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I lived at the house I used to live in on the top of South Hill. I traveled down the hill but I can't remember how; by foot, car, truck, I don't know. I reached about halfway when it was time for me to get to work. I worked in a restaurant. Xavier from my Digital college class was there and he was a cook, but not a very good one. I came onto the scene and started to take control. I was working on something when I noticed a man walking towards me. He looked important so I made sure I was doing my job right. Pete Bendovich was with him and the two men wore suits with ties. I complimented Pete on how nice he looked and he gave me that familiar Bendovich smirk in return. He had his hair cut in such a way that he looked exactly like Benny Hill. We needed some cookies so Xavier put some dough on a burner on high in a pot. I turned the burner down because it started boiling the dough. I looked desperately for some chocolate milk to add to it but there was none so I added water. Something I was cooking, I think it was the cookies, were close to done so I bit into a couple only to discover that they were raw and had the consistency of raw meat and took on the shape of chicken gizzards.
1
I was going to jam on the guitar with Bob, and he mentioned how we should get together and do that. We were in the house I had just bought, and Lisa and I were rearranging our computer room. We finally came up with a way to situate the room after moving the computer and furniture around in various ways. I remember the computer terminal sitting propped up so the screen leaned a bit forward. Bob was being his usual silly self. He kept sticking his toes in my face and wanted to put them in my mouth but I told him to cut it out.
2
I went to the store, a 7-11 maybe, and picked out a six-pack of Mickey's Big Mouth. I had a few beers earlier and I guess I wanted more, even though it was early in the morning and I needed to go to work. While in the store I grabbed the six-pack and also two cans of 7-up. When I went to stand in line there were two good-looking girls that I had to stand behind. I thought they would think I was strange for buying beer so early in the morning but it didn't bother me and I acted like I was too cool to care.
1
I was with Mary Stare at the house I used to live in at on the top of South Hill. I'm not quite sure what we were doing there, but I think it was work-related. We were trying to find a way in the house and she was leading the way when she went around to the back of the house. That's when I said, "Isn't Meridian Avenue right there?" and I pointed towards the street of Meridian. She said, "Oh Yeah" and we went to look for another way in. Eventually I think we made it in, but all I can recall is being in the garage. Then we were outside because we heard my mom upstairs and we didn't want to get caught in the house. As some Iron Maiden song played throughout the house, we snuck out and carefully made our way down the driveway and never did get caught.
2
I was at work and Annie Frost worked there. I was working on something on a computer and I put in the word "FUCK" where a name of a specification should have been. Annie’s smile seemed different; her teeth were more straight than what I remember them to be. Several other girls were around watching me also. Later, I was driving Annie’s car, and suddenly Annie was also Rebecca Strong at the same time, for it was Rebecca's car we were in. I commented on how the car brought back a lot of memories. We were in a house and I was driving around and around in circles, down into a basement or something like that. I was then walking along that passage when Charles jumped out and scared the shit out of me so I waited for him and as I heard him approaching, I wanted to jump out and pay him back, but suddenly I was somewhere else. I was in a park in Annie's (Rebecca's) car. We were at her house, which was in the park, for a little while and she was living very poor and she had problems at home. Her clothes were ragged and her green T-shirt had gotten torn somehow. I felt real sorry for her. I had to drive her car away for some reason and it was hard to stop the thing because it idled so high. I applied the brakes and watched in the rear view mirror as Annie tried to run to catch up with me. The car slipped down a hill on a lawn and I had to spin out to get it back onto the pavement. Annie said that I shouldn't have done that. Eventually she was back driving and she wanted me to go with her. But I looked back and there was Charles waiting for me so I told her that I couldn't go because it would be very, very rude to leave Charles when I told him I was going with him. There was a black guy in the car and Annie introduced me to him, but I can't remember his name. I commented again on how I had a lot of memories in the car and Annie grabbed me and she began sucking on my lips real hard to the point where I thought she would suck the life out of me, just like Freddy did to that girl on Nightmare on Elm Street Part IV.
