Batch

02-26-2011 -- That was kind of grim. Started out kind of light, turned into one of my darkest, grimmest dreams ever. This one may not be pleasant. Almost all sweetness and light, but the last few parts are ultra-violent.

I'm driving down the road, trying to go to Disneyland, and it is late a night. I'm pretty much driving all right until I make a wrong turn and almost get my car trapped, so I get out of the car and start walking. I am near Harbor, and I should only have to walk a block or two to reach Harbor Blvd and be able to turn toward Disney.

I find myself visiting with a marmalade cat that is mine, and talking with it and visiting with it. I pass a young woman who is moaning about how she has no money and and no food, and will probably die in the cold of the night, and I walk past her, but then start to feel bad for her and come back and give her a little money to help her out. Then I hug her close to show her people still care, and move on.

I'm walking through a sort of crowd, and there are also dozens of cats around, and all are walking the opposite direction I am, except my cat, which is walking along side of me, not going with the crowd.

Soon I somehow find myself working a late night shift at a gas station / convenience store. [A type of work I have never done.] A couple of customers come in and make cash purchases, and I handle their transactions easily. Then one guy comes in with his rich family, and he wants gas on two pumps. He asks for $90 on one pump, and $100 on the other. He hands me a credit card, and it is the first credit card I have been given for payment.

I run it through the machine, and it is very hard to slide, and very tight. A counter next to the machine lights up and shows a map of the internet signal as it is routed to the credit card approval place. A couple of times it goes down a bad path where the signal is lost, and I can see it start a new route from where things went bad, until it manages to connect. Very interesting to watch.

The card comes back declined, and as I look at it, I spot that it is actually broken, and has a corner of the card taped in place. It was the tape that caused the thing to stick, and I know it isn't going to work. I explain to the customer that his card is broken, but notice that in the stuff he gave me, there is another card, so ask him if he wants me to use that one. He says he does.

I don't know what is with this card, but it has no number, no bar code, no magnetic stripe, and I can find no way to run it through the machine. I tell the guy I can't use this card, either, and he becomes very insulting. I try to explain that one of the cards he handed me is physically broken, and the other has no data allowing it to be processed, but he starts telling me that I am an idiot and a jerk, and he is going to get me fired over this.

While his family started out as a small family of four, it has now grown to be something like 20 people, including a bunch of kids. The kids are starting to steal candy and things, and as I confront them and try to make them stop, one of the adults attacks me with a large knife. I take the knife away from him, and go back to speaking with the kids, but an adult near the register opens it, steals the money from inside, and starts to hand it out to all the kids.

I run back toward the register, and they all begin to run out into the parking lot, which is now packed with tons of people. I follow them to a large bus, and the driver shuts the door in my face, and starts to pull out. I have had it, and I snap. I leap five or six feet into the air and grab the door handle and open the door back up, then let myself into the bus. I pull out the large knife I took from the guy who tried to use it on me, and it slowly stretches into a sword as I walk through the bus and kill every man, woman and child with a few strokes, usually putting one or two deep slices in each one, though one guy I aim just right, and take his entire head off.

I'm thinking about going through their pockets and getting my money back, but I don't see myself actually doing it in the dream. I get off the bus and head back to the gas station, while the guy who started the whole mess climbs on the bus and starts screaming as he finds what I have done. I approach the gas station, where I find the next shift has come in. I ask him how the balance was, and he tells me I was about $50 off, which is a lot less than expected, so I guess I did take the money back, and somehow put it back, even though I only just walked back in.

I decide it is time for me to go, and I can see the trouble-maker and a few of his friends in front of the building, so I choose to exit through a window leading onto the hill behind the station. The trouble-makers come running around screaming for my blood, but I fly into the air to avoid them. They are trying to fly as well, and are soon getting it. They are getting closer and closer, and the dream in quickly changing into one of those nightmare chase dreams where you have powers, but so do the enemies.

I can see this going on and on, and don't want to deal with such a long, miserable process, and decide I have to end things decisively. I think up a nuclear bomb and cause it to appear in my hands, then throw it on the ground. For about two seconds, nothing happens, then there is a flash of light, the hint of a sound, and a wave of heat, and then everything goes gray. I can feel it as just this odd, painless feeling as my body is dissolved into its component atoms, and they go drifting apart. Then I wake up.

[I'm sorry, I have no idea where this came from. All I can say is I am reasonably certain I am not anywhere near being ready to hack up a bus full of people in real life, or blow up myself and others with a nuke. But it was a pretty grizzly dream.]