I was in a college dorm room, and Dave Chapelle was my roommate. He was complaining about not having any weed, so I told him I had some weed substitute and gave him some leaves. I laughed nervously (as he pulled out his pipe) that I didn't even know how to smoke it. He didn't respond. He smoked it from a tinfoil-covered pipe using an acetylene torch to light the leaves. He liked it a lot and blew lots of smoke into the air. I then lay down on my bed and started filling out some forms and eating popcorn. Dave also had to fill out the forms and asked me to help him out. Except now he was someone named James whose English was poor (he seemed to be Asian). I helped him out as best I could. Soon, the RA, who was an African-American girl, came in and accused me of filling out the forms illegally or something. She made me go down to the basement's "discussion room" to have a talk about it.

In the room, we argued for a while, and then she noticed that I had filled in one of the blanks labeled "password" with the entry password to another dorm. She got really angry that I knew it, and I lied by saying that it didn't matter because it was the password from last year. She said it was current, and I said I was sorry and didn't know any better. She calmed down but was still angry. We started talking about some other aspect of the form, when she made some comment about further restricting my building access. By that time a couple other RAs had come in as well. At that point I got really pissed off about the building accusations/punishments for stupid stuff, so I picked up a nearby calculator and angrily threw it down on my chair. I immediately felt remorseful and said I was sorry and that they could kick me out of the dorm now if they wanted.

The Resident Head then came in to have a one-on-one with me, after hearing the commotion. A bunch more RAs also came in to sit at the big discussion table. The RH and I sat down on a couch a short ways away and I talked about how I had been pushed to anger by the RA and that I was just frustrated about the school year in general. He responded (after a lot of emotional cajoling from me) that he understood and had gone through some of the same things as me when he was in college, such as making new friends and finding a girlfriend. The whole time he talked to me, I was unable to open my eyes fully and could never look at him directly. I kept rubbing my eyes, which felt glued together, and trying to open them with my hands, but to no avail. He also showed me a gel, possibly a southern blot, which supposedly represented his slow success in making friends in college.

I walked back to the big table, which by now had 8-9 RAs sitting around it, and said, "Well, it's open season on me now," which was supposed to be a joke. No one laughed. I explained by saying that it didn't mean that I was "hunted" now but that they were welcome to criticize me if they wanted. One of the RAs looked like Laci Peterson, which was kind of creepy. Anyways, the original RA was apparently named Asha, though she didn't look anything like the real-life Asha.

I went back to my room, accompanied by the original RA and the RH, who said hi to "Jimmy." Once they left, I grumbled about them and started to pick up my forms from my desk. I then heard Sheq call out from the hall that they could just make it to lunch if they started running now. I got hungry and wondered if I could get there in time after finally finishing the forms. Then I woke up.

posted by Larry at 1:36 PM

It began outside a bus. Me, Dave (a college friend), and another guy who I probably don't know in real life were waiting to board. It was somewhere in between a school bus and a tour bus: comfortable and roomy, but noisy and dirty.

As we pulled out of the bus stop, I began to hear about the virus. We were all either immune or had been treated with an antidote. Dave mentioned that 74% of people had died already, but he didn't sound sure. As we left the "bad part of town," I had an aerial view of the bus, and saw a large group of people waiting at the border for the antidote. We passed them, took a left, and on into a large apartment-like complex, which appeared to have been constructed particularly for emergencies like this.

As me and Dave got off the bus, I took one of the two axes and a crowbar which we had with us. Dave got really upset when I didn't give both axes to him. He stomped off angrily after whipping the other axe at my head (it missed and stuck in the wall) and I pulled it out and went to go claim a room. As it seemed like we were one of the first buses there (there were at least 2 parked in front of us), we had our pick of the rooms. I had hardly peeked in to the rooms when I decided to give the axes back to Dave. I found him in a common area watching TV with a bunch of other people. He was ecstatic to have them back and started whirling them around his head. I left.

Outside, I met a friend from real life, who had shrunken to about 4 feet tall and was wearing what appeared to be a giant translucent blue condom. She said it was both protective against the virus and a costume which made her look like "Galooly." Apparently I knew exactly what she was talking about -- some cartoon character -- but of course it makes no sense now.

I ran into some other woman I know, but who I now forget, in the bathroom while I was at the urinal. I guess crises pull people together. Anyways, after some prompting, she began to explain the whole thing. She said terrorists had unleashed this virus on America, and that Dave was right about 3/4 of the nation already dead. The only reason us young people survived is that we had been genetically engineered as babies. Only the antidote gave hope to older people.

After some vague incidents, probably involving Dave and violence, I was arrested and sent off to a different "survivor complex" to serve out my sentence as a waiter. So I was standing in a posh restaurant at the complex in a tux and looking out over the many round tables and buffet arrangements. Somehow I became unruly and they sent security guards after me. The first guard came up and said "You know how I'm gonna show you this is real? I'm gonna pinch you in the head!" Which was the first sign to me that this might be a dream. After he pinched me and punched me in the stomach, I started to fight back with karate. They sent more guards after me, but I kept blocking and taking them down. I tested the hypothesis that this was a dream and started floating as I did my kicks. It worked. I managed to draw out a long float and do an awesome leopard kick. All the time I wished the damn dream would end, as it seemed to have gone on for about 20 hours. Then, it did.

I immediately went to my next dream, where I was sitting at a banquet table at another real-life friend's wedding. I was right next to the groom but couldn't see his face. He seemed to be a Mexican from the back. In any case, my first thought was to see if this was reality or not. I jumped up and down trying to float, and when I couldn't, I concluded that this was reality. So, Shelley's getting married! Cool. Then I woke up for real, amazed that I had really mistaken that last dream for reality.

After going back to sleep, I revisited the virus-world, except a different part of it. I was in a small farming town, where survivors had been gathering at a "butterfly and bird nest" catcher's place. Down the road was an old man and his wife. The man cursed like a sailor and I thought he was the coolest mofo I'd met there.

Me and Kurt (an undergrad in my lab) got into a helicopter and we took off. All the windows were playing a movie, so we were essentially watching a documentary hundreds of feet off the ground with a pilot who couldn't see where he was going. But we didn't notice that till later, when the movie ended (I think it was about the virus) and the words "This is your real view" showed up on the windows over what was, indeed, the real view of the town below us. I pointed this out to the pilot and he said "Oh! Well we don't want to be going that way" as we plunged straight down towards a field. He pulled us up and started flying recklessly. He would come within inches of every tree or house he could, and spent some time on the road flying in between cars. He claimed it was better than using our own road in the sky. He also flew directly into telephone and power lines, and I thought that I should really get my head out of the window or I'd be decapitated. The guy was insane.

After we finally landed, Kurt and I were walking back to the farm. Kurt said "hey is that the corn guy from down the road?" It was the old man and his wife, and he mumbled some curses about time. Then I woke up for good.

posted by Larry at 12:50 PM