Dream: Like Giant Tube Worms Made of Rust
Thursday, September 11th:
I drove through town on my way to work. I ran two stop signs because I couldn't slow down. The brakes didn't do anything, and the car kept going even with my foot off the gas. I thought I heard a siren from a few blocks behind me, but I couldn't tell whether it was an ambulance or a cop. I cornered around a couple of angled streets, then rolled into the service garage of a local gas station and shut the door, waiting nervously.
A slender brunette in a black skirt and a short black athletic top sat behind the desk in the small office. Her straight hair hung near her chin. The rest of her layered ensemble filled the range between black and charcoal, but she'd somehow snuck in a bit of magenta... maybe in her lipstick. She looked confident, relaxed, and a little bored.
To her left, an overweight man dressed in black and brown fatigues sat on a small chair pulled up awkwardly close to the desk. Pink razor burn dappled his clean-shaven face; pale blond eyebrows frowned nervously from beneath his matte black helmet. His knees pressed into the drawers, and he leaned forward to watch a small monitor on the left end of the desk. A large, black, mouse-like input device sat before the screen.
I watched the small office, waiting for a customer to open the door and walk up to the desk. I leaned against the wall behind the desk, feeling gray and dusty, hoping no one would notice me. I didn't really belong here; I was just hiding out while I waited for something.
The concealed earpiece I hadn't realized I was wearing revealed several things to me. The office is closed, it told me, so there won't be any customers to spot you as an impostor. The man and woman at the desk know you're in there, but they're both impostors from rival agencies, so they don't know you don't work at the office. The woman thinks she has an ally somewhere, but doesn't know who it is.
The heavyset man fiddled with controls, watching the screen.
You've got to take them out before either one can [something something something].
I imagined attacking the woman from behind, but the military man would surely overbear me. The man looked away from the screen when the woman asked him a question. He took his hand off the mouse and twisted to face me as I stepped up behind him. I punched him in the face, then grabbed the mouse before he could recover, wrapping its cord around his neck and garroting him from behind his chair. The woman grinned, then pushed him out of the chair once he was dead. She turned back to her desk, waiting for a customer as if nothing had happened, but she gave me a sidelong smile.
I didn't think I could fight her, so I tried to distract her. I stood next to her chair and lay my hand on her shoulder, then let it slide down, across the straps of her athletic halter top, down her bare spine to the small of her back. She closed her eyes and smiled as I did so, then moaned sweetly. I moved my hand on the small of her back, and she lay across the desk in her chair, fingers curled around the far edge, pulling her stomach against the center drawer. Her moans of pleasure and her escritorial frottage grew more fevered as I slid my hand along her spine again. I don't get it, I thought, but that seems to be working.
I woke up [in my dream] at 7:30 when Alyssa, April, Sharon, and musicin68 came through the room on their way out. I wanted to get dressed and go with them, but they'd taken the day off work and I hadn't. I said goodbye and tried to go back to sleep. Justin walked in dressed for a workout. He lay on the floor near one of the other beds and started stretching. I gave up on getting back to sleep, so I walked down the hall to the bathroom in the house where I grew up.
The lights were off in the bathroom as I shut the hallway door behind me. The gray radiance of afternoon wandered through the gauze curtains in the laundry, slid around the half open laundry door into the bathroom, and got confused. It bounced between the mirror and the tall white shower enclosure, from the orange Formica counter-top to the pale yellow walls, then hung dimly in the air. A large fly kept it company. Disgusted, I swatted at the fly, but it dodged away. I pulled the laundry door closed, trapping the fly (and the light) in the bathroom. I swung again and felt it slip through my fingers; it was large and fuzzy. A final smack with the heel of my palm flattened it against the door.
I turned around and saw gross coral-like structures two feet high had grown upwards from every plumbing fixture. They looked like hard sponges, or towers of foaming rust, and I realized they were deposits from iron in the water. Hundreds of glistening black spheres covered their sidesfly eggs. I turned to leave and saw rust stains blooming through the paint and wallpaper. The walls were concave; the rust-water must have been dissolving the plaster as it formed.
I left dismayed. I'd have to call in sick to work, spend the whole day cleaning it out before the flies hatched and the damage spread.
