Pied Piper

Today, I napped. Amber had another baby, a son, and I promised to take care of him and her daughter because someone was after them and Amber knew her time was running out.

Rush

There were three dogs and one, a border collie, became infected with the monster. My friend, I cannot remember her name, she doesn't exist in waking life, told me to stay away from it. The dog had a spine which humped in two places. It was the monster growing into itself. There was a house surrounded by dreary, dark woods, and floodlights which somehow made things worse, not better. A blue Cadillac sat in the driveway. I ran with my friend to the Cadillac and opened the backdoor - my youngest sister was lying there, amidst a pile of blankets, either ill or tired or both. I told her Stay here! Please don't move. I'm going to get the keys and we will get right out of here, okay? A weak Okay floated out to me. I slammed the door and ran to my friend. Need the keys, I told her. Go get them, she said, scanning the woods for the appearance of the monster dog.

The house was old, but filled with people rushing this way and about, some with wild eyes, some with disbelieving eyes. There was a woman who was old and pretty, with crazed eyes, scouring something in the sink. I didn't pause to look or ask. I needed those keys. When I found them, I raced back to the Cadillac and opened the backdoor to find my sister gone. She's gone, I can't find her! I said to my friend. My friend looked thoughtful. I was going to go look for my sister. We set off together, but the two remaining dogs, a Welsh corgi and a dachsund, followed us, enthusiastically barking with joy. My friend looked pained, We can't take them with us, they'll attract the monster. I need to find my sister, what are we going to do? Well, I will stay here with them, she said quietly, and you will go find her in the house, the woods, somewhere. I looked at her. One of those dogs is mutated. I know. We nodded to each other solemnly and I left her, at the border between the clearing and the woods. I ran back to the house, climbed washer and dryer to pull myself into the tops of the house, frantically ran through it, but for all it seemed large on the outside, it was cramped and its rooms hidden. I saw fraternity brothers rushing willy nilly. This was supposed to have been their rush week and it had failed abysmally because of their antics to summon the monster.

My friend was a tall, shapely girl with dirty blonde hair and a kind face who wore a t-shirt and jeans and flip-flops and looked like she was in a sorority, which I don't think she was. I woke up groggy and uncertain.

Names changed to protect the not-so innocent

Today I took a nap and dreamt I was driving to the gym. Wick took me home. I asked for a ride but that was surely strange because my car was there and I didn't need one. I had driven it and it was working. He drove the same car as mine. PJ was in the car. PJ's face changed to look like Lom's face and it was so strange because I commented on how tall he was and laughed and felt sad and looked forlornly out the window. Wick dropped PJ off first.

I didn't actually have him drop me off at my real apartments because I was too ashamed of it. I faked it and expected him to wait for me, to see if I had gone inside the darker, more gray, but immimently more respectable apartment complex, but he had gone, quietly. I walked the few blocks back to my apartment, which was sunny and bright with people playing basketball. Young black men, young hispanic and Asian women were also playing and there were all sorts of balls around, the kind cihldren kick around, with stars and colors all over. I tried to kick one towards the open court, but the women protested and said they weren't playing with them. I apologized, because by that time I'd rolled 3 of the balls over. I quickly went up the steps and thought to myself how fortunate it was that Wick had not offered a kiss and that we had not ended up sleeping together. I was very happy and proud I had made the right decision. Now all I had to do was find a way to get my car back.

This dream was strangely related to my waking life (not because these events happened at all or are true in any form, but because I know what triggered these events, how they came to be implanted in my brain) except we don't have a large basketball court in front of the apartments. It made me feel good about many decisions I made.

Charon carry me home

I dreamt a tale the other night. I was attending a wedding and I tried to do something surreptitiously and interrupted and all eyes were on me. I walked out with my head held high and the dream faded.

I was a boy and had woken up with a friend in what appeared to be Victorian sewers. There was a canal with dirty green water flowing by me. The ceilings in the place were daunting, large and all-encompassing. My friend knelt down without a word and began tying together comforters and floated comfortably into the green-grey water without getting wet. I frantically tried to weave together the remaining blankets, but to no avail.

How do I do it? I called after him in panic, wanting to hear the answer before he rounded the stone bend.

