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