Spirit Bird's Secret

Tony and I were on the road and we stopped at a weird hotel that didn't have proper elevators--instead it had open platforms that went up and down through holes in the floors, like in a video game.  Those were freaking me out a bit because we had a lot of luggage and I was afraid that since there was no railing, our bags might stick out and get smashed by the edge of the next floor.  I asked the staff if there was another way up, and there was: this very new-looking carbon fiber ski lift.  Like a chair on a cable.  It went very fast, too.

Neither method would work with our luggage, and it was almost daytime again anyway and we weren't tired, so we decided to just keep driving.  We got a little lost trying to leave the hotel and came out on a loading dock, facing the back of a huge amusement park with hundreds of rides, all painted blue, packed so tightly together it looked crazy.  I realized, that though I remembered for some reason knowing about the place and knew that it was famous for having so many rides that you never really had to stand in line anywhere, the real secret of the place was that they were really all one big connected ride.  The whole place was like clockwork and gears so that the rides, even though they went in and out of each other, would never collide, like the machine guns of old propeller-driven planes being mechanically timed to go between the propeller blades.

Apparently that was a big industry secret, and an employee chased me back into the hotel.  We found the front door and got in the car and kept driving.  The car wasn't like our car in real life, it was more like Luke Skywalker's speeder thing in the beginning of A New Hope; red, no top, just a windshield.  We went a new way along Lake Superior, and drove further and further away from any towns or cities, and at one point the road just ended at the water and our car apparently could hover about 10 feet above the water, so we just drove out over the lake.

The sky was getting lighter, and we followed the shoreline.  We were really in the wild, no other people around anywhere, and the trees were old, old growth.  Not tall or huge, but they seemed weathered and wise.  Seagulls and geese and other birds flew around us, and then a big eagle or an owl flew in front of us.  We could barely see it, it seemed to be made out of a wisp of mist at first glance, but it was really shimmering energy that swirled with all colors.  We could see a trail in the woods coming up again, and we thought about landing the car and driving, but the spirit bird was not turning.  She was sticking to the shoreline, and we decided to follow.

It turned out she could talk, sort of, it wasn't like a voice but more like a thought that came into our heads but we knew we could both hear it.  She said "Hello, humans.  We don't usually see your kind here.  Most of you have forgotten how to fly.  I'm going to take you to our most secret shore, one you cannot get to by roads or land."

We followed, and the shoreline became rocky and chaotic and shrouded in mist, and we had to fly our car carefully not to crash into the cliffs or the gnarled old trees sticking out of them.  It got steadily more and more difficult, and though as it got closer to sunrise, we still couldn't see well due to the mist.

Finally we came out through a big crack between two giant rock formations, and the shoreline opened up and the mist cleared just as the sun came up over the horizon behind us, bathing everything in gold.

The rock formations were huge, easily as tall as skyscrapers, but with wide open areas of smooth water between them.  No trees grew on them, because they were bare rock.  They were filled with holes, like enormous sponges with pockets and tunnels big enough to put a house through.  The rocks, all hard and even in texture like basalt, were a riot of colors, jade green and mauve and turquoise and gold.  As we flew close to one of the formations, we saw the surface of it was peppered with sparkling mineral deposits, mica and fool's gold and hematite.

Love Magics

I was a sorceress, and I lived with my all-female family of witches and sorceresses in a beautiful house.  Our family had lived there for centuries and we took in any woman or girl who wanted to learn magic.  Our house was full of laughter and every room was different.  When women came to us hurt or intending to use magic for evil, we took them in and cared for them and showed them love and peace until their souls were healed, because you couldn't use magic with a cracked soul or you'd shatter from the power of it and die.  Every time someone came to seek help, the house grew another room for her, and each room became the ideal place for her, filled with her favorite things and pictures of her loved ones.  There were all different colors and decorative styles and the differences were what made the house so beautiful.

We used little magics all the time, to help animals and to subtly help people all around the world.  When someone anywhere cried out for help, we could hear them and send what magical help we could.  Sometimes we couldn't do very much, when their needs were physical such as food.  But we could calm the emotions of attackers or make them forget what they were doing, or we could chase the nightmares of children away.

But there were bad people in the world who could use magics too.  They didn't bring their power from a source of love, but from their pain, and the more cracked and broken their souls, the more evil and destructive their magic.  They found our house and laid siege, killing anyone who went outside.

