Matt, is that you?"

"Yes."

"Are you okay?"

"No, no I'm not," I answered, attempting to hide the gun and handful of bullets behind my back until I'd explained the situation. "I was attacked. She had a gun. She. . . ."

"Are you alright then? Are you hurt?"

"No, I'm not. But I shot her. In self-defense. I think she's dead. I think. Oh my god, I don't know what to do. I. . . ."

Nervously I squatted down and resumed my previous task of dispensing with the bullets while continuing to explain the situation as best as I could. Impulsively, I rolled the bullets out onto the edge of the sidewalk near a flower bed. Almost immediately the bullets rolled off across the soil and under a hedge.

"Oh no!" I shouted. "I can't lose those!"

My friend squatted down and started helping me retrieve the cold brass cylinders from the soft dirt. "It's okay, Matt. It's okay. I'm helping. It'll be okay."

My friend now stood in front of me, holding a loose mix of soil and bullets, and, with the situation back somewhat under control again, my mind once more began to race.

Four shots. Four bullets. Who the hell shoots someone FOUR TIMES in self-defense? They're never going to believe me. They'll never.

"Where is she? The girl?"

"I shot her. Four times. I shot her four times. How did that happen? I shot her once, and she just kept coming, and I shot her again. And she wouldn't stop. She wouldn't stop."

"It's okay. It's okay."

At that point, I noticed another friend walking in my direction, having seen me standing there. When he started getting close, my friend with the bullets ran up to him, and quickly summed up the situation for him.

Meanwhile, I crumpled back down onto the bench, my head in my hands, and I cried. The sense of hopelessness was overwhelming.

"Have you called the police?" I heard my newly arrived friend asking.

"No. He said he tried, but he couldn't get through. He's worried, though, that if it takes too long, they'll blame him."

"Let me see the phone, then. I'll see if I can get through."

They took the phone from the bench where I'd unconsciously laid it down earlier, and he paced off onto the grass. Before too long I could see him talking quietly, but couldn't hear anything being said. After a couple of moments, the way he looked down at the street and pointed as he talked led me to believe he was probably giving the police directions.

Oh my god, what will they think about all this? This is crazy. They're going to think I just killed her. They're going to think I did this. It wasn't my fault. It wasn't my fault.

"They said they'd be here in a few minutes. Let's go back to the house. Do you want to show me where this happened?"

"I don't know if I can do this," I answered.

"We need to go back, to let them in," he said. "Come on, it'll be okay."

We walked back to the house and walked into the back door I'd left hanging open.

From here I could already spot the smear of blood where the girl had last fallen.

"Oh my god," I said. "She's not there!"

"What do you mean?"

"She's gone! She was right there." I pointed. "She was . . . . Oh, no. She was dead. She had to be. Oh no."

The room started spinning as the panic made my pulse rate rise, and I couldn't breathe. What will they think when they see all this, and she's not here? What will they do? What can I do? Or . . . what if she's still here? What if she comes after me again? I can't shoot her. Not again. Not again. Or did she . . . maybe she crawled off into the bathroom and died in there? Oh, no. I can't look. I can't go looking for her. I can't handle this. This is too much. Too much.

The room whipped into a final quick spin as I blacked out and tumbled to the floor.]]> Sat, 04 Mar 2000 00:00:00 -0800 Matt http://www.haloscan.com/comments/mmussel/095_nonmeaculpa Matter of Record http://www.onomatopoeia.org/OE/dream//094-matterofrecord
"Let's look in here, just for a minute," said one girl. "There's something I want to see if they have."

I stopped just inside the door and looked at a display tree filled with stuffed animals, refrigerator magnets bearing various slogans and pictures, and some themed stationery.

I then walked over to the left wall of the sop, where two friends were picking through the selection of CDs, and I began browsing just behind them in the alphabet.

Every so often one of us would pull something out and show it to the others. "I remember that one," someone would say. "I was in the seventh grade, maybe? Something like that."

Growing bored with the CDs, I wandered back toward the center of the store, occasionally stopping to look at something on a display. I saw another friend browsing through some racks of LPs in the back right corner of the store, and I walked over to talk to her. A guy in a DJ booth above the LPs seemed to be providing the background music to our shopping.

"Hey," my friend said as I drew near, "Isn't this one yours?" She held up a record album cover which included my name, and a large blue water ripple.

"Yeah, actually, but I didn't think I did one on vinyl. Maybe I did. I can't believe I don't remember this. How weird. Let me see?"

She handed me the album, and I took it between my open palms.

Upon closer examination, I realized the artwork was slightly different than I remembered.