I drove through town on my way to work. I ran two stop signs because I couldn't slow down. The brakes didn't do anything, and the car kept going even with my foot off the gas. I thought I heard a siren from a few blocks behind me, but I couldn't tell whether it was an ambulance or a cop. I cornered around a couple of angled streets, then rolled into the service garage of a local gas station and shut the door, waiting nervously.
A slender brunette in a black skirt and a short black athletic top sat behind the desk in the small office. Her straight hair hung near her chin. The rest of her layered ensemble filled the range between black and charcoal, but she'd somehow snuck in a bit of magenta... maybe in her lipstick. She looked confident, relaxed, and a little bored.
To her left, an overweight man dressed in black and brown fatigues sat on a small chair pulled up awkwardly close to the desk. Pink razor burn dappled his clean-shaven face; pale blond eyebrows frowned nervously from beneath his matte black helmet. His knees pressed into the drawers, and he leaned forward to watch a small monitor on the left end of the desk. A large, black, mouse-like input device sat before the screen.
I watched the small office, waiting for a customer to open the door and walk up to the desk. I leaned against the wall behind the desk, feeling gray and dusty, hoping no one would notice me. I didn't really belong here; I was just hiding out while I waited for something.
The concealed earpiece I hadn't realized I was wearing revealed several things to me. The office is closed, it told me, so there won't be any customers to spot you as an impostor. The man and woman at the desk know you're in there, but they're both impostors from rival agencies, so they don't know you don't work at the office. The woman thinks she has an ally somewhere, but doesn't know who it is.
The heavyset man fiddled with controls, watching the screen.
You've got to take them out before either one can [something something something].
I imagined attacking the woman from behind, but the military man would surely overbear me. The man looked away from the screen when the woman asked him a question. He took his hand off the mouse and twisted to face me as I stepped up behind him. I punched him in the face, then grabbed the mouse before he could recover, wrapping its cord around his neck and garroting him from behind his chair. The woman grinned, then pushed him out of the chair once he was dead. She turned back to her desk, waiting for a customer as if nothing had happened, but she gave me a sidelong smile.
I didn't think I could fight her, so I tried to distract her. I stood next to her chair and lay my hand on her shoulder, then let it slide down, across the straps of her athletic halter top, down her bare spine to the small of her back. She closed her eyes and smiled as I did so, then moaned sweetly. I moved my hand on the small of her back, and she lay across the desk in her chair, fingers curled around the far edge, pulling her stomach against the center drawer. Her moans of pleasure and her escritorial frottage grew more fevered as I slid my hand along her spine again. I don't get it, I thought, but that seems to be working.
I woke up [in my dream] at 7:30 when Alyssa, April, Sharon, and musicin68 came through the room on their way out. I wanted to get dressed and go with them, but they'd taken the day off work and I hadn't. I said goodbye and tried to go back to sleep. Justin walked in dressed for a workout. He lay on the floor near one of the other beds and started stretching. I gave up on getting back to sleep, so I walked down the hall to the bathroom in the house where I grew up.
The lights were off in the bathroom as I shut the hallway door behind me. The gray radiance of afternoon wandered through the gauze curtains in the laundry, slid around the half open laundry door into the bathroom, and got confused. It bounced between the mirror and the tall white shower enclosure, from the orange Formica counter-top to the pale yellow walls, then hung dimly in the air. A large fly kept it company. Disgusted, I swatted at the fly, but it dodged away. I pulled the laundry door closed, trapping the fly (and the light) in the bathroom. I swung again and felt it slip through my fingers; it was large and fuzzy. A final smack with the heel of my palm flattened it against the door.
I turned around and saw gross coral-like structures two feet high had grown upwards from every plumbing fixture. They looked like hard sponges, or towers of foaming rust, and I realized they were deposits from iron in the water. Hundreds of glistening black spheres covered their sidesfly eggs. I turned to leave and saw rust stains blooming through the paint and wallpaper. The walls were concave; the rust-water must have been dissolving the plaster as it formed.
I left dismayed. I'd have to call in sick to work, spend the whole day cleaning it out before the flies hatched and the damage spread.