Vilex

I believed myself to be at a Harry Potter amusement park, and I was going to a ride that had something to do with dragons.

A lot of people were just sitting around on a plaza, but a few were sitting by a screen repeatedly tapping a single large button. I joined in the tapping, and one could see the number of taps you had placed, as well as the number of taps from others. People were, of course, treating this like a competition, and we kept trying to outdo each other.

Finally we reached some sort of maximum taps, and the show began.

An airplane rolled out onto the "stage", which was simply an extension of the plaza surrounded by walls. It looked like a small Learjet, and it turned to face the wall. Then it simply took off, straight up into the air after a short taxi!

I was astonished to see the wings of the aircraft flexing in impossible ways, as it looped, dived, and rolled about the the audience. I considered that perhaps it was a hologram, but then I came up with a different explanation. It was a balloon!

Yes it was propelled by its own escaping air, and all that tapping was equivalent to a single "pump" to fill the balloon up initially. And indeed I saw the plane was becoming flatter and flatter, until finally it floated down back to where it came from.

This was a very cool trick, and I wondered how they could get such fine control out of it.

Back to tapping, now there were additional tapping booths (in a swimming pool that was suddenly there). These were for a couple auxiliary balloons, and I helped fill one up.

This time, the show began with a kid being lifted by one of the auxiliary balloons and being deposited right outside a nearby fence. How did they do this on? Obviously the kid had to be in on it.

I couldn't understand what the point of the next balloon was, a kid dropped a water bottle or something after seeing it.

Then the main balloon came out, this time it was a giant butterfly, with something about "science" written on it in that Harry Potter font. I didn't really get this, didn't they use magic, not science? But maybe Hermione wanted wizards to be open to science as well.

Well it didn't matter, because the way it fluttered and flipped was even more beautiful than the aircraft. And at the end, it landed upon a member of the audience, made a minor error, and then corrected itself, like a living thing.

The balloon show was over, but there was one final part. Some poll went up, with the announcer asking if we wanted to do a couple options I don't recall, or "60:41". There was a unanimous cry for "60:41" and the announcer seemed almost irritated that nobody ever chose anything else. I was pumped, whatever this was, it was gonna be awesome.

A bunch of tiny pink boats started rolling out, one by one, in a channel carved into the plaza. They were only about 18 inches long. People were being called by name to take a boat (a guy in a Shrek costume obviously took priority), and we rode the tiny boats into the swimming pool. For some reason this was the most fun thing in the world.

People kept funneling into the pool, until the boats were pressed up so tightly it was impossible to move. Seemed dangerous. But I didn't care. 60:41 was amazing!

I was in an IMAX theater. The seat I was sitting in was facing backwards. Weird design choice.

There was a kid next to me I understood to be the child of a family friend. Some other kid had a crush on her, and she loudly rejected him on a microphone that could be heard in the whole theater. Poor fellow, that was gonna be hard to live down.

A trailer came up for some new Pixar film and it looked weird as hell. There was this "invisible woman" but the face looked like floating monster lips and eyes, and she was wearing a colorful faux fur coat.

I was inside the trailer now, walking around the house from the shot. It was stuck in a tornado, à la The Wizard of Oz and I could look out the window and see the city below. The city was slightly pixelated, but it was still a pretty good effect. After all, when you watch the movie, you'd never be looking this closely at it.

The rapid spinning of the home made it hard to walk and I fell over.

Back in the IMAX theater. The chairs were facing the right way now. I guess they had done some fast renovations while I was in the trailer!

The movie started, and I could hear my mom, dad, and aunt remarking on the incredible fidelity of the picture. After 30 seconds of them I told them to be quiet since we were in a theater, and of course was greeted with "no you be quiet."

The movie started with a guy claiming it took 168 bullets to kill a bird. Then I was holding a gun, being told by a man to shoot at the peanut shells that were lying all over the table. I knew this was a trick, since the birds were known to spawn from shot peanut shells.

I then was instructed to shoot one of the birds (which was caged), but I found the trigger very difficult to pull. I was getting nervous since I knew the whole theater was waiting for me to shoot so that the movie could continue. Finally I managed to do it, and I was given a smaller gun. It had a sliding attachment I was told I could pull back for additional power. A grizzled veteran came in and told me that if I saw a lit cigarette, I should immediately put it into a nearby soda fountain or the entire place could burn down. These were the mechanics of the game, and I agreed this all make sense.