"This is strange. This is a completely different photograph than I used."

"It looks the same to me," she responded.

"No, no," I said. "Look, in the reflection in the water, you can see a big tree, and a fence, and look, there's the outline of the photographer. Much more amateur job than my artist did."

"Maybe 'cause this was made in China?" she asked.

"What?!?"

"Yeah, look at this." Her finger touched the back side of the album cover.

I flipped it over in my hands to find, among other printing on the back side, a notation which read, "Made in China, 1994."

"That's the wrong year, too. This must be an illegal bootleg, or something." I handed it back to her to look at.

"Are you upset about it?" my friend asked.

"Actually, no. Not so much. I never made a lot of money off the album, anyway, so it's not that big a deal. Actually, more than anything I'm amazed that it made it to China somehow. Kind of flattered actually. I need to buy this. Is the album actually inside?"

She tilted the album cover, and shards of on LP came sliding out.

"Oh, man," I said. "I guess I'd still buy it anyway, just to prove that it existed, but it sucks that the record is destroyed. I'd love to be able to hear if it's the same or not. And I feel terrible paying. . . ." I looked at the price tag on the album cover. "Paying $8.99 for a record that won't play."

"Maybe there's another copy?" she asked.

We began looking through the other albums on the rack, and soon enough came across another copy of the bootleg album. Upon inspection, this one was badly scratched, but was at least in one piece.

"There you go," she said, handing it over to me.

I took this one, also marked $8.99, up to the cashier, and paid for it.]]> Fri, 03 Mar 2000 00:00:00 -0800 Matt http://www.haloscan.com/comments/mmussel/094_matterofrecord Day at the Races http://www.onomatopoeia.org/OE/dream//091-races
People were quickly filing into the stands, many stopping at the betting station or concession stand before finding their seats. I explored the area for a little while, and eventually went to stand in front of a seat that appeared to be unreserved.

I made small talk with the people on either side of me.

Soon, some indistinguishable announcements echoed over a PA system, a fanfare sounded, and then, with the pop of a starter pistol, a strange sight met my eyes:

A middle-aged man, somewhat tall and fairly skinny, wearing light blue running shorts and a tank top, and looking very obviously panicked and confused, came running out of a doorway onto the track as quickly as he could. Large beads of sweat were already running down his forehead.

Several paces behind the runner there sped a kindly looking older man wearing an aviator's helmet and driving a little black motor-scooter.

In between the two men, a little brown monkey scampered after the jogger across the dirt track, alternately eyeing the man frantically running away from him and the animal trainer driving the scooter behind him.

As the monkey closed in on the jogger, people in the stands cheered loudly. The jogger, however, looked back, saw the monkey rapidly approaching, and lurched forward with all his strength. The monkey faltered, and hopped up onto the front of the motor scooter just before it would have passed him. More noise erupted from the stands.

The loudspeakers barked some more.

Wanting to get in on the action this time, I worked my way down to the betting booth, and placed a $50 bet for the monkey in the next race. By the time I made it back up to my seat, I looked down to see the monkey sitting on top of a new dazed runner's shoulders. The man stood in the middle of the track blankly, as the monkey picked at his hair. The crowd cheered.

At the betting counter, I handed the clerk my ticket, and she responded, "Congratulations, sir. 3:1 odds on that race. Currently your payout is $149, but may increase depending on hwo many people collect. Would you like to cash out now or wait?"

I opted to take the $149 right then, and collect any possible difference another time. Checking a computer terminal only a few minutes later showed that my balance had increased to $170 total.

"May I go ahead and collect the other $21 now?" I asked the clerk. "Sure, sir. Just check with the cashier around the corner."

Thinking she meant the corner of the hallway, I started walking away.

"Where are you headed? Right here," the clerk shouted after me, and pointed to a terminal just behind her.

Walking over to where she pointed, I discovered that the "cashier" was a machine somewhat like an ATM, where I could enter my ticket number and retrieve my remaining cash.

Pocketing the money, I mused to myself, "Man, my friends are going to love this. Monkey races. Too funny. I can't wait to bring them."]]> Tue, 29 Feb 2000 00:00:00 -0800 Matt http://www.haloscan.com/comments/mmussel/091_races Bigamy http://www.onomatopoeia.org/OE/dream//088-bigamy
Scene 1 – Friday, around 8pm

I'm pacing around the breakfast room in the house of a girl named Stacy, as I talk to my mother on a cordless phone. I, Stacy, and another fictitious dream character, Eric, have just returned from seeing a movie at the theater. Stacy and Eric are in other parts of the house.

