Chapter 3

Wow! ... This is a dream ... I can tell because if I focus on something in the environment it changes to meet my expectations, but not my desire. I don’t dream, well I very rarely dream. I can count on one hand the memorable dreams I have had in my 40 years of existence. So I guess the best way to put It is ... If I dream, I very rarely remember them.

I am standing on a sidewalk and it is swelteringly hot ... Wait no it isn’t, I don’t feel any temperature at all. Why did I think it was hot if I cant feel a temperature? ... Maybe if I think it is cold ... nope no change.

Well I am still standing on a sidewalk and it is late afternoon or early dusk ... hmm ... that’s not quite right either. If I focus on the light it has an unreal quality, too evenly distributed, it isn’t brighter in the west like it should be at dusk. Where is west? That is weird, I know the direction off to my left is west but I don’t know why I know that. Maybe there is a tech screaming at me from somewhere telling me west is to my left ... hmm that almost seems right, err I mean correct. So who would be screaming at me yelling random directions? I don’t see anyone looking around, that light is just to weird ... maybe if I just ... nope no change, still weird. It is almost like I am in a sound stage, and the lights are universally dimmed to be the right brightness for dusk ... but I don’t see a source, the sky is just that bright, or lack of bright.

I am standing on the sidewalk in the city, it kinda feels like Detroit but I don’t recognize anything. Now I am in Cincinnati, I definitely recognized the fountain ... wait now I am in Korea, no it changed again ... I am on the street in front of my house outside Detroit. ugg now I am in Mason, Ohio looking at my old house, ugg STOP CHANGING! God dammit now I am in Westwood looking at this house, why cant it be a city where I can see something new ... Fuck me, I am looking at Bekca’s house now in Indiana ... come on change ... CHANGE ALREADY! ... shew, Ted’s house ... wait Ted doesn’t have a sidewalk, UGG back to Bekca’s house ... I quit, time to close my eyes and wake up. Hmm no eye lids ... pinch myself ... hmm no pain. Well this just sucks, I don’t want to dream about Bekca again, I haven’t dreamed about her in years, I don’t need this shit again in my life. Next thing you know I am going to see her crying through the window or something...

DAMMIT I HAD TO THINK THAT!!...

Well she looks just like the last picture I have of her, short hair, just sad ... too much make up ... No I never seen her like that, just a picture I got from her sister’s facebook page. What?! Of course I stalked my ex, I stalked her for years! Well not really stalked as in criminal stalk ... I never left my desk chair ... No! IT IS NOT THE SAME! ... I had to know how she was doing. No one would tell me. What if she needed me and I didn’t know she needed me and no one would ever tell me she needed me and of course I couldn’t be there for her and win ... be there for her if she needed me ... besides I haven’t looked her up in at least a year. What? Well she had a kid a little over a year after the last time we were together. I did the math, well I did the math probably a dozen times, and my conclusion is that in this space/time continuum the kid couldn’t be mine ... unless she somehow stored my sperm for later fertilization ... that is a thought ... But the second kid is definitely not mine ... I would have noticed something strange if she stored my sperm twice ... definitely would have noticed. Besides I am probably infertile after being around all those high powered transmitters in the Army...

What?

Well they are her hubbies kids, most likely anyway, I mean the one could be mine but the likelihood of that is so small that it is almost pointless to mention ... almost. Besides until they get older we wont know if they look like her beady headed stockbroker husband. Yes! I said stockbroker! Even morbidly EVIL people get the creeps around stockbrokers ... Who knew they married ... Next your going to tell me someone gave birth to that parasite and they aren’t hatched in an evilly green smog at the deepest part of a cave sharing a wall with HELL ... Or maybe he is a financial planner, that is almost as bad ... Talking down to people like they don’t know how to spend money ... Evilly coercing them to put more then they are comfortable with away into savings ... despicable ... All I know for sure is he works for that big financial company there ... Something-Greene ... Al maybe? What? NO ... that is his name, I don’t know the name of the company where he works ... I forget ... and no, I am not going to bring up the saved web page I have of it, I am not stalking her anymore, I am over her ... have been for years...

I just wish she didn’t have that shitty job, selling make-up. She was always so beautiful without makeup, and just a couple highlights made her supermodel material ... But now, or I mean YEARS ago when I looked her up, all the pictures of her have the stuff caked on ... shame, really just a shame. It must be that her hubby is such a shitty stockbroker that he forces her to work there so they can pay bills ... I mean what good husband would allow there spouse to test god awful chemicals on there face!? I heard some of those awful chemicals are derived from the tears of baby seals! Can you imagine the TORTURE those chemical companies must put those poor baby seals through to get enough tears to stock every woman in the world with makeup? Just a horrible despicable husband...

UGG, WHY AM I STILL HERE!!

