My parents were decorating the area around our front windows. I was sitting on the couch across the room from them admiring their work. I changed my focus and looked out the window at the trees across the road. At first, nothing seemed out of the ordinary, but when I looked past the first row, I noticed an old decaying building! I pointed it out to my dad and he said that he had never noticed it before. Recently, though, he had trimmed the branches on those trees so now the building was completely visible from our living room. As I looked harder, other buildings beside it seemed to appear out of nowhere. Actually, due to their colouring, they just blended in with their surroundings incredibly well. Once we started looking for them, they were much easier to see.

Some of the buildings were almost entirely intact; other buildings were decayed to the point where there was nothing more than a chimney left standing. From the living room window, we couldn't see very much due to the row of cedar trees in the way, but a storm was moving in from the north so we decided to delay exploration for now. Looking out other windows, we saw other chimneys that we had never noticed before right near our house. It appeared that our house was right in the middle of a square made by these decayed buildings. Only the northern half of the square was still visible due to the protection offered by the trees. Also, south of our house, we could see where the old road had been.

I sat down in the middle of the floor staring out the window at that first building in total awe. Here was an incredible discovery right across the road from my house! The storm was moving in very quickly though. We could see the clouds moving in at incredible speeds and the light breeze coming through the window became very strong. My dad got up to shut it and right then Kelly Kapowski from Saved By The Bell flew up to the window and zapped my dad with some lightning. I asked her why, and she said "Oh, it seemed like fun!" He shut the window and sat back down. I called my cousin Kendal and said "Guess what! There are old buildings hidden in the trees by my house!" I told her we were going to have to put off our Happy Chef trip again and she most definitely agreed.

While the storm was going on, I opened my presents. I think it was my birthday. Either that or I was just opening presents for no reason. I was sitting in front of a fireplace in a nicely furnished room with off-white walls and beige carpeting. Even though there isn't a room like that in my house, I know I was at home. I opened gift after gift, and everyone had gotten me earrings. I remember specifically that I got earrings from my internet friends Annie and Emma, and from my college friend Chelsea.

After the storm, I went over to the old buildings. It now became obvious that this was a town at one time. The building that I first saw was a church. The front and back walls were both intact, and one could clearly see the altar in the back. In between, though, all of the rest of the building had decayed and crumbled. Only one other building was identifiable. The courthouse was northwest of the church, and it still had an American flag hanging from the pole in front. The town wasn't set up in blocks or anything as you would expect. Rather, the buildings that weren't in line with the church were slanted to face it. Like the courthouse was angled so that it was facing southeast, the direction of the church. Another building in the "town" appeared to be an old barn. It also looked like someone had tried to restore it many years before but had given up. I also saw a few cars sitting around in the town. Due to the age of the buildings, I didn't think that really made sense. Someone might have just dumped those cars there later on. But I did notice that the license plates said that they were from 48 county and our county is 44. Running through the town was a stream with carved stones along the side. It was very pretty and very picturesque, even though it was surrounded by all of this decay.

A while later, I brought a friend of mine out there because I wanted to show her all these neat things. I don't know her in real life, but in the dream she sort of looked like a young version of Martha Quinn, but with longer and straighter hair. So we were walking around out there and I was pointing out stuff, and after a while, she said "I'm sorry, I must be dumb or something because I can't see any of this stuff you're talking about." I was confused. She simply could NOT see the buildings and stuff. She could see the creek, but it was just a creek to her. There were no stones along the side. It was just running water in the country. She sat on a tree stump and asked me to describe the various things to her. I told her about the colors of the stones and the buildings and the things lying out in the grass from the people who used to live and work here many years ago. Then she said "Well, if you can see it, and if you know all about it, and you've experienced it, then it's real." As she said that, I looked over to my right where an old sign was hanging from a post. It was gently swaying in the wind and creaking as it moved. Her words had a deep impact on me.

I was back inside and my mom told me to take my medicine. All of the earrings were actually pills, so I had to swallow all of them. She gave me another medicine bottle that had three big pills in it and I had to swallow those too. Then she gave me another medicine bottle that just had one huge pill in it. I swallowed that one too. Then I looked at the label--it said "Do not exceed one dosage every 10 hours." I had just taken about 300 dosages in 5 minutes! Then my sister Monica told me that those earrings I swallowed were actually conditioner pellets. So now my hair was curling. This was bad.

I went to Hinky Dinky to get some rulers and stuff to diagram the old buildings. Hinky Dinky was in the building that is Pamida in real life. I went over to the school supply section where my friend Brandon was stocking shelves. I told him all about my discovery and he thought it was pretty neat. Then Lori Beach walked up to me and said "That yearbook you made makes me want to PUKE!" I turned to her and replied "It was never the intention of the yearbook staff to cause anyone to desire to regurgitate." I walked away from her and then just wandered through the store aimlessly.

Return to The Dreams Page.