Prank

At a high school graduation taking place in a dull hotel conference room with row after row of chairs. I am surrounded by my high school classmates and strangers. Each one of us has to stand up front at a podium to give a speech. I worry that I didn’t prepare anything and struggle to think of something wonderful to say. Then I realize that no one is listening to anyone else that is speaking, so I stop worrying about it. People are talking amongst themselves and drinking beer from cans or plastic cups. I look around and when I turn back, my beer and all the other containers have been cleared. A girl behind me has a shopping bag full of cups and cans. I point the bag then lean over and take a half empty cup of beer from the top of the pile. She says something to stop me and a teacher walks back from the front of the room and leads me to the front. I worry that she is going to make me give my speech next but she directs me to a blackboard at the back of the stage. The student speaking continues droning on while all of this has happened. The teacher tells me to write something on the board, but I can’t hear her. So instead I write something about skirts. Some people laugh and then I return to my seat. Most of the kids in the last few rows get up and leave early. Then are going to drink in a bar in a mall and I get up to follow them.

I am outside a school running down a sidewalk and through grass. I am trying to catch up to a guy walking ahead of me and I approach him as he joins a group of guys on a soccer field. I am excited about graduating. I don’t have to worry about grades now even though there are a few days of classes left.

I crawl through a barbed wire fence over dusty ground. The surrounding terrain is rocky and dry. There is a child’s bike lying on its side in the dust just beyond the fence. I finally make it through the fence and go into a brown castle. It is made from rock or adobe mud. Then I am on top of tall tower of the castle and it begins moving. The entire round top of the tower floats up and away from the rest of the building. I am floating in the top of the tower as if it was a hot air balloon. It is as big as a room and continues to rise. Soon it is floating high above the trees. I look down and see that the castle is part of huge amusement park although I see no rides. I worry about how far it will drift and how I will get back. But it lands a few blocks away. I recognize the area and think it isn’t far to walk back. I pick up and carry the top of the tower with me. I intend to throw it in the lake or put in on top of my office building as a prank.

Cheese it, it's the fuzz.

I am in a car chase, driving my Honda civic Si. Cops are chasing me and I lose them among city streets. I park at a stadium and get out and walk. I intend to cut through the stadium to the other side to get away. I am walking through a crowd in an underground or interior passageway. Two security guards call for me to stop and ask if I am Brian Thompson. The cops must have discovered my car in the lot.

Writing that gets under your skin

There is a girl sitting in a classroom. She has poetry written all the way up her leg. The tattooed letters are formed by tiny daisies.

Chase

Lane and Steve from work are driving a semi truck through a field. It is making crazy turns and circles at high speeds. I chase it on foot and jump aboard by hanging by a handle. Then I am driving the truck inside a hotel. It cruises through the lobby and fits neatly down a hall. It whips down hallways and around corners. Then Lane is driving and the hall is blocked by a train of carts like room service or the maids. She tries to make a turn and rig jackknifes. But as it tips over, it turns into several tiny trailers linked together like grocery carts in a parking lot. They fall on their side against the carpet of the hall.

I am hiking through the woods with a group of 4 people. We are our some kind of team following clues. I explore a winding trail on my own and it circles me back to the group. As I rejoin them, we see a series of orange flags hanging from branches across the woods. But the path we are on does not lead there. Someone suggests taking the trail I was just on since we know where it goes. I argue we can cut through the woods if we keep the flags in sight.

Pay your own way cowboy

I leave to get away and end up in line behind Mom and Dad going into a country bar. The cashier or bouncer asks if we are together and Dad doesn’t pay my cover.

Ninja training

I’m at the building site of a house. The wood frame has recently been walled by plywood. I walk up and start to talk to a small group of boys sitting up on a beam of wood. They sit almost level to my chest as I stand there. And they have been playing with triangles of scrap wood about the size of saucers. There game consists of throwing them against the wall behind me like throwing stars. Their scraps of wood fly into the plywood and dig in like a knife. There are even splinters of wood from the wall projecting around them. One of boys tries to run off as I talk but I sit him back down and borrow his triangle of wood. I throw it at the wall and it bounces harmlessly off.