1
I was working at a restaurant and I know I didn't want to be there. I was having orders to cook, not that many, but they were enough to piss me off. Tickets kept piling up on the steel wheel carousel and a lot of them were for toast. The bread came pre-toasted so all I needed to do was heat them up. After getting tired of putting two slices in at a time, I uncovered more of the toaster and there were about eight or so slots to put toast in. I was by myself, but after a while a girl showed up to help or take over. I had poured a mass amount of cocaine out on a tiled counter, maybe three or four grams. The tile reminded me of the tile I have in my kitchen at home. The coke was just sitting in a big pile there and then someone, the boss who I think was my mom, was coming into the kitchen so I had to get rid of the coke. I asked the girl if she liked cocaine and she said yes so to help get rid of it I told her she could have whatever I couldn't scoop up. Amounts of dollars went through my head as I thought of my loss. It was hard to scoop off the coke in between the tiles. I managed to grab most of it and was running around with it in my hand crammed carelessly in some paper and then into my coat pocket. Suddenly I was inside the house where I grew up on top of South Hill and my mom was there watching me run around with my hand in my pocket. I was worried that the coke would dissolve or absorb into the pocket of my coat. I ran into the garage and mom watched as I did. I was worried she was going to ask what I had in my pocket but she never did. To avoid her, I ran back out of the garage door and into the rec room. I never seemed to be able to comfortably put the coke away.
2
I remember seeing a badge, the same kind I have to wear at work, with a recent picture of Mandy on it. Her hair was shorter than it is now but it was a more recent picture than I thought would be on the badge.
3
I also recall playing "Discovery" from the album 2112 on the guitar and it sounded pretty good.
4
I was sitting by the mailbox by Meridian with Hannah and we were talking when Jethro drove up in a pickup truck (the Nissan truck I now own, I think). Fawn was with him and she had her arms wrapped in his as though they were boyfriend and girlfriend. I was surprised to see Jethro and I told him that I just wrote him a letter and he would be getting it pretty soon if he was still in Arkansas. Suddenly, I was the driver and we started driving down Meridian and somehow ended up on a dirt track that wasn't made for a vehicle as big as my truck. I was driving as a crowd of people watched on, who were sitting in stands like at a large Fair or something. It was hard to drive in the dirt, like it was as slippery as snow. I recall a girl eyeing us over later as we stood in back of the stands. It turned out that the dirt track was for dune buggies and when we got to the end of the track the official wanted to know why we were driving a truck on it. To avoid getting in trouble, Jethro told him we were actually contestants in the dune buggy race and my truck was actually modified to be qualified for the track. The official wanted our names for the record and Jethro told him his but I told the guy my name was Max Bundy instead of my real name, hoping this would keep me out of trouble. I remember signing that name later and I was thinking Jethro would think I forgot my name was supposed to be Max Bundy, but I didn't and that is what I signed. I still felt like we were in trouble, so Jethro and I began to run away from a couple of guys that were after us. We were running away and I could see them about one hundred yards behind us, running after us through the crowd of people (maybe it was a Fair). We ended up trying to lose them by crawling under a ladder of some sort that had books or notebooks flailing by us, making it harder to crawl under the ladder. The ladder was horizontal and close to the ground. When we finally reached the end, the guys were closer but still a ways behind us.
