Casting Shadows

Note: I often tell Marvolo that I hate him in real life. I don't, of course--I consider him a friend, after all! He knows that I'm only joking with him. For your benefit, I say that I hate him because he hates dark soft drinks, chocolate, and Lucky Charms cereal.

I am in one of my classes at my current school, but the layout of the classroom was that of one of my old ones. The counselor comes to the door and says that all of the Driver's Ed kids need to report to a certain place so that we can be tested on what we remember from the manual. I'm somewhat nervous--I know that there is a lot that I can't remember--but I believe that I will be alright. I briefly wonder if the other students will be, too.

In the testing area, I'm with a few of my friends. I tell Marvolo that I hate him. "I know to expect that you hate me because you always hate me!"

We end up in the cafeteria line. I'm wanting some white milk and so I grab a pink carton that simply reads "MILK" on one side and has two lids: one on the top and one on the bottom. This is normal but frustrating, because I can't sit down the carton on my tray.

There is a group of children behind me that look to be fifth grade/sixth grade age. Knowing full well that I am not in any sort of costume, I say, "Hey kids! I'm the Easter Bunny!" Unsurprisingly, they don't believe me.

Jason is a relative to the Davis'. He and I are in the parking lot of Wal-Mart and are about to go in. Jasper and David are inside and we are supposed to meet up with them. There is a little man with brown hair and a great bushy beard inside of a box (sort of like a small vending machine), and on the top is a sign in great neon colors, "SOCIOPATH." I pass him by but Jason, who is carrying a small pack (that looks like a pack of matches) of some sort of illegal drug offers it to him. For one second, Jason is there, and the next, he is gone--the little man kidnapped him!

I dread telling Jasper and David that their brother is missing. Will I be blamed for his absence? Probably. I don't like the thought. I know that I have to tell them, though, and so I march forward into Wal-Mart.

Perhaps there is some sort of time skip, or perhaps I simply can't remember what happens in the in-between, but it's at night and I'm on a car with the Davis', heading for Oklahoma. It's late at night and there is a giant billboard sign that has a crude picture of a lake, and then an arrow pointing to a spot in the southern part of the body of water. A "you are here" type of thing, telling us that we are at our destination. We drive by the sign a little and when I look back there is a small island (again, where we are) that is clearly visible.

At some point we stop and climb on a cable car. According to the dream, I didn't just ride all the way from Mississippi to Oklahoma. Both Jasper and Payton were curled up on the floor of the cable car, asleep. I don't know where Samantha is, but David is the one directing the car. I tell him about Jason; he seems mildly disappointed but otherwise unaffected.

Riding the cable car is a scary experience, but I remain calm.

Once we get off of the car, we are all on a little trail in a rural area of the island. At the very end of it are bleachers where several people are staying. Jasper and I walk the trail a few times back and forth, talking. I steel myself in preparation of telling him about his brother's kidnapping, but he tells me that he was only pretending to be asleep.

At the end I (and perhaps he along with me) come back to the bleachers. Guess who's here? That's right, Jason. I ask him to come back with me (a small celebration is due, since he has turned up), but he tells me that he wants to stay for a bit longer; he needs to speak with Jarvis before leaving.

At this, I look behind the bleachers. Jarvis is standing there. Wyvern approaches him and goes in for a kiss, he kisses back, and then--as if he realizes what he's doing--breaks the kiss and storms off, angry. I know that he's angry with Wyvern for kissing him and himself for kissing her back. Wyvern sits down and cries, and I try to console her. "He enjoyed. He enjoyed it and if he wasn't already dating Paramore he would go out with you."

[I don't really want to call this a dream fragment because I remembered more of it from when I woke up. Unfortunately I didn't write it down in the dream journal that I keep by my bed. ]

My parents and I are in one of the semi-trucks, with my father behind the wheel, my mother in the middle, and me by the window. Real trucks aren't nearly as tall as this one, though. It must have reached for at least a mile (maybe a mile and a half) and I was terrified. In real life I don't have a huge phobia of heights, but at the same time if you get me high enough I'm not going to want to look down. However, in the dream, I didn't want to be a scaredy-cat Gryffindor and so I kept opening my eyes and looking down.

I remember that the roads weren't always connected, or at least they didn't always look as though they were connected, because sometimes I thought that we were going to fall off of them and land on the one below.

Eventually I came to realize that the reason it looked as though we were so high up was because my seat was right in line with the right side mirror that made the roads look distorted. This calmed me somewhat but I still was afraid of impending doom.

Later we managed to get to Jasper's trailer. I don't remember much from his place but I know that he and I were sleeping on one of the couches together. I think he kept calling me unattractive or "not as sexy as he."

Maybe a mention about France?