Greetings, Lord Applesauce!
Before I begin this, I really just want to say: CONGRATULATIONS!
Why? Because, my ferocious mini pony, it’s Friday. We limped across the finish line to find a three-day weekend ahead of us. We’ve done great work this week and we deserve all the wine we’re about to drink.
As I write this sweet, sweet (frightening) drim-dram I’m sipping on the delicious bottle of Bully Hill Space Shuttle Red that you bought me in the Fingerlakes the other week. I will attempt to go easy on it, but I make no promises.
Now, let’s dig into things, shall we?
Television is melting my brain.
I don’t even watch that much TV. If I lived alone, I’d probably barely turn mine on at all. Not to be uber pretentious, but… (okay, this is uber pretentious) I’m perfectly content with my books and my record collection. Visual stimulus not necessary.
However, I do not live alone. And my roommate/BFF/spouse-person is super into the TV-before-bed thing. Meaning we watch about an hour of something or other at 8 p.m. and then promptly brush our teeth and crash in bed with books at 9:15–9:30.
We are boring and The Worst™ , and I know it.
Except that the hour of TV we watch is usually something super unpleasant. For example, this week it was a mixture of the v. v. depressing Chernobyl as well as the equally depressing Handmaid’s Tale.
I’m telling you this only because this dreadful hour of TV tends to seep into my dreams. Sometimes in a bad way. Sometimes, like on this particular night.
I’m in three places at once.
This has been happening a lot recently. The locales just seem to blend together (you know, like an aromatic red wine blend). This time, it goes from cruise ship to university campus to shopping mall in the span of a few steps.
In the beginning of the drimmer, Mr. Michaelob and I are on the tail-end of a vacation. Our backpacks are in tow, passports in hand, and we’re departing a cruise ship. As always, port is something of a mob scene. There are swarms of people, and we’re milling slowly through the crowd, trying to find our way off the ship.
As we near the exits, Michael and I are separated. It’s something I don’t immediately panic over. We’re adults and heading in the same direction, and he’s also a dude (and thus, a less likely candidate for kidnapping). My higher brain tells me we’ll call each other and meet up outside of the ship. My lower brains submits to a sense of sheer anxiety. What if I can’t find him outside? What if I can’t find him at all?
Sidebar: This seems to happen in a lot of my dreams. Michaelob and I are separated somehow, and it ends up being a big source of anxiety. Maybe that’s something I can take on its face?
A B.A. in Criminal Psychopathy
As I cross over the crowded gangplank of the ship, I arrive not in port, but in the halls of a crowded university. Judging from the lively common areas and rooms, it seems I’ve emerged in a dormitory. Thinking maybe my significant otter is somewhere in the crowd looking for me, too, I meander about the dorms. My passport is still in my hand.
Michaelob is nowhere to be found. Instead, I’m approached by some milquetoast, college-aged young man with a dark mop of hair. I can’t remember any details of his face. I don’t think he was anyone that I awake-know. Really just some vague amalgam of TV characters and people I’ve seen in passing, maybe.
What sticks with me is how utterly persistent this guy is. He’s trying to get my attention, trying to make me laugh, trying to make me see him. The issue is, I just don’t really care. It’s Michaelob Ultron I’m looking for. Still, the guy pesters me to such a degree that I start to feel legitimately uncomfortable and flee the dorms.
I end up in a semi-vacant corridor. I’ve crossed over into the classroom area of campus. The walls are all white, the lights fluorescent. There’s a patently sterile feel to it all. Peering into one of the rooms, I notice labs. Now I’m just feeling like I’m somewhere I’m not supposed to be. I walk on instead.
Capitalist Meet-Cutes for the Masses.
I’m relieved when I walk through a large set of double doors into what appears to be the campus cafeteria. Only, after a moment’s inspection, I realize it’s not a university cafeteria at all, but the food court in a mall. There are shopfronts all along the wall, a penny-fountain, and an exit blanched in white light on one side.
I’m still missing a Michaelob, so I hurry towards the exit. Of course, since this is a creep-out dream, I’m intercepted by the frat boy. He’s not happy I walked out before. This time, his persistence is taken to a new level. He’s hovering like a gnat, and to my horror, wielding a butterfly knife. He spins it around his fingers, waving the tip in my face, threatening me.
I start to run, but Edward Scissorshit gives chase. The knife grazes my cheek. He’s laughing and shouting. I start crying out for help, but the surrounding shoppers are completely oblivious. They lope across the mall’s tile floors like cows grazing in a field, their arms full of shopping bags.
