nightmare

Vague dreams throughout the night, no recall.

In the last dream I was in a car going through an old city like Stockholm in the back seat. To mmy left I see my friend who I met by chance yesterday on the bus. We talk a little bit. As if (our?) parents are in the front driving the car. I hear yelling, a girl cries out for help. My sister (who is a completely different person and looks totally different) is not in the car. The parents swerve around and try to find out where the yelling is coming from. I get out of the car and start running, as if I can make it faster on foot.

I hear her as the car passes me, I can begin pinpointing the sound. I find her in a bus, men in uniforms sit as she yells, apathetic, they look like law enforcement. As the bus tries to pull away from the curb I stand in front of it and start tearing away the mirrors and wipers, trying to start a confrontation.

I turn around and see a committee, men in suits and women dressed very professionally. I demand to speak with my sister, I ask what she she being charged with. They are stonewalled and silent. This infuriates me. I have to stay in front of the bus so it doesn't start driving off. In my desperation I begin to try to intimidate all of them, I stare into their eyes intentionally, saying I will go after their children, after them, if they don't let me talk to my sister and ask how she is doing. Just let me talk to her so she can tell me what she is being accused of. Silence is my answer.

I drop to my knees defeated and lyrics pass through my head, I see them stream before me. Life in black America.

I'm back at my old workplace at the gas station talking to a friend there before I start the night shift. There is a rock climbing wall where the soda machine was, I mention if he's into that stuff still as I climb up the wall a little. He says he mostly into parkour. I'm about to mention a friend of mine who's also into wallclimbing but ramble on about a how I know him and never get to the end of my story. Customers rush in and I have to start serving them.

They are all middle-aged and obnoxiously drunk. The familiar stress of so many people vying for my attention. I do my best to serve them and my co-worker friend disappears. There are too many of them and they get behind the counter, drunk and not carrying. This aggravates me until I reach my breaking point and yell out for everyone to get out. They all laugh and ignore me. This makes me very angry and I stare at them with contempt and rage and they eventually leave. One middle-aged woman turns and comes back just to spite me, smiling a drunk smile. I yell at her but she does not react. I charge at her and she still refuses to move. I stop right in front of her. With contempt, I tell her I pity her and turn around. As I do she fakes that I hit her and she falls on the ground under a table. I turn around, knowing what she's up to, and not wanting any misunderstandings with anyone else. I jab her with my finger in the side and she jolts up. I sigh and go away.

Back at the counter I see two of my friends, what a relief. They are dressed as rockabillies, slicked hair and leather jackets. I greet them and tell them it's the same stuff as usual. They are with to Swedish speaking girls. I try to speak Swedish but it sounds absolutely ridiculous. We all laugh as I try to pronounce the price of their purchases. One of my friends tries to get me through a hoop of rope. As my feet go through it knocks a blueberry plate unto the ground from a table, my sister is sad at it breaking. Can it be replaced?

I wake up, write the dream down and try to float into sleep gently. See hypnogogic images of melting cubic people and people with only single numbers carved into their heads as faces.

Walking down a crowded alley of a tightly built European city. The buildings rise up on either side, shading the streets below. I'm with two French or Dutch couples. They talk about a magic powder they have smuggled. I get water as they all order pizza, one of the woman looks at me with disdain.

I'm in front of Big Ben in London, a cloudy day. I see graffiti all over a double-decked bus except it's an ad for fast food. Is it the magic powder showing me the real state of the world? That ads are graffiti by companies?!

I see a booth in the road, a warlock works in it, an old British man, who punishes people who break rules. If someone comes late to work, he punishes them by locking them up in his shack. "If you're late, you do time."

There is a Vice City-style shootout. People in the house are all dead. I'm confused... Have I done this? Oh God, what am I going to do? I see three people I know gunned down on the floor in different rooms of the cluttered house in the city, two cats also lie motionlessly on the ground. I worry, thinking of what I've done and what is going to happen to me. I walk down and see the cats, they still seem to be faintly breathing. I try to pick one up, it's in pain, I don't know how to hold it. I have to get it help. Doing that will show everyone what I've done. What have I done? What can I do?

I look around to see if someone else is breathing or moving, no one is. I try to get used to the fact that everything is going to end. Two other friends enter the house, sitting down by a few steps, haven't they noticed what has happened? When will they and what will they do?

A fragment: Going to my redhead friend's parent's place. It's a grey day. I get there and see a mutual friend of ours is already waiting, doing some kind of work in the bathroom. I try to go around and knock on the back door so I don't disturb his parents. Right as I start to round the building his mom and dad come out the front door. It's a bit awkward. I see my mom is now there too, all our parents are there for some reason and they start to talk to each other.


