An Inception-Level Conspiracy

So last night I come home to find that there's been a case of vandalism at my parents' house. The house was truly a mess - plants in the yard had been completely destroyed, the sidewalks were covered with chalk and spray paint, and the car doors were dinged and dented. Most bizarrely, it seems someone opened up several cans of tuna fish and smeared the contents all over the exterior walls of the house. The mess would take hours to clean, a prospect incredibly demoralizing to both me and the rest of the family.

Only one thing took precedence: Tracking down the vandals.

In opening so many cans of tuna, the culprits had unwittingly made themselves easier to identify. They had left behind a trail of grease droplets to follow. We followed a trail of filthy smudges left on the sidewalk up the street, our heads lowered, oblivious to everything around us except the criminal's path. Soon we came across a bizarre sight on the ground. There, on the sidewalk, someone had sketched an image of Kurt Vonnegut's signature, with a mass of leaves from a fallen tree indicating the hair. Whoever left the trail knew we would follow. We had been lead to this point on purpose.

We raised our eyes and saw a house, even more damages than the one we had left. Trees had been completely felled, and the paint had been maliciously scraped from the siding. Filled with both anger and sadness, we set to work cleaning, while my mother went and knocked on the door.

I didn't hear the ensuing conversation between my mother and the woman inside, but it soon became clear that the woman wasn't happy, and it was more than the vandalism upsetting her. She was angry. In the only snippet of the conversation I could make out, I heard the woman say, "It's your fault."

Us! She was blaming us for the destruction! I couldn't believe it. We began to return home, all of us shocked that we were considered to be somehow complicit in everything. I could only conclude that, somehow, we were being framed.

Upon returning home, I found another trail of drops from the empty tuna cans, this one leading off in a different direction. Again, we eagerly followed the trail, hoping that, this time, we would be led to the true criminals. I guess we shouldn't have been surprised to find that we were again being toyed with. However, I don't think there was any way we could have been prepared for the sight at the end of the trail.

Underneath a large oak tree, someone had laid out a large buffet for us. There were trays loaded with fresh, juicy pineapple and watermelon, thin-sliced lunch meats, rolls and breads, and coolers full of soda. Hungry from our morning's exertions, we eagerly tucked in. I bit into a piece of pineapple, but in spite of the fruit's sweetness, I felt an unmistakable dread. I spat the fruit out, wiped my hand on my shirt, and moved quickly to the head of the buffet table.

There, in a plastic sleeve, written on a slip of yellow paper, was a typed note from the vandals:

You should have known that there would be no way for you to track us, unless we, the true supervillains, let you come our way. Now that you've worked so hard, it might be a good time for you to reevaluate your life and take a more pro-choice stance.

I crumpled the note and threw it on the ground. A more "pro-choice" stance? All the destruction, the suspicion, was spurred on by a political statement? I was furious - not just that the petty destruction was so personal in its focus, but that it was so misdirected. After all, I consider myself to be fairly "pro-choice." My adversary obviously had no idea what he was doing.

At once, the whole affair became maliciously stupid. The vandals, although meticulous in their plans, had at once proven their own witlessness. I wanted nothing more than to chase one of these wrong-headed social crusaders down and beat him around the head with my own fists.

***

At this point, some of you readers may have guessed that I dreamed this whole experience. I myself only became aware of this after hearing the voices of my roommates outside the door. I slowly rose from my bed. My eyes were clouded and bleary; I couldn't make out the time on the clock in my room. I stepped into the hallway and went to the kitchen, where the clock on the oven would be easier for me to read. It was about 5:00 - a little earlier than when I usually woke, but not so early that I could really think about going back to bed.

I opened the door to the refrigerator and shook my head. I had a half-gallon of milk, but no cereal. I didn't want to skip out on breakfast again, so I went to the pantry to see if I could scrounge something up. Then I saw a box of Golden Crisp cereal I had bought and then forgotten, stuffed way in the back of the pantry. I pulled it out and poured myself a bowl, and then I sat at the kitchen table to eat.

