That wasn't supposed to happen

Kathryn and I are working at Solstice, and we are keeping the cafe open late for a show of some sort. I feel alright about this until we try to use the cash register and the "3", "00", and "cash" keys are broken off. In a panic, I try to get the espresso machine mechanic to come back and fix it, but he has already left. When I turn back, someone has started a list of everything sold and convinces me it will be alright. Matt, A-Strike, Jacob, Eva, and some other band members approach, and I greet them warmly. Later, they are over talking to Devin, who I think is also helping with the event, and I overhear A-Strike say, "Yeah, and I keep getting these e-mails from the dream blog- we all have, since our names were first mentioned it put us on its e-mail list and won't stop sending us updates!"
I can feel my cheeks burning.I say, "No... not all of you?"
A-Strike says, "Yeah, we're all on the list now!"
Shit! I just had a dream about making out with Matt. I turn to him, and he looks at me for a second before turning away in embarrassment. I ask, "Matt, can we talk outside for a minute?" He nods, and we step out into the alley. I say, "I'm really sorry, Matt, that shouldn't have been something you had to read."
He says, "No! Look, it's okay, don't worry about it Jenny!" much in the way Kris said I shouldn't worry about being a jerk.
I continue, "I just think, well, it wouldn't even have been weird if Andrew hadn't mentioned it and-"
"Exactly!" He cuts in enthusiastically, and says, "Good, I'm glad we're clear on that!" and he hugs me, and we both get a little too intimate.

I am on an a hike with a group of classmates, including my secret lover, and a teacher. We reach vantage point on a steep cliff, overlooking the sun setting on the ocean. Everyone begins to move down the steep path to the beach, and I quickly try to find a way to indicate to my lover that we should stay behind. Just as the last student rounds the bend, I turn around, and almost stumble over a body lying face down on the ground. I gasp in shock and then decide the man is probably taking a nap. I shake his shoulder and say loudly, "SIR, ARE YOU ALRIGHT?" several times, before backing off and realizing I probably shouldn't touch the body. I do spot a wallet nearby and pick it up. I pull out photos of a man, who I presume is the body, although I can't see his face. The name on the credit card says "Wilder". I yell to my brother, who appears at my side. "Nick! Do you recognize the man in this picture? You had Mr. Wilder for English in high school, didn't you? Is this him?"
Nick nods.

I find myself suddenly underwater, unsure of which way is up. There is too much pressure and I need to get to the surface. I do i somersault, looking for the sun, but there are odd glints of light in the dark water in every direction. Suddenly there is a powerful rushing, something shooting up beneath me from great depths. A giant iron capsule nearly slams into me as it rushes to the surface.
I get a flash of the future: the scariest mutant sharks I can imagine are thrashing around in the water around me, having been released from the capsule when the chain anchoring their isolation chamber to the floor of the ocean snapped-
I am underwater still but there is no sign of the capsule or the sharks. This time I notice a chain leading down into the depths and I understand it leads from the capsule at the bottom to a buoy on the surface. I immediately start swimming to to the surface, knowing I have to get away before-
The capsule explodes from the water near me and shoots into the sky. I frantically swim towards the same cliffs I stood on before with the body of Mr. Wilder, hoping I can get away before the capsule falls from the sky and the sharks are released.
Now I am with someone, a friend, possibly my lover from before. We are still about a hundred yards from the base of the cliff, but we can see the bottom is not more than twenty feet away. We hear yelling from the cliff- we are saved!
But then we get a better look- the figures line up, each one carrying a large stone over his head. One by one they throw the stones, and all I can do it sit there and think, "Are they really throwing stones at us?" until one nearly hits me over the head and I have to dive underwater.

I examine several packages of macaroni from the cupboard, reading the instructions and trying to decide which one to prepare. They all have strange complex instructions, though, such as, "At 4900 feet, boil 10 quarts water for 30 seconds, then remove half, saving one cup for later use. Add half package of macaroni..."

I walk across campus, soaking wet, giving a tour to the same group that was at Solstice earlier, now also including Anna, Kellen, and Alex. We arrive at Red Square... but it is white. I assume it is ice- they must have removed red square, installed a lake, and it froze over. Kathryn suggests, "Let's go swimming!" Everyone agrees, the weather is as nice as can be (cloudy), and starts removing their shoes.
I am the first one ready, running backwards as fast as I can with my elbows out behind me to break through the ice. Alex and Kathryn are close behind. When I reach the "shoreline" and throw myself backwards, however, I do not crash through ice. I get tangled up in the white butcher paper that is actually covering the lake, and my feet get stuck, in what I fear is mud.
"Stop!" I yell, "You're going to get covered in mud!" Alex is already in, though, and he explains that the bottom is paved, with stairs leading down from the edges.
A campus police officer blows a whistle and walks up to us across the butcher paper surface of the lake, explaining to me as I sit tangled in the soggy paper that Alex is right: red square is actually a paved pool, but it is closed for the winter. We thank her and crawl out of the pool, moving into the lobby of a small art gallery to wring ourselves out.

