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.