Weirdness
Last night was very strange.
I don’t think I’ve told anyone about this (since I am not nearly as open with sharing my dreams as Cricket is), but I’ve had a reoccurring dream for the last four years or so. I probably have this dream once or twice a month and it’s always very vivid.
In this dream I am a great military leader. At the beginning of the dream I’m in battle. I'm screaming out orders to my men and firing my M16A3 at an onrushing swarm of enemy soldiers.
My twenty soldiers and I are pinned down on the outskirts of a desert city, we're being closed in on by close to 150 heavily armed infantrymen. Bullets zip over our heads and kick up the dirt all around us. The only thing keeping us alive is a shallow hole we dug haphazardly in the sand during our retreat. We hunker down in the hole just waiting for the enemy soldiers to close in and kill us.
In a moment of brilliance (or stupidity) I decide we’re going to charge the enemy. We're going to go down fighting. I bark to the man next to me and tell him to spread the word. I want all my men to each toss a grenade as close to the front of the enemy line as they can. I count off loudly...1...2....3.
We toss.
The grenades fly up and drop to the ground between us and the enemy. Multiple explosions. Dust fills the gap between us.
In the confusion of the explosions and dust, the bullets stop coming.
I call for the charge.
We bolt out of our hole and rush the enemy soldiers—guns blazing! We can hardly see anything through the dust, but we keep firing. I don’t take my finger from the trigger until I run out of ammo, then I jam another clip in the rifle and start firing again—just trying to get off as many rounds as I can before I’m gunned down.
Then, before we know what happened, we’re on the other side of the dust cloud. Over a hundred enemy soldiers lay dead in the sand. We did it!
---------------------------------------------------------
The dream fades and suddenly I’m in an office with a bunch of guys in military uniforms. They’re all huddled around a map of Europe and they’re asking me questions. I give them the answers with an audible pride.
They ask, “How long until the area is secure?” “How many troops will we need to leave?” “Why hasn’t France retaliated?” “Why did you hit England so hard?” “Are you sure we can trust the Irish?”
I answer all their questions with an easy confidence. I’ve got the whole situation under control. Nothing will go wrong.
Nothing will stop me.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Finally, the dream ends with me in a very large office.
The ceilings are high enough to allow a giraffe clearance. Behind my desk is a huge segmented window overlooking a city. The city is clean, smooth and busy. It looks like an anthill—full of movement and purpose. I marvel at it and, somehow, I know it is mine. I built it.
A man wearing an expensive suit and a loosened tie enters the room.
He saunters over, walking with a noticeable sway, to where I stand at the window. He’s drunk.
I am filled with a sudden rage.
“Good evening, sir.”, he says. “Would you care for a scotch?”
He holds a glass out to me. My hand flashes from my side and backhands the glass across the room.
“How dare you offer me alcohol!”
I say ‘alcohol’ but I might as well be referring to a dish that contains fried human baby for all the venom that soaks the word. I turn toward the interloper and glare. He shrinks and begins to make a shaking apology.
“I..I..I’m sorry sir, it won’t...”, he starts to say, but my rage only builds.
“You’re certainly right it won’t happen again! Do you know why?”
He hesitates, then offers a sniveling “Why sir?”
“BECAUSE I’M GOING TO OUTLAW ALCOHOL!”
My roar fills the expanse of the room and echoes, giving the declaration an air of finality.
But my diatribe isn’t finished.
“I’m going to make it impossible to get so much as a bottle of rubbing alcohol without the proper authorization! Back in the 1930’s they failed to keep booze illegal. They allowed too many smugglers and criminals to keep the supply coming and they failed to maintain a sober country. Where they failed, I will not. DEATH to anyone who imbibes alcohol!”
The sniveler tries to talk me out of it. “But sir, what about all the revenue created by the alcohol industry? What about the millions upon millions of the world’s citizens who enjoy alcohol? Your own church, sir, uses alcohol in its ceremonies. Surely you can’t be serious.”
My rage burns all the hotter.