I was now in an antique shop and was instructed to shoot old toasters, clocks, and so on. If they died when they were shot they were clearly enemies. I shot an antique clock. We then descended down a long flight of stairs, passing many Spiderman and monsters. These were not enemies, we were after birds and toasters.

At the bottom were many more evil electronic devices (which were just sitting there doing nothing) so I shot them all. The platoon leader was impressed.

We came back up to the surface, onto a city plaza with interesting modern sculptures. I was wondering how this game even worked, given that the graphics were far too good to render in real time. I concluded that this was still a prerendered video, and that the gun [and enemies] were the only things being real-time rendered.

We tried to go somewhere else but a "closed" sign came up. Ended up back in the original shop, ready to descend the staircase again.

I saw a kid who I believed was around 19 years old standing with his back to the wall, in an adjacent room. I somehow had access to biographical information about him. The biography said he had a criminal past, some really nasty business too, possibly up to murder. But the circumstances were morally gray or something.

We both stared at each other for a bit. And then I said something stupid, about him seeming awake or something. I was embarrassed by how nonsensical what I said was and was ready to leave, but for some reason decided to go into the room too.

A lot of other men were in the room, all with their backs to the wall and staring straight forward. Well, when in Rome...

I stared forward and my brain started going blank. I felt tingles through my body, and my vision became distorted. All the other men in the room disappeared. I knew they were all still there, but I was now meditating, and I couldn't see them in my altered state of mind.

It was time to go back to class (I was in grade school again).

I walked back to the classroom but I was still unable to see. Everything was vague, and yet I was able to navigate just fine, avoiding everybody. It was as though I was blind, but prescient.

In class the teacher gave back a graphics design assignment I had done. 10/10 points, nice. I was still feeling off so I decided to go to the nurse.

I passed an emergency room, but I figured my condition wasn't that bad. Went around the Space Shuttle launch facility. Finally got to the school nurse. Waited in the wrong place for a bit before catching my error and finding the line.

My cheek was feeling very numb, but I wasn't worried. The girl in front of me asked for more gatorade and then said "you're welcome" when she got it. Seemed backwards to me.

I was in a large arcade, many cool games, all that jazz.

But I also had a ticket for Bingo, and it was time to play. Everybody gathered in a room and... well, we played Bingo. Truly this dream was boring. My board kept changing and it was irritating me. People were stacking their chips on top of each other into tall towers, including on my board. I inquired if there was some reason for this, but apparently they just thought it looked cool.

OK.

Time passed, now we were paying Jeopardy Bingo. On my board were the answers to questions: "What is [Insert Jeopardy Solution]?" and an older woman would call out the "answers." I was not having fun, but if you won you got money so I stuck to it.

Some woman called out "Bingo!" and went to the old lady in charge of the Jeopardy questions. The lady said, "sorry two is not a prime number", implying the Jeopardy solution was wrong. The winner insisted that two was, indeed, a prime number. And the lady kept refusing. Finally she looked it up on Google and conceded two was a prime number.

My friend then won $100k on the next round. I looked around the room and did a quick count... maybe 40 people here? $40 entry fee? And a $100k prize? The fuck, Bingo was this lucrative?

Finally Bingo was over for the week, and I went to play a claw machine. I caught two stuffed animals. When I retrieved them, they were like stuffed cylinders with a print of the animal on the side. I knew these were considered "ironic" stuffed animals, and they were purposefully dumb and sold in a "you'd have to be a complete moron to buy these" sort of way.

I was outside on a gorgeous day. I understood that I was visiting my friend's home in Texas.

He had a few acres of land, with some small gardens dotted throughout. I took a particular interest in one plant, which I understood to be rice. Every plant grew a single long stalk, with a matrix of fluffy dots at the end. And now that I looked around, the fluff was everywhere; the ground was covered by at least a couple inches in places.

I looked up and really took in the scene. It was stunning. I was situated midway on a hill, green and lush. I thought about moving there.

Looking up at the sky now I saw what looked like an old minivan, with silly stubby wings. It was dangerously low to the ground, and seemed to be poorly controlled. Yet, somehow, it managed to snake between two tall trees and landed on a runway that I knew was behind my friend's home. I hurried over to see this strange craft.

Soon enough I was in my friend's house, and I met the elderly pilot. I asked him if he had truly snaked between those trees, or if I had simply imagined it, and he confirmed that he had. I was very impressed.

