Into the Whirlpool

(4:30 AM)
I'm parked at the gas station in Stoneham in the middle of the night. Not sure why, but my car is parked parallel to the road, meaning I'd need to turn my car 90 degrees to the left if I actually wanted to get gas. I decide to pull forward and turn left at the nearest pump, but as I'm about to do this another car suddenly approaches me head-on and stops a short ways away, blocking my path. I swear under my breath. The car is white? with several indistinct dark-skinned people inside. I put the car in reverse and roll backward 20 feet or so, still muttering to myself. Not sure which pump I want to use, which is bothering me since I hate when my plans are messed up, even little things like this. I start to turn the car and suddenly notice a couple things about the gas station. First is the strange interplay of light and shadow on the ground: there are dark pools on the asphalt that must be puddles of water, but they melt from black to gray with a viscosity that suggests oil mixed with mist. Second, I suddenly realize it is completely silent. There is no traffic audible from the road, no birds, no sound at all. I briefly wonder to myself whether time has stopped outside the gas station, and the notion fascinates me.

Fragment involving me and Matt S. in the office kitchen, talking about Wizard 101 and something that cost 5 energy to cast. I have a memory of a sharp crackling sound associated with this... there's an empty pack of batteries next to my alarm clock, I must have hit that when I was reaching for the snooze button.

Crappy night for recall.

I'm with a couple of friends; we're making our way through a protracted commute via public transit to a train station/airport. As we get closer to our destination our surroundings gradually get flashier, with neon lights that give the area something of a futuristic look. We climb up the stairs to the boarding platform. I'm dimly aware that my friends are both carrying bags--and at that moment it hits me; I have nothing with me except my coat (which I'm wearing). Oh, damn, I forgot my bag. Again. (I have a sense that this is not unusual for me.)

I turn to my friends and realize one of them is Brian from high school; I recognize the other person but can't put a name to the face. "Guys, I just realized I forgot my bag," I say with an apologetic grimace. They sigh. We're going to have to go back to get it... well, no, why should they have to go back? "Go ahead without me," I say. "I'll meet you at J___ ______." (quick image of a map with place name overlaid and a blue "person" icon where our destination is) Brian starts to protest, but it's clearly just a courtesy, because when I repeat myself he immediately switches to a nod of assent. They leave. I don't know how I'll meet up with them since I won't be able to take the same means of transportation, but I guess I'll figure something out.

I slowly retrace my route. I dislike the fact that I'm going backward, out of the clean neon surroundings and gradually getting cheaper, more rural. It feels wrong, like I wasn't meant to travel in this direction. The details are fuzzy, but I end up at a mostly deserted train station which runs in both inbound and outbound directions. I start to think of how I can take the train and make a loop back to where I just was, nearly forgetting that I still have to go home and get my stuff first.

+fragments:
- possibly related to above dream, I am again at a train station but am a different person: a late-teens/early-20s African American girl. My dad is with me, except he's in some kind of small protective bubble and is dying. His last gift to me is a train ticket to my destination, meaning I don't have to pay for my fare. This is extremely touching (not because of what the gift is, but because I can feel his love for me so strongly) and I start to cry.
- something about a fight with Justin Bieber? (damn, I wish I remembered this one :p)
- other stuff I would have remembered had I not waited 12 hours to write this entry

(fragment: college lottery)
My father chooses which of his children will go to college (me or one of my two dream siblings) by making us choose an envelope. One contains a college acceptance letter; the others contain rejection letters/bundles of sticks?

Billy
There is a recurring character named Billy. This person is either an old woman who dies alone in an old mansion (a family friend--friend of my dream mother, who's dead?) and who I regret never getting to know when she was younger and of sound mind; or a young mentally disabled boy (my cousin) that I've never met and have no desire to meet. I'm in my old house in Lancaster (on Main St.) and Billy (boy version) is coming over w/aunt G. I have the idea that he is going to see one of the upstairs bedrooms because he hasn't been privileged to see an upstairs bedroom in the past, and there's the idea that doing so will confer some sort of magical benefit. I'm in the upstairs bathroom, which is just down the hall from my room, washing my hands. I yell to aunt G to just take him into my room for a second--my room is messy, but it doesn't matter; the point is that she'll see there's no actual magic involved. She yells back something about how no, it's not that, it's that the Department of Education passed a new rule mandating that kids like Billy be allowed _______ (something I don't remember). As I wash my hands I accidentally get a sheaf of paper wet--it's a travel itinerary from Delta Airlines with my name on it.