“Oh, you don’t think I’m serious? I’ve been sober my entire life and have become the most successful man in the world. I single-handedly built the world we know from the bottom up. The peace and prosperity that those booze-loving citizens enjoy is due to my sober perseverance. And all the while I’ve watched drunks like you stumble their way through life with no purpose. Alcohol is the last poison left in this world, and I plan to purge it like I purged the others. People don’t need alcohol—they need order—and I will give it to them!”
As I finish saying this, I pull a pistol from underneath my coat and put it to the drunk’s forehead. Before he can utter any protest I pull the trigger and watch as his brains spatter the papers on my desk.
I put the gun away and reach for my communicator.
“Jessica, could you please have a cleaning crew sent to my office? Yes, right away. I’m also going to need to find a new personal aide, could you make the arrangements? Get the press secretary up here as well; I’m going to have an important announcement to make. Thank you Jessica.”
“Oh, and Jessica, could you please push my daily enema up to 10:30 tomorrow morning? Yes, I’m going to need to be extra clean.”
The dream begins to fade and the last words I hear are my own.
“From this moment forward the planet Earth will be free from the poison shackles of alcohol!”
-------------------------------------------------
So that’s the dream.
Now, you may be asking yourself what that has to do with last night being strange.
Well, Tim and I were sitting in my living room drinking and playing Halo and all of a sudden I hear a man’s voice. At first I thought it was his cellphone set to high volume but then I looked down and I thought it sounded like the voice was coming from Tim’s watch! I couldn’t believe it!
And here’s the strangest thing: The voice coming from Tim’s watch sounded EXACTLY like the voice of the man I shot in my dream. Very spooky!
I remember Tim jumping up and saying something about needing to go to the bathroom and then I really don’t remember much after that. I was pretty drunk, so I guess I was just hallucinating. It was really weird though.
So what’s everyone doing this weekend? Are Wes and Amish coming up to drink with us? I hear Amish may be heartbroken and you know what best cures heartbreak: an eighty-dollar bottle of whiskey.
Yeah, that’s right. Let’s drown them sorrows with style!
I don’t think I’ve told anyone about this (since I am not nearly as open with sharing my dreams as Cricket is), but I’ve had a reoccurring dream for the last four years or so. I probably have this dream once or twice a month and it’s always very vivid.
In this dream I am a great military leader. At the beginning of the dream I’m in battle. I'm screaming out orders to my men and firing my M16A3 at an onrushing swarm of enemy soldiers.
My twenty soldiers and I are pinned down on the outskirts of a desert city, we're being closed in on by close to 150 heavily armed infantrymen. Bullets zip over our heads and kick up the dirt all around us. The only thing keeping us alive is a shallow hole we dug haphazardly in the sand during our retreat. We hunker down in the hole just waiting for the enemy soldiers to close in and kill us.
In a moment of brilliance (or stupidity) I decide we’re going to charge the enemy. We're going to go down fighting. I bark to the man next to me and tell him to spread the word. I want all my men to each toss a grenade as close to the front of the enemy line as they can. I count off loudly...1...2....3.
We toss.
The grenades fly up and drop to the ground between us and the enemy. Multiple explosions. Dust fills the gap between us.
In the confusion of the explosions and dust, the bullets stop coming.
I call for the charge.
We bolt out of our hole and rush the enemy soldiers—guns blazing! We can hardly see anything through the dust, but we keep firing. I don’t take my finger from the trigger until I run out of ammo, then I jam another clip in the rifle and start firing again—just trying to get off as many rounds as I can before I’m gunned down.
Then, before we know what happened, we’re on the other side of the dust cloud. Over a hundred enemy soldiers lay dead in the sand. We did it!
---------------------------------------------------------
The dream fades and suddenly I’m in an office with a bunch of guys in military uniforms. They’re all huddled around a map of Europe and they’re asking me questions. I give them the answers with an audible pride.
They ask, “How long until the area is secure?” “How many troops will we need to leave?” “Why hasn’t France retaliated?” “Why did you hit England so hard?” “Are you sure we can trust the Irish?”