Awkward Covers

I am holding a conversation with my mother in a parking lot, but I am late to get on a bus with my French class. My mother seems concerned for my safety, but I insist I must get on the bus or I will be left behind. I board the yellow school bus, showing my U-Pass to the driver. I take a seat near the front, and see that my mother has followed me on board. I stand up, glaring, and say quietly, "Mom. What are you doing on this bus?" and then louder, "Excuse me. What are you doing on this bus?" She finally gets that I am embarrassed and I don't want my classmates to know my mother wants to chaperon our field trip, so she says, "Oh, right... Ahem..." and turns to the bus driver and announces, "I am interested in psychology-gical... anthropology. I want to research- cite sources of the study of."
Meanwhile the bus driver has assumed she is crazy but starts driving anyway. We make a circle in the parking lot, but eventually my mom distracts the her so much that she veers off into a field, turns off the bus and everyone gets out.

I go to stay with a friend for the night, and when I go to shut the bedroom door, I am extremely embarrassed that the younger brother is awake. I think he is also frozen, although I can't recall how literally.
In the morning I get lost in the covers, and detach myself reluctantly.

At some later point I remember complaining to a friend in a cafe about my embarrassing experiences.

A man dressed as an asparagus spear nervously shuffles through his jokes written on the backs of carefully clipped coupons before his audition. He carefully stores them in a small carved wooden box before cautiously stepping out onto the ice.
Now from the view of Asparagus Man, I feel incredibly disappointed in myself as the winning couple skates around me, waving to adoring fans with affixed photogenic smiles.
Disappointment doesn't last long, because Asparagus Man climbs onto a stage with the encouragement of the crowd, crying with happiness, and steps into the waiting coffin, surrounded by cheering costumed creatures.

Lots of the Same Things

Driving down to the bay, we pass through acres of rhodedendron farms. The lavender blossoms cover the California hills. My aunt explains that this area is renowned for its rhodies.

Our boat sinks just as we reach the hotel. The musical is just getting over, the audience is filtering out, waved through the doors by sparkly, lavender, anorexic ballerinas.

We browse nonchalantly through a bunch of CD racks in the video store, while our agents prepare themselves in the back room. I stick my head through the door to see how the debriefing is going. My mother watches the front door for suspicious-looking people.


My family, refugees from a war-torn metropolitan life, arrive at a camp in an icy plain. We sit down to eat our first full meal in months, but finding the food not to my taste, I leave the table to explore. I meet with an old gypsy woman and she gives me some sort of voodoo talisman to avoid my impending arranged marriage.

The magic takes on a life of its own and ruins everything.

Seemingly Mundane

I park the car in front of a large trailer next to a strange building at night. I follow a stream of people into the building.

The band is taking part in a district-wide concert, in which all the high-school bands will play the same song. We are setting up our instruments in the practice room as the streetlights shine in through the tall and narrow windows. Mr. Fosberg, being his normal crotchety self, tells us we're all sitting in the wrong places. He moves the horn section to sit behind him, facing the rest of the band. We are joined by Bertha, a lower band member, and Philip Van Wyk. I try to tell him that he should be in the clarinet section, but he won't listen to me. Bertha pulls up a chair between Matt and Sarah, and I am insulted because with the addition of Philip it makes me look like fifth chair. I want to tell her to go sit on the other side of Cindy, but decide to let her enjoy her moments in our prestigious section, as it's likely to be the only chance she'll get.

Foz tells me and a few other people to go ask the organizer of the event when she wants us onstage. I exit through a side door, which opens onto the backstage area. I am dwarfed by the monstrous set pieces and heavy hanging curtains.

I approach a short, squat woman with a commanding voice. She tells me that before she can answer my question, I have to go tell the people in the booth that they missed Daylight Savings Time and they should turn their clock back an hour. We need the extra time to finish setting up.

I am led to the booth through a series of metal hallways by a black-clad tech. A small child trails after us. The tech motions me through a door into a cavern-like area behind the auditorium and underneath the booth. The child is afraid and latches onto my leg. As we proceed over paths of metal grating, I sense movement from the side. Pastor Ann (who is almost legally blind) stands and says "It's nice that Kathryn was able to bring her sister along." The child clearly is not my sister, but I decide to not say anything, because Ann lives in this cave and is therefore blind. We continue.

The tech leaves us at a playground to wait for the people in the booth to see us, where we are joined by several more small children (my cousins), Jenny, and a young man (who auditioned after me on Friday). It suddenly becomes imperative that we keep the infant entertained, because if she cries then the entire performance, happening on the other side of the wall, is ruined. To do this, we scale the wooden jungle gym and hand the baby from one person to another, higher one higher than the last. We reach the top, and the construction grows more to accommodate our efforts. The growth is, however, much too sparse, and we cannot climb any higher. We panic to find a way to keep the child quiet, but before we can solve the problem, the concert is over. We collapse to the ground in relief. Keeping an infant quiet is harder than it looks.


