The dream was so long I'm not positive where it started but I was in the army, and our squad leader decided we needed
training and sent us on a hike through the woods at night with our rifles. Our job was to get from point A to point be
without making a sound. Being American army I quietly found this funny as I've never seen american army men do
anything quietly, although I assume it to be possible.
The march began and some of the men behind me were talking as we entered the woods, soon a hispanic friend of mine tried
to convince me to take a shortcut through the woods that would get us there faster and without being heard. I shook
my head as I was kindof into the exercise and trying to get there as quietly as possible the hard way. We passed
something as we went around the bend that I swore looked like a couple of our men laying in the grass on the side of
an embankment. Curious I dropped back from the rest of our group and went to investigate. Eventually I got
close enough to realize that they were just shovels and things catching the moonlight just right.
By then I was very far behind the group though and had to tun to catch up. But no matter how fast I tried to
run I couldn't seem to build up and speed. Eventually dawn broke and I was still running with no sign of the
group. The trees were far apart and the ground covered with dried pine needles. I wasn't worried about not having caught
up with the group, just about the fact that I couldn't move any faster and knowing I should be able to.
That dream faded and it became my father, my brother, some woman, and I and we were in an office type building about
to step into an elevator. It was an intelligent elevator that you could talk to, and the woman and I were seeing
what each of us could get it to do. I said "take us to 'admissions' and it started to close the door, but not
everyone was in so I said 'wait' and it did. Once everyone was in and it started to wisk us off she topped me by
starting to do a vocal rendition of the guitar intro to some classic 70's rock song. She was really good and
after about 30 seconds the music in the elevator switched to the song she was singing at the same point in the song she
was at. It was very cool.
Soon we could see out the window of the elevator as it raised up into this large atrium with incredible architecture.
Four floors looked out into the space and their walls were covered in deep red lines of curving wood. It was really a
masterpiece. My little brother wasn't as enthused. He was the reason we were here. It was a preppy school for the
children of rich people and he wasn't totally into it. We sat in rows of stackable plastic chairs my father and
Quinn (my little brother) sat side by side and I sat behind my father looking over Quinns shoulder as he took a test.
The questions were from the Immigration and Naturalization Services test for citizenship eligibility only it was some
kind of entrance exam for the school. Bored, I sat back and looked towards the yuppie couple on my right. Realizing
I wasn't taking the test she asked me if I went here. When I said no she said "But, how are you going to
get a job?"
"I have a job" I said, and the double take she did was amazing. I was sitting there with my
black hair and red forelock in jeans and a tight shirt with drawings of japaneseish people and streams that showed off
my boobs. She asked if I was 16 and I chuckled. "keep going", I said.
"twenty?" I shook my head. "twenty-four?" With each successive guess she became more and more
uncomfortable.
"twenty-six" I told her and she was shocked. That a twenty-six yeah old girl could go around
looking like that was unthinkable to her. This made me chuckle even more.
Eventually I got bored and wandered off into the streets of the town. Everyone had large yards, fences, and ivy
growing everywhere. Eventually I came across a barely pubescent boy with a buzz cut and a green army t-shirt.
I guessed from the moving van that he had just arrived in town and since I had nothing better to do
I started talking to him; asking him when he got here, commenting on the snootyness of the place, and things like
that. He was a little confused when he realized I didn't live there. Then his father and a friend of his fathers came
over. His father was a very evil man. I knew him , and I knew the boy. And when the boy realized this he became
even more confused. His carefully constructed "push people around and be in charge" facade was failing
miserably.
"Don't you know her?" His father said. "That's your uncles daughter." The boy was now very
confused. We had sparred in the past and I had decidedly one but he didn't recognize me.
Not wanting to hang around the antichrist dad of his I walked down to the main road and stuck out my thumb.
Actually, before I tried my thumb I tried a couple glasses cases but they didn't work so well at getting people
to stop and give me a ride. Eventually this blue boat of a car from the 50's pulled over. At first glance it had no driver
but when I looked inside there was an old lady laying on her back across the bench seat driving without looking.
I asked he politely if she would like me to drive for her and she agreed . I thanked the goddess for small favors
and started on our way.
The old lady looked exactly like my grandmother, the one who passed away a few years ago. As we drove it became apparent
that she wasn't fully there. She kept switching among random topics and assorted silliness but she was a nice lady.
I did begin to wonder if she was really supposed to be out here driving and if anyone was looking for her. She
said she was headed for Phoenix and that seemed like an ok destination to me, kindof on my way. I was enjoying this
little grandmother look-alike when we pulled off of the road at some driving range / food stop / failed amusement
area and the cell phone rang. It was her son and he said she shouldn't be out and that he would come and get her. This
after much explaining of where we were. The son was not terribly bright, or in the mood to listen.
The Grandmother and I, I had started calling her Gram or Grandmother by this point, had fun walking over large
rocks and boulders that were spread across a large area of ground. She was very inquisive, like a little child, and had
much fun. I worried a little that she might hurt herself but she seemed very in control of her body. She wandered off
and somehow managed to end up in my closet (don't ask me how my closet got there) playing with my ski's and
snowboard. I helped her try them , and some weird cross between the two when her son showed up. He handed me a
wooden shoe and told me to record the weight readings from it .
I knew somthing was wrong. This was some sort of evidence he was trying to gather. Why did he want evedence he
could connect to me? "No," I said. "why do you want it?" He said it wasn't important and then put
a 2 inch piece of leather around her throat. It was a choker of sorts and had a large opening over her Adam's apple.
I noticed that she was covered with small pinpricks there and as I looked over at the man we was strapping some
black leather contraption over his groin and waist. This was not good. this was not good at all. "If you whip her
I will whip you!" I said. As I said it I realized just how lame and unthreatening it
sounded but it was all I was able to come up with then. But, this guy was about to get his jollies off of
torturing this Grandmother, his mother . And, I couldn't sit around and watch.
In some ways she was all grandmothers. She was the grandmother moon I pray to every night. And she was my
grandmother who I loved unconditionally.
The scene cuts to me suspeneded spread eagle and mostly nude in the middle of a blackness, my ancles and wrists in
steel manacles, attached to nothing. The camera swings down from a frontal shot to one looking up from just in front of
me. The distant darkness above us fills with a falling gray rain that splatters on the ground revealing itself as blood. The camera cuts
back to in front of me and a mangled corpse, barely recognizable as human, falls with a large thump, spraying the
blood it landed in. I had killed him. I had killed him for what he had tried to do to grandmother, and I
wasn't sorry.