Schmaven's Dream Journal of Randomness

Working at some new job involving answering the phones and a square table with a few people standing around it. We are putting parts together sometimes, answering phones other times. I decide not to wear the uniform - some tan shirt with a collar. There are some other people out of uniform also. We get to talking a bit, but don't get along. Then I find out that they are the highest corporate bosses in the whole company, and they are upset about me not being in uniform! I tell my coworker if he thinks it'd make a difference to get in uniform. He's not sure. I tell him to wait here and I'll be right back then take off sprinting to my locker. I'm not sure what my locker combination is. I think it's 27, 3, 33 or something with a 17 or a 29 in it. I manage to get it right, and open the locker. Inside, no uniform. It must be in my other locker... I leave the lean-two locker room and run across a field at night to another small lean-two with lockers inside behind a small counter / cafe / bar where someone is serving food or drink. This time my locker is not even locked. Inside is the lock, with the combo set to 1337. I leave it inside and grab my shirt. It someone takes my lock, I don't really care, I just keep my work shirt in here. I put it back on and return to my post after what seemed like 20 minutes of trying to get the first locker open.

Traversing a rocky landscape with a friend, we descend a slope, scramble past some boulders and find a massive hole. Hundreds of feet wide, it has no apparent bottom. My friend urges me to taka closer look to see how deep it is. Nearly slipping on the steep rocks in the dark, I amble my way closer until I am right near the edge. With a flashlight, I attempt to light it up to get a sense of its size, but this doesn't work. I step even closer, dangerously close to the edge, and risk my life to look forward inside.

Far down below, what seems like a mile, I see Buddha Avalokiteshvara run past, glowing with radiant white light. Wishing to be closer to Buddha, I jump into the massive hole. Landing on the bottom, it is a labyrinth of cave tunnels, filled with demon beasts. Most of them are asleep, but those immediately next to me are awakened by my mere presence. I run before they fully awake, but the caves are thick with demons, hardly even a gap to step my foot. I know Avalokiteshvara is in here somewhere so I call out his name continually as I run, waking up a massive horde of beasts, just at my heels now.

I reach a large chamber and am spontaneously armed with a gun. I shoot many of these demons and free up some space, but countless more keep coming. I shoot to keep them at bay rather than to kill, partly out of compassion, and partly to save ammo and time. Even so, my situation starts to look hopeless as I am losing ground against them, even as I run and shoot like the best gunman who ever lived.

My meditation teacher appears around the corner where I expected to find Avalokiteshvara, and at the same time as daylight quickly dawns. He is operating a flying robot, built by google, using facial recognition software, motion sensors, and laser cannons. This machine easily obliterates all the hostile creatures in an instant. I only notice it now mopping up the few stragglers who run at us from around the corners. Really confused by all this, I notice that I feel more peaceful now that I'm not running for my life. But those demons... Were they living beings or just personifications of something abstract?

I am walking through a forest when I spot a Hippopotamus not too far away from me. I think, "wow, a Hippo!" and then it charges straight towards me. Recalling how dangerous they are, and that they've been known to eat people, I take off running as fast as I can in the opposite direction.

Ducking under trees, and going around larger trees, I hear the hippo smash through all in its way, barreling towards me at a very high speed. I duck under some thicker brush, and go around a few more trees, and spot a group of wooden huts nearby, and cloth tents a few hundred feet ahead, behind some more trees.

I dive into one of the huts, the door of which is so low, that despite my crawling into it, I knock one of the logs down from the top of the door. I place the log on the bottom of the door to hide my view from the hippo, and look around the inside of this hut. It is so low to the ground, that I can't go any higher than the prone position, and there are 6 total entrances / exits evenly spaced around the walls, allowing a clear view inside. But it is dark, so I feel comfortably hidden.

After some time, I feel it is time to check to see if it's safe to exit the hut. I look out one of the back doors, and see a bunch of cameras all around. One of which is pointing right at me, with a red light on a light post under it. I slowly crawl further and further out, looking around the outside of the hut towards where the hippo was, and see its tail swing back and forth. Suddenly, it gets up and starts running right towards me.

I grab another log and block one of the larger entrances, to conceal myself further, and watch as the hippo runs past this hut. I not notice another door that provides a clear view to me, and grab the last log I just used to block the other entrance.

The hippo starts running back before I can set it down, so I hold it up to the door and slowly rotate it to face the hippo, being behind it the whole time. This doesn't trick her, and she charges the hut. I drop the log and scramble out of the door before she plows through the wall and ends up in the center of the hut, confused and trapped briefly.

I hear my mom yell to me, "I have groceries, where are you?" I try to yell back to her, but I have a whole bunch of random crap in my mouth. I pull two retainers, and a mouth guard out of my mouth, but still can't seem to make any words. I see her walk up to me now, and I bang on a log, pointing at the hippo, giving her a look that says, "Get out of here". I finally find words, and yell, "Run!"

The hippo breaks out of the collapsed hut and charges at me again. I run towards home, throwing nearby logs into the hippo's face to try and deter her, but it doesn't seem to phase her at all. As I pass grocery bags my mom has dropped or left for me, I grab large canned goods, and throw those into the hippo's face as well, but this too doesn't stop her.

With no where else to go, I run into the garage with the hippo close behind. I open the door to the basement and run inside. Before I can shut the door, the hippo is inside with me. My dog barks at her, as she looks around the room briefly before continuing her charge at me.

I run up the stairs, yelling to my mom, "Hippos can't go up stairs, we should be safe here." But no sooner did I get those words out of my mouth than I see the hippo galloping up the stairs behind me. I attempt to close the basement door on her, but it is very flimsy, and has a window that she is staring at me through. She starts pushing the door, and door frame out of position, so I open it to avoid unnecessary damage to the house, and run through the living room and out the door to the back porch.

The hippo still right behind me, I loop back into the garage, running past a moose who is just standing there, watching all this. Hippo still at my heels, I run into the basement and up the stairs to the living room as fast as I can. I tell my mom to watch out, as I stand in the doorway to the back porch with the door open, and watch the basement door.

Moments later, I see the hippo's head round the corner. Seeing me, she charges again. I stand still until a moment before impact, and jump, pushing myself off of the hippo's head, jumping clear over her, as her momentum carries her outside the house and down the porch. I quickly close the door behind her as thoughts race through my mind such as, 'I hope she doesn't try to charge back in through this door' and 'How am I going to get that moose out of our basement?'

I look at my mom and tell her, "I feel like Steve Erwin."