One that I had a couple nights ago.
I was watching TV and the news was reporting an actor of a famous show like CSI or something had died. They showed a photo of him posing, a white cloth surrounding his body, arms outstretched, reminiscent of Michaelangelo’s Sistine Chapel (I recognized his face though it was not until after I woke up and thought about it that I realized it was David Sutcliffe). Anyway, he was reported to have lived in Vancouver, downtown and for some reason, he was a homeless person, helping kids. The news showed the last known footage of him where some people were interviewing him, and that was the last they saw of him. Police were asking for witnesses; Maggie, my sister, was, I’m assuming, in the room with me, as she then said out loud and stressed for everyone to report anything remotely suspicious, including “people who may weren’t supposed to be where they were.”
As they showed the area around which the actor lived downtown, I somehow found myself transported to where the camera on TV was shooting. My mom, Maggie, and I were all there, going to this restaurant + movie theatre that combined a meal and a movie for a really cheap price (why hasn’t anyone thought of that?), and best of all, it was in the same building so we didn’t even have to leave. I distinctly remember it being quite bright outside — lots of yellows and oranges. When we went inside and stood in line behind a couple, I noticed the movies they had playing. They were books lined up on the floor that indicated the movies. Unfortunately, I don’t remember any of the movies apart from Alice in Wonderland which my sister and I had already seen. We all agreed on a strange, indie movie that none of us had really heard of before.
We paid for our tickets and were invited to sit down and wait for our food and the movie. The couple who were ahead of us in line sat directly across the table from us so that we were facing each other, like a picnic table. Somehow, there was a piano in front of me and I started playing around on it, eventually playing Vanessa Carlton’s “Papa” because it sounds hard. As usual, people didn’t seem to take any notice and when I was done, I wondered what else to play. There were a lot of songs I could’ve played but they didn’t sound as good because the piano part alone doesn’t sound all that great without singing, and I wasn’t going to start singing in this restaurant.
I heard the couple in front of us and everyone else in the restaurant speaking French but I didn’t know what to say since I wasn’t fluent. My sister, who sat nearby, was reading through a French-English dictionary and suddenly asked aloud, “How do you say ‘The French got an army…?'”
I replied, “Les francais ont un…” and the guy sitting across from us, obviously listening, finished my sentence and said, “un arme”. (I’m told that’s not the right word for “army”, btw). There was something else about “the English” but I don’t remember that. I eventually started playing my own song, “Un Pas” and the woman in front of us smiled and mentioned to her boyfriend, “Ah, Amelia…” or something wrong like that. I knew she meant Amelie, the awesome French movie with Yann Tiersen’s music so I stopped playing and told them in French that actually, I was playing a song that I wrote but that I love Amelie and Yann Tiersen.
They were eventually called in to eat or watch the movie or something. We waited around for a bit more before being called in too. I texted my friend/super film guy about the movie we were going to see and his reply was something along the lines of “Oh, that movie has great 3D, 5, 6, and 7D, and we’re already 3 weeks into the course and we’ve only started learning about 3D! It’s a cool movie and I like the toys. I also like the Glum [something] character.” and somehow, I knew that the Glum character was me. Did that make me a part of the movie?
So we went down this hallway and I was carrying this big gameboard mat thing for some reason. It was a turquoise color. We go into this other room where I set the mat down. In the room is a guy wearing a mask that doesn’t quite cover his face. Something like this:
He told us to find some books in the room and put our hands in them. There were conveniently two books right by me — one which i don’t remember but that it was a bigger book, and my Spanish-English dictionary. I saw my mom sitting at a table with no books but with some Chinese magazines like the ones she reads and the guy with the mask told her she could use them. With our hands in the books, he came around and with this bottle of pastey-looking stuff and smeared it on the books. Then, he told us to start flapping our arms and fly. Which we did, and which it worked.
However, my Spanish-English dictionary was too small and it fell off my hand and then became useless. I told the Mask Guy and he picked me up and I clung onto him while he flew around the room, my head leaning into the warmth of his shoulder.
Suddenly, I’m shouting, “DIE, CHICKEN, DIE!” and I wake up on the floor. I have a hunch he dropped me and that I was unconscious for a while but I somehow got saved or something. Anyway, I think I went flying again and this time the dictionary worked. There wasn’t anyone else in the large room with me but while I was flying, these black snake-like cords were launching themselves at me from nowhere.
Wake up again. I think I just got hit by a black cord or something. Next to me in a row are piles of those black cords, wriggling around, and I can see chickens in there. I tear at the pile closest to me to free the chicken but when I get to it, it’s grey and thin, and it looks more like a robot chicken (no pun intended) than anything else. So I got the chicken and I don’t quite remember if I picked it up and started flying with it or not but I did start to fly again and I realized I was in my house, although the house itself seemed to be on a much, much larger scale — everything was gigantic. I flew around the walls, avoiding the black cords, and into the kitchen. I managed to open the back door and the gate, both of which were huge, and flew outside to supposed freedom. But I still had a feeling I was being watched so I tried to fly as stealthy as I could, flying into the neighbour’s yard so as to stay away from the windows of my house and not be watched. I heard the door close behind me as I flew away.
I’ve never been good at flying in my dreams and this one was no different. I found it hard to control where I was going and how high and low I wanted to go. I veered around my neighbour’s yard for a bit and then proceeded to go to the back lane where I suddenly became Wallace, from Wallace and Gromit. There was Gromit standing behind me and I “knew” again that I had to walk/shuffle sideways to avoid seeming strange. So we shuffled slowly sideways, me looking north, towards my house and him walking with his back to me, facing south. I saw something moving in the windows of my house but couldn’t discern it.
Eventually, we shuffled and shuffled all the way to a busy street where there was a guy who dressed like a lame hipster/gangster stared at us as we slowly walked from him. I think he may have been leaning on a fire hydrant. He had a cigarette and I thought he was going to attack us but he merely stared and stared through his colorful sunglasses, and burned this guy standing nearby with his cigarette .
Eventually again, we got to a basketball court with lots of teenagers around, who were also staring at us suspiciously and that decided we weren’t welcome so they chased us. I was suddenly running with two other people: Chris Martin from Coldplay and this other girl. While we were running, she took out two books from her bag and gave them to me. I tried to fly but I couldn’t get very high. I realized that in order to fly and leave this place through some sort of portal, I needed to sink a basket.
All the kids crowded around me, taunting me and calling me names. They wanted me to lose and were throwing basketballs around me, at the hoop in the hope of deflecting my ball. I saw Chris Martin and the girl nearby and knew they were invisible to everyone since they had found the portal and were waiting for me. They cheered me on.
I threw the ball and closed me eyes, not knowing if I got it in or not. It was up to me to decide, not everyone else. With my eyes still closed, I thought I didn’t get it in but I said I did because I was so tired of losing.
aaron's random musings 