I was high school age and heading to a cafeteria with some of my old church friends (Waiken, Andrew, and Sam, who were also young again). They were standing in line, and I walked ahead to see what they had. It turned into a mall food court and I continued looking at the different stalls. Some were very fancy like a French place (with its own tables) while others were dirt cheap like a fast burrito place. It all looked very familiar as I kept walking; when I got out to the mall area, I realized I was in Minnesota. It was one long, wide aisle with maybe a dozen shops and the food court, with a large Lord and Taylor's at the end (though I think it actually said Lird and Vein's).

As I sat on one of the benches, my dad joined me. He mentioned that he had been there before in 1999 for one of President Clinton's speeches. He said he had done that sort of thing multiple times, picking math conferences just so he could be close to the different presidents. I had no idea he was so political.

We walked outside to join my mom and sister, and we started walking back to our hotel. It turns out we're in Sweden for vacation. My parents start walking ahead really fast, so I joined my sister who was going slower. As we crossed a bridge, two police cars came up and stopped at either end, one right next to my parents. I panicked, wondering if we had lost our IDs or something worse. But after a word from a policeman to my parents, they kept on going. I was curious. He talked to me next, saying, "The humming is getting louder." That's when I finally noticed a deafening hum coming from the river below, straight up through the bridge. As I continued on, all the ground became a dark asphalt.

I suddenly realized I couldn't see my parents anymore, so I dashed ahead of my sister and just barely stopped at the edge of an asphalt cliff. I looked over the edge and saw only more asphalt deep below, and it appeared to be billowing. I backed away slowly, then faster as the cliff's edge started billowing as well. I knew I'd die if I didn't keep running, but it overtook me in no time. I fell with the ground, knowing it was over. But then I started floating in it, in the big chunks of asphalt mixing around like water. It was so bouyant that other people and cars were floating around me. I blacked out with relief.

I woke up in a small locked room with maybe 20 other tourists. No one said a word, so I assumed we were locked up by the Swedish authorities for our own safety. It was bright through the window. An amazing-looking girl next to me drew my attention, but I didn't look for more than a few seconds when an older woman said, "That's Barbie." What? I looked at the girl's shirt, and there it was embroidered, pink on pink, "Barbie." Hmm.

I was suddenly in a different cell, and I guessed we were being shuffled around. No good-looking girls in this one. Some people had their laptops out while others were passing the time idly. As "entertainment," the authorities were passing around a phone containing a recording of an army captain's story about his brother bleeding or something. I quickly passed the phone on. Everyone else was sitting or lying on the floor, so I stood up and examined the room. There was a pair of keys hanging on a hook, so I surreptitiously slid them into my pocket. I saw two keyholes on the door, but they didn't seem to fit. I didn't want to arouse too much suspicion in case they were monitoring us, so I sat back down. Then I woke up.

posted by Larry at 10:15 AM