I was at a cliff-dwelling type of place where all these people were, or had lived. I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure these people were the characters in a book I had written. I remember seeing dry, yellow-brown rocky cliffs to the left of me as I stood on a ledge high above the ground. There was a rope that was pulled through a metal ring of some sort but it was not tied. The rope hung down the cliffs and some of these people would climb down the cliffs using this rope, but the end would not slip through the ring. It held their weight which defied natural law but this whole dream was like I was making it up as I went along, like I was awake and was able to control what happened. I'm sure I wasn't really awake but for some reason I knew that whatever happened, I would be able to change and control all events as I saw fit. Anyway, people would climb this rope and it was like I was trying to act out a way for certain characters in my book to die, i.e. Ed, Trey and so on. After numerous people climbed this rope up and down, the character whom I wanted to die got on the rope, started climbing and then the end would slip out and he would fall to their death. Later I was somewhere with some more of my characters and a strange, undefined monster crept out of the shadows. Its shape and size were unknown until I started to think of what I wanted it to look like. I wanted the most gruesome terrifying beast imaginable so I made the monster about seven feet tall and about fifteen feet across. It slightly resembled a huge spider with long, hairy spindly legs, but it also had tentacles for legs as well. As I studied the face, I changed its shape and finally gave it the eyes of a tarantula, dark and beady. There was a woman there who was scared but I specifically remember actually watching the monster eat a man. It was like I was writing it. I tried desperately to imagine what was going through this character's head as the spider-octopus-beast grabbed him and devoured him in a matter of two seconds rather effortlessly. Thoughts of "Oh my God there's nothing I can do" went through the character's mind and for a split second I felt as though it was me and I actually felt what it was like to face and accept a death that was certain. The monster had thought and knew only of the act of absorbing and ingesting the body of something that would keep it alive.
I was in a building with several other people. It was some sort of place that built nuclear bombs - a top secret type of place. There was a scientist guy with us that kept walking along with a bomb that was about to blow. A strange series of sounds: beeps, alarms, whirs or whatever, would signify when the bomb would go off. This scientist would carry the bomb and dispose of it in a designated dispenser-type thing, a hole in the floor or something like that. The first time he did this, the warning sounds did not activate until we were way outside the building and safely away from the explosion. It was weird, but the exact same scene was repeated three times. The second time the scientist disposed of the bomb, the warning sounds came quicker and we just made it to a safe distance before the bomb blew. The third time this happened, the warning sounds came on when we were still in the building and I knew I would not make it to safety. As the bomb went off, I remember looking down a corridor that had the exit doors at the end of it. There was one set of doors that led to another set behind them, then finally outside. The doors were the type that were at the high school I attended. When the bomb blew, the force of it lifted me off the floor and sent me flying down the corridor towards the doors. I crashed through the first and second set of doors sending glass shattering everywhere. My body landed with a hard thud on the solid dirt ground outside. People were around and came to my aid. As if I wanted sympathy, I pretended I could not talk and that I had lost all my smarts. I ended up in a bed inside some girl's house. It was like her dad was a doctor and I was staying there instead of a hospital. The girl was a soap opera star. It was weird, but it was like I was a Neanderthal man and that was my reason for not being able to speak, although I knew I actually could. I kept mumbling gibberish words like a retarded man would. I pretended not to know anything. The soap opera star exclaimed how I had only liked her about 19% before, which I guess was a low percentage to like someone. Then she referred to my girlfriend as she said, "Wait till she hears that I got the man in the bed." This made me mad so I did not respond to her flirtatious remarks, to show her that she could not get anybody she pleased. Since I was pretending I had lost my marbles and could not talk, I couldn't respond anyway because that would give it away that nothing was wrong with me. Throughout this scene I kept speaking gibberish and I finally blurted out the words, "I think...I think..." as if it was a major task. As if this was immense progress, the star got on the phone and I assumed she was calling her dad to tell him of the new advancement in my progress. Her mom came home and the star told her that I had spoken. As soon as her mom had came, she left, and the star took this opportunity to flirt with me some more.
I was in the back of a pickup truck with Patricia Bundy. We were riding towards somewhere, but I'm not sure who was driving. Because we were in the bed of the pickup, it was pretty cold so we managed to wrap a tarp or thin blanket around us to try to keep warm. We both knew that when we reached where we were going that there would be lots of blankets to wrap ourselves in. I think I was moving, and we were using this truck to transport my belongings. We reached the house that I used to live in on the top of South Hill. I was in the garage and there were lots of people there helping me put things into boxes. I remember Wes Dunn from my Digital class in college and he was helping me pack. It was strange, but we were packing my dad into a box and for some reason it was necessary to put lots of ice and water in with him. His face showed no definite emotion, but I don't think he was pleased. It was necessary to make sure the box he was in was filled to the top with water so we added more ice. Wes helped me pack Plato also. The packing procedure required to put an ice cube in Plato's mouth and then tape his mouth shut so it wouldn't get out. Concerned for Plato's safety, I inspected the taping job and found his entire mouth and nose were taped up so I cut a hole through the tape for his nose so he could breathe. I guess this wasn't good enough because Wes began taping Plato's head and neck up, adding a new ice cube first. Plato then began to start gagging like he was having a hairball attack and I was scared he would choke on the melting ice. Therefore I began tearing the tape off his neck and face. I thought he was going to die or even was dead, but he wasn't. Since this was too risky, I felt he should stay and I would not take him with me. I held him in my arms the way I always do and he felt real soft and limp but did not try to get away as though he trusted me, no matter what I did with him. Some guy with a big truck showed that he could take his cat anywhere. He showed me and for some reason the way his cat traveled had to do with a JK flip-flop and the Q and Q not outputs on a circuitry diagram I studied in college. It made sense at the time.