Get up

Don, my old Creative Director, is giving me a pep talk for a job interview. He is upbeat and positive, but I feel indifferent.

I walk into a bathroom in an amusement park. There are no stalls, just doors set in the walls. One wall is a large mirror, but it is a two-way mirror with a view of the woman’s restroom next door. Two nuns are at the sink. The young one says I can hear men passing water and flushing.” A slutty hot chick in a low cut top walks in. I stare at her cleavage. Then she and the other girl (the cute nun, now in normal clothes) are in the men’s room with me. One of the girl’s is now the actress that plays Joey on Dawson’s Creek. She is telling a story very earnestly. Before she finishes, we all leave. The park is being cleared by security. One of the girls thinks she may have forgotten her purse, but we cannot go back.

I am on some kind of dock or loading area. Big equipment is stacked in an evenly spaced row down the entire length. I am sitting next to a giant gun with a barrel that is shaped like a cement mixer. Two government, military looking guys come up and ask me questions about it. The gun is capped for display, but could be made useable. Then two guys in tan, short sleeve buttoned shirts order us to move over next to a piece of construction equipment. They drill us on our id and ask questions from a clipboard. One of them grabs a weird cat and asks if it is ours. As he holds it, I see that it’s eyes are big and unnaturally bright blue. It seems the guy is willing to torture the cat to get information out of us.

Dave and I are in a backyard; we are trying to help a girl leave the house. But she drives a garbage truck that is blocked by junk. We move pieces of debris, trying to clear the truck. A semi-truck pulls out around it and hits it. A guy that looks or acts like a pothead comes up to us and is babbling about holes. But I see no holes in the yard. Dave tries to warn him away and seems ready to use violence to drive him away from us to protect the girl. As Dave leads the guy away, I slide between them and try talking to the guy. He takes us into the house next door, where he wife and kids are watching a Disney-type cartoon. We watch for a moment and suddenly the cartoon switches to some kind of educational documentary with bad production values. I realize and explain that some Christian group has edited out material they deem offensive and have done a poor job of editing in new content. The guy must have been talking about holes in the movie.

Kids playing outside. A big bouncy ball they play with rolls down a hill and into a creek. I go to get it, but a little boy jumps in the creek. His brother is there and I tell him to grab his little brother. The kid ignores me, is he slow? There are other balls floating further down in the creek. I grab the kid by the waist and tell him to jump up on 3. I count 1,2,3, bouncing him up higher on each number trying to lift him. Stacy grabs him from the bank of shore above and pulls him up.

Like the tide

I am playing volleyball with Tim Funke and a bunch of other guys. Go into to a bathroom and try to find a urinal. See someone I know, they are living on a beach.

The Assassination Game

Several people are trying to shoot me with dart guns as I run through a school. I have been targeted as the man to beat in another game of TAG. A distant dart hits me as I turn a corner. Then I am talking to the principal. He is letting me off the hook for whatever trouble I am in because he wants something from me. He needs my help to find a stolen school sign or scoreboard. He doesn’t know I’m the one that took it.

Then I am trying to get away from everyone chasing me and run to me car in a grassy parking area. Pick-ups are parked close on either side, so that I can’t open my doors. Mom and Dad’s balloon is on a trailer behind one. And one of the trucks hit a van next to it and is parked resting against the dent it made. I pick up the front of the truck and move it away from the dent.

Lost

I am driving an old VW bug convertible. I have sold my new Civic and spent $8000 on an old car, but now I won’t have to make car payments. The VW is parked in a lot. Instead of backing out of the spot, I pull forward over grass and through the dead branches of a low hanging tree. I feel stupid for abusing my new car.

I have to meet someone to leave for a trip but I don’t know where. We talk on the phone about meeting at a street intersection but I don’t know how I will get there.

I am walking through a strange subdivision. The houses are all big and expensive. Several have their garage doors open and the garages are finished like real rooms. One with huge shelves of toys, another with nice furniture. I walk into one house, surprised to find the front door unlocked. The house feels familiar but isn’t. I walk through rooms and out another door.