"Yes mom, I know it's weird that she's dating two people at the same time, but I'm okay with it. NO it's not like that. No, the relationship is pretty Platonic. Sure we go out and do stuff the three of us, but there's really not much intimacy to it. Yeah, I've kissed her a couple of times, but he wasn't around. That's about it. Friends mostly. I'm not sure if their interaction is the same. I've gotta go. Yeah. I need to run. Bye."


Scene 2 – Saturday, 10am

I'd been asleep on the couch in Stacy's den and have only been awake for about 10 minutes. The curtains are drawn, giving the entire interior of the house a sort of dim brown color. I'm wandering around the den, deciding whether to take a shower, watch TV, go home, or go back to sleep on the couch.

Eric is still asleep on the couch in living room.

A few minutes later Stacy emerges from her bedroom, chattering loudly, and walks past me to an old-fashioned blackboard on the back wall of the den. The commotion has awoken Eric, who is standing sleepily leaning against the archway between the living room and den.

Stacy points to the blackboard, on which is written a long math proof in paragraph form:

|x+n| >= |x| >= |x-n| and {x+n} U {x} =~ {x+n} . . . .


Stacy is emotionally out of sorts and cranky, and her mood is matched by her appearance — unkempt hair, wrinkled t-shirt in which she slept, and squinty eyes. She explains that the mathematics proof gives the reason why she can't continue with the two of us, and that she really needs to be single for a while. Eric protests a little. I'm simply befuddled by the situation.

Remembering a comment my brother has often made, I think to myself, "I guess I lost my turn, then. . . ."

I put on my shoes, gather my keys and wallet, and walk out the door and down the sidewalk to my car.


Act II

Scene 1 – Saturday, 3pm

I and my friends Weyandt, Rob, and Peck are packed into the red Toyota Corolla I drove in high school and college, on the way to a party at Stacy's friend Amy's house (another fictional character).

I'm driving, and have chosen to follow a mostly residential route to get there. The road has many dips, and everyone in the car is laughing as we hit each one.

We arrive at the house, which seems fairly quiet from the outside. There don't appear to be many cars around, and I park in the driveway, which is empty. My friends and I stand around the driveway and joke and talk for quite a while before going inside.


Scene 2 – Saturday, 3:30pm

Standing in the front living room of the small house I'm surrounded by many very drunk people. Even the small couch facing the front door is piled up with about 7 people. In addition to the friends that came with me, Rusty and Sarah are also here, and several dream friends.

I find myself a drink and begin mingling about the house.

As I enter the family room in the center of the house, I see Stacy sitting on top of a round table, crying softly. Putting any confusion about the morning aside, I ask her if she's okay.

Obviously quite drunk, she sort of nods and sniffles.

I think for a moment, and then postulate, "This breakup thing this morning — it wasn't really about being single was it? You wanted to be with Eric, but couldn't figure out a way to be fair about it."

She looked me in the eyes, paused, and then slowly nodded her head.

"Why didn't you ask?" I said. "It's okay with me. I'm a little disappointed, of course, but that doesn't change anything. If you want to be with him, be with him."

"Oh my god," she answered, wiping some of her tears away. "Thank you so much. I can't believe you're this cool about things."

"Yeah, sure," I said. "Don't worry, it's fine."

I continue wandering around the house, and when I come back through the family room, Stacy, still standing on the same table, grabs me by the shoulder, turns me to face everyone, and proclaims, "People! People? Everybody! I want to introduce you to the nicest guy in the whole world!"

I step away from the table, smile to return the several curious glances I've received as a result of the announcement, and continue on my way toward the front of the house.


Scene 3 – Saturday, 6pm

Several people, including myself, wander into the art studio at the back of the house. The room is large and surrounded on two sides with floor-to-ceiling windows which are letting the sun shine into the room. Then, on the floor in the middle of the room, we see Amy, one of the hosts of the party, asleep next to Eric. Both of their bodies have been intricately painted in harlequin designs, in very vibrant colors — mostly purple and red and blue. Arranged around the floor of the room are about a dozen stylized plaster busts of Amy, with exaggerated nipples and belly buttons, also painted in the same fashion. It's not clear whether they were done along with the body painting or were pre-existing, but the paint seems dry when several of the partygoers touch the busts.

Sensing the activity around her, Amy suddenly awakes, and is very embarrassed to be naked in front of this group of people. She covers herself with her hands, but partygoers reassure her that it's not necessary. "No need to be embarrassed. The paint is like wearing clothes, right?"

The activity has begun to draw attention from the rest of the party, and soon Stacy walks in, sees Eric in this compromising set of circumstances, and runs from the room crying.