The lights go out.
I’m aware of the passage of time. I didn’t see it happen. But this is a dream, remember? When have clocks ever made a difference (except in the realm of existentialist symbology).
The room I find myself in is pitch black, with the exception of the flashlight in my hand. That, and the flashlight on the other side of the room, where Edward Scissorshit and what appears to be his sister are calling after me.
My flashlight might as well be a bullseye, so I turn it off and drop it, edging along the side of the room. When I say room, I’m talking warehouse-sized. It’s big, the center mostly empty save for a few crates, and there are stairs everywhere. One flight, two flights. Three or four floors, as far as I can see in the darkness. The Shits are on the ground floor, so I quietly pad up the stairs.
The next several moments are just climbing and descending stairs. Sometimes I’m heading towards the second and I end up on the fourth. And when I’m going up, I’m going down. It’s like an M.C. Escher painting, only with more Jason Statham-level action suspense.
Eventually, I start to see doors. Lots of doors. I open them, one at a time, each leading to some dead-end storage room, until I finally find an exit I can slip out of.
I open up on some sort of chateau-style terrace with a long banister and armed guards milling about. They’re dressed all in black tactical gear and carrying sub-machine guns.
Sidebar: What the fuck? Do you ever wonder why every morning when I message you I’m like, “I’m so tired, omg.” I spent all night evading heavily armed militia.
It’s Prison Break but with less prison and more panache.
A couple questions at this point:
- Who in the actual dicks kidnapped me?
- Why am I so easy to kidnap?
- Is this the actual worst end to any vacation ever?
- Where is my real-life human husband?
Truth be told, I’ve never been kidnapped before. I know, hard to believe. I’ve been told by family members before that I’m quite kidnappable, which is actually v. v. alarming? Thanks, fam.
All that being said, I’ve stealthed the heck out of a lot of video games in my day, so how different can this be? It’s a drim-dram, and I really believe in myself as well as the stupidity of my foes, so lo and behold, I actually manage to sneaky-snake my way down to the street.
There’s a woman waiting for me. Do I know her? No, not really. But she’s a woman wearing white (HELLOOOO, Symbolism) and I was just butterfly-knifed repeatedly by some greasy-haired shitboy in black, so I’m like, “Hi, I trust you with my life.”
She’s pulling me towards a cargo van. Apparently it’s used by the owner of the estate to transport jewelry. Certainly an odd detail, but I’m running for me life, so do I have time to question it? Jenny, I donut.
It’s time for a nerve-shattering Hell-ride.
Passenger vans weren’t exactly made for speed. It’s not like I’ve ever had to write about one of these things for work before so how would I…
Well. I slam the sliding door, buckle up, and look to the driver. Does she look familiar? Not even. But her M.O. of “get the actual feck out of here” seems to align with mine perfectly, so I question nothing. Instead, I look at the passport in my hand. Only now, it’s not a passport anymore.
Now it’s a notebook, and I see all these notes and drawings left by Michaelob. Notes about a fantasy world he’s constructing for a book, pictures of swords and monsters. Gummy bears stuck to pages. Fragment of little action figures taped in. I wonder if I should be looking in on his thoughts without his permission, but then I remember he drew them in my notebook, and I feel vindicated.
The van gets going, but the going is slow. I look out the passenger side mirror, and I notice we are, in fact, going slow enough that Edward Scissorshit’s sister is almost catching up to us at a run.
“Go, go!” I’m shouting at the driver. But I assure all of you, this bucket-o’-bolts is going as fast as it possibly can. Shitsister is getting close, and I’m getting nervous. I look around the front of the vehicle for some sort of weapon, something I can defend us with.
All that I find is a half-drunk smoothie in the front cup holder. It’s strawberry, red enough that it looks just like blood. Unsure of what else to do, I toss it into Shitsister’s face.
She’s so shocked she stumbles back, and the van charges forward.
Farewell, third glass of wine. I hardly knew ye.
That’s how many I drank before I finished this bad-boy of a drimmer.
Shh, don’t tell the flight of beer I had at dinner.
Sorry, it was that kind of week. I’m getting it out of my system now so it’s not that kind of weekend.
In any case, that was a fast-paced romp, wasn’t it? There are a lot of images to pick through in this one, and I can’t wait to see what you glean from it, my dear.
In the meantime, I might just pour myself another. Thank you again.
All my lovebugs,
Mackgician the Fantootles