I heard steps come up the stairs. I blinked and looked up. My father rounded the corner and took a seat opposite me. Before I had the chance to say "good morning," he looked up at me, grinned, and said, "No one threatens my family."

I put my spoon down. Had the bizarre dream actually happened? Was there something actually going on, a conspiracy to match the one I thought I had only imagined? Was there, in fact, some knuckle-headed vandal I could wrap my fists around and pummel?

As it turns out, no, but my father had his own tale of vengeance to tell. He had been out the night previous with my sister-in-law and her child. My brother had gone out for work and asked my father if he would check in on the rest of the family. When my dad showed up, my brother's wife was shaken and visibly pale.

She had received a threatening phone call. This, my father would not abide. His eyes began to shine with excitement as he dove into his plan for vengeance. I gripped my spoon and bent in to listen. He went to a local phone store and bought a cheap phone. Then, with the caller's number in hand, he dialed the phone and...

***

Once again, I heard the sound of a roommate moving around outside my bedroom. I opened my eyes and got out of bed. A dream within a dream? I'd never had one quite like that before, one quite so vivid. I wondered almost absently if I were, perhaps, still dreaming.

I turned on the light and checked the time. It was 6:10. No more time for absent wondering - I was about to miss the bus.

Like so many dreams, the one I describe above contains snippets of real-life experiences. I watched a video that poked fun at Jessica Simpson's inability to understand tuna fish. I just recently read my first Kurt Vonnegut novel. I really DON'T have any cereal at home. But for there to be any deeper meaning... man, I don't know that I can connect THOSE dots, not with the largest pencil in the world.

Dream: Pirate Roles

My alarm didn't go off this morning. I woke up about ten minutes before I had to be in to work. Luckily, I only live about ten minutes away FROM work, so I still made it on time. Unluckily, that means certain daily rituals (like my morning ablutions) had to be omitted. I had a lock of hair looping out from the side of my head like a coffee mug handle that, thankfully, seems to have settled down now.

The cool thing about sleeping late, though, is that I got to experience a pretty wicked awesome dream for a bit longer.

So I was an actor, see, in a play/movie about pirates. The cool thing is that the director liked me enough to cast me as two different roles - and BOY, were they different.

The first character I played was a stoic seaman, the kind that never smiles while swinging deftly from the riggings. The director of the play gave me a photograph of how he wanted me to portray the character - a sailor in a white cap, unsmiling as he tied a hefty rope around his waist.

"Why is this man tying himself up?" the director asked.

"To keep from falling off the ship," I said.

"No," the director said, laughing at my naivete. "He's PLANNING to fall."

My mind? Totally blown right at that moment.

Sadly, I didn't get much time to explore the role of the second pirate - but I think this guy would have been even MORE fun. He walked around with a bit of a drunken swagger - similar to, but not so effete as Jack Sparrow - and he wore a pretty rad pair of red sunglasses. This character's scenes took place in an underground sewer, complete with blasts of steam and red lighting.

I remember one line of his:

"Down here, men, you gotta LIVE your sex!"

I have no idea what that means, but I'm pretty sure this guy was going to be awesome.

Dream: The Meaning of a Kiss

I may regret posting this...

Last night's dream is one of the strangest I think I've had - although I'm not sure I can call it "strange" in the same sense as I refer to my dream of shooting up a casino with my buddy Chewbacca.

Like most of the dreams I seem to find worth mentioning, this dream featured a woman I've never met in waking life. I got the impression that the woman and I fought a lot, but, really, I barely knew her. She was definitely a pretty girl, but the dress she wore couldn't hide the fact that she hadn't shaved her legs in a couple of days - there were a couple of odd hairs poking out around her knees.

The girl sat me down on the floor and then knelt in front of me. "I have something I want to try," she said. "If two people sit very close to each other, with their faces almost touching, they'll be able to find out more about each other."

