Thena

I'm in a church. Little bags containing rosaries are passed around. As the congregation begins to pray the rosary, I take mine out of the bag and realize something's not right. My rosary has all the beads squished together with no spaces and it's much smaller than the ones that everyone else has. I start to recite the first prayer, but I get confused: is it an Our Father or a Hail Mary? Why do the words sound wrong when I say them? Why am I saying the prayer out loud and everyone else is praying silently?

I don't want to call attention to myself by saying the wrong prayer so I head to the back of the church, where there's a diner(???). I sit at the counter and call a friend, who wants to come meet me after the service is over. But in the meantime, she asks me to order her some "deep fried moo shu." Immediately, I think this is completely bizarre dish name. I'm sure the waitress behind the counter is going to think I'm insane for ordering, but she and the short-order cook don't even flinch.

I start thinking back to the deal with the rosary and the church service, and the scene shifts. This time, I'm in a hospital corridor. I walk into a room and see my dad in the bed, hooked up to machines. Now I know this is wrong because he's been out of the hospital for weeks. I know now that I'm dreaming, and I start spinning because I really do not want to be in this place.

At first, I find myself in some kind of subterranean chamber where the walls are made of packed dirt, but then the walls turn white and the diner counter appears in front of me. There's a square-shaped plate in front of me with Chinese food. I think of the Easter egg task, and brightly-colored eggs start appearing on the plate. I select a violet egg and open it. A tiny bird flies out of the egg, and when I look closer, I see that the egg also contains a large aquamarine set in a massive gold ring. Then I pick up a second egg, a light gray one with a snowflake etched in white. When I open it, a tiny frog jumps out and hops away.

I start trying to remember what the other tasks are and remember that one of them is to prank a DC. The diner fades away and is replaced by an office. I see a guy walking past me and ask him, "Hey, can you do me a favor and run down the street to get me a Diet Coke?" He agrees and steps outside through a glass door. As soon as he's gone, I lock the door so he can't get back in. But I realize that this is a pretty lousy prank, not to mention I can't be sure he'll come back in this dream. I turn around and see another guy, and think of the most basic prank I can remember. "Dude, your shoelace is untied," I point out, then snicker as he stops to check his perfectly-tied shoes.

The church service from earlier is still on my mind, and I wonder if it's due to my anxiety over Easter coming up (I'm not a practicing Catholic but I'll have to go take my Dad to Sunday Mass). I start wondering if I'll remember what to say at the right time. The next thing I know, I start making up my own creed: "I believe in evolution. I believe in making up my own mind on what to believe and letting others believe what they choose…"

I was really onto something there, but then the phone rang and woke me up.