Lisa and I had bought a mobile home and we owned the land it sat on also. I remember looking out a window in the back room, which was the bedroom, and looking at the lawn and property line between us and the next-door neighbor. I was contemplating putting a fence there like Charles had with his own mobile home, and recalled how easy Charles said that was to do. Henry and Susan came over and I think Stuart, Lisa's brother, was there also. We were playing video games and Henry kept saying that he wanted to play the one that we played last time he was with us, but I can't remember which one that could have been, and I really didn't get an answer when I asked Lisa and Stuart about it. I was playing one and it was new to me so I didn't really know how to play. Stuart and everyone else kept shouting at me, rooting me on, telling me to watch out and not to die. My man on the video screen was a flying ostrich, I think, and it shot bullets. As I was trying to get the controls down, I found the button that made you travel faster. Although I did manage to shoot a few things, I went too fast and ran into an enemy and died. The enemy laughed a deep hearty laugh as my flying ostrich died. Later, I was back in the bedroom again and had decided to take a nap. Lisa woke me up and said that Susan and Henry had come back and wanted something but I can't remember exactly what that something was. Whatever the case, I had to get up. I was going to, but Lisa wouldn't close the door and I didn't want to get up because Susan was looking in through the crack in the door and she would have seen me naked. She acted like it was no big deal. She stated that it was all right for me to give her a quick flash and that I should not be embarrassed. I, however, did not want her to see me without clothes on, so I waited until the door was completely shut. I got up and kept thinking that they would fling open the door at any second, but they left me to myself. I got dressed. First I put on my socks then realized that I should put on my underwear next. I did, then my pants were next and I looked for a shirt. Hanging in the closet wasn't anything presentable except for a pink type of shirt that didn't look too bad but it was too dressy. I imagined if I wore it then everyone would pitch me shit that I looked too snazzy. As I dressed, I heard various things going on outside my door in the rest of the mobile home. There was some female bitching to someone else in the bathroom directly on the other side of the wall. I can't exactly remember what she was bitching about. At first I thought it was Susan bitching at Henry, then it sounded more like my mother bitching at Fawn. Then I heard Trent's voice and he asked people out in other parts of the mobile home where I was. As he headed for my bedroom door, I was real paranoid because I knew I looked as though I had just gotten up. As I tried desperately to open my eyes wider to clear them of the sleep that glued them shut, Trent opened the bedroom door and said, "How's it going..." I knew he would want to see his ex Les Paul guitar that I had bought from him, and I tried once again to open my eyes as wide as I could. Well, I had opened them so wide that it actually caused me to wake up and realize that I was in bed and that it was all a dream. For just a second I stared at my bedroom door and was actually expecting Trent, or someone, to walk through it. Of course, that didn't happen.