I'm outside my old apartment, sky is grey. There is a tension in the air, as if something big and bad is about to happen. A war is on the horizon. I really hope they don't launch nukes. As I walk away, I scan the skies for missiles. I think I see an airplane, it makes me jumpy. Is there a nuke going above it? People are upset.

I'm in a plane, it's late at night and dark outside. I'm in the cockpit. The crew is silent and grim. The captain is trying to make sense of readings from the controls, I hear weird pings, a red glow. The nuclear war has started. Being in the air means we've been spared from the worst of the explosions. Where are we going to land? What are we going to do?

I'm in a metal shop. I've made it here with some survivors, an African-American woman with her young daughter, a bearded man and another young guy. We look up and see that the lights are still on, how long will they last? Surely the power plants are not going to last too long without workers or infrastructure, I think of how coal will not be able to be shipped at all. I look around and see some welding equipment, that will come in handy. As people get set up and huddle in a corner I try to get the MAG welder working. I pull on the trigger and line comes out and doesn't stop. I try to get the coiling line under control, have the nukes caused the machine to malfunction? The young guy comes and take the head of the welding gun and gets it under control.

I turn my head to the left and look outside the wide open sliding door of the shop. I see a bunch of grim, old, butch looking men there, all in their 40's with leather cuts. At first I'm glad more survivors have made their way here but as they enter I feel apprehensive. A guy that looks like Detective Munch from Law&Order comes in, he's also wearing a leather cut. I have this sense that he was a part of our group but left for the new one. They are a weird slaver cult of some kind and the only people who are afforded any rights are the men who earned a vest.

Munch has just gotten his and the power has gone to his head. He wants us to submit and offer the shop to the gang. I angrily yell that we are never going to hand it over to slavers. I go on a long rant about how he could possibly be part of a group like that? What if his children are not up to it to get a vest? How can he want to be a part of such an unequal society? He then proudly claims that men with vests are given all the best virgins and that they bear the best children, ones up for the cut, the vest. I berate him, saying that such a group is absolutely awful. He turns and leaves with the rest of the group.

I turn to the woman and her child. They are relieved that the men have left. There is an old woman with them, she too is relieved however I turn and tell her that they are going to come back and kill all of us and take the women as brides. Our time has come. A relief that comes with giving up washes over me.


I am with my best friend, we go to a large store near our childhood neighborhood. The sky is a purplish grey of setting sun. We enter and see another short friend of ours. We wave and say hi. He's in line for ice cream.

By the fruit section I see a gypsy man carrying an outlandishly large pile of bags on his head. There is even another guy clinging onto the pile, what strength. Next to me one gypsy man is about to lift up a massive pile onto his head. My arm suddenly shoots up and enters his armpit. Why did my arm do that? I feel a bit embarrassed as I walk off.

I see an envelope on an empty fruit stand. It is full of large bills, there must be thousands of euros in it. I'm tempted to take it but as I reach out for it I pull my hand back, it is surely someones money. My sister is next to me and get the attention of a man on the other side of the stand and tells him that the envelope is behind him. He tales it, relieved but looking at me suspiciously.

We get to the frozen section and my sister is about to get some frozen vegetables to fry up. I get the wok warmed up by the end of the aisle, I put oil in and it starts to fizzle right away. I didn't even have the time to chop up any garlic. What am I going to do with all this hot oil? I take out a bag of french fries and put them in. They start to cook beautifully. I take one out and it is almost perfect, a little cold. I walk away to my right, deeper into the dark store.


I'm in my old room from childhood, grey daylight shines from the windows. There is the old computer I had as a kid. What a rush of nostalgia. I'm with some childhood friends, they ask me to boot up a game. I put on a really old game from back in the day, one of those 8-bit classics. I then remember a really cool game and put on Grim Fandango and start to play the beginning, a dark alley. I turn and mention if anyone remembers Riven and I go on to say how much I loved Myst. I find the CD's to my right and hand them to my friends behind me. I quit the game and my friend cries out that he wants to know how Grim Fandango ends. I then continue to play the game,

I sink into the game and it's like a Simpsons version of GTA, shot from above. It's a the center of Springfield at night. Bart is on a rampage, stealing a car and driving over everything. He is then stopped by a cop but then as the cop gets out of his car and tries to apprehend him, Bart takes the cop car and keep on going. Bart is a lot more hardcore these days. He drives into Moe's tavern. It is now closed and abandoned, there is nothing inside but Lenny sitting alone.