I was in Hong Kong, in my family's first-floor apartment, lounging and reading. A white civet crept into the room, which looked like a very large rat with a squirrel's head. It seemed tame, so I scooped it up and held it as I read. I scratched its head while it found a few crumbs of food around me to eat. After a while I got sick of it and opened the door to let it back out. Only a few moments later a girl came around asking if anyone had seen her civet. I let her know, she gave me a nasty look, and ran off to catch it.

My mom and aunt asked me to head to the market and buy a spider plant. There was a market on the apartment ground, though still about a block away. When I arrived, I saw that the shops were just tents, so I headed into a red-and-white striped one. I asked the proprietor, a man in his 50s with a mustache, if he had one. I used English because I didn't know what spider plant was in Chinese. So I followed it up by asking how to say it, and hurried explaining in Chinese that I could speak, just that I don't know very specific words. He laughed and said it was all right. It was only then that I heard an accent in his voice, and looking closer, I realized he was probably Italian. Cool. Well, he had to look around for a good one, so while he pickd one out, I headed out to the open part of the market.

I found a table with a small crowd around it, and the hawker was cutting up large pieces of some sort of melon. It looked great, but as he was starting to offer it for people, I noticed a lot of activity just behind the table which was almost backed up against a tent. I looked down and saw dozens or even hundreds of small spiders and bugs crawling around some kind of mesh, with a few large ones mixed in. I lost my appetite but didn't want to seem rude by suddenly leaving. I was so distracted that only when I looked up did I see that my arm had gone purple at the elbow. I rubbed it, only to have a bit of my skin come off. It hurt, so I yelped and asked around for what happened. They laughed and told me that I was bitten by a bat. One guy suddenly turned serious and said that I should go to a hospital to get tested for rabies. I panicked a bit and ran out of the market.

As I passed the plant shop, I realized I forgot to pick up my order. I headed in, just while they were closing up. The man said that he was relieved that I came back, because they were just telling the police that I was scamming them. Only then did I see two policemen standing in the cramped cashier area. I hurriedly paid and left. The policemen came running out past me just then, and I heard loud sirens down the block. Large gusts of wind were coming now, and I took advantage of them to fly towards the flashing lights. I briefly thought of how interesting it was that I only just swam in real life yesterday, and was now getting to swim through air in my dream tonight. I literally pulled myself along with sweeps of my arm and jumped huge distances with each stroke. I had to keep going further and further down the block, as I was behind the buildings and there was no seam between them. Though I was good at flying/leaping, I didn't think I could make it over even the shortest buildings. When I finally hit a gap, I turned in to see the crossroads I was at. The army was there, setting up for some kind of big fight. But I never got to see it as my alarm went off and pulled me out of my sleep.

posted by Larry at 10:01 AM