Death's Other Kingdom

07.15.2014

We're Apparently NOT Going to Church (Non-lucid)

NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID

I'm sitting on the front lawn of someone's house with my dad and a bunch of his friends. They're all drinking and acting stupid. It reminds me of King of the Hill, so to pass the time I assign each of the characters to one of these men based on personality.

Suddenly, an old woman walks up to the very front of the yard near the road. She pulls down her pants and begins to pee. "Oh, no," I exclaim, turning away and shielding my eyes.

"OH NO!" the men echo. They jump up and run away.

Shaking my head, I stand up and walk in the general direction they scurried off to. On the way, I come across my aunt. The tone of the dream completely changes here. Despite the fact that my aunt seems estatic about something, there is an unsettling atmosphere that I can't quite shake. "I just saw your father!" she tells me.

I suddenly remember that my dad is dead. How was I just talking to him? I have vague thoughts about it being a dream, but for some reason I don't seriously question it. My aunt tells me that she believes God has sent him here so that we can see him again. Since I don't believe in God, or at least not the one she believes in, I'm a bit more skeptical. "How do you know it's really him?" I ask. "What if it's the Devil?" I don't believe in the Devil either, but I do believe in dark spirits and I want my aunt to be cautious.

"Pfft! Why would he be the Devil?"

"I don't know. You said yourself that the Devil likes to try to hurt people."

We walk over to where my dad is standing and begin to talk to him. "So," I begin, "What's it really like out in the great unknown?"

He grins. "Oh, it's a real tea-bake," he says with a laugh that makes me think he's referring to something inappropriate to annoy me.

I stare at him blankly. "I have no idea what that is."

He laughs louder. "It's a lesbian joke!"

I have to refrain from face-palming. Is now really the time for this kind of game? "No, for real! What's it like?"

"Okay, okay. I'll tell you." He pauses and tries to look serious. "The Night Team and the Day Team run around shooting each other with Nerf guns!" He laughs at his own joke as I groan in frustration.

"Why can't you just give me a straight answer!" All of this seems exactly like something he would do, but I'm still not 100% convinced that this is really my dad.

We've been walking as we spoke. There are other people walking with us now, people I don't recognize. I assume they are my dad's friends. They're all crying at the sight of him. I haven't been paying attention to where we're going, but now I see we're coming upon a small white church with a long line of people outside the open door. I think I ask where we're going.

My dad says, in a weird run-on sentence that confuses me, "Guess where we're not going to the chur-uurrch!" The last three words he says in a somewhat creepy sing-song voice.

Bewildered, I repeat, "Guess where we're not going---?"

He interrupts, again in his sing-song voice, "to the chur--uurrch!"

The unsettled feeling I've had since coming across my aunt grows even stronger. I can tell that something big is about to happen.

But suddenly my alarm goes off and it's time to wake up.