The party begins to fall apart soon afterward, between having a naked host, a traumatized host's best friend, and a thoroughly drama-saturated assembly of guests, and people begin to head home.

My previous group of friends, now joined by Rusty and Sarah, all pile into my little car out front, and we drive away. No one is talking about what had just happened, and everyone seems a little exhausted.


Act III

Scene 1 – Saturday, 8pm

I drive up to my parents' house right around dusk, and Rob and Weyandt and I get out of the car and go inside.

Rob has mentioned that he has a paper of some sort to write, so I take him to my old Apple IIe computer, and show him the word processing software and how to turn the machine on.

I continue on into my old room. Weyandt also has something to work on, and gets busy at my old desk shuffling through some papers.

I hear Rob calling me, and upon my going back into the computer room, he tells me that the screen is fuzzy. I look at the green monochrome monitor, which looks more like an oscilliscope screen than a computer monitor in the dream, twist the outside frame of the [now] circular display, and the blurred characters on the screen condense into readable text. Rob thanks me, and I return to my room.

I've decided I need to change into more comfortable clothes, and as I'm digging through the closet, I find a dress belonging to Stacy. It makes me suddenly a little nostalgic and sad, and in a moment of odd inspiration, I decide it would make me feel better if I tried the dress on. About the time I get it pulled over me, my mother walks into the room.

"What are you doing?!?" she asks. "First the dating of the girl and the guy, or whatever you call what it was, and then this?"

"Um, just felt sad and strange, and it seemed like a good thing at the time. It's not what it looks like. Trust me."

Seeming unconvinced, my mother goes back downstairs.


Scene 2 – Saturday, middle of the night

I've decided that sitting on my roof will make me feel better (I used to do this a lot when growing up), so I climb out my bedroom windo onto the steeply sloped roof outside. I scramble over to a more open area, and watch some kids playing in the dark down the street.

I spend a long time lost in thought, until the loud noise of a truck engine roaring catches my attention, and I see an old model light blue pickup truck bounce up into my parents' yard. The driver's window is open, and he looks up at me and starts shouting insults as he turns the wheel hard to the left and begins doing doughnuts in my parents' lawn. I've deduced that he must be related to an estranged business associate of my dad. Grass and mud are shooting out in every direction, with some making it as high as the roof, and I'm a little scared by the man's presence in general, so I start climbing back toward the bedroom window.

As I climb, pieces of the roof start crumbling under my feet. I grab for the eaves of the dormer window, and, as I begin to lunge toward the window, I find that it's been closed. I shout for help, and Weyandt's head soon pokes out the opening window. He apologizes. "Didn't want to waste the air conditioning. Sorry, man."

I climb back inside my room.


Scene 3 – Sunday, around 8am

We've been up all night, and Weyandt, Rob, and I walk back to my car. In the street gutter on either side of the car Rusty, Sarah, and Peck are sleeping, spread out flush with the curb.

"Oh no!" I said. "I completely forgot they were out here!"

The sleepers begin to sit up and curse us for leaving them out in the street. I apologize profusely. Soon afterward, though, everyone is laughing about the situation, and we decide to pile into the car and go somewhere for breakfast.]]> Sat, 26 Feb 2000 00:00:00 -0800 Matt http://www.haloscan.com/comments/mmussel/088_bigamy Locomotive http://www.onomatopoeia.org/OE/dream//087-locomotive
The race consisted of three 1870s-era steam locomotives on three parallel sets of tracks stretching across a long flat plain. Judging by the duration of the race from start to finish, the course was probably around 100 miles long.

M and I took turns operating the train and shoveling coal, and, about 2/3 of the way through the race, when the coal ran out, we switched to wood and a bellows. We'd fallen behind, and were trailing the other two trains by about a quarter mile.

By stoking and blowing the wood, I managed to get a lot more heat, and after a while we started to close the distance between ourselves and our competitors. The stash of wood had run out, however, and it didn't look like the wood left in the furnace would last, especially burning as hot as we needed to maintain our speed.

M kept the train operating smoothly as I searched around for a suitable solution.

I checked a pantry cabinet in the train looking for anything that would burn well. I passed over canned foods, some potato chips, and other snacks, before discovering a very large tin of Planters' dry-roasted peanuts sitting on the pantry floor.

"Peanuts!" I said to myself. "They're dense, oily, and flammable — this just might work."

The wood had burned down to a few hot coals, so I cautiously arranged as many peanuts as I could around the hottest parts of the fire, and watched as the oily little legumes began to ignite with a surprising ardor.

"How are we doing?" I shouted up front, while blowing on the fire.

"Look!" she shouted.