[skip] Downstairs (still in the Lancaster house) I'm trying to call the airline to ask why my grandfather's flight has been delayed. Actually, I already know why it was delayed: the flight was canceled and not auto-rescheduled by airline. However, the cancellation had generated an abnormal error message and the airline had apparently tried to call me three times, using three separate phone numbers, to tell me what the problem was--so I just want to hear their side of the story out of idle curiosity. I soon regret the call, though. The conversation starts out OK but devolves quickly as the airline agent seems to be unable to understand what I'm saying. Eventually I hear soundbites of Billy over the phone--he is very, very loud (I have to hold the phone away from my ear) and sounds like he has a serious speech problem. A prompt comes up on my phone asking whether his voice was the most beautiful thing I'd ever heard (yes/no). I answer no. This pisses off the agent, but I don't care.

Fixing Alarm
I'm trying to fix an alarm (looks like a smoke detector, I have the idea it's from "school"). I just need to change the battery, so to be sure that I don't accidentally mess something else up, I'm removing everything from the alarm that has to do with numbers. This removal extends to things outside the alarm as well: I turn off the radio because it either mentions numbers on the air/has a frequency made up of numbers, and I delete e-mails with numbers in their subject lines. (One email I delete is about some sort of evangelical Christian organization; it was forwarded to me by an aunt/uncle with the note "Adam, we were going to delete this email but then we noticed the view count on it". Apparently I had somehow already looked at this email 20+ times, and they somehow knew about this before sending it?) The battery in the alarm is protected by a panel with a grille that I think can be unscrewed to be taken off. I touch the grille with my hand but realize my fingers are wet, and draw my hand back nervously. I wake up at this point, so I actually raise my right hand into the air in waking life. My fingers are numb.

Indigo Girls in Dead Forest (fragment)
Amy Ray and Emily Saliers are dead (although they look perfectly normal) and have to figure out a way out of a dead forest maze - this is done by collecting giant body parts (eye, skeletal hand, vagina??) and using them as tools?

Obama Nukes Russia: The Roguelike
There's a wacky Japanese TV show that is somehow inspired by Yasutaka Nakata (who appears in the 3rd episode). At the end of each episode audiences combine a couple of items to make a new item; then, in the subsequent episode, they use the item they made in the last episode to make something else, and the pattern continues. There are three episodes and then the series goes off the air for 6 months, but eventually it comes back. I am in a grocery store and am using a kiosk in one of the aisles to assemble a montage of the first six shows. I put a whole bunch of clips together, then add some text in Impact font, promoting it as a great comedy. (Fragment here about meeting a yelling old woman in the store, something to do with her cart?)

Episode 12 (the last one) rolls around, and I am in the store with several Japanese people waiting for it to start. Suddenly (and I know this is going to happen about 5 seconds before it actually does) Barack Obama walks out from the neighboring aisle, smiling. Everyone is shocked, whispering his name amongst themselves; no one seems to have any idea how they should conduct themselves. Obama stands in front of the people and kneels on the floor ... or at least he tries to. His legs are very stiff, like he can barely bend at the knees. Eventually he ends up thudding to the floor, one leg at a time, into a kneeling position. In a halting voice, he explains that he has let down the "flower of the Japanese people" by allowing the U.S. to be vastly outclassed in terms of nuclear power (the impression is that the U.S. will be annihilated shortly because of this?). There is an ASCII (roguelike) view of the situation, which somehow illustrates the predicament.

A young Russian guy named Vinny speaks up. In a loud, brash voice that somehow morphs into a thick Boston accent (but only for certain words, like "car") he explains, using the ASCII grid, how Obama can maneuver himself around the board and extricate himself from danger. This is done in 12 moves, a number which is pointed out, like it's an achievement. Vinny is clearly very proud of himself and asks that the maneuver be named after him if Obama ends up using it. Obama thanks him; after a few seconds of thought, he says he will name the maneuver "the Luvie." He follows Vinny's steps, but I notice that they are subtly altered; somehow he is following Vinny's route but also managing to pick up several nukes as he goes. Eventually Obama reaches the staircase out and escapes from danger.

At this point the scene shifts fully into ASCII. The store is gone; the scene is now inside a Russian nuclear shelter. Obama has departed and Vinny is pleased with his suggestion, still very confident that Obama will use it. He decides to go above ground; he knows that doing this will leave him unprotected, but he doesn't expect a nuclear strike to actually happen, so he thinks it won't matter. Outside the shelter, there is a forest; right by the entrance to the shelter is a wolf. Vinny has sex with the wolf; shortly afterward, Obama nukes Russia and possibly several other countries. Because he's outside of the shelter, Vinny is the only Russian casualty of the nuclear strike.

(Old LD - from August 2010. Posting it here as a reminder that I have succeeded at LDing before, and I will succeed again!)

