Panic doesn't pay

Adam Schiller, Cary (guys from middle school) and I are among a large group of prisoners in an old castle. A Nazi commander is giving us orders, making us do calisthenics. At one point, we are doing toe touches – bending down then standing with arms waving in the air. It feels silly. Then a few men start shooting their arm into the Seig Hiel salute every time they go up. Next the commander has us all saluting while goosestepping in a circle in the courtyard. (I wake up and think I should write this down, but it is at least an hour before my alarm goes off, so I go back to sleep.)

I dream that I wake up but my alarm has not gone off. I realize it is missing. And I am laying in my bed, which is outside. It is the most gorgeous, sunny, green day. I start getting up and realize that my suitcase and keys are locked inside the blazer. I get out of bed and see that it is at the end of the driveway. I don’t think anything of the fact that I am naked, until two young girls come walking down the street. I grab a blanket off the bed and with some difficulty, wrap it around myself. At that moment, I see Dad walking into the garage carrying a box. I ran across the lawn yelling at him, the blanket a wild mess. It is not our real house.

I am flying to St. Louis to meet someone. But then I am in the city and it is bigger and more industrial, almost foreign. The place I am supposed to go to is gone. There is just an empty scar in the concrete. Was there an explosion or just construction? It is along a crazy highway with multiple on-ramps and signs that look European. Dad leads me (where did he come from?) to a subway station across the street. It is bright and modern and big. A little boy is trying to throw a bouncy ball through a light fixture as if it were a basketball hoop. Dad tells me to take the north train to the airport. But the tracks on our side of the platform are closed. The boy’s ball bounces down onto the tracks, he climbs down after it. I think he will be fried on the third rail. But he is ok. So Dad and I climb down and across to catch the train on the other side of the platform.
Now I am in an industrial area. Did I just get off the train? I am trying to reach the hospital to meet someone. I walk through parking lots thinking that the hospital is the complex I am approaching. But there are nothing but warehouses and factories in the way. I cut through a skate park. There are tons of alternative kids hanging out and doing cool skateboard tricks on ramps. In another area, an older guy in glasses looks weird like he doesn’t belong or stands out to me. But he leads the group around him in some kind of wrestling match. I think I see Paul (from Jersey) on top of an overpass embankment I am now walking under, but it is not him. Further down the path and on the opposite side, I see Mike, San and Fred walking through a field. I yell but they don’t hear me. So I climb the fence to go after them. As I cross the top, I look down and see Paul directly below me, looking up at me. Our faces are practically touching.