Once certain that the fire was going well on its own, I stood up to see us rocketing past the trains on either side, just before we passed the line of red pennant flags that marked the finish line.

"We won?" I asked, still in astonishment as M pulled the brakes to slow our locomotive to a gentle halt.

"Of course we won!" M answered, and leapt forward to throw her arms around me.
]]> Fri, 25 Feb 2000 00:00:00 -0800 Matt http://www.haloscan.com/comments/mmussel/087_locomotive Punk http://www.onomatopoeia.org/OE/dream//080-punk
I shook my head, making excuses about my mediocre guitar playing. The singer/guitarist, however, had overheard the comment, and said, "Yeah, Matt, come on up here — it'll be fun!"

A little bashfully I walked over to him and took his guitar as he handed it over.

"What do I play?" I asked.

"I dunno," he answered. "Anything. Make something up. We don't care. . . ."

So, shrugging my shoulders a bit, I started beating out the simplest three-chord progression I could muster, the rest of the band quickly joined in, and, like magic, started making up a song on the spot:

You don't know how you'd feel,
If your Grandma liked to steal.
[can't remember these two lines. . . .
. . . .]

I say, "I want that candy,"
So she sneaks it in her bag.
I say, "I don't like that lady,"
So she beats the fucking hag (to death). Oh,

I kind of like it this way —
Please, let's go out and play today,

Just my Grandma, the anarchist,
My Grandma, the anarchist,
My Grandma, the anarchist,
And me....


Everyone in the room cheered loudly, and I, after taking a little bow, gave the guitar back and rejoined the rest of the party.
]]> Fri, 18 Feb 2000 00:00:00 -0800 Matt http://www.haloscan.com/comments/mmussel/080_punk Bioengineering http://www.onomatopoeia.org/OE/dream//078-bioengineering
Sat down at computer. On screen, a rendered picture of some kind of organism. Clicked 'New'.

I've seen that before.

"No, this one's different. Just wait."

Scrolled mouse back and forth across Shape Wizard. Accidentally clicked 'OK' without re-selecting shape.

Cell phone rang, across room. Hello?. Yeah, yeah. No not that busy.

A 6-inch black brain-like mass appeared on the desk in front of me.

No, I'll still be able to make it. Eight o'clock you say still? Yeah. Sure I'll have the stuff with me.

"Crap. Oops."

Clicked 'Cancel'. Desk object disappeared. Returned to Shape Wizard screen. Changed tab to Behaviour screen instead.

Size: 3-small
Speed: 10-fast
Structure: soft endoskeleton exoskeleton
Motility: legs: 6
Environment: aquatic land tissue-borne
Diet: vegetable carnivorous scavenger

No, no, no. Not like that. Don't worry. What's that? Well, I've spent a lot of time on it is all. Yeah.

Switched back to Shape Wizard. Selected a cardioid-shaped pattern. In the corner of the screen, a large ant-like organism was depicted.

"Great, now for the color."

What's that? No, nevermind, I thought he was talking to me. Go on.

Clicked 'OK'. 8-inch black and red ant-like creature suddenly appeared on desk surface, twitched a few times, and began to explore the desk.

"Oh man, I didn't mean to click that yet!"

Looks cool, man.

Took a pen-like implement from a stand next to the computer screen, pointed it at the insect, clicked a button on the side, and said "Freeze."

Insect quickly turned a frosty blue color, and stopped moving.

"Just a sec, let me get the color right."

[Waves hand] What wasn't quite right? No, that was what you wanted I thought. No, when you and I talked. Yeah, you said. . . .

Clicked color tab. Clicked black square. Insect on the desk became solid shimmery black. Twitched, and then quickly ran off the edge of the desk toward me. Caught it in mid-air around the thoracic region, and placed it back on the desk.

Dammit! Freeze that thing!

Froze it again.

"I did! It keeps coming unfrozen!"

No, talking to my friend. Well, freeze it better then!

"Sure, okay, whatever, I'll just click the 'Freeze Better' button, right?"

Returned attention to the screen. Purple color I wanted wasn't in the palette. Clicked 'Other colours...' and clicked on a purple. Too bright. Heard a scramble behind me.

Jesus, this thing doesn't have a stinger does it?!?

Aimed pen at the insect, now next to the guy's leg. Creature froze again. Cat on the bed watched intently as I carried the now black and purple animal back to the desk.

"Not yet."

[hand over phone] Not yet? You're a twisted little fuck, you know? Jesus.

Clicked 'Select by attributes'.

Red: 64
Blue: 64
Green: 0

Changed numbers.