I was at a place that had different pools of water, each possessing its own special environment. Plato was there and he talked to me. He said he wanted a certain fish to be taken out of a certain pool and transferred to another. I grabbed the small yellow fish and it also told me that it wanted to be in another pool of water that was safe and secluded. The one pool I took him out of had a low water level and was choked with grass and weeds. It was on top of a hill so I went down the hill to another swampy area. The pool there was almost dried up, wet grass being all that was left. Plato walked around it and we decided we should go further down the hill to another pool. We did just that and we came upon countless numbers of pools full of water and various life. The fish was cupped in my hands and was dying. I observed many types of pools but was looking for one that would suit the fish. I passed up the smaller pools and came upon a very large pond that was very clear. I walked into the water, not thinking about how deep it was or even caring. It was about thigh high. I put the fish into the water and it just floated around as if dead, but I refused to believe that. I walked along in the pond, pushing and moving the small fish as I went. It's body seemed to have swelled up due to the change in water pressure but upon closer observation I saw that only parts of its body had swelled. For a second, it resembled a small muscular person and the screaming expression on its face showed what pain it was in. As I walked along, I searched for other life in this pond, but could not find any. Finally I lost track of the fish and went in search of it. I came across a seashell that had some kind of slug or snail inside of it. I also found some very small (about an inch and a half long) duck-billed dinosaurs swimming along just below the surface of the water. There were about four of them. Thinking that they might be poisonous or even electric, I tried to stay away, but just couldn't help touching one on its tail. This sent it somersaulting around. I then came across a larger seashell that was see-through. Inside was what I thought might be the fish I was looking for. Its tail stuck out of the end of the shell and looked different than what I remember. The fish inside was larger and breathing healthily. This led me to believe that the new water had helped it grow and made it healthy.
Lisa kept trying to get me out of bed but it was Sunday and I refused to give in so between her tries I had a few dreams.
1
I was at work and I think it was Harold Dastermonger who was trying to get me up out of a bed that I was laying in. It was in my work area and when I finally did get up, I felt pretty embarrassed because everyone was looking at me. I proceeded to walk out of my work area and down a long hallway.
2
I was in a bed at McDonalds in the back of the kitchen. The manager, a small fat bald-headed guy, was yelling at me to get up and get to work. I told him that it was 9:30 and I was just about ready and to hold his horses. He exclaimed how he wanted me to walk in through those front doors at 9:30 ready to work, not to just get out of bed at 9:30. I didn't seem to care as if I knew this was all a dream. When I really did wake up, the clock on my night stand showed the time of 9:30. I got up.
I was at a restaurant with my mom, Dexter and other members of my family. I was sitting next to mom at a booth or a table when a man walks up to us. He looks really familiar but I can't place the face. He was about mom's age and made some type of statement to mom about how he's been watching her and how he wanted her real bad. Mom told him that she was married so the guy got mad and said, "Fuck it!" and walked away. Dexter laughed a small laugh, like we have all heard the word "Fuck" before. Then dad walked up and he seemed pretty healthy and happy. What happened after that is a complete blank.
I was at a party with about ten to fifteen people. There was a guy that started to make lines of coke for people and of course everybody wanted some. He made up about four lines at a time and everybody rushed to be the first ones to get one. I just stood and waited because I knew that I would probably get one in the end and if I didn't - oh well. Suddenly the guy with coke disappeared and people were pissed because they had not gotten a line yet, but then we looked on the table and there were enough lines there already made up for the remaining people who did not receive one yet. The next thing I knew, I was with Arnold Tokken at the same house, but he was talking about a procedure at work I had not yet heard about and he was explaining it to me. There were diagrams that had nothing to do with what my work was, but it made sense at the time. The diagrams Arnold pointed out to me involved a man standing among odd-shaped things that could have been equipment. As Arnold was explaining this procedure to me, George Henderschott walked up and I inquired about my Digital grade. He laughed and I thought it was because of the humorous write-up I turned in on my last lab. He slapped down the lab diagrams that Raymond Fontelroy drew in front of me and he said, "These are great." I thumbed through them and waited for his next comment. He showed me another collection of stapled papers and at first I thought it was the unfinished chapters 6-9 test that I had turned in, but it turned out to be the grades of all the students in his class. He came to mine and on the top of it was written the number 304. I asked him what that meant and he said smugly, "An A." I saw glimpses of other scores and some were 64 and 100 or so. Arnold suddenly caught my attention and he asked me to explain to him the process that he had just described to me. I looked at the strange configuration of images and confessed that I was caught up with George and didn't quite catch it all and could not explain.
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