Things to Run Away From Really Fast

★★★☆☆

SOLO SENTENCE ESPRESSO

It takes fifteen minutes of standing on the train tracks and yelling before the chupacabra shows up and dies and is recorded onto a tape so that its soul is sufficiently trapped for eternity (or until the sequel); I'm late for work and Dean's hit by a train, but we get better.

Chupacabra. Chupacabras? Scare Factor: 3.

07/24/10

Something about angels that die at the same time as their human mates... I should really stop reading bad fanfiction.

I'm running away from zombies. I want to take to the water, so I steal my uncle's boat and go down the creek.

I need supplies. I find another boat, but apparently it's owned by the still-surviving Mafia. I steal the boat.

Now I'm being chased by thugs sent by the Mafia, as well as zombies. I run into a building, blasting holes through walls and ceilings, trying to make a route to the roof. I realize that I'm dreaming. I try to black out and go to the first location I think of (the apartment in Ixburg). I stop, everything around me faded to grey, and wonder why the hell I'd want to go to Ixburg. I fade back into the dream and keep running.

I make it to the roof. My enemies are right behind me. I jump down onto a white truck, and make a run for it, laughing.

Later. I'm on the road in a camper-trailer. I'm making dinner and doing dishes. Oma wonders if there's not enough protein in the pasta I made.

We're going to see a movie in Moose Jaw (real place, I do not kid). We park the camper and I step out with my cousins. I look at the showtimes, but Despicable Me isn't playing in that theatre anymore. Apparently this is the first day it's not showing. I'm very sad.

The Mafia. Scare Factor: 3.

Notes: I'm writing up an especially epic dream from two days ago, which seems to directly follow up Seven Minutes in Heaven. Basically, Castiel (from Supernatural) gets captured by someone, and I take the opportunity to thoroughly mindfuck Team Free Will.

07/22/10

I'm travelling all over the continent. I think I'm driving through the US with some family members. We're passing a city on the freeway when I realize that I've been here before. We pull onto an exit and stop for lunch.

I explain to Oma what the buildings around us are, and mention about three restaurants I know by name that I've been to. We go inside one of them. I see a picture of myself on an indoor climbing wall.

I'm in a small town where my grandma used to live. The population is probably under five hundred. I'm moving in to one of the houses there, because I'm good friends with a few of the neighbours, all of whom are under thirty.

Now I'm getting ready to go back to school in Halifax. I'm planning to fly out the next day. I hear a knock at the door. I answer it, and a man hands me a pile of books, that I apparently ordered. I bought one of them, but the other two are from the Chinook (Saskatchewan) library system. I'm disappointed that I won't be able to read them in time.

The dream shifts and I'm in the Ixburg library to return the books.

I'm part of a group now. One of us might be Buffy Summers. A thin man with short dark hair and dark clothing is showing us an Egyptian hieroglyph, holding up a book that it's illustrated in. He explains that the hieroglyph is the symbol of a demon that's plaguing the town, and we have to stop it.

"If you ever encounter this symbol, run away really fast."

Hey, I think dimly, That's the name of my dream journal.

Library Fines. Scare Factor: 2.

Two characters are around my old apartment in Ixburg. They look like Johnny Depp and Robert Downey Jr.. I play with story lines and wonder what's about to happen. Then I'm running over rooftops and away from Sweeney Todd.

I'm on the roof and he's on the ground. I double back quickly, jumping down and landing a flying kick to his head. Then I turn around and keep running.

I'm in a playground, on top of one of the structures. There's a man with me. He has the head of an eagle, and wings. He tells me that something is out of alignment within me, that my back hurts because of it. I see tattoos dancing across skin as he presses into the pressure points on my back. I see his wings spread out above, and ask if I can touch them. He tells me not to.

I decide I liked the old tower better, even if it was less accessible. I crawl in through the window and realize that someone is lying on the floor. I ask him if he has a pulse. He says that he doesn't.

I fall into an ocean of black water. I swim to the surface, take a breath. I'm treading water for only a moment before I'm pulled under again. Everything is fuzzy, but I keep breathing, and I realize that I'm dreaming. I swim to the bottom, covered in dark grey silt, and maybe a shipwreck or two. I concentrate on dissolving the dream or opening a portal or maybe both

I'm balanced precariously on the dark surface, which is riddled with craters. Briefly, I believe that I've made it to the moon, but I see the crescent moon on the horizon. I think that I'm on an asteroid between the Earth and the moon. I walk over the crest of the asteroid (10m in diametre), and look out at the moon. I'm perched at the top of a crater. I'm pressed against the ceiling, and everything is going dark.