So, like I said I'll have it to you. Sorry if it's not what you expected, but I swear that's what you asked me for originally, so that's what I've been working on. Yes. Okay, um . . . Anyway, just . . . .

Red: 8
Blue: 11
Green: 0

Almost-black bluish purple color appears in the color preview box.

Hey, can I just call you back later? I've got too many things going on right now.

"That's it. That's what I. . . ."

Sudden crunch sound caught my attention. Cat under the edge of the bed had the insect between its paws and mouth and had ripped it in half.

I've gotta go. Now. [hangs up phone]

All six finger-long legs were still flexing back and forth, and the cat smacked loudly as it licked out the abdomen cavity.

"That can't be healthy, right?"

I don't know. Jesus. Hope you didn't need that.

"Yeah, I know. Crap."]]> Wed, 16 Feb 2000 00:00:00 -0800 Matt http://www.haloscan.com/comments/mmussel/078_bioengineering Mediterranea http://www.onomatopoeia.org/OE/dream//076-mediterranea
After a couple of minutes of no response, I tried the doorknob and found the door unlocked. I peered around the corner of the door and observed that the house seemed to be deserted, though well-kept. I cautiously and quietly entered, hoping not to startle anyone.

As I wandered from room to room, all with lights out and sparsely furnished, I discovered that the house was honeycombed with small courtyards, each containing a rock garden.

Eventually, near the back of the building, I found an elevator door. Looking around again to see if anyone was watching, I pressed the single "Down" button next to the door. The door opened, and I entered.

At the end of a very long, excruciatingly silent elevator ride, the doors opened to a scene bursting forth with sound and activity. What unfolded before me was an immense room, expanding out in front of me, with an unseen bright light source. The concrete floor at my feet slowly tapered down toward a roiling subterranean sea. The edge of the water was teeming with people laughing and playing in the waves.

Carefully, so as not to slip, I clambered my way down the slope until I was in the middle of the crowd at the edge of the water. The room opened up here in both directions, with another sloping area up to my left, and the vast sea stretching into an infinite distance in front of me and to my right.

While I surveyed my surroundings and watched the people around me, a huge wave suddenly swept over my legs, and before I knew it, I was floating in water far deeper than my own height. My clothes were soaked, but I became caught up in the situation and began to laugh. Other people floating in the waves spoke to me, and I realized I knew a few of them from many years ago — it was good to see them again.

The waves receded, and I found myself shuffling across the concrete floor again, dripping wet. Smiling one last time at the people in the water, I walked up this second slope toward another elevator door, and rode the elevator back up to the surface. As soon as I reached the top, I realized I'd lost my shoes in the water, so I returned back down briefly to retrieve them, and then rode the elevator back up to my car.
]]> Mon, 14 Feb 2000 00:00:00 -0800 Matt http://www.haloscan.com/comments/mmussel/076_mediterranea Donut http://www.onomatopoeia.org/OE/dream//074-donut
I gave a look of frustration, as my legs were a little tired and sore, but continued walking.

Past Canal, on the edge of Chinatown, we took a left, and several more turns placed us in a small dead-end alley, completely lined with shops.

Emily nudged me and pointed to a bright sign over a shop immediately to our left. "That's the place!" she said.

Before we could go in, however, a tiny Asian woman standing outside a restaurant at the very end of the alley began screaming. "Hey you! You in denim jean! Short guy! Yeah, you! Look!"

Somewhat taken aback by the abrupt address, my hand followed her pointing finger to a glass door, on which a sign made of letter decals read:

NO RICE FOR
MUSSELMAN!
INFORMATION:
212-___-____

I looked back at the woman with my palms up to my sides, in the most confused gesture I could muster. what was this all about? And regardless of that, how did this woman even know my name? After several seconds of staring, she finally broke into laughter, and this time pointed again, but this time at another woman working at a vegetable cart behind me. When I turned, the second woman jumped up, and smiling, shouted, "Hey Matt, remember me? From the wedding! Yeah, I'm your Aunt ___ [name not remembered]." It became clear that she had seen me coming and tipped off the restaurant owner, as sort of a joke.

In the dream I thought back and remembered this woman, not a true aunt but more a friend of the family, and only a few years older than I, helping my sister into a dress.

She went on to explain that an uncle of mine had dated the restaurant owner many years ago and had broken her heart so badly that she'd put up the sign to get back at him, vowing never to let him or any of his kin into the place again. As the years passed, and hard feelings softened, the sign had become sort of a joke, and eventually meshed itself so much into the neighborhood culture that no one wanted to take it down.

