(Written for the Mindscrapes blog.)
About a week ago, my mind was trying to jar my body awake. When I'm too cold, or I have to pee, or the phone is ringing, my head makes every effort rouse my body so that I can tend to business. I suppose that experience has taught my collective self that the best way to get things moving is to start threading weird events together until my brain finally has a "what the f*ck?" moment, realizes it is dreaming, and takes corrective measures. However, this particular evening, traditional methods weren't working, so my brain started throwing curve balls.
In the earliest part of the dream that I can recall (which was pretty late), I was walking down a street that looked pretty similar to Bourbon Street. It was packed with people, and we all seemed to be having a great time. Suddenly and without explanation, the street was ankle-deep in crunchy black beetles, and people were far less jubilant. The panicked crowd began to move away and carry me along with them.
As I was borne along with everyone else, I noticed a cloaked, shadowy figure darting from person to person, like something out of The Frightners or one of those Harry Potter And The Epic Of Suck movies. Every time the shadowy freak would close in on someone, he would do an impression of David Lo Pan and shoot red light out of his mouth and into the face of his victim. That person would shudder briefly, then drain of all color, and finally begin attacking the surrounding crowd like a coked-out zombie.
Amid all this chaos of beetles and soulless roid-ragers and a red-light-vampire thing, I just get swept along in the throng. It doesn't really weird me out or cause me any distress. People are getting trampled down into the beetles. Friends are turning against each other. That bizarre black-robed creep keeps zipping about and turning more people into FOX-News viewers. It just doesn't penetrate that I might be dreaming and I need to wake up to check on the toilet-phone-blanket or whatever.
Finally, the thing shooting red light from its mouth gets close enough to me that I can get a good look at his face. He stops just a few people away and throws back his hood. I find myself looking at Armand Assante with red light coming out of his mouth. And THAT is when I finally have my "what the f*ck?" moment, blow a gasket, and realize that I am dreaming. Sure, streets full of beetles are possible. A spooky bastard with a mouth that shoots red light that turns people into a mindless violent army of the undead is feasible. But that red-light mouthed person COULD NOT POSSIBLY have starred opposite of Sylvester Stallone in Judge Dredd. No way. Wake up.
And so I did. After turning off the ringer on the toilet, I wondered briefly what had become of Armand Assante's career. Was he still making movies? Was he still alive? Was he chasing hapless victims through the beetle-infested streets of New Orleans?
As I lapsed back into sleep I quietly hoped that I would never learn the truth.
08 April 2008
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