I'm in Ixburg. My parent's house is next to my oma's house as part of a duplex. The door is unlocked. I talk to my oma and am invited in. We make room for the group of Katimavik kids that are in town.

Outside fighting against some kind of non-human enemy. My character isn't supposed to have superpowers, but I do anyway. I see myself flying from a third person POV.

Demon Barbers, Malfunctioning Portals. Scare Factor: 3.

Briefly, I'm Shawn Spencer from Psych. I check my backpack for water. I have a little over two bottles left. It's around 4PM. I decide to do the 3KM hike instead of the 5KM hike; I'll probably be back by 6PM and I'll get to the first peak of the Chief. The route is a combination of my running route here and the real hike in Squamish. I don't have a map with me, but I know the trail well enough.

Similar location, female form. I'm talking to either my Oma or my Aunt Audrey. They keep switching. I'm watching the fire. There's something flammable (fireworks, ammunition?) in one of the wooden containers being licked at by the flames.

I'm in a restaurant of a hotel with my mom and great grandma. Our tables are switched. I have a copy of a menu in my hand, and two spoons because I was holding one from the other table.

I'm (working) in an office building. I keep speaking to bosses higher-up. I think one of them looks familiar (might be Jameson from Spider-man movies).

I'm an American sniper in America and I'm being shot at. I'm with several other snipers at the top of a very tall tower surrounded by water surrounded by a city which might be San Francisco. I'm standing up, but I'm quickly pulled down by another man when I become aware of being in someone else's sights. A missile heads toward us on a crazy, spiralling course. It explodes over our heads.

Patrick and Spongebob's houses are split in half and combined with Squidward in the middle, freaking out. Flashback to Patrick and Squidward trying to play a practical joke on Spongebob. A stone statuette of a face embedded in rock.

Restaurants With Poor Customer Service. Also: Missiles. Scare Factor: 2.

February, 2010

It's been a long night. I'm standing in a creepy, unfinished basement and a group of college student survivalists have been spouting horror movie cliches at every opportunity.

"You can't touch the jelly sandwich," the de-facto leader explains. "It keeps all the other food good. Do you understand?"

"Perfectly," I say cheerily. I'm stealing from Spongebob Squarepants' logic. "Makes sense."

"No," he says, with a long-suffering sigh, "It really, really doesn't." He wanders away, morosely, muttering about crazy people. I briefly consider being a character that this guy is dreaming.

I go looking for food. I sit in the kitchen with my mom, even if she is upset about the potted plant sitting in the corner that looks like a tiger lily and is apparently called a "papyrus". At this point, I begin to tell her about the metaphors and symbolism in our current environment.

"The jellybean sandwich in the storage room is, apparently, there to keep all the other food from going bad, and the 'papyrus' is there because... you have really bad taste in fonts in real life."

"In real life?"

"Well, obviously this is a dream."

"You think so?"

"If it's not, tell me where these objects," I gesture at the flower, "Are located in your real house. Everything keeps shifting here."

The woman sitting across the table from me looks down, fighting to keep a grin off her face. She starts to laugh, and then to cackle madly. Shift. I'm standing near the door and she faces me from a few feet away. Her empty eye sockets are stuffed with bandages.

"Let me guess," I say, "You're my Other Mother."

She doesn't reply, but steps toward me. I wind back my left hand for a punch, but I'm moving so slowly.

The woman is moving in real time, and she takes another step, relaxed and confident. The punch doesn't connect. As she reaches for my throat, I desperately dig my fingers into her eye-sockets. There are teeth.

Everything is going black, facial features are twisting, and the only thing I can distinguish anymore is pain.

Shift.

I'm sitting on a deck, petting a stray cat that's wandered into the yard. Can I wake up now?

Shift.

"That rice is leftover from last night. And it's in front," Oma says helpfully, as I rummage through her fridge. I blink.

"Really?" I say, holding the plastic container. "You want me to eat this? Specifically?" I poke at the overabundance of soy sauce with a spoon. "I'm still dreaming, aren't I?"