I continued talking to my "aunt," sharing stories and updating her on how the rest of the family was doing, as the dream slowly faded out.]]> Sat, 12 Feb 2000 00:00:00 -0800 Matt http://www.haloscan.com/comments/mmussel/074_donut Samsara http://www.onomatopoeia.org/OE/dream//072-samsara
Near downtown Dallas, we passed an open field, a full city block in size. Small trees and shrubs were scattered throughout the field, particularly near the edges, and the whole expanse seemed littered with stones and branches and small bushes.

The car slowed to a stop alongside the curb.

"I need you to see this," she said. "Get out."

With a slightly puzzled expression I stepped out of the car, and closed the door softly. She turned forward and sped away without a word. I wasn't upset although I felt I should have been. This unforeseen circumstance gave me some time to think.

I began wandering aimlessly through the field, thinking over the events of the past few hours, and the argument we'd had. Occasionally I'd pause to avoid a particularly troublesome log or stone.

Not long later, as I neared the center of the field a tight pair of dark nylon cords caught my attention, suspended in the air at about face level. I followed the cords to find them looped around a silver-dollar-sized pulley fastened to a tree. I reached up and pulled the top cord, watching the action of the pulley as it turned and the bottom cord moved the opposite direction. I noticed movement out of the corner of my eye, and turned to find a series of polaroid photographs of children hung on one of the cables, as if they were clothes hung out to dry.

I looked at each photograph one by one, wondering if this is what she had intended me to see, and children's laughter filled my head.

Looking back across the field, squinting to bring the other side into focus, I decided to follow the cord the other direction.

As I reached the field's center, the cables were no longer present, and I found myself standing on a large rectangular stone. Looking around me I could make out similar stones set into the ground about 20 feet from this one evenly in eight different directions. I surmised that they must have been arranged according to compass directions, because they roughly followed the layout of the block. In the distance, I could also see a one foot vertically positioned stone protruding from the ground, perfectly lined up with each of the eight radial stones.

I stood there for a long time, sometimes leaving the center stone to walk around among the others. A cold mist began to fall, and the sky grew darker.

I looked back toward the stone arrangement, pulled up the hood of the rain jacket that I was wearing, and began walking home.

* * *

The next morning, I was sitting on a small floating pier on the edge of a cold and turbulent west coast bay. I was not alone: about ten children and several adults were also on the pier, and several of the children had been swimming in the water and were climbing back on the wooden planks.

A storm was slowly rolling into the bay from the sea, and the waves grew steadily higher and faster. The last of the children struggled to climb up the side of the bucking pier, and then stumbled onto the rocky shore behind it.

Without warning, the pier suddenly kicked up at an angle and submerged under the water. I gasped for breath as the cold salty water soaked my clothing, and scrambled to hang on as the waves swept across the submerged pier's slick surface.

At that point I noticed that my navy blue backpack, which had been sitting on the corner of the pier, was gradually shuffling toward its edge and risked being lost in the depths. I realized this one backpack contained everything in the world important to me, and that I had no choice but to rescue it.

Just as I reached where the backpack should have been, I could see it slowly sinking into the darkness. I dove into the swirling water after it, but could not reach it in time.

Still under the water, I could make out a bag belonging to one of the other men on the pier, and I reached for at, so at least not to have come up empty-handed. With the beige bag slung over my shoulder, I swam slowly and clumsily through the tossing waves toward the shore. I had been swept quite a distance into the bay by the current, and finally clambered up onto some rough black rocks. I spat seawater and gasped for breath, laying the bag down at my side.

"Thank you," I heard someone say, and looked up to see the dripping wet form of the bag's owner, holding my own soggy backpack in his outstretched hands.

"Thank you," I returned, handing over the beige bag, and taking my own, and I sat down on the black rock, cradling the backpack in my arms and lap, as the pouring rain beat down on my head. Tears rolled down my face.]]> Thu, 10 Feb 2000 00:00:00 -0800 Matt http://www.haloscan.com/comments/mmussel/072_samsara Jade http://www.onomatopoeia.org/OE/dream//071-jade
"It's Jade. It's got to be. Who else actually uses a bow anymore?"

Several other officers appeared, and we stormed into the building together.

The place seemed to be some sort of museum or high-end furniture dealer. Room after room was full of huge oriental rugs, antique chairs and tables, cabinets, chests, and so on.

Running into the next room, I met a strange sight: at the far end of the room a tiny woman was standing, holding a large wooden bow. Her face was unusual and elflike, with tiny features, except for a large smiling mouth which seemed to protrude unnaturally out of the front of her head. She wore some kind of tiny antique Asian war helmet, with curved ivory horns emerging from the top.