Think ... nascar ... third grade teacher ... Gramma Brents ... taste of broccoli ... dental drill ... never ending itch of poison ivy ... omelet MRE ... rush hour traffic in 110 degree weather with no air conditioning ... hashtags ... burning your mouth on a great tasting bite of pizza ... Wammo ... extremely slow credit card machine connection with 15 people waiting in line behind you, and they all have cash ... Donald Trump...

OK that did it, now I am at the white house. Why is this dream lasting so long ... ugg. HA! That is funny, that cop car coming down the street is beeping instead of a siren, with all the lights going off. Beep ... Beep ... Ha, everyone else is laughing at it too, wait who is everyone else! NOOOO! Gramma Brents is standing across the street giving me her sneer. This is my dream! Pay back time!

I EXPECT to see her covered in fire ants, this is not a desire, I expect this ... If I focus on her again I will be surprised if she isn’t covered in fire ants dancing around in pain ... expect, expect, expect ... YES! I am a god ... I think I will take a break and just watch her for a while ... I am surprised she hasn’t stroked out already from all the pain, whoops ... Well so much for that...

Hmm, maybe ol’ Donald needs some fire ants. Better yet, how about being slowly lowered into an acid bath a millimeter at a time, say two centimeters an hour should be fast enough ... Secret service would probably just shoot him to put him out of his misery, or maybe so they didn’t have to listen to his whiny screams for help...

This is really boring. My subconscious has free reign and I am standing around in front of the white house imagining different ways to torture our president. Seems like it would have something more entertaining to show me ... Ouch! That hurt! ... but I don’t feel pain, what the fuck!

Ok, I am back in front of my house outside Detroit, and my house is on fire ... What is this supposed to mean? Am I going to lose my past? Amnesia? It is roaring pretty good, wish I had marshmallows ... and chocolate and graham crackers ... mmm smores ... Am I hungry or something? There is a big ass fire department hose connected to that hydrant, but no fire fighters ... I guess I am supposed to put the fire out? Why would I do that, this isn’t my house anymore, the bank took it back from me ... Fuck those greedy ass banks, they can put there own fires out.

Now I am at my old house in Mason, where I attended Western Row Elementary. This house is on fire too, and another hose and hydrant...

You know it is a real shame that John O’dell, my fifth grade teacher, died ... I would like to be able to call him up and thank him for being a great teacher. I looked him up last year some time and found his obituary. It would be really something to see and hear him playing his guitar again.

Of course, just ... of course ... now I can see Mr O’dell through the living room window waving at me, with a guitar in his other hand ... I can even see him wearing those finger picks he used to play it with. Alright! I get it! I am supposed to put the fire out ... You could have just told me...

I picked up the hose and straightened it out in a big circle with me towards the house, so when it pressurized it wouldn’t whip me around. Saw that on TV ... I know things ... Now ... how do I get the water out of the hydrant, don’t I need a big wrench to turn the top nut or ... of course there is the wrench ... I must say, you would think the subconscious would be smarter and give me the wrench starting out instead of only giving it to me after I thought of it. Just saying.

Turning the wrench the hose got pressurized, and the whole circle idea wasn’t a great one ... I nearly lost my head three times as it spun around ... whatever. I am on the JOB! Fireman John to the RESCUE! I grabbed the end of the hose and dragged it towards the house. I can still see my fifth grade teacher in the window, now he seems to be playing his guitar. Weird. I slowly pull back on the lever to let the water out ... slowly, I know it is powerful and can knock me over. I start to hear a whistling noise, I guess there is air in the line? So I wait before I open it more, I don’t want the water to knock me on my ass. So I wait ... and I wait ... wait some more ... granted there is no semblance of time in a dream but if I had to guess this hose has been whistling for an hour now. There must be ALOT of air in the line. I guess I need to open the valve up more for the air to get out and so the water to can start. I open it a bit more until the whistling stops and it is more of a whooshing sound, and I wait. Still no water ... I open it a bit more and the whooshing sound becomes almost like a jet engine, just less whine ... Just a bit more, and its fully open ... no water yet. The hydrant must be broken, how does all that air get in the system? Maybe it is magic air, magic fire fighting air ... invisible water ... I will just turn this on the house at the corner and ... whoosh the entire corner of the house became a giant fireball and disintegrates...

I turn the hose off and set it down. I look at it questioningly ... then with a cocked eyebrow. No response or movement from the hose. I glare at it dangerously ... nope, no response. Well shit, this doesn’t make sense. How am I supposed to put the fire out with a hose that spits out air at an alarming rate and turns the what ever is burning to ash. A conundrum is what this is. Did I hurt the feelings of my subconscious by talking shit about it earlier? You know what! This is stupid, that isn’t Mr O’dell, he died years ago. You want me to play this stupid game, but you are CHEATING! I refuse to participate. I REFUSE! ... Because yelling at your subconscious always works...