We had a secret exit and we escaped, but they sent a broken woman to go through the front door of our house, because our magical protections and wards allowed anyone seeking help to enter--but once she was inside, she turned around and invited the evil ones in, thereby allowing them to pass.  And because our power came from our home, its feeling of love and peace and privacy and security and safety, they had to destroy those centuries-old spells.  They opened the front and back doors and they marched all their prisoners through again and again.  They made all the townspeople walk through.  The more people walked through, the more the energy of our comfortable, beautiful home leaked out, until our home had no power anymore and was just a building.  We sorceresses and witches could no longer call on our magic.

But they didn't realize that our kind of magic, once created, does not get destroyed, it merely moves around.  The town around them transformed into a beautiful paradise, and their prisoners and the townspeople and everyone who went through that door felt a little of their worries and pains and emotional wounds lighten and heal.  Those who went through again and again became happy and full of life, and finally the evil ones had no power over them.

Mexican IT Football Hero

I moved to Mexico and was jobhunting.  I found a company that had three different openings for computer/IT/web positions, and I felt I was qualified for any of the three.  I went to interview and I was really excited because the pay was really good and knew I had it in the bag.

When I arrived for the interview, there was nobody in the building.  The lights were off and the late afternoon/early evening sunlight was lighting the place up all golden stripey through the blinds.  There was a voice over the intercom asking me things and then we started talking about football.  I told them if they ever went to a football game it should be the Vikings.

Then I went into another room and there was a little football field there.  Like maybe 1/4 the size of a normal football field, but inside and with a ceiling.  The grass was real and there was a haze in the air like they'd just had the sprinklers on, and the golden sunlight was making it all glow golden-orange.

And then I noticed I had a football in my hands, but it was sort of a wiffle-bell version of a football that was like a neon yellow-green plastic football-shaped cage-like ball.  And there was an actual football game going on, and there were massive football players running at me.

I took off running.  The room around the field had disappeared and the sky was dark, like it was a night game with big artificial lights, and I was now wearing a Vikings uniform and pads and everything.  The other team (maybe the Raiders or something, they were wearing black) was after me.  All my other teammates were on the ground with injuries so it was up to me.

I ran and ducked and dodged and spun, and I made it to the end zone and spiked the plastic ball.  There was a whole stadium of cheering people and the other Vikings picked me up on their shoulders and carried me around the room (it was a room again, but now was crowded full of people).

I had saved the game and won myself a place on the team.  They said I got to pick my groupies out of a big crowd of people in swimsuits, and the room we were in turned into the deck of a cruise ship.  Everyone wanted to be in my entourage, and when I looked over the rail of the ship, there was literally a sea of fans.  The whole ocean was actually people cheering for me.

Calling Card

I was an heir to a big Apple-like company.  So was my friend Emma.  But the company was evil, so I decided to steal a bunch of the inventions and run away and use the technology to make the world a better place.  I went to the invention display table thing and grabbed a bunch of glossy white doohickeys.  They snapped together into a little suitcase-shaped object.

I ran out the door.  Emma was on my side though she stayed in, it was our plan that I get free and then break her out later.  She stalled everyone so it was a couple minutes before they realized I'd really run away, and then the alarms sounded.  I was running through our underground maze and the Apple troops were after me.  I knew the way through the maze, and came out to the outside world.  Immediately I was jumping fences and running through bushes and gardens, thinking the troops would stick to roads and paths.  I used a rope to swing across a deep valley and tied the rope to a tree, but there was a bridge not too far away so it only bought a little time.

The city I was running through was hilly and had a lot of beautiful terraced parks.  This same city appears in my dreams often, so I knew the areas and headed for where I thought I could get help.

The troops following me started a tornado.  I could see the black funnel of it across the valley, and it was pretty slow-moving so I felt like I had some time.  I went to a house where I knew my brother Simon would be.  I wanted to call my dad, so I used a payphone in the stairwell.  Simon gave me the number, but there was some intricate way of dialing to not have to pay and it kept not working even thought I was doing it right.

I ran and checked out the window and the tornado was closer.  I freaked and told Simon I really really needed to get Dad on the phone.  He gave me a calling card.

I looked at the calling card for a second and then I was like "A fucking calling card?  Really?  Is it 2002?!!?"

