Thursday, January 19, 2017

(5/9/07) what my life would have been like

(Entered in paper journal at 6:40 AM at the Starbucks on 56th Street and 6th Avenue.)

Dream 1

I was outside, on a wide road before a boxy, sheet-metal-looking building. The road made a wide, open curve to the left and