Month: December 2022

I was in an 70’s era house on a small lake. It was a two or three story house, narrow in both directions, and having a small square footprint on the shore. I was on the deck down below on the first floor. The deck was sitting on the water with a chest-high solid wood railing. The railing kept the water out as it seemed the water height was actually higher than the deck. This felt surreal, that the deck was lower than the water and the water was kept out by this worn wooden railing. It felt impossible. I had a sense that something was not right about that.

I was with someone, I don’t recall who, but they wanted me to go swimming. I had a lot of thoughts about this. I wasn’t sure I could gracefully crawl over the railing. It was dark, or dim, as if the whole world were indoors and lit by a large soft spotlight that was coming from across the lake. Artificial light.

There was a wooden slide in the water not far from the deck. The only reason I knew it was a slide was because there was a young girl out there using it. She had a sled. She climbed up onto the structure with the sled and fastened it to the start. There was hardly any pitch to the slide. I was curious how she would propel forward. She jumped onto the sled and it, and her, slowly moved down the slide. She barely made it to the end, then she was  toppled into the water, sled and all. 

She stood up in the dark water revealing that it was only a couple feet deep. This seemed odd to me as well, the whole thing seemed odd to me, but I couldn’t figure out why. I wasn’t going swimming. 

I walked back over the deck and alongside the house, then up a well-worn narrow wooden stairway into a small room like an unfinished attic where all the wall studs are still exposed. The stairway made a couple 90 degree turns at the top like the  roped line at a carnival ride. My Race Inc BMX bike was blocking the top of the stairs. It was elevated off the ground on my bike stand. It was dusty. There was a heavy spider web under the seat extending down the seat tube. I wanted to clear that off. I found a metal rod nearby, but when I looked at the web again it now had a cave woven into it and was likely full of baby spiders, or eggs. I was grossed out by this and wanted to get this over with. I used the metal rod to pull the web off the seat and frame, but it became even larger and thicker, then started to glow with a dark blue light from inside the cave-like center. Further freaked out, I tried harder to dislodge it and tore off the top to reveal a scorpion. I yelled to everyone that it was a scorpion and to get back. It had metal chevron-shaped plates down its back that emitted a blue light from underneath. It jumped down to the floor. 

The room was now a living room, not an attic, with white shag carpet. My step-father, Robert, was in the dinning room area. I shouted at him and pointed to the carpet where the blue glow could be seen down in the shag near his foot. He stomped on it. I was worried the scorpion was padded by the shag and would survive. Robert was looking at me, facing me. He lifted his foot and the glow slowly moved away from us, undercover of the shag. I assumed it was injured. I told Robert to stomp on it again but he stomped backwards while still facing me and kept missing the scorpion. It was as if he couldn’t turn around and look down to direct his feet. He randomly stomped and moved backwards missing the scorpion each time. His was a ridiculous backward stomping like a child whose mind had fully malfunctioned and whose faculties were forgotten. 

The scorpion got away. 

Such a simple thing to do, but like everything in my life, also impossible. 

I woke up from what I thought was a dream at this point. I had an early morning medical appointment. I went to the doctor’s office. The doctor was an older man who seemed annoyed with everything. He put me in a couple different rooms to wait. Then he put me in a room and asked me to turn around. He forcibly bent me over and lifted my shirt to look at the mole I recently had removed from my lower back. He grumbled and pinched it with his fingers saying something under his breath that sounded like he needed to fix this. He pinched it firmer and with more skin and I assumed he was cutting off what Dr Leu had originally done. I was prepared for it to hurt like hell because he hadn’t numbed me, but it didn’t. It was like when Dr Leu does it—I could feel the pressure but no pain. Then he struggled with some stitches. A nurse came in and was telling me that he put one stitch in it, she thought, maybe. I hoped it would look better closed up with a stitch. The doctor left. The nurse left.