You have to find redemption. It won't stay afloat until you do, he called back to me. Within moments, he had drifted from my sight. I wasn't sure redemption for what.

I took stock of my surroundings and began to have a horrible feeling about it all. I knew I couldn't stay here long, but the reason I had wanted to float down the canal was because there were all these built-in places on the sides of the canal, sticking out at odd angles. And I knew that walking through there (places which I sensed would be dark) would be far more horrible than what awaited me in the canal.

Without thinking, I began speaking aloud, asking for guidance. Where am I? I remembered asking. A disembodied voice answered You know where you are and what you have to do. I think I did know where I was and had a vague idea about what I had to do.

Please let me tell you how I came to be here. Perhaps you will understand when you hear. The voice was silent, but I knew it was listening.

The scenery changed as I reminisced. The dream changed to become sepia and Victorian. I was a happy child and my parents loved me and made me work to develop a good work ethic. I was a newspaper delivery boy and enjoyed my job. My parents were merchants, with good business acumen. I remember once my parents took me to see the first movie ever made and they let me pay for my own ticket. I was thrilled, so proud. This period was the happiest time of my life.

The family business did too well however, and my parents began squabbling and fighting about money...things fell apart.

Here I stopped telling the story. The dream ended there. I think the canal was the River Styx modernized and the voice Hades. In the dream, everything was so clear to me.

Boojums and children

A few nights ago, restlessly, I dreamt about a boojum coming after me and my sisters. It was a strange, dark, gray dream and it was floating around outside the windows of a run-down Victorian house. I was running so fast down a flight of rickety stairs I thought I was going to fall and die. But in the end, I think I did it. I woke up and it was too early so I fell back asleep, but I did not remember my dreams again and when the alarm rang, the bits from the first dream were already growing vague on me. I felt completely woolly-headed.

Victorian eaters

Last night I was feverish and my dreams were nightmarish. I was on a road trip with quite a few people stuffed into 1 car. John David was there. Erin was there. There were a few faces I can't make out now, but one Arabic girl named Matiya who, to my knowledge, does not exist in waking life.

We had stopped by a clearing with a beautiful old Victorian house. The house was perhaps three stories tall and painted a pastel color - some faint teal. It was very beautiful and every single window had curtains so you could never see inside. It was in a clearing, but surrounded by the woods. Murky sunlight still hit the house. The house was haunted, we knew. We had heard tales of how it ate its occupants and no trace of them was ever again found. I and two others got out of the car. To take a closer look...to clear my head. I am not certain why. But when I turned around, Matiya had driven off. The three of us left looked at the disappearing car in disbelief and though we screamed at it to stop, did not attempt to run futilely after it. A police cruiser pulled up and a cop named Clarke came out.

At first she was sympathetic and gave us good advice about where to stay for the night with our friends gone. I had adamantly told her we would not be staying in the carnivorous house. She nodded and agreed and said there was a good place in town, if we wanted to catch a ride with her. I was trying to make up my mind when we heard the roar of the car and Matiya came back. Everyone pooled out of the car.

Officer Susannah Clarke (for that is her name) suddenly changed her tune. She insisted we stay in the house, that with so many people, surely nothing would happen. I began screaming at her that if we stayed overnight at the house, we would die. Everyone watched the argument and chimed in momentarily to back me up.

I woke up, feeling flushed and hot and cold. I headed to the restroom to wash off my face and to pee, feeling fuzzy-headed and sore.

Stores and more galore

Fitful night yesterday. I was in an Asian supermarket and there was this grandfather of a family we had known in Connecticut there. He asked me questions about my life, how things were going...I called him the wrong name. I kept calling him the name of my mother's friend, the ship captain. The scenery switched a lot and I went to Danny's house and then into his bedroom. It looked like his waking world bedroom, but also different. There was a black, metallic chair, which I remembered from a picture on a blog I'd been reading before I went to bed. I lay down on it and then I woke up. Strange thing is, that grandfather is dead in waking life. Died a year ago and he never really spoke much to me at all. Nice man. His wife was nice too. I am going to dismiss these dreams as nothing more than feverish concoctions because I'm coming down with a little something something.