Schmaven's Dream Journal of Randomness

I am a floating awareness, following a young buy as he runs from a man and woman. They are chasing him through the exterior stairways on a large ship. As he runs from them, he turns a corner and gets the attention of an officer on the ship who hides him underneath his coat. Quite well hidden actually. His pursuers catch up to the officer, who directs them on their way up the stairs.

I float up to the top, and see through the man's eyes as he looks through thermal imaging goggles at the officer, and sees the boy underneath the coat. They yell out, and begin to run down to get him. The officer quickly puts the boy down and tells him to run.

Now I am in physical form again and there has been a large conflict started between an apparent good force against an apparent evil force. They are using telekinetic weapons, superhuman strength, and guns to kill one another. I don't feel nearly powerful enough to do anything but die in this fight, so I run for my life as I hear some people approaching, and bullets ricochet off a nearby wall.

The ship is now an old Victorian house as I sprint down the hallways and down to the main entrance. Seeing an older woman standing there, I tell her it's not safe - that there are people chasing me and they will probably ask her questions under duress if they find her. I turn to run out the front door, but see many thousands of police officers with guns out front, all standing in a massive array facing the door.

I open the door, and drop my sweater I'm holding onto the ground and immediately put my hands up. They seem uninterested in me, as if they know I'm not a threat to anyone. So I pick up my sweater and walk through their formation to the back, where I look for a spot to sit down and get my bearings. There is not much room with so many police, but I manage to find a small spot up against the fence behind a hill.

As I sit down, my sweater turns into a giant inflatable boat / mattress with 3x 20 ft long air chambers. Other people lean up against it and rummage through my supplies. The closest one to me hold up several boxes of cereal and asks me where my things are. I only have a single box of life cereal and I show it to him.

Behind us is a large hill, and we watch as large Mac trucks drive up and down it, going off jumps, doing flips and 360s. A jeep is with them, and they crash into each other, sending the jeep flying through the air, doing stunts, and landing back on its wheels - neither of the vehicles are damaged at all. I think it's really strange how that can be, and am suddenly driving the jeep!

I am low on gas, so I pull up next to the Mac truck and get out. I have a few spare gas tanks, and think that other guy is probably low on gas too, his bigger truck surely uses more gas than my jeep does. So I begin fueling his truck instead of mine. Then I consider that it might take diesel instead of gas, so I stop. Walking back to my jeep, it is now parked further away, at a gas station pump. Some friends walk with me through the crowd of tall gas station attendants - all dancing and looking very intimidating, but acting harmless. There are 4 of us, so I get into the back of the jeep.

The back of the jeep transforms completely and I am floating above a field. My friend Rob has created a type of emblem for himself out of 4 cubes, and I am told to create my own emblem. It is described to me how the system works, and how by changing the adjacent cubes, others change to match it on the edges. It already makes sense to me, but through their explanations of how to use the system, and what to watch out for, I am confused and end up making a lame little unicorn pony.

Everyone watching me do this starts laughing. No one is even sure how I made a unicorn pony, but that aside, it's the lamest thing they've ever heard of. A little frustrated, I poke at it, making random finger gestures, and manage to add armor to it, and laser cannons, rocket launchers, and a disposable tail like a lizard. I continue to poke at it, and the armor gets upgraded each time until it is quite a badass unicorn pony. A pony even Satan himself would think twice before messing with him. That silenced the critics!

The pony stands there, covered in thick spiky armor - charred black, and with no gaps between it. Most parts of the armor are actually on fire, and give the pony a frightening aura of flames and smoke. Protruding from each of the shoulders are some sort of laser cannon that looks like its from 3000 years in the future. The unicorn horn has been modified into a serrated spike of death, coated in metal and adorned with extra spikes. On its back is some sort of rocket launcher or mortar with a laser guidance system.

The slapping part is in red.

Riding my bicycle to work at night, I get too close to a police trap and trigger a bunch of flashing lights and end up with a police SUV tailing me on my bicycle. I make sure I do everything according to the rules of bike traffic, and glance at my cell phone to check the time as I wait for the crosswalk signal to flash "Walk". All this hassle works, and the police leave me alone. Phew.

Walking into work, it's my first day on the job, but I know where my cube is. Only it's down a long hallway, with lots of wooden desks and chairs in the way. Climbing over them, crawling under others, I greet a few new co-workers as I make my way past. One of them tells me about Bob who always mistakes people for other things as they climb over the desks.

Finally arriving at my desk in a little cubicle, I try to clock in on the computer really quickly, I'm already 18 minutes past 3. Even though I don't yet have a work schedule, I feel like I should have been there earlier. I enter my login ID, and type the password too quickly, making a mistake. As I attempt to correct it, the manager's secretary approaches me and places her hand on my keyboard telling me, "We're firing you".
"It's my first day, why are you firing me?"
"You'll have to ask the owner." She says matter of factly before she takes a step back from my desk. I just quit a stable job because my friend works here and really enjoys it. I start to think I quit too soon, and think about how to get reinstated at my old job.

She then motions for me to follow her as she is escorting me off the premises. "I would like to speak with the owner" I tell her as we near the main office area. She opens the door to a large office with "Harry" written on the door. Harry looks really pissed off: red faced, sort of sweating, jittery with rage. "Why are you firing me?" I ask sincerely looking for any reason.
"Because you were screwing around on your phone!"
"But I didn't even use my phone!"
"Well, I tried to call you before you got to work and you didn't answer"
I think back to my trip to work, and remember when I checked the time, I had no missed calls. And also, when I got to my desk, there were still no missed calls. Humoring his reason, even though it is a lie, I tell him that, "Sometimes the traffic is loud when I'm riding my bike next to the road. How can I get fired for that?"

He walks right up to me and slaps me hard across my face. I am a bit surprised, and look back at him with wide eyes. He slaps me again! "How is this making me want to keep my job?" I ask him, only to get another slap. I just take it like a champion boxer because I would like to keep this job, and the odds of doing so would be really low if I retaliated. I stare at him, waiting for an answer, only to get punched square in the nose, then again in the forehead. Tired of being a human punching bag after taking another punch to the jaw, I tell him, "Fine, I'm leaving" and walk out of his office.

While attaching my bike bags, and pant straps to get ready to bike home, I overhear the secretary tell the owner that they can't just fire me like that. I would first have to temporarily suspended, then allowed a second chance. Encouraged, I turn back to the front desk and see both the secretary and Harry behind safety glass like at a ticket booth. Harry is ignoring me, and the secretary asks me, "What do you want?"
"I'd like to speak with Harry" I tell her. She gestures for me to walk over to his side of the desk. 'This is the first time in my life I've appreciated safety glass' I think as I walk up to Harry.

Contemplating how to get him to work with me rather than against me I tell him, "So that we're on the same page here, I'm just suspended temporarily right? Not fired?" He nods in agreement, then tells me I still have a job. I realize he must be afraid I'll sue him and the company for firing me, or at least for the beating he just gave me. I don't plan on it, I just want to have a job so I can buy food.

Feeling like I've now got an Ace up my sleeve, and immunity from being fired, I ride my bike back home.

Arriving home, my house is in a large parking lot, with a highway overpass going above it, just next to the front door. Someone in the parking lot asks me how I am able to get any sleep, and what it's like living so close to the road. "I don't hear it at all when I'm inside" I tell them as I sort through my key chain looking for my house key to go inside.