Rescued by the Space Pope

I was on a space ship in zero g.  The ship was pretty colorful, most of it was white or silver metal but all the doors, storage, etc. were painted yellow, orange, or red.  There were big windows to see the stars, and as I floated through the corridors and explored, I was happy that this spaceship was obviously designed never to have gravity.  There was no floor and corridors branched off in all directions, there was no up or down.

Tony was there, and we were flirting like when we first met.  We went exploring, as a date, holding hands and giggling as we frolicked in zero g.  We went out into a huge sun room area that had glass on all sides and kind of a tower of handles you could hold onto in the middle, so you could climb out to the end and be surrounded by space.

Tony and I started to go out onto the tower, but then Tony pulled his back.  He couldn't move himself, he was stuck with his arms kind of claw-like and his back arched.  I called out for someone to help and my friend Nathan came to our rescue, dressed in totally ridiculous lavender and mint green and gold and white scifi robes, like something Whoopi Goldberg would wear in Star Trek but with a Pope hat.  Nathan saw Tony's condition and said "Oh this happens all the time, I'm really good at fixing it," and grabbed Tony around the chest with one arm and dug his knuckles into the middle of Tony's back.  It looked painful and Tony yelled, but Nathan did some kind of twist with his hand and popped something in Tony's back, and then everything was fine.  Tony was back to full health.

We thanked Nathan, who floated away like he had some kind of little hidden motors that let him move however he wanted rather than use the handles in the walls like anyone else.

Presidential Waterskiing Competition

I was in a flying aircraft of some kind, flying close to the surface of the ocean.  I opened the aircraft's cargo door, which was like a big ramp on the front, so we could see the water and dolphins and stuff.  The plane was too close to the water though, and when the ramp opened all the way it dipped below the surface and the water came rushing into the cargo bay.

Bill Clinton and I then dove out into the ocean and started to waterski behind the plane.  We could see it was kind of more like a flying saucer or scifi drop ship.  Since I was running for president, Bill advised that I beat Herman Cain at waterskiing tricks.  So I went over ramps and did spin moves and flips and stuff like that.

I kicked Cain's ass at waterskiing, and Bill tried to beat me but I sabotaged the ramp and he fell and was totally embarrassed.  Then a really tall blond Swedish-looking woman beat up Herman Cain and I congratulated her and gave her my President crown.

Me and Kiefer BFFs 4eva!

I dreamed years ago I used to live in an awesome house on stilts over a canyon where it often rained but the rain was below my house.  I could see herds of animals down there.  It was beautiful.  But I had to move away, and I got some of my friends hooked up to take the place when I left it.

Then the neighborhood went to crap.  The university nearby got really big and the sprawl of the city took over, full of unruly fratboys and loud, gross parties.  In the canyon a big amusement park opened, noisy rides and roller coasters chasing all the animals away.  There was a record-breakingly-huge Ferris wheel that drew a lot of people, but the amusement park quickly fell out of fashion and into disrepair.  They put in a second Ferris wheel to try to attract more people but nobody came, and the park closed and became a favorite spot for illegal drinking parties and was soon covered with broken bottles and graffiti.

My friends decided to move out, and they asked me to come pick up some mail that had come for me there.

They had YEARS worth of mail.  Some of it was very important, like a magazine had sent me a really nice (though now obsolete) camera to record myself answering interview questions for them to put on their website. There were bills I never paid and lots of things I could have gotten in real trouble for ignoring.

I was really mad, but by the time I had gone through everything and was going to ask my friends why they had never given me this stuff, they had moved across the country and weren't answering my calls.  Then I was just sad that they had let a little thing like some mail snowball into something they felt so bad about that they wouldn't talk to me for fear of my anger.  I hadn't actually gotten in trouble for missing any of it, in fact some of it was too old to collect so I was getting away in better shape than if I had gotten the stuff, for the most part.

Then Kiefer Sutherland as the vampire in Lost Boys came up out of the abandoned amusement park and asked me to tune his guitar, so I did and then he played a song trying to hypnotize some lady but she ran away.  He sighed and put the guitar down, and I picked it up and played a song for him and hypnotized him instead, which somehow made me a vampire too.  We chased all the other vampires (they were less evolved than us of course) around and had a great time and learned we could run super fast on all fours.  We ran and ran and found a new canyon where all the animals had gone to and joined the natural order of life like a couple of lions.