I answer all their questions with an easy confidence. I’ve got the whole situation under control. Nothing will go wrong.
Nothing will stop me.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Finally, the dream ends with me in a very large office.
The ceilings are high enough to allow a giraffe clearance. Behind my desk is a huge segmented window overlooking a city. The city is clean, smooth and busy. It looks like an anthill—full of movement and purpose. I marvel at it and, somehow, I know it is mine. I built it.
A man wearing an expensive suit and a loosened tie enters the room.
He saunters over, walking with a noticeable sway, to where I stand at the window. He’s drunk.
I am filled with a sudden rage.
“Good evening, sir.”, he says. “Would you care for a scotch?”
He holds a glass out to me. My hand flashes from my side and backhands the glass across the room.
“How dare you offer me alcohol!”
I say ‘alcohol’ but I might as well be referring to a dish that contains fried human baby for all the venom that soaks the word. I turn toward the interloper and glare. He shrinks and begins to make a shaking apology.
“I..I..I’m sorry sir, it won’t...”, he starts to say, but my rage only builds.
“You’re certainly right it won’t happen again! Do you know why?”
He hesitates, then offers a sniveling “Why sir?”
“BECAUSE I’M GOING TO OUTLAW ALCOHOL!”
My roar fills the expanse of the room and echoes, giving the declaration an air of finality.
But my diatribe isn’t finished.
“I’m going to make it impossible to get so much as a bottle of rubbing alcohol without the proper authorization! Back in the 1930’s they failed to keep booze illegal. They allowed too many smugglers and criminals to keep the supply coming and they failed to maintain a sober country. Where they failed, I will not. DEATH to anyone who imbibes alcohol!”
The sniveler tries to talk me out of it. “But sir, what about all the revenue created by the alcohol industry? What about the millions upon millions of the world’s citizens who enjoy alcohol? Your own church, sir, uses alcohol in its ceremonies. Surely you can’t be serious.”
My rage burns all the hotter.
“Oh, you don’t think I’m serious? I’ve been sober my entire life and have become the most successful man in the world. I single-handedly built the world we know from the bottom up. The peace and prosperity that those booze-loving citizens enjoy is due to my sober perseverance. And all the while I’ve watched drunks like you stumble their way through life with no purpose. Alcohol is the last poison left in this world, and I plan to purge it like I purged the others. People don’t need alcohol—they need order—and I will give it to them!”
As I finish saying this, I pull a pistol from underneath my coat and put it to the drunk’s forehead. Before he can utter any protest I pull the trigger and watch as his brains spatter the papers on my desk.
I put the gun away and reach for my communicator.
“Jessica, could you please have a cleaning crew sent to my office? Yes, right away. I’m also going to need to find a new personal aide, could you make the arrangements? Get the press secretary up here as well; I’m going to have an important announcement to make. Thank you Jessica.”
“Oh, and Jessica, could you please push my daily enema up to 10:30 tomorrow morning? Yes, I’m going to need to be extra clean.”
The dream begins to fade and the last words I hear are my own.
“From this moment forward the planet Earth will be free from the poison shackles of alcohol!”
-------------------------------------------------
So that’s the dream.
Now, you may be asking yourself what that has to do with last night being strange.
Well, Tim and I were sitting in my living room drinking and playing Halo and all of a sudden I hear a man’s voice. At first I thought it was his cellphone set to high volume but then I looked down and I thought it sounded like the voice was coming from Tim’s watch! I couldn’t believe it!
And here’s the strangest thing: The voice coming from Tim’s watch sounded EXACTLY like the voice of the man I shot in my dream. Very spooky!
I remember Tim jumping up and saying something about needing to go to the bathroom and then I really don’t remember much after that. I was pretty drunk, so I guess I was just hallucinating. It was really weird though.
So what’s everyone doing this weekend? Are Wes and Amish coming up to drink with us? I hear Amish may be heartbroken and you know what best cures heartbreak: an eighty-dollar bottle of whiskey.
Yeah, that’s right. Let’s drown them sorrows with style!
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