Batch

08-25-2012 -- I'm walking into an Adventurers Club that seems to have a police presence tonight. As I walk in a police man (who seems to be played by Richard Biggs, Doctor Franklin in Babylon 5) is talking about how some short little gal committed murder, then hid out in the Club. They're all here looking for a Sharon Hegedus. But all they can find of her is her leather jacket, so she seems to have escaped. She's now a wanted criminal, though.

I head downstairs to the main salon, and am following everybody else into the library, where Graham is announcing the next show. Just as I am walking in, I come face to face with Sharon, herself. She didn't escape, they just couldn't see her because she is so small. She's just chatting away with people in the main salon, and I comment snidely on the murder charges. She and Joe retort angrily, and because we seem to be causing a scene, they suggest taking this upstairs to the Zebra Mezzanine, where we can talk with a little more privacy.

I'm surprised they are going to talk to me at all ... for years we haven't gotten along well. Anyway, I am just asking for a slight bit of reassurance: "Tell me whoever you killed at least deserved it." Whatever the exact circumstances, it is obvious she is not too nervous about it, because they have brought a bunch of the regulars with them, and even a couple of the actors are hanging around. I know I spot Jennifer and Joy.

They keep trying to tell me what's going on, but people keep reminding them of various microphones around the place, and they don't want to chance anything incriminating being recorded, so we keep moving to different places around the mezzanine. Meanwhile, more and more people are gathering around the performers, and it seems to be turning into some sort of actors' studio, as Graham is standing there in green, describing exactly how he developed and portrays his suave and slightly smarmy Hathaway. [This meeting also figures into my next dream, The Substitutes.]

Finally we decide there's no way we're going to be able to talk here. We walk outside the Club and find ourselves in a shopping mall. Some guy is fumbling with a video camera, and I help him for a few seconds. I don't recognize him until later, but it turns out to be Brandon Sanderson. Somebody is sent off for pizza, and we're finally ready to hear the story ... except somehow Sharon is now gone. The only thing that is left is a fairly small white box, like the kind a shirt might be wrapped in at Christmas.

I pick the box up, and look around a few more minutes for Sharon or any of the others, but I can't find any of them, and I am starting to get tired, so decide maybe I'll just go home. I don't really need to know why Sharon killed somebody, anyway. I'm walking through some kind of small back corridor (like the utility corridors at the Buena Park Mall) and it seems I sat the box down somewhere and forgot about it. Mattie, Bonnie Moran's old housekeeper, is here, and while in the dream she seems a little crazy, she insists she'll go grab the box for me.

I really don't care about it, though, and when she takes a while, I decide to just take the elevator down to the exit, get my car, and drive home. When I try, though, there are a couple of cops who stop me. They tell me I can't get away that easily. They found the evidence I dropped (turned out the box was full of money ... it was one of two Sharon had been carrying) and my fingerprints were all over it. They've now decided the person who robbed the gas station and killed the clerk wasn't Sharon, it was me!

They force me back into the mall, and seat me at a table. The lead person who is presenting the evidence introduces herself as somebody high up in the Disney organization, and it seems to be Lilith from Fraiser. I spot Brandon Sanderson nearby, still with his camera, and wave him over for a little support.

I realize that Sharon has very nicely set me up and framed me, and they really don't want to listen to me as I try and explain our history, and how we don't get along. In the dream I can't even remember anything of why, and it makes convincing them very difficult. I apologize to them in advance if I end up sounding like I've been watching too many courtroom dramas, and then Brandon starts to go into a very intricate explanation of how this could all tie in to a vast new magical system he is developing, before they wave him to silence. He blushes and holds his tongue.

I feel like I am getting nowhere in convincing them, and am really beginning to get worried, when suddenly something begins to ring false. I am really starting to question the entire situation. Brandon seems to catch on as well, and suddenly asks the woman "What department did you say you work in?" She had never actually mentioned a department, previously, but she smirks as she says "Entertainment." I've been had!

She starts to call people over and play audio recordings of me that have been tampered with to say things I have never said (and a very bad and obvious job of it, like the interview from the Homer Badman episode of the Simpsons), and are beginning to introduce the TV show that this has all been set up for. I feel like an absolute fool, completely mortified, and just walk off, while everybody else laughs.

[In the dream, it was mortifying. In real life I woke up and couldn't think anything except, wow! What a cool dream!]