I was driving north on a California highway, when suddenly things shook. I started watching from way up, like it was Google maps. The bridge I was on start to shatter, and I was unlucky enough to be the only car to plunge into the river below. My first thought was that the river was really wide and if I can't swim, I'll at least need to stay afloat for help. The view sort of fast-forwarded as I thought out scenarios, with my little version of me in the water jumping from scenario to scenario - which finally included me just barely making it to shore. I then thought about how it would take me days to walk back home (still in California), and how sad it was that this earthquake will have ruined so many lives. Since I didn't have a cell phone, I worried about Merry, and saw her briefly at home crying about not seeing me back for days. I then saw an image of the newspaper, showing that somehow, no one had died! I felt relieved but also disbelief, as I scanned around the "map" seeing no other shattered structures.

In an alternate reality, I made it to my original destination: an ancient holy temple that we had seen in a documentary. It had looked so awe-inspiring and glorious that I couldn't help but immediately be disappointed by how ordinary it looked, stepping inside now. There were none of the rich hues and serenity, but instead the ancient murals looked like old wallpaper and just a couple people were milling about making it sound like a library more than anything else. I sat down on a pew, and on first look the place was fairly spacious with a high domed ceiling. My coworker Tim sat next to me and took out an enormous laptop. He slowly panned it around saying, "and now it'll see everything that I see!."

As I looked around more and waited for Merry, the place was now much smaller and more intimate. The murals were in a large, repeating, red flame-like pattern on a light yellow background, reaching up to the ceiling. My dad sat down behind me and we waited for a service to start. Now there was an Indian man sitting in the middle of the room at a piano, drinking a glass of water. Behind him were two guys in overalls who seemed to also work there, cleaning the glass window in a lazy way. The piano guy kept cracking jokes in between sips - the jokes were pretty funny, too - wish I could remember them.

Finally, the class started, and I was suddenly sitting up near the front, watching a middle aged, nice matronly woman teach us about food. My old coworker Steve was to the left, demonstrating something that involved feeding mice some liquids. But it seemed more like a sideshow so I turned my attention back to the woman. While she was demonstrating cooking, she would ask her own volunteers sitting in the audience to give her the next set of food on trays. Behind me was a chubby teenaged girl, and I could see that she was constantly snacking on her tray of uncooked tater tots. I didn't say anything, and waited instead for her to be reprimanded. When it was her turn, she gave a look like she didn't care that she had eaten any, and the woman acted frustrated: it was clear this wasn't the first time. With a sigh and a turn, she told the girl to get out. But I could tell she was too nice, and that the girl knew how to get away with it: she said "fine!", got up and turned around, but then very sweetly said, "Oh! But don't you need these things cleaned up?" while pointing at a pile of equipment. The woman caved immediately with another big sigh and said resignedly "all right, fine."

Now the teacher was a man and he was standing behind one of those college tables at the front of classrooms: solid all the way through. He asked for a volunteer, and my coworker Shujuan went up. She suddenly became very small, like 4 inches high, and stood on the table in a labcoat. The professor had several small objects on the table, and a list of things to try. The first was "a bug in a pot." He asked Shujuan to pedal a small white, futuristic-looking bike while carrying a beetle in what looked like a round green gourd. She slowly biked, and I became concerned that she wasn't watching where she was going. Then, whoops! she fell over the edge! I saw her sprawled out and unmoving. It must have been the equivalent of falling three stories! The professor didn't care at all and kept talking....... when finally I saw her twitch and get up. Relieved, I guessed that her proportional smallness had kept her light enough, like an ant. The professor said, "see? Didn't that feel just like a bug in a pot?" to which Shujuan agreed. I was really interested in the next few items on the list, but that's when I woke up.

posted by Larry at 7:27 AM