I Had Another Dream

Man, I had this weird dream that I'm gonna forget unless I write it down.

I was helping some lady do some kind of treasure hunt thing at an Amusement Park or something, there was a list of puzzles or riddles that you had to solve to find a bunch of different weirdo objects, and then you had to bring all them weirdo objects back to this outdoor theater-looking place under a tarp and go up on stage and claim the reward.

And so we solve all the riddles and we find all the stuff (for this lady, remember, I ain't really doing it for myself), and I see that some other dude has solved the Treasure Hunt too, and he's like, racing me to the stage.

So I let him go ahead of me, cause I didn't have all the items, the lady did, and she was way back there.

And so we lost.

Wasn't really no big deal to me, I mean, the dude who won really did win the thing according to the rules and stuff, it wasn't like he was an evil dick head or anything about it, he was just all excited.

But then the lady and her entire family and their next door neighbor kidnap me.

And they're driving me back to wherever they're from in a big old car filled with their kids and their neighbor and shit and its really weird that their neighbor would help them even if the whole rest of the family was crazy off their rocker so I asked the neighbor what the hell was up with him and he got all teared up and explained to me that this was a very sweet and loving family and the son of this family had died and they were stealing me to replace him.

And I was all like, whoah.

And I sorta started to play along, 'cause I felt bad for these folks, 'cause I didn't think they meant anybody any harm.

Plus I have to admit, as bad as it may make me look, that the idea went through my head that my own family was really lucky to have me for all the years they had had me as their son, and these people really seemed like they needed me more.

So I just sorta accepted my fate, and started to make friendly with these folks, to calm 'em down a little (not because they were any danger to me, but just to make the situation more comfortable), and I even played along when a cop pulled us over on the Super Highway, so that they wouldn't get in trouble.

But as soon as I had accepted my fate, as soon as this whole family of crazy people saw that I was gonna play along, they started treating me like a regular guy, insteada like a prized possession and some sorta precious cargo that they had stolen from somebody else.

They wanted me to pay for my own food out of my own pocket at this highway pancake house we stopped to eat at!

(and then everything in the place started breaking down, the only thing the place had to pick from to eat was a pile of gross-ass looking cherry pastries on a big plate, 'cause the place was "technically supposed to be closed right now," the cash register didn't work, they didn't have change for a twenty, they had to get change for me from another customer, it was a huge train wreck, a lot of times, in my dreams, there's this theme that machinery doesn't work, but this seemed like some sort of foreshadowing that things were all gonna go south for me and everybody else in the dream from that point on).

So I was all like, alrighty then, to hell with this mess, I'm gonna figure out a way to escape and get out of here, I mean, I can be treated better than a regular dude no matter where I go, and I don't have to hang out with a crazy family to do it heh.

And that's when I woke up.

And somewhere in the middle of that dream of being kidnapped, the dream reminded me of something that's one of my favorite things from dreams.

Being able to go into a comic book store in Dream Land and flip through the Dream Comic Books that are totally different than what we got over here in the Land of the Awake.

I fricking love to do that, man, that's my favorite "dream thingie" of all times, by far, seriously, I could flip through weird-ass comic books in a run-down and shady-looking little comic book store in Dream Land all night long and wake up happy, 'cause those comic books they got over there are cool as hell and fascinating to me, it's like a combination of a different comic book culture, just as complex and rich and old as our own, and a rack of ideas that nobody (over here) has ever thought of before, there's shit that you can tell is popular and shit that is "underground," old and new stuff, old and new styles, there's all sorts of different famous artists and writers and comic book companies, whole histories of all that kinda junk that are completely different than what we got over here, its just totally kickass and awesome everywhichway, its so good that it feels like cheating in a really huge way or something.

And its all jammed into these tight little stacks or racks or those white comic book cardboard boxes that they sell "back issues" in, where you can flip through 'em all at a million miles an hour and just let all their ideas wash over your brain and soar around in your skull.

And some of the issues are worth more than others, and those are the ones that I really pay attention to, y'know, like when there's issues missing from the back issue boxes, and I see 'em hanging on the wall behind the cash register and shit.

What makes those issues so much better than the others to the folks in Dream Land?

I've never had the guts, so far, in a comic book store in Dream Land, to ask the guy behind the counter to take a look at those ones, I got this fear that the guy will figure out that I ain't supposed to be there, or something, right away, if I try to talk to him, that everybody in the comic book store will figure out that I don't belong there if I talk to anybody too much, y'know, if I don't just keep it to mumbling and grumbling responses when they ask me something, and I got this fear that the Parallel Universe Police, or somebody like that, might show up and arrest me if anything like that happened, if I let myself get exposed like that.

But I do try to figure out what the "special issues behind the counter" are all about from their covers, without looking conspicuous or giving away the ghost on how I'm totally a foreigner to these parts and stuff, so I can't just gawk at everything like I want to and I definitely can't let my eyes twinkle or let anybody catch on to how high my energy level is, I gotta play it all smooth and cool and nonchalant and disinterested.

Which really sucks, man, 'cause every fiber in my being doesn't want to do have to do that at all, y'know, I'm stuck trying to maintain an exterior that looks the exact opposite of how I'm feeling on the inside while I'd rather just be digging through all the comic books in Dream Land with reckess abandon.

But my ability to do that is prolly exactly why I can get away with it so much, so I'm not complaining or anything.

Anyways I think the crazy family in the car that kidnapped me promised to stop at a comic book store along the way and that played no small part in why I didn't fight or anything in the beginning.