I was still thinking about the dream I’d had with the scorpion, and the lake house, and the slide. I decided to go visit my girlfriend, Shannon, at her new job. When I got there I was confused because it was a clothing store, of sorts. Even more confusing was that it was in an old multiplex movie theater. Each theater was brightly lit and the walls were made of beautiful old wood that was finished in clear gloss. It was spectacular. They had added elevated walkways along the walls that went to offices upstairs. The clothes for sale were on the stage where the curtains used to be. I was moving from theater to theater, looking up to the vaulted walkways looking for Shannon. 

I had set my backpack down somewhere and became worried it was lost. 

I finally saw her up above me on a walkway with a small group of co-workers looking down at the stage as if watching a performance. She saw me and motioned that she would come down. I saw my backpack on the stage. It was missing some of my clothes. I went back to the stage I had just come from and found the clothes there. I tried to change my shirt but it wouldn’t come off over my head. It felt like I was wet and so was the shirt. I got it just over my head but it had turned into what felt like Play-Doh or bread dough. I pulled harder on it and it tore away like dough. My skin was doughy as well and pulling away with the shirt like they were partially rolled together. I felt awful, gross. I was sure someone would see me doing this. My skin was coming off.

Shannon and one of her co-workers found me. Shannon was taller, nearly my height. Her co-worker said my skin was gross. Shannon didn’t say anything. I still had the dough-shirt stuck to my wrists, unable to get it free.  I tried to make small talk with the two of them. 

Shannon alluded to our relationship not working. Then she said she had just started this job, which I knew, and wasn’t sure she could make it on her own, which I also knew. I jokingly said that she probably had offers from her co-workers. Offers, in this context, meant other men that would take care of her in exchange for her sexuality. She said, yes, one—but she didn’t want to trade on her body like that just yet. I was devastated and felt the ache of heartbreak for first time in a long time. I knew all was lost here. I struggled to contain the total collapse.

I still thought I was awake from a previous dream. I was in a lot of emotional pain and confused. The co-worker was looking at me in barely hidden disgust. I couldn’t find a frame of reference for myself or what was happening. Where was I? What time or context is this? Somewhere in my mind it occurred to me that this didn’t feel like the new job that Shannon had started—something was wrong. The building also seemed wrong. 

Then it became clear that it didn’t really matter. I was unable to touch my own skin.  If I did, my skin would pull away in an unpredictable way. I was physically coming apart in taffy-like strips. I took my backpack and walked away, I could hear them talking about all this as I left. Then their voices became distant.

I didn’t know where I was going.

I was trying to sleep while the plane was still boarding passengers. I was in the middle of the plane laying across and empty seat next to me. I was aware that I’d have to get up when someone came for the seat but I really didn’t want to. I kept peaking out one eye as people milled past. I could see the top of the movie screen over the seats in front of me. It was the type of large movie screen that everyone on the plane used to watch, or tried to, back when everyone watched the same movie on a flight. 

I noticed that all the people milling past me were young girls and recalled that the few occupied seats to my left were also young girls. I tried to go to sleep but some girls stopped at my row and I had to get up. I collected my blankets and moved toward the back of the plane.  The back of the plane started to open up and on the right side, at the rear, there was brightly lit corner with no seats at all. I went and stood there watching the plane slowly fill with passengers. The seats all faced the back of the plane and I could see that most of the seats were occupied by girls. Someone yelled out a phrase, like a command or a chant and everyone in the plane chanted back one word, then they raised their arms up over their heads and crossed their forearms. Every person on the plane, regardless of what else they were wearing, had a long sleeve shirt with sleeves that were bright white from the elbow to the wrist. They also had white gloves on. In this way, the entire area in front of me turned white as they crossed their arms over their head and hit their own forearms against one another.  When they put their arms back down everything looked normal, as it was before.  

If I was uncertain before, there was now no doubt that the entire plane was filled with Girl Scouts, or some organization like that. Myself and the crew were the only people not of this order. 