You can probably tell where this is going...

"You see," she said, "the longer two people can tolerate being next to each other, the more likely..."

She never finished the sentence. Here she was - a beautiful woman (with, admittedly, an obvious but minor physical imperfection) right in front of me, almost BEGGING to be kissed.

Give the people what they want, I always say.

Of course, that's the time the construction started outside my apartment, so I woke up before I got to see how the girl reacted to me kissing her out of the blue. Considering how long the kiss lasted before we got interrupted, though, I doubt she minded too much.

I've been thinking about this dream all day, and I've got two different theories about what it might mean:

1. The great apartment hunt of 2011 is still ongoing. We've already passed on a couple of pretty decent places with just a small thing or two wrong (like the unshaved legs on my dream girl), holding out for something just a little better. The dream could be telling me to find those slightly imperfect opportunities, forget about the little things that go wrong, and kiss them right on the mouth.
2. I haven't had a good snog in three years and it's time to DO something about that.

Either way, I think it's time I faced up to the fact that I've got some pretty dramatic changes coming my way.

If The Bugs Ever Gang Up On Us, We're Screwed

The other day, I had a dream - almost a nightmare, actually - that woke me up in a bit of a panic. In the dream, I chased a small, green bug around my apartment. Now, this isn't an uncommon occurence - I'm in a ground floor apartment that's usually pretty full of bugs (one of the reasons I'm getting kinda excited to move). However, what happened next...

I must have tripped, because, before I knew it, I was on the floor. I could see the bug, hiding in the corner of the room. The bug suddenly turned and jumped towards me, covering the ground between us with terrifying speed. I crawled away as quickly as I could, but the bug was faster. It made a last leap and landed right on the side of my neck. I heard it bite me, and it made a terrible noise, a mix between a metallic grating and a choir of the damned.

That's the part that woke me up.


Worst part about the dream? I woke up at, like, 9:30. On a Saturday, when I'd normally sleep in until 11:00.

That's TRULY evil!

An Onslaught of Strange Dreams

In the past week, I've been having night after night of utterly BAFFLING dreams. Heck, just last night, I had three:

• Someone broke into my apartment by tunnelling in through the kitchen wall and stole my Playstation. I wound up on my knees in the street and the rain, crying like Stanley Kowalski.
• I attended a concert put on by David Bowie at the USU library, where the music legend performed the complete discography of... Prince. My improv buddies heckled his show for about a half hour and drove everyone else away. By the end of the show, I was the only one left in the audience. Bowie and I became best friends.
• I had a brief, ill-fated romance with Lauren Graham... or maybe it was actually Lorelai Gilmore. Either way, it was weird - I'm uncomfortable with my own fantasies.

Even stranger to me, though, is a pair of dreams I had last week:

• In the first dream, I was hanging out on the monkey bars with one of my old college roommates, who told me he was getting a divorce. I left the playground and ran into my oldest brother, who was ALSO getting a divorce. Finally, I wound up in my apartment, talking to my little brother about our OTHER brother, who was ALSO getting a divorce.
• The second dream was about the most emotional unreal scenario I've ever envisioned. I was talking to my dad in his trophy room (side note: my dad does not actually hunt), trying to dissuade him from separating with my mother.

I don't know if these dreams MEAN anything, but they definitely indicate a fear of relationships far beyond my usual phobias. As always, I'm open to interpretations.

Except about that Lauren Graham thing. I mean, she's a pretty woman and all... but I don't want to know what that dream says about me.

Narrative Hygiene?

Have you ever had that dream where you're just getting ready to wrap up a semester, and then you realize you haven't been to math class since the semester BEGAN, so you KNOW you're going to fail? That's a favorite of mine.

(By the way, I haven't taken a math class of any kind since 2002, so these dreams REALLY scare me)

Last night's school dream, though, is about the best I've ever had. In addition to the usual insane math class, I had apparently enrolled in a class called "Hygiene of a Narrative - A Study of Peter Pan."

