Collection of Dreams

I should be more careful who I talk about these days.  Sometimes just recalling a person from my past will conjure them into my dreams...

Defending Dala's Store 9-29-10
My friend's imported gifts and clothing store was moved into a vacant gas station convenience store.  I was desperately trying to load up the store.  I was all alone with the doors wide open when a group of teens all dressed in black came parading in and quickly filled the place before I could close a door.  They were not there to buy anything, they were just making a mess, and I hadn't yet set up the store register.  Five of the teens, all girls, announced that they were there employed by Dala herself and I was supposed to train them.  When I told them all that Dala just doesn't have the money to pay them, they all started to cry and one of them tried to kill herself by climbing into an ice machine.  I pulled her out and pounded on her sides to get her to take a breath.  Once she was well, I screamed at the top of my lungs for all the kids to get out.  As I was about to lock the door, a UPS guy pushed his way in with an arm load of stuffed animals.  "You get these for free, but only in Dala's name," he said, handing me the animals.  But then he added: "Since you got these for free, I'm going to take one."  I leapt at him, grabbing the animal -- a little black puppy -- and screamed, "THIS IS FOR DALA!"  The guy backed off, calling me a cunt, and started to talk into a cell phone about how rude I was to him.

Ghosts of my Mother & Aunt 9-26-10
It started at the Hospital ER waiting room.  My mother met me there and she told that she wasn't dead, that it was all a big mistake and how dare I assume she was gone!  "I'm Latina now," she said, shaking her bootie, "my body's better than ever.  I got a new ass!"  I shook my head, rolled my eyes, embarassed.  "But you're still my Mom," I said.  Then she started to dance around, getting up on a table and shaking her everything.  "But look at this ass!"  She cried, "I can't be your mother with an ass like this one!" 

I needed to escape but all the doors were locked.  I spied a couple I once knew in college.  They were wearing vivid orange and red Chinese brocade robes.  I knocked on the glass door and waved at them to get their attention.  They opened the door but wouldn't let me out.  "I was just thinking that those brocades you're wearing are perfect for Fall!"  I told them, unable to recall their names.  Insulted that I couldn't remember, they began to leave.  I begged them to help me out, but then they just disappeared.  I felt trapped until I saw my Aunt Madge sitting down prim and proper, patiently waiting for me to notice her.  "How am I supposed to leave?"  I asked her.  She just quietly nodded her head and smiled dumbly.  She wore a bright red suit dress.  She looked and acted like a doll.  I had to shake some sense into her to get her to talk, but she refused to talk.  I took her head in my hands and her face first got younger and then very, very old until she was nothing but a skeleton.  When I took my hands away from her, she became a ghost -- a transparent flying woman.  I took hold of her and we flew out of the hospital.

When we got to Division street, she deposited me into the street where I had to do battle with a gorey-looking green ghost man.  Once I fought him and threw him into the sewer drain, I heard a woman's voice tell me that I was needed by an old woman trapped in a white house just down the block.  I found the house -- a rickety tall place with a long staircase leading up to a porch decorated with dead and dying plants.  The address read "no. 5551318" and on the mail box was the name "PERIWINKLE" and all along the steps leading up to the front door were signs advertising "FREE COOKIES AND TEA" and "OPEN HOUSE".  But when I got to the top of the stairs, a host of demonic and goblin-like ghosts flew all around me, trying to scare me away, but I fought them and managed to turn the front door's knob.  The door opened to a series of other doors.  Door after door opened to another door into infinity.

I woke up as I was about to unlock the last door and was met with a thick gray curtain where beyond I saw the faint outline of a Victorian woman.

The Unconventional Convention 9-27-10
The church of my childhood was filled with people I didn't recognize but then I really wasn't at the church to pray or visit old friends.  The church was serving as a place for a comic book convention.  In the church I grew up in I wondered where my brother was, he was no where to be found.  I needed to escape -- it went as it usually does whenever I'm at a convention -- I hit the restroom first and last to recover or hide.  I rounded the corner and there he was -- Brandon.  But he was not like I remembered.  He is sad with tear streaked cheeks, almost appearing like a child, and looking at me imploringly.  He is carrying an organ but all the keys are missing and it rattles out of tune.  "It's from the '60's," he says, "but it's my burden."  I offer to help but he refuses.  He's got other instruments attached to his back and waist -- a whole orchestra.  I ask him what he is up to.  "Someday there will be harmony," he promises and he weeps as he trudges along.  I start to step away from him, but then he puts down the organ.  "Everything is discord," he sobbs and then he begins to kiss me like a dog -- lots of licking, sniffling, nose pushing.  It is weird but I enjoy the attention and feel loved.  I am more interested in the organ, however, and as I reach for it my old friend Nick shows up and stands in my way.

"You're not supposed to touch anything," Nick scolds me, and he takes my hand and begins to pet my arm.  We start a conversation and I don't remember everything we said.  I do remember him asking about my health and when I tell him that I am diabetic, I hear Brandon say, "I am, too."  Next we are in front of a wall of old books.  The church, the organ, the whole convention is gone.  We are in an abandoned warehouse full of books.  I begin to desperately collect books, picking up as many as I can carry.  But Brandon has the biggest load.  I drop my books to help him.  He hands me a plastic baggy full of sudsy dish soap.  "Just take this to my mother," he demands. 

I walk outside into a winter landscape -- a downtown area congested with snow and vacant like a ghost town or a post apocolyptic city -- and begin my search for his mother.  Instead I find my own mother and she's waiting for me in that old robin's eggshell blue Fleetwood she once drove to Missouri in.  The license plate reads: ELATE09.  "I'm sorry, Mom, I have something to do for an old friend," I tell her.  She's disappointed and I could tell she was waiting for me a long while.  I run away as she screams for me to get into the car.  I soon come across the old yellow Volkswagen bug Brandon used to drive back in 1989.  The woman with red hair in a big bear coat must be his mother.  "You still falling for my son's shit?"  She chides me.  After I hand her the baggy, she spills its sticky, soapy contents all over my face.  I am humiliated.  I become lucid in the dream.  I remember how I mentioned Brandon in my last blog post and I am disappointed with myself.  I should've left well enough alone.  From above me Nick and Brandon are hanging out of the abandoned book warehouse window and they are laughing at me.  I become bloody murder but then they come out and apologize and that organ reappears.

I'm back inside the warehouse.  All the keys to the organ are intact.  The guys are rewarding me by handing me back all the books I wanted, could ever want!  It's wonderful.  I wake up not wanting to get out of bed.