Oh god ... not Bekca’s house again ... Well at least it isn’t on fire. But I do hear something loud off in the distance. Turning north, YES I KNOW WHERE NORTH IS! Looking that a way yonder, not south east or west ... Towards the noise I can see a, cloud of fog? No. NOPE! Not a cloud, a twister, and it just ate up three houses over towards the golf course. Is that a cow flying around? There are no cows around here ... where the fuck did a cow come from ... the nearest farm is at least a 10 minute drive away and that is to the north across the interstate, well ... never mind. I wonder if animals have a fear of heights. Specifically I wonder if that cow is afraid of heights, that would be funny ... So scared it is dropping cow pies ... at the speed of a tornado ... man talk about a paint job on the side of a building ... Ha! That is funny, wait no. At that speed, density, and mass ... It would probably go through the outside wall and explode like a poop bomb inside the building ... That is much funnier, yes.

Sigh ... Yes I know ... This dream wont fucking end until I figure out whatever the hell it isn’t telling me. Which it could do quite easily. So that means it is what ... a path of discovery? No. That doesn’t seem right. How about an exercise in futility ... That seems closer. Something I have to learn and cant be told. See! I am not just fucking off ... I am paying attention to the game even if I hate the fucking game. If someone was playing games with me in the real world I would punch them in the mouth ... Not the mouth, the gut would be less painful to my hand. The point is I wouldn’t put up with it. If I couldn’t punch them in the gut, I would walk away never to be seen again. Now troubleshooting a problem I can deal with, I would actually enjoy a real problem ... Tearing it apart, looking at it from the inside out. One step at a time, yes troubleshooting a problem would actually be enjoyable. Playing a guessing game about a game I don’t know the rules is seriously pissing me off.

The tornado kept getting closer, louder, much too loud. My ears popped with the changes in air pressure. I could smell ozone? No, not ozone, but something equally creepy. Looking at her house again I saw movement through the window. I couldn’t help myself, I snuck forward to peak inside. Why am I sneaking ... Sigh ... In the house I could see a sliver into the kitchen and family room just past the front door. I could see the back of her hubby sitting at a kitchen table talking to someone. I recognized the movement of his arm, he was eating, chewed, swallowed, then talking some more. They must be having dinner or something. AHH! There is Pudgie, my old dog. She just darted into the family room and back into the kitchen. They have to be eating dinner, no bulldog I ever knew could stand not being near a child while eating ... They dropped the most interesting morsels. I never knew Bekca to eat anywhere except on the couch in front of the TV ... Having kids must have matured her. Or maybe this is one of the hubby’s peeves she has to deal with. Doesn’t matter, this isn’t real.

I walked around the house so I was between it and the tornado. Alright, so what do I need to learn? The first house was on fire, but I didn’t care about that house burning down. I didn’t really care about the second house burning down either, but then my 5th grade teacher was inside it playing the guitar. Weird. The hose put out air instead of water, and when directed out the house it made the fire worse ... Sorta like on Ted’s driveway and my coughing. So if I cough, or blow really hard the tornado will get stronger and kill everyone I care about ... If I breath in then, it should lessen, I just need to not cough so it becomes worse ... I slowly pushed all the air from my lungs, and took a huge gasp in. Dam! ... The tornado just jumped 2 streets closer! So then ... All that air in my lungs got pushed out between my lips superman style. Yep, the tornado is now moving away from me. But what if I blew against the direction it is turning, wouldn’t that slow it down? Tornadoes turn clockwise in the northern hemisphere? I forget ... I took a big sucking breath in, sure enough the twister got closer to me, closer then before ... I aimed to the left of the tornado, just on edge and did another superman blow ... Ahhh, finally results, the tornado got smaller and smaller until it finally sucked itself up in the clouds. I did it! ... still dreaming ... now what?

The scene changed. I am now on the beach looking at the ocean. I can smell the salt water. Looking around I don’t recognize anything, but it does seem vaguely familiar. Looking back at the ocean, well it is being like an ocean should be ... being ... whatever. The waves crash 10 to 15 meters out and following that a small surge of water comes up the shore. It quickly recedes waiting for the next wave to push it back up. Typical ocean type things. I don’t get it ... Sure, I could blow in and out, pulling and pushing the water. That is all pretty obvious, so that cant be what I have to learn. Maybe I can destroy those annoying seagulls with my breath ... That would surely justify this power all by itself! Probably not what I am here to learn though ... A clue would be nice ... Oh! I just got a strange urge to go swimming. Looking down I am wearing trunks and nothing else ... I sure hope I haven’t been gallivanting through my dream this whole time only wearing trunks ... Fire fighting wearing trunks ... Stopping tornadoes in there tracks in a single bound, wearing trunks ... Traveling to cities all over the world ... wearing trunks.