A separate dream, but not, we are two warring factions. I have amassed an army of real and imaginary animals to combat the Kingdom of Ice. We enter the practice room where Mr. Fosberg stood not long ago, and the opposing sides bristle at each other as I try frantically to make them listen to me. My side will be decimated, though, because it appears that our King and Queen have been drugged. The Ice King laughs as we rush to their sides. A mountain lion with a large sled tied to its back tries to haul them out of harms way, but a mountain lion is not designed to pull things, and our woozy and effervescent rulers giggle as they are towed awkwardly out the door. We are dismayed.

Epic

We begin the saga on a flat, featureless prairie. We are on the outskirts of some sort of amusement park, but there are ominous overtones to the place. Standing by a water slide that is reminiscent of hamster mazes, we discuss the issue of the park's evil overlord and the many deaths that have recently occurred. We decide that escape is a necessity.
I go to saddle my horse, only to find that I never unsaddled him yesterday. He is quite disgruntled at that fact, and when I lead him out of the pen he bites my arm and will not release me. He is carfeul not to hurt me, though.
As we ride out of the yard, we are confronted by a large, rusty, hovering robot. It cackles evilly. I try to ride around it, but it is having none of that.
It morphs into a pyramidic wizard, clad in purple robes and hat. He transports us onto a flate plane of ice, where the sun shines glaringly and there is nothing but ice and sky. As he flies around us, he leaves a technicolor trail of slime behind him, which we must avoid in our escape. As my horse and I are fairly adept at avoiding him, he summons two beings, one female, one male. The man, which I gather to be the sun, glimmers with moving colors on the cool end of the spectrum. The female, the moon, shines with orange, magenta, and yellow, much like the slime in Mario Sunshine. I avoid their balls of slime, galloping across the ice, and scoop up the penguin that they are suddenly attempting to obliterate. We make it past a stand of pine trees and are transported out of the ice plain.

I am standing on the sidewalk along 1st at night. I am wearing some sort of spandex suit, bright yellow, designed to keep me from being seen. My companion, a veteran at these nighttime excursions, is clad in white spandex. We are trying to cross the street. He claims that if he flashes a very bright light from the stoplight above, the people in the cars will not be able to see us and we can cross in safety.
Doing so, we scoot across the street and to the pet store. My friend picks the lock and we sneak inside. I look through the bin of colored plastic snakes for the ones that will provide us with a key, as he goes to the back to look for something. Sorting through the snakes, a notice a small child standing in the doorway, curiously. I decide they will not do any harm and go back to my snake-sorting. Glancing back up at the child I realize it's actually a skunk! I exit hastily.

I am a butler for a wealthy victorian family. I have found an estate for them to live on. Visiting the house, the real estate agent says it will be good publicity to have an idyllic family living here. In a yellow and green bedroom filled with sun, the wife says she'll not be idylllic if she were paid a million dollars. The agent looks disappointed, but sells us the house anyway.
Some time later, the daughters are seen playing on the lawn as a procession of dignitaries winds its way up the drive to the house. As a wealthy man gives a speech, the wife comes downstairs and announces that her husband is dead. At this, the man speaking goes stiff and dies, too. They try to bring the husband down the stairs into the room, but realizing that two dead men in a room is bad luck, they stop hastily and try to backtrack. The only succeed in dropping the dead man, much to their consternation.

A neighborhood crisis, everything is dark and cold. We are told not to venture out into the fog until daybreak. I am aware of someone going for help, traveling out onto the frozen lake in search of something. The light moves off from shore, and I am left alone.
The fog still clings obstinately to the area come morning. In the classic fashion, our street congregates in front of our house to discuss the recent goings on. The air is still damp and cold, and the meeting is soon adjourned. Everyone returns to their houses, but my mother, sister and I head uphill to the lakefront, to see if we can help with the search.

There seems to be a soft morning light burning through the fog. There is a very large and intricate slide. Instead of being a regular water slide, it seems to be generating some sort of force field around the tube, in which riders can slide any way and however fast they want to. I clamber on, and am zipped away by the magnetic field. I gain an incredible amount of speed and upon reaching the peak of the slide I launch myself off and into the morning sun.

It is no longer morning. The light is warm and yellow, that of late afternoon. As part of the camp curriculum, they are teaching us how to skateboard. I don a helmet and pads. but when the teacher tells us to begin, I immediately skate over the edge of the ramp and huddle behind it. There, Matt, Meaghan and Eva have begun a game of underground basketball. We play, with the light filtering through the trees and dark, rusty iron walls cut similar to pegboard. I find I can skate up the ramps and halfpipes without a board, aloowing me to slam dunk quite effectively. I soon tire of basketball, and dash past the teacher into the open, away from the iron and concrete. I stumble along the uneven path, watching the dust motes in the sun.