I quickly tried to get my phone out, and camera turned on, in case they did this chanting thing again. I thought this was going to be the most amazing photograph, this bright white sea of synchronized movement. I tried to get the phone lens to be wide enough to capture the whole group. I had to back up more. Behind me was an unused hospitality bar that I maneuvered around further back into the darkness. Now the arch over the bar was in the photo. I tried a longer lens through the arch and stepped back. The girls didn’t do the chant again. 

Through the archway in the back corner of the plane it was night and I was floating down a calm river or waterway on a platform. It was dark as if there was no sky but a ceiling somewhere up above that was hidden by the dark. There was a cocktail bar on the platform and earlier I had met with Gerard and Liz, though separately. Liz was nearly flirting with me. Both our arms were on the table and your fingers nearly touched in the middle. Without moving my hand I stroked her fingers with mine very lightly. This was the first time I’d ever touched her in such a way but I was confident that she was signaling me to. I was having strong feelings for her but also aware that I was having these feeling and wondering why, or if they were real. I couldn’t figure out the context of time and place in this moment, or my life’s circumstances. She reacted negatively and got cross with me. I had misread the situation. I left her and went to the front of the platform. 

At the front of the platform there was a separate round platform floating just ahead. On that platform was a large round air fryer. It was an air fryer but also like a wok with a lid on it. I lifted the lid.  About a third of the space inside was occupied by cooked onion strings. There were a couple people around me, we were all trying to figure out what to do with this. I said that we have to do something with these cooked onion strings so we can get a full new batch of onion strings cooking; otherwise we’d not have enough. Also, I was concerned that we’d arrive at our destination before they had time to cook. As a possible solution, I ate a few of the onion strings then resized I can’t eat them all without getting sick. I didn’t have a plate or anywhere to put them. I decided to move them against the wall of the air fryer and just know that they will get over cooked. Maybe I’ll get lucky and they will be the super crispy ones that everyone likes the most. With that, I filled the air fryer with a healthy amount of frozen onion strings and closed the lid hoping they would be done in time. 

I could see the archway ahead in darkness. It was a distant but visible warm glow on the black watery horizon, through which was the airplane. I didn’t know if the platform would get there too soon or not. There was nothing I could do at this point but wait and see. 

There was a promotion for, and with, Ken Roczen, the World Champion motocross racer. In order for it to happen it needed to be outlined on the paper in front of me. Only, the paper wasn’t paper and it wasn’t digital either. At times it felt like white semi-translucent plastic. It had a couple holders sticking out perpendicular shaped like segments of ball point pens. If you pulled on the holders a piece would come out in the shape of mountain, a rough triangle with the point on top, and a bit to the left. It bothered me to take this out, it felt like things were getting worse when it was taken out. [Someone] was trying to help me but it wasn’t going well. I couldn’t understand how the promotion worked, what the words on the surface of this paper were supposed to say. I could move the words around but it didn’t seem like I had the correct words or enough of them. I didn’t know how to connect what was in front of me with Ken Roczen but it felt important to do so, and quickly. 

John Wendl was there and he wanted to go for a bike ride. We were in San Luis Obispo area and that was comforting. There were a couple other people in our biking group. We were riding fast down a neighborhood street, all pedaling fast like we were racing, I was in the back of the pack. We headed down a street then made a right off the sidewalk and up a dirt hillside that already had many bike trails up and down it. We were all carrying a lot of speed and the initial climb resulted in an uphill jump. I wasn’t sure how much air I’d get on this. I wasn’t on my own bike but it felt comfortable. As I left the face of the jump I could see Wendl waiting for me up ahead, I decided to whip the bike more than I usually would—more than I ever have. I did so and the rear wheel was up over my head. I pulled it back just in time. I large whip for a small jump. I was extremely proud of myself.  

