Exorcism

The dream begins in a well-lit, nicely furnished living room. There are many people, and one girl is possessed. The rest decide she needs an exorcism, and the violence begins. At times I am her, at other times I am participating in the exorcism, at other times I just watch. The pin her down to the floor, one on each arm and leg, one sitting on her torso, she writhes, alternating between moans and screams. She escapes, rips apart the room's furnishings, they capture he again and try unsuccessfully to physically force out the demon from her body. She begins to tear things apart with her mind, ripping the roof off of the car parked outside, and starting a great wind.

I get tired of watching and move off into another part of the room. My brother has returned from the ranch, and we wanders about in a floor-length red-orange chiffon nightgown with a blank look on his face. This is the mos terrifying thing I have ever seen. He speaks in a monotonous voice of facts he has learned, showing no personal connection to... anything. He sits down with me and my parents at the dining room table, and begins to mark x's on a piece of notebook paper, describing that each x represents a dosage of a drug on a given day. There are many rows of them, up to seven in a row for each day of the week. Then he begins to explain what each drug is and why he takes them. I interrupt and ask about the chart, because I don't understand the system. He responds, "No, There's one for every time per day. And this one is for when I feel anxious, and this one is for when Jenny makes me feel inadequate, and this one..."
I'm so shocked that I get up and leave the table to go back to the exorcism. He was supposed to get better, not become a zombie. The people on the other side of the room haven't made much progress, so I go grocery shopping. I am looking at the cheeses when I run into Ariana. We exchange the typical greetings, Hi how are you, How have you been, etc., and Ariana responds that she was doing fine until the first part of the quarter, but then her upstairs neighbor began bringing home this guy, and they made so much noise having sex that Ariana couldn't concentrate on her studying anymore.

Whatever

I am walking down a street in a more posh version of Fremont, when we suddenly feel the approach of a wave of excitement and cheers, coming from around the corner. It reaches us and suddenly we are caught up in the massive crowd as a group of cyclists in a race fly past. Ariana is there, yelling in a very appropriate manner for Kris, and Kris' mother Julie is halfway between me and Ariana, about ten feet away, also yelling. I stand on my tiptoes, craning my neck to see the contestants, about to cheer with everyone else, but I decide against it at the last second, as I haven't actually seen Kris. In any case the finish line is just past where Ariana now stands with Alex, out of my range of view. The race has already ended, and I hear Julie tell Ariana that the final run is about to start from that point; Kris should be in front. A gun goes off and Alex, Ariana, and Julie all see Kris before I do, but the instant I catch of him, his hair flying back, we all gasp. He forgot to put his helmet back on.
I am first to yell "Kris stop!", but is comes out as a murmur. His mother's attempt is louder, and I join her. Finally he realizes he forgot his helmet and brakes in shock. My heart nearly stops, as he is in the center of a pack, but the other riders miraculously avoid him (I suspect some ride through him, like ghosts). He topples onto the sidewalk and walks over to Ariana and Alex, unharmed as soon as the last rider has passed. Julie joins them and I remain where I am, wondering how to approach the situation.
Then I feel a heavy arm placed comfortingly around my shoulders, steering me towards the small group. I look up to see Kris' dad, and he silently tells me I don't have to worry about causing tension, just to talk to Kris.
I feel less anxious, but when we get to the group and Kris turns around, what comes out of my mouth is, "I thought you shaved your head. I saw you on your bike the other day, and you had a hat on but it really looked like you had shaved your head. I guess I was wrong." And he says, "Yeah," and turns away, following the rest of the group as they leave.

Another of Andrew's great ideas

I am downtown after school with my backpack and drawing portfolio. I have to go to the Opera, so I stop in a stuffy women's clothing store, where many women buy fancy flip-flops. The saleswomen are suspicious that I am mentally handicapped, and have escaped the care of my parents, so they call my dad to take me home. He arrives, awkward in his suspenders and cut-off polar fleece, and talks to me soothingly.
Eventually I give up trying to go to the Opera and end up heading south on I-5 in the backseat of Andrew's car. I talk to Kathryn, who is in the front seat, then Alex appears and we understand each other. Then Ariana appears between us and sings. I rummage around in a paper sack and pull out a plain bagel that as been slightly tainted with blueberry. Ariana asks, "Is that for me?" and I lie and say yes. I take the blueberry-tainted pepper bagel instead.
Andrew mutters something about a watershed, and veers off sharply to the left just before the tunnel, where there is an exit I've never seen before. Although this is somewhere on Capitol Hill, the exit is steep and overgrown with blackberries, and leads us to a snowy field. We all jolt around as he drives us into the middle of the field. I hear a strange noise. Creaking.
"Andrew!" I say, "This is a lake! Are you trying to kill us? Get us off of here!"
He doeesn't believe me, go I get out of the car and brush the snow off the surface. It just looks like ice and Andrew is not convinced. I decide to at least save my own ass and head for the shore. As I walk, my footsteps reveal a different surface. Examining it more closely, I discover it is dark wooden planks, similar to the flooring in Solstice. Everyone else approaches and enthusiastically brushes off a large area. Andrew says, "Look, they've reinforced the lake, it's safe!" Then he comes up with the idea to use our matching planks to reinforce the lake even further, so everyone pulls out a hammer and nails planks on top of the existing ones.
Deciding it would be a better use of my time to go to work, I walk over to the espresso machine on the south end of the lake. The order is a triple tall two percent caramel latte to go, but there's something wrong with the beans... someone has filled the grinder with hard candies. This seems like a really bad idea, but I figure someone knew what they were doing, so I pull the shots. They come out multi-colored, and then deflate to a sugary residue.