Doom and General Incompetency

My sister skateboards down our driveway into the garage. It is warm and sunny outside, though exceedingly clear, like a winter day. I want to learn to skate, so she hops off and I change the music in the CD player. Though it's not on the CD I insert, The Decemberist's "Oceanside" comes on. I can hear more clearly than ever before the chord structure and strumming patterns, as if the crisp air aids the sound waves on their way to my ear. I realize that for too long, I have been attempting to play this song incorrectly. I will never amount to the musician I should. After aa few minutes spent putting one foot on the skateboard and promptly falling off, I go back inside.

We file into a dimly lit movie theater. Someone inside tells us the movie will not be starting until an hour later, and this is definitely not okay with me. My friends sit down to wait patiently, but I leave again.

Anne Bertucio has left me a note that says "SNACKS." I realize that I was supposed to be organizing the food for the floor meeting that is convening in a matter of minutes. As people begin to gather, I have to tell them that I failed in my food mission. I think to myself that it's because I only just got the note, but in my subconscious I know that it really is my fault.

I have been jettisoned into space with several nuclear missiles. I see that I am drifting towards a glowing orb, which I soon come to realize is the sun. It is my mission to destroy it before it engulfs the earth. I fire several missiles into its center, but nothing happens. The fiery mass grows larger and larger, and I know that soon I will be incinerated. Before this, in an attempt to document my experiences before it's too late, it tell ground control that space is awesome. Like hot dogs. I brace myself for the searing pain, and as the heat increases, I bring a book of instructions up to cover my eyes. Nothing happens. Bringing the book down again, I find I have somehow been turned around and am heading away from the Sun. I rejoice. A book has once again saved my life.

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.

Zombies!

I ride my bike up a giant spiral ramp in the mall-like east end of the Art building. I stop near the top, where some of my future classmates stop at an espresso stand. As I stand there the bike almost rolls off the edge of the ramp, as it has no guardrail, but I keep my balance and ride forward. I have difficulty turning the pedals over to the proper side, because it hurts to kick them in bare feet.

Later, I have to get out of the Art building because zombies have started invading. The basement has partially collapsed and become a cramped, uneven tunnel. I run into Eric from Solstice and point him in the direction of the exit, but I continue deeper into the depths of the building. For some reason I have to get back to the east end, although I know there are many zombies there. I take the elevator to the first floor and find someone I recognize. Together we push open the colossal wooden doors to the Church that has taken the place of the library. A zombie plays the organ at the opposite end of the hall, and many others wander about hissing dumbly.

Outside in the Quad the sun sets as I walk along the path, surrounded by people I should know. They are all dressed in black to play capture the flag, and run about to tag the zombies surrounding us. I try to tell them how stupid this is, and not to look them in the eyes, but as I watch Gracie come face-to-face with a zombie, and in the dusk her eyes begin to glow red out of a darkened face. In my peripheral vision I see more red dots start to glow in the darnkness. I go back the way I came, realizing I any attempt to save another of my friends would be useless. I take a right by the Music building, but stop near a blooming cherry tree as several of my shadowy, red-eyed friends surround me. I climb into the tree and try to leap off of one of the branches and take off flying in mid-air, but apparently my flying capabilities are limited to slowly floating upward from an immobile position on the ground. I quickly get up and face the crowd with diverted eyes, but this time in my peripheral vision they brighten. I look up and can distinguish the faces of Josh Morris, Brian Le, and others. I thought it was already night, but when I look at the sky I see there was just a cloudy sunset, and a little bit of day is still left, but the threadbare blanket of clouds is about to cover the horizon again. I run.

I come to a deserted highrise building in the center of town with my friend. There is no sign of life, human or zombie, just many, many pigeons. We decide the highrise is the safest place to stay because zombies can't climb stairs (or something), and all of the panic-crazed humans fled long ago. We decide to climb up the outside of the building just to be safe.

Quietly we climb past ten or more of the paritally destroyed first stories, deciding we need to get higher to feel safe. We decide the next one would be acceptable, but as we haul ourselves up to the balcony railing we hear voices. We cling to the egde and carefully peer over. There are two giant, fluffy, talking cats living in the apartment. The grey one sits in a patio chair reading a newspaper and sipping coffee. The orange one (the wife) asks her husband if he would like anymore lemonade to finish his breakfast. She walks out of the kitchen (upright), holding a pitcher of lemonade.
In a whisper I tell my shocked friend that when all of the humans left town or turned into zombies the cats must have taken over, because zombies don't care about cats. Without the repression and all of the hormones from eating human food they must have grown into more human-like creatures and taken over our lives. While they might be able to protect us, I reason that they are probably more likely to kill us to prevent us from attracting the destructive zombies, and because of their longheld hatred for the opressive masters.

Carefully, we climb upward, past three more stories of cat families until we reach the very top, deserted floor. We will have to be quiet, but there is enough food to sustain us for a little while. Just there is a massive crashing as the building collapses below us. Only our apartment survives destruction, and now sits on top of a giant pile of rubble. I think of all the dead giant cats underneath us. I don't have long to think as the door to the balcony crashes open and a horde of wild-eyed men and women rush across a bridge of rubble into the apartment. The man in front, dressed in a voilently colorful floral shit has his hands outstretched to strangle me.