That was the end of the fun part of the ride, now I knew I was in for a long climb. The hill was so large that you couldn’t see the top of it—it was starting to feel like a mountain. There were many trails, many options, all of them a bit too soft and steep for a mountain bike and I regretted losing Wendl as he probably knew the ridable way up. Lots of people were coming down, many of them on motorcycles. One of them looked at me rudely as if to say, “What are you doing riding up and on a bicycle?” I chose a trial that veered off to the right in hopes of avoiding any more confrontation then realized I could never peddle up this for any sustained period and got off to walk. I put the bike seat on my shoulder, it fit perfectly there and I got ready for a very long climb on foot. John was long gone as was whomever else was in our group. As usual, with my fitness, I was unobserved, in the back, and would catch up with them at some waypoint. 

This climb was something like the one up Aspen mountain, which is 4000ft. I walked it much like I did back then, meditatively putting one foot in front of the other and not thinking about how far I’d come or how far I had to go. As such, the top just happened. 

There was an old hut at the top the size of a small house. It was light blue with white roof trim, all of it aged many decades and from another time. There were old wooden tables out front in the patchy grass like a ski resort in the summertime. Likewise, they served some food up there. There were young kids running around. 

As I walked away from the hut I came upon a white cemented platform that had long ago been painted but was now only showing that it once was. Bolted into the platform was three or four black metal hoist-like structures that extended out over the  edge of what I could only describe as the edge of the world. On the end of each hoist was a black plastic pulley or wheel with nylon straps wrapped through it and then strung up and over the hoist arm in tangles. The hoists were made of 1.5” square tube iron and had extra extensions off the bases where they bolted over the edge and down to the side—though I couldn’t see that without looking over the edge and I didn’t want to do that. Just getting near the edge was terrifying. I say this was the edge of the world because there was no telling how far down it went. I couldn’t see anything below except for what seemed like the a mist or the top of a cloud. 

Matt Miller was there beside me. He was excited to show me how this worked. He took hold of two of the nylon straps and wrapped each one around the palm of his hands and swung out over the endless void. The nylon straps, all wound around the pulley wheel and themselves, unravelled in such a way that he slowly descended into the void like this was a rope swing over a river and he was gone down and out of sight. Then, unexplainably, he was back by my side and eager for me to try it. I tried it without thinking but my straps got tangled. I was only lowered about 10 feet. Matt was annoyed and pulled me back to the edge of the platform. I backed away from the edge in absolute terror. It occurred to me, only then, that if the rope got tangled on the way down, say somewhere between 50 and 4000 feet, I’d neither be able to climb back up or drop to the bottom. I’d be alive only as long as I could hold onto the nylon strap. 

I tried to explain this to Matt but he wouldn’t hear of it. He insisted it was easy and fun and was mildly annoyed with me in a way I am familiar from all our childhood adventures. I crawled to the edge of the platform again, this time acutely aware of the height—much more so than before—and felt lightheaded as I neared the edge. I thought I might pass out from the sensation of height. My muscles hurt and failed at the same time. The idea of doing this was almost certainly life ending. Again I tried to explain to Matt the risk/reward ratio on this was stupid. Why would we do this? I explained that the straps would have to untangle is just the right way for it to work and the odds on that were horrible. I went on to explain that if they untangled too fast I would drop and have to somehow keep hold when they did grab. He bowed his head in disappointment. 

He took two straps in his hands and swung out like a gymnast and flipped over gracefully with his arms extended out. He didn’t descend at all, the straps didn’t let go. He did a few tricks and then swung back to the platform edge but on the other side. It was only then that I realized there was an other side, another platform about 30 feet away. When he landed on the other side the infinite void in front of me was gone, filled in by what was now the continuous aged cement surface that stretch from the grassy edge were I sat to a similar grassy edge on the other side. The void that was there now felt like it existed because some god-like eraser simply erased the middle of the cement platform revealing the infinite below. There was a white picket fence on the far side, the other side, and the hills continued off beyond it into the mountainous but beautiful summer landscape. 

Matt walked slowly back across the platform toward me. He shrugged and smiled. It was like a carnival ride and now it was closed, turned off. The black metal hoists that never looked like they could hold my weight in the first place were still there, only now they seemed purposeless. I poked the pulley wheel of one with my finger, as if to see if it was real.