I'm frantically running around in a very large building that looks like it's used for some sort of maintenance. Maybe it's the back entrance to a sports arena or a warehouse, although the layout is much too large and maze-like for that to make sense. The walls are off-white with an occasional surface painted an orange evocative of a high school gym. I'm running because I can occasionally hear a drunken male voice screech, "He's a pillow! A g-dd--n poofter!" and various other offensive terms. They're not directed at me - I get the sense that the man, wherever he is, is ranting good-naturedly to some friends - but certainly the screeching indicates poor impulse control and I know that, were he to somehow see me, I'd certainly be killed. So I'm running... sprinting, actually... trying to find the way out of the place. Of course, I can't find it. I'll dart down corridors only to realize I'm back where I started. There seem to be endless twists and turns. Some hallways have little alcoves or abruptly truncated crawlspaces in the ceiling that make no architectural sense. I don't think I'm panicking, but I realize my situation is getting more and more dire.

Finally my search pays off. I skid to a stop in the middle of a hallway that lacks the high school atmosphere of the place I was just in. The wall to my left is clear glass, overlooking a nicely manicured indoor scene - like the lobby of a huge hotel. I can see expansive skylights above me. I must be a few floors up, wherever I am. The hallway makes a 90-degree turn to the right, but I'm more interested in the two sets of stairs that are now before me. One set is behind an incongruous door in the left wall that looks like it will easily push open. The other set is directly in front of me and leads upward into a darker area. One of these will probably be a good bet for getting out of here... but which one? I deliberate for a second and choose the first set.

I push open the odd-looking door and find myself on a fairly fancy staircase, the kind where you wind around a central railing as you make your way up or down. The walls are all clear glass, fitting with the hotel atmosphere I seem to now be in. I am much more at ease here; I'm not sure there's any more danger. Yet I still want out. I start down the staircase but then realize there's a woman standing a few steps up, looking at me questioningly. She has bobbed brown hair and looks to be late 30s, early 40s. She's using both hands to hold a brown packing box that I know is from Dell and contains a computer. "Oh, you're from before," I say. I know her from an earlier dream (must be FM, I don't remember having other dreams involving her). The woman doesn't react to this, and I realize I can't pinpoint where I know her from. "C'mon," I continue, "we've gotta get out of here!"

I set off down the staircase, not at a dead sprint like I was doing before, but at a quick pace. The woman follows close behind me. "Come on, come on," she urges me in a musical British accent. "Yeah, I know, I'm working on it," I reply. We make our way down a few floors. Abruptly the staircase ends and we're on the ground floor. I feel a moment of triumph before realizing I still need to find the exit.

"Hmm. Where's the exit?" I ask aloud. I turn to the right and begin following the glass wall, figuring there must be a door somewhere. I've only taken a few steps when something compels me to turn around--oh. There's the exit, right there. It's a set of automatic doors designed to blend in seamlessly with the surrounding wall. It also happens to be exactly where the staircase used to be, which might explain why I couldn't find it at first.

The woman and I stand in front of the doors and they slide open. This doesn't make sense, I think to myself. I take a step through the doors and it suddenly hits me. This doesn't make sense. This is a dream! I feel a soft rush of warm air hit me as I emerge, dazed, into the hotel lobby. I briefly think about RCing, but decide not to: I know I'm right. "This is a dream!" I say to the woman excitedly. She gives me a funny look--I realize she's still holding the computer box from earlier--and walks away without me.

I'm still so taken aback that I don't know what to do. I stagger to the right a few steps; there is a bench here and a pillar with some sort of writing on it. I almost feel like I'm drunk. "This is a dream," I repeat slowly. There's a pause. "I'm a coyote and this... is a dream." (Eloquent, aren't I?) As I say this a huge bubble of excitement starts to well up. I force myself to stay calm, knowing that I'll kill the dream if I get too excited. Even so, I can tell my hold on reality is tenuous at best. I start to tip over; I can briefly sense my sleeping body. "No, no, no!" I say hastily, and rub my hands together as fast as I can. The sensation disappears.

I take a couple more staggering, walking-through-jelly steps to the pillar, which I lean against for support as I look up and around at my environment. This really is a gigantic hotel lobby. The skylights above pour down white light. I can see large green trees filling the ample vertical space. To my left, since all the walls are glass, I can see several hallways in floors higher up... maybe there are balconies up there too, not sure. To my right there is a massive concierge desk that stretches for longer than seems practical. Everything is very attractive and clean.

I'm suddenly struck with an urge to sing. Still leaning against the pillar, I lazily imagine my voice echoing like a clarion call throughout the building. I open my mouth and a sound comes out that is definitely my voice, but it's more croak than choral. It sounds like I've just woken up and badly need a drink of water (fitting, I guess). Still, there is a pleasing echo to my voice that I understand is not from my surroundings, but something inherent to my voice itself. I try again. "I'm dreeeaammiiingg... about the end of the world," I sing at random to a melody I don't recognize. Eh, it's no good, I still sound like a frog. I feel myself tip backward again into my sleeping form; I feel satisfied and don't fight it. I wake up.