Thena

I'm at work when I hear a call for back-up cashiers. I head up front to see where I can help, but I'm confused by what I see. There's only one line, even if it looks a little long, and there's cashiers milling around with nothing to do. I question whether they really need any back-up and I decide I might as well hop on the first open register. There's a woman with several kids who had dumped a pile of things directly on the scanner. When I ask if she needs help, she says that she's using the self check-out and doesn't need a cashier. But we don't have self check-out. I realize she's a little confused, so I ring up her items. She tries to pay by check, but she signs the top of the check instead of the bottom. Also, she's signed with two names, and one of them is Sandor Clegane? Something doesn't feel right about this. I ask her for ID, and she tells me that she doesn't have one but it's her husband's check, so we'll have to wait for him. And we wait. And wait… Her husband finally makes his way over at a snail's pace. He takes a look at the total on the screen, but refuses to hand over any sort of ID. Instead, he claims they haven't spent enough money! He then wants me to tell him all the sales this week so he can figure out what else to buy.

By now, I'm getting really angry at how this family is wasting my time. I consider voiding the transaction and walking away, but I'm really not sure I can get away with that. I try to remember what this week's promotions are, but I'm stumped. It must be the first day of the week, and I probably didn't get a chance to check the weekly ads. But we have sales circulars for reference at every register. I grab the one at my register, except instead of a circular, it's a binder covered with flowers. I see a wire rack with more circulars, so I run to grab one. But when I take a closer look, I realize that they're just magazines. At this point, I see S, the security guy, walk past me in his uniform. I call out to him since I haven't seen him for a while. He stops, but he seems to shrink about a foot in height. He turns around and I see it's actually T, another coworker from a completely different area (who is also about a foot shorter than S). I ask him why he's wearing the uniform, and he explains that he's just helping out while S is on vacation.

I still need to find that damned sales circular. I decide to try grabbing one from another register, but there's a little obstacle in my way: a pond. Yes, there's a pond in the store, apparently. It's about five feet in diameter and it's blocking my path to the closest register. Oddly enough, it looks just like the retention pond outside my old junior high school. I skirt around the pond's edge, but somehow I end up walking through the water. It's not very deep, barely coming up to my shins, but I can feel my feet sinking into the mud. There's a girl I don't recognize working on the register next to the pond. I ask her for a sales circular, and she smiles as she hands over her copy. But this isn't what I expected. For one thing, it's handwritten, and it's dated May 6th. None of this makes sense… because this is a dream. There's a moment where I'm full of indecision, not sure what I should do: tell the irritating customers to get lost or abandon this dream scene entirely by spinning.

Almost immediately, the dream starts to fade. I focus on the sensation of sinking into the mud and try to ignore my real body. It's a bit difficult, but eventually I'm back at my register with this crazy family still not finished checking out until I tell them what's on sale. I hit the void key, toss the void slip at them, and walk away. I've had enough of them.

I start walking the perimeter of the store to give myself enough time for the dream to stabilize. I'm joined by S as I walk. At one point, we come across a large crowd that's blocking our way. S barges ahead, but he transforms into yet another coworker. I watch his back as his uniform fades away and turns into a different shirt. The crowd grows thicker and keeps me from moving forward. I don't know how to get through this obstacle at first, then I have an idea. I shout, "HEY! PREGNANT LADY COMING THROUGH!" The crowd immediately parts. I look down and see that I am very, very pregnant.

The store fades away and I find myself in a hospital birthing suite, lying on a bed, preparing to give birth. There's no pain. In fact, there's no pressure or any other sensation that I would have expected. Really, I just feel happy that I'm finally about to do this. The baby comes out -- except it's not a baby I see, but a six-foot-tall man wearing swim trunks. He's very tan and has extremely light blond hair that looks like it's been bleached by the sun. He looks at me and says, "Bro, I've gotta catch some waves. See you later!" before taking off. I'm confused why he would call me "bro."

Next to me, someone says, "You know, I had hair that light when I was a kid." I look over and realize the man standing next to me is Benedict Cumberbatch, and I remember him saying something similar in an interview last year. He stands up to leave, and I see that he's wearing a tuxedo and carrying a top hat. I ask him to stay. Actually, I start pleading with him to stay, but he says he has an event to go to. Then I wake up.