After only a short pause, Jade rapidly whipped an arrow from her back, and with one fluid motion had sent it plunging through the man next to me, and then almost instantly disappeared into the doorway behind her. Two of her associates could be seen joining her and running at either side into the darkness of the long hallway.

Seeing that the man was already dead, I took off down the hallway as well.

Almost as soon as I'd entered the darkness, I felt a sharp sting in the side of my chest, and dropped to my knees, letting my pistol clatter to the floor. I could hear Jade running off. I pulled a long thin arrow, with a tiny barbless point, from my chest. Blood and some green substance (I assumed it had come from some punctured internal organ, gall bladder perhaps) coated the end of it. I continued to sit for a moment, and, when convinced that the wound was not serious, stood and resumed my pursuit.

I could hear a great deal of commotion in other parts of the building.

Running into a room containing a brilliant red rug and hundreds of Chinese vases, I saw Jade standing in the middle. I froze. She didn't move either. "I won't hurt you," I said.

"I know," she answered. "Because you love me, don't you?"

I walked up to her slowly, with my hands at my sides with palms upturned, to show that I was unarmed. Her tiny fingers grabbed the sides of my neck, and she kissed me. Her big mouth and odd teeth felt strange to me.

"We can't stay here," I said. "They'll kill you, and maybe me, too."

We ran off together, listening to the sounds of my team searching other parts of the building. "They're sure to have caught the others already," she said, slightly out of breath, and with a look of sadness.

After running through several rooms, we found a courtyard with a row of bushes along one side. We dived behind the bushes without a word and lay there silently, catching our breath, for several minutes.

"Sorry about that," she whispered, placing a tiny finger over the hole made by the arrow earlier. "I had to. You know."

I put my finger over her lips. We held each other quietly for what seemed like a long time.

"There's no way — I mean, we can't. . . ." she had started to say, when one of the policemen, a lanky guy with blond hair came spinning around the corner. He shouted something, and we both jumped. A shot rang out, and I threw my hands into the air as quickly as I could, shouting, "It's me! Don't shoot!"

The policeman nodded his head in recognition, and I slowly rose to my feet and stepped back. Turning around, I saw Jade on the ground, with her hand over a profusely bleeding wound in the center of her chest. Tears were running down her cheeks, but she wasn't making a sound. She wasn't moving at all.
]]> Wed, 09 Feb 2000 00:00:00 -0800 Matt http://www.haloscan.com/comments/mmussel/071_jade Squid 2 http://www.onomatopoeia.org/OE/dream//070-squid2
This time, the entire building was flooded about 15 feet deep in water (through some odd twist of dream physics, of course — the shop was a one story standalone building with floor to ceiling windows on two sides, and a solid wall with the front counter and so on along the wall to the left of wall with the front door in it, which was also solid).

I asked the guy at the counter (which rested above the water — more strange dream physics) why all the water, as it was obvious that the flood was intentional. He explained that there had been a scuba diving exposition in the shop the week before, and they'd held a contest whereby divers who found round clay tokens buried in the sand under the water could turn them in for their face value in cash. Nodding, I left the counter to continue looking around.

I stepped into the water and dove down with relative ease. The water was body temperature warm, and my clothes didn't seem to get wet. All the display aquaria throughout the shop continued to operate as before, and none of the aquatic life in them seemed to be escaping, even though everything was now completely submerged in water.

I felt something between my toes in the sand which now covered the floor, so I reached down what appeared to be a large poker chip looking disc, with red and white stripes around the edge and the number 200 marked in the middle. Remembering what the shopkeeper had told me, and thinking the token could be valuable, I stuck it into my pocket.

Swimming happily through the crystal clear warm water, I held my breath for what seemed to be minutes at a time with no trouble.

Eventually I clambered back up to the counter, and, attempting a calm demeanor, asked if any leftover tokens could still be redeemed for money.

"If there's any left, sure — but I doubt the divers left anything. And besides, you don't even have any gear, so you'd have a tough time finding them."

With a smile I fished in my pocket and retrieved five $200 tokens I'd found a few minutes before, placing them on the counter. The shopkeeper reluctantly counted out $1,000 in hundred dollar bills from the register, and I thanked him graciously.

Thinking my welcome was probably at an end at that point, I began walking out of the shop. As I did so, however, I pulled my hand from my pocket, and looked at the green and white disc I hadn't shown him, marked $15,000 on the top face. "No, that would have been pushing my luck," I said to myself. "No way they would have paid that."

I smiled again, and went home.]]> Tue, 08 Feb 2000 00:00:00 -0800 Matt http://www.haloscan.com/comments/mmussel/070_squid2