I WISH I could go back to school and take this class. It would be totally INSANE in the best way possible. I mean, what self-respecting, aspiring writer WOULDN'T want to learn about how to use the art of grooming to improve his stories?

And the fact that I'd be learning about narrative hygiene from THIS GUY:


Well, that's just sweet-tasting gravy, isn't it?

One Weird@## Dream

I present for your consideration last night's dream:

For some reason, I found myself chained to the dashboard of a stationary van. There were additional passengers in the backseat, screaming frantically. Whoever chained us inside the van planted a bomb inside, minutes away from exploding.

Luckily, our unseen captor didn't deem it necessary to deprive me of my gun, nor did he chain me so tightly that I couldn't SHOOT THE CHAINS OFF (in my dreams, I'm surprisingly hardcore). I escaped the vehicle and started herding the rest of the frightened passengers out... into the parking lot of a local WinCo supermarket.

Winco: The Supermarket and Terrorist Low Price Leader?

One single passenger was still trying to make her way out of the van: a poor mother with a broken leg in a comically oversized cast, trying to juggle crutches, a diaper bag, and a screaming baby. How often have we all seen that? Well, except for the bomb part.

I ran back to the woman and took the baby from her arms so she could finish getting out of the car - and I swear to you that the baby I help looked exactly like this:

It's full of stars.

It was the strangest thing - I immediately felt this sense of attachment to the child, like its survival was suddenly somehow the most important thing in the world. I put my hand gently under the baby's head and cradled it close.

Then the mom told me I was doing it wrong and snatched the baby back.

I'm not sure exactly what happened next. Presumably, the van blew up and we all went shopping.

Love and Anger: A Melodrama in Five Acts

Our stage is set - a crowded room full of young men and women in their finest - tuxedos and little black dresses. Dim orange light radiates from hanging paper lanterns.

[Cue Music.]

The crowd starts to dance wildly, arms waving, feet pounding. The only thing louder than the song is the laughter.

A young man enters from downstage. He wears a three-piece brown suit - a nice look, but completely out of place. This is our protagonist.

[Cue Applause]

The song ends. The crowd parts. From across the room, our hero sees a beautiful young woman in an elegant red dress - she also looks out of place. Their eyes meet, and she smiles.

[Cue Awws]


Flashback.

The setting is the same, but the lights are brighter. The same young people that were dressed so nicely at the dance are now dressed in casual attire.

Enter our hero, holding hands with the girl.

[Cue Applause]

The two talk for a while. We can't hear what they are saying, but they are smiling and laughing. She reaches over and touches his arm.

The lights slowly dim, but our hero and the girl remain in spots. As the light tightens around them, the two embrace and kiss.

[Cue Awws]


We return to the dance. Our hero returns the girl's smile, but it is strained.

[Cue Music]

The girl reaches out her hand. Our hero, unsure at first, walks through the crowd and takes it.

The two dance. He spins her under his arm and steps around her. For only a second, a small distance separates them. He then reaches out and catches her hand and pulls her back in.

The crowd around them has stopped dancing. A circle forms around them as they dance.

She turns around and steps back into him, his arms wrapped around her. They separate again, clinging to each other just by their fingertips.

Our hero pulls the girl in to a dip, and the song ends. We see the two rise and separate.

Neither is smiling.


The dancers applaud.

Embarrassed, our hero steps to the front. The girl follows. The two stand facing each other at the front of the stage. Again, we can't hear what is being said.

Our hero reaches out his arms as he talks.

The girl shakes her head.

Our hero turns his back to the girl.

The girl walks up behind him and puts a hand on his shoulder.

Our hero walks away, and the girl stands alone at the front of the stage.

[Cue Ohhs]

She watches our hero leave, then turns and rejoins the dancers.


We find our hero sleeping fitfully. He wakes up. Realizing that everything that happened was just a dream, he dresses quickly and heads to work.

We see him now on his lunch break, writing an update on his blog about how much dreams suck and stuff like that.

Confessions: Dreams

1 - You know that dream where you go out, off to work/school/whatever, and then you realize that you somehow left without your clothes? Yeah, I have that dream ALL THE TIME.

Seriously, like once a week. I've heard that means something about being insecure and unsure of your own self-worth, but I can't belive that, because, seriously:

I also have that one dream where you sign up for a college class, walk in the class on the day of the final, then realize that you've never actually BEEN to the class. I guess that probably means that I place a lot of value on education, but don't ever actually SUCCEED in learning anything...

2 - I once had a dream where I couldn't spit. I can't explain why. It's like I HAD to spit, like I had blood or something in my mouth, but I was physically incapable of actually spitting. The weirdest part is that I've actually had this dream TWICE, and the second time was just a couple of days ago.

At least the second time I woke up before I finally succeeded in spitting.

3 - I once dreamed I spent an entire day dressed up in a nun's habit.

4 - The first nightmare I ever had that actually scared me involved a vampire. And I mean a REAL vampire, with pale skin, widow's peaks, fangs, and NO SPARKLES.

It's probably cliche now to make fun of Twilight. And, one of these days, I'll probably stop.

But that day is not today - Twilight's stupid.

I've Been Thinking About You

Last night, I had a truly magical experience. I was sitting next to a girl that I’ve gotten to be quite fond of – although I don’t think she knew that. She leaned across me to say something to her friend sitting on just the other side of me. In doing so, she put her hand on my knee to balance herself. When she leaned back to her seat, she didn’t move her hand. I looked at her to find her looking at me, with a bit of fear and a lot of hope in her eyes. It was at that moment that I realized that she felt the same way about me that I felt about her, and we were finally ready to let each other know.

Then I woke up.

Yeah, I just pulled the “dream-fake-out” introduction on y’all. Sorry about that. But the dream got me thinking. Since I’ve already resolved to dedicate the year 2010 to personal growth and development, I may as well make the effort to reach that goal that I’ve longed to achieve, and that is true union with another human soul. I want – I should say need – to have that someone that I can tell anything to, that can accept me for who I am, and that can be herself around me.

There has really only been one person in my life who I’ve felt so deeply about. Sadly, through my short-sightedness and brash stupidity, I drove her away. I’ve felt so lonely ever since then, and now, perhaps too late, I realize that I lost one of the only truly good things in my life. I hope, though, that it’s NOT too late, and, in a final effort to rekindle the flame I neglected for so long, I here post a letter that I’ve written to my love, so that all the world may see and understand the depth of my emotion for her.

*ahem*

Dear Norah Jones,

I know it must be weird for you to hear from me after so long. I hope you are doing well. I apologize for the impersonal nature of this letter, but I feel that I have a lot to say, and I need time to compose my thoughts properly before I let you see them.

Harsh words have passed between us. When you released your most recent album, I started listening to it with the usual excitement and glee. However, upon hearing the single “Chasing Pirates,” I knew things were different. We have grown apart, you and I.

My delight turned to sorrow – perhaps, even, anger. Where was the Norah I knew, the one who serenaded me to sleep so many nights, who filled me so full of sweet sadness with her songs that I felt my chest would burst? She had gone, I thought, and the woman who stood in her place was only a hollow shell, made of corporate dollars and wishy-washy Neverland ideas.

I thought I couldn’t handle this new you, so I left. It’s been a cold, windy month since then. I’ve sat up many nights trying to find someone new. I listened to many singers, had a few flings, but, in the end, I realized that I was trying to replace you with another you – one that only existed in my imagination.

We’ve had our rough patches in the past – me with my clinginess, and you with that weird country phase you went through back in 2004 – but I think we came through them all right. I know that, somewhere inside you, the woman I fell in love with can still be found. She’s older, wiser, and better now than she used to be. And I still want to be with her.

Anyway, I hope you can forgive me for my foolishness, and accept me back, knowing that I am willing to change for you. I know it’s “Not Too Late” for us, and I wish you would feel the same way.

Will you take me back?

□ yes

□ no

Please leave this note on top of my desk on your way out of the classroom for recess.

Love, Stephen

Fever Dreams on Psycho Themes

You know what the worst part about being sick is? Well, besides the headaches, nausea, fevers, dizzy spells, backaches, joint pains, and diminished energy? To me, it’s the weirdo dreams you get.

Here are the four I got during this last illness that I’m just now getting over:

1 – I was involved in some type of battle, where the position I took while sleeping in bed somehow correlated to my defense against the enemy attacks. For example, if I were to lay on my back like I normally do, the enemy would not be able to attack me from a certain direction. However, if they decided to come at me from the side, I had to shift my position (say, curled up on my left side) to counter their attack. So I spent the entire night twisting my superficially-sleeping body into various Tetris shapes.

I wish I could be more descriptive than that – it was a pretty surreal dream. I remember that, somehow, I was both commanding the battle from the trenches in army fatigues AND lying in bed in my pajamas. Not only that, but whenever I got up during the night and went back to bed, the EXACT SAME DREAM picked up right where it left off. And that happened about six or seven times (it was a bad night).

The weirdest part, though, is that I had the exact same dream the LAST time I got sick way back in April. I haven’t the faintest idea what it means, but I think somebody ought to notify Nintendo that Tetris Wars would be a pretty awesome game.

2 – I had to fight off a demon that had somehow taken up residence in my apartment. When I say “demon,” I’m not referring to a Legion-type swine-possessor, but rather a Doom-3 monstrosity, with skin the color of bad teeth and the face of Gilbert Gottfried. This particular demon made dolls out of people’s heads. I saw three heads just lying in the gutter outside my apartment, and, instead of being horrified, I idly wondered why the demon decided not to make dolls out of THOSE.

Anyway, for some reason, my shotgun didn’t hurt the demon at all (also, I had a shotgun). I retreated until I was able to locate a weapon better suited for combat, which I eventually found: a plastic pitchfork, the kind you use for your six-year-old boy’s devil costume. I found the pitchfork in a dumpster. In fact, I actually passed over three or four other pitchforks, because they weren’t sufficiently “cool.”

End of dream (I don’t actually know if the plastic pitchfork hurt the monster). On to number 3.

3 – My parents invited The Jesters Royale, the improv comedy team I’m a member of, to perform in the street in front of their house. I created a character for one scene named “Chunk-a-lunk.” He was supposed to be a caveman, but, for some reason, I was wearing a costume consisting of blue overalls with bright, colorful patches on the knees and (ahem) posterior and a yellow shirt.

Now that I’m awake, I realize that the outfit I wore in the dream was actually a costume I had to use during my high school’s production of the musical Li’l Abner, wherein I played a very unhygienic hillbilly… which is almost like a caveman.

4 - I've just woken up, and I'm washing my face in the bathroom sink as I'm getting ready for work. When I pull my hands away from my face, I'm actually holding bits of my face in my hands. I have two eyes in my hands, completely hollow (and blue, even though my eyes are brown), and also my upper lip, and bits of hair from the top of my head and from my moustache.

When I look up at the mirror, I see that I still have eyes in my head, but the hair from my face actually came all the way off. There's still a little bit of hair left on my upper lip, but there's very little of it, and it's all long, like mouse whiskers. And the hair from my head didn't come off from the lowest part but, about an inch above my hairline, I know have a perfect crescent-moon bald spot, slightly fough, like what happens a few hours after your shave.


So, on the one hand, these dreams have me TOTALLY freaked out (except for "Chunk-a-lunk." I may actually decide to pull that character out for an improv show one day - I'll find a better outfit). On the other hand, though, I think I might have some potential as a horror writer. In your stupid face, Clive Barker!