At this point I started feeling some pain in my legs, and I realize I had become quite sunburnt. I thought this odd, as I hadn't been outside very long. I went to go search for sunscreen, and noticed it was becoming unbearably muggy and hot.

This was more like how I remembered my time in Texas. Perhaps I wouldn't be moving there after all.

I had a fabric doll, with skinny arms and spindly legs.
I think her name was Helen.

I was walking at night, holding Helen. I was sleepwalking. Yes I must have been sleepwalking. Helen wanted me to walk into my parent's room. Why not do what Helen wanted?

Flash forward, I was in a bar. I didn't know how I got there. Did Helen want me to drink? Was I an alcoholic?

Flash forward, I was talking to a friend. I asked him how old I was. It felt like an awful lot of time was passing. I didn't know what to make of these time skips. Was I sleepwalking through them? When I was sleepwalking, was I doing what Helen wanted?

Did Helen want anything? Was Helen just a doll? Had I finally lost it completely?

Flash forward, I had decided to burn Helen.
I tossed Helen into the fire but she refused to burn.
I tore Helen apart.

It was shaped like a mini Avro Vulcan.
Painted a bold and bright red.
It floated across the sky, slow but unimaginably maneuverable.
I knew this was one of the finest aircraft ever built.
It dove in and out of the mountain canyons nearby, then did a long slow pass.
A child waved.
I think the pilot waved back.

I was flying an aircraft now, and we were in battle. But I didn't feel like anything was at stake. I mowed down a line of infantry and was hailed as a hero, but I knew it didn't matter because nobody really died and none of this was really real.

I was walking along a narrow, aging road in an overgrown field. It was cloudy, humid, and still. I understood that the previous day a storm had rolled through, and knocked down many powerlines. I watched my step, as now I saw them collapsed around me. Ahead of me, another post fell.

Despite the danger it was rather beautiful.

And then it became quiet. I heard nothing. No wind. No cars. Nothing.
Nothing but my tinnitus.
I wondered what true silence was like, without such ringing.
If there ever was true silence, it was right here.

An owl swooped by and the sounds of the world returned.

I received a phone call. An old coworker wanted an SD card I took from him back. I instantly remembered this fictitious event and felt ashamed I hadn't returned it.

I found the SD card. It was 109Gb. Weird size. I checked inside a Nintendo Switch in case it was the wrong card. The Switch had an 8Gb card. Logically I would have borrowed the bigger one right? Figured that was the one.

I was in a theater, waiting for the show to start. I didn't really like my seat but so many more seats were open. So I jumped seats. But when I looked up, this seat was somehow even worse than before. Weird.

I jumped seats again. Once again, the results were not as expected, now I had a metal bar blocking my view.

I got up and moved very close to the front. And now the movie started. It was in 3D, but I wasn't wearing any glasses. I must have been so close to the screen that it just looked real, said my dream brain.

Terrible luck, to be mauled by a jaguar.

But strikingly good luck to have access to a jaguar surgeon! She gently adjusted the angle of my head, remarking on my "giraffe like" features. I knew that all animal injury surgeon specialists were like this, seeing animals in every person they operated on. She was the real deal. I was in good hands.

She walked off for a bit, and out came the jaguar. And wouldn't you know it, she got mauled too. Oh she didn't look so bad, but there was no more jaguar surgeon for me, she needed to find one of her own now.

I didn't remember being mauled by a jaguar, come to think of it. How did that even happen? Why was this jaguar just roaming about the zoo? Did it jump the moat? Aren't jaguars in cages?

I guess it didn't matter, because here I was, bleeding to death. It was an amusing fate honestly. I almost laughed.

Then, a crazy idea.

What if instead of a jaguar surgeon I got a regular surgeon? What was so jaguar specific about this injury anyway!?!

I felt like a genius! I called out for help. I begged some folks nearby to call an ambulance! But they insisted that the jaguar surgeon was out of commission. How was I to be helped without her? I tried to reason with them, but they couldn't understand. This was pointless.

I was inching forward on my stomach now. There was no pain, but I was getting very weak. I dragged myself away, and happened to find my father sitting there on a bench. Surely, my old man would react quickly to save his son!

I begged him, call a surgeon, any surgeon (covered by my insurance, please)! He looked confused. Surely this was a job for the jaguar surgeon?

Truly, this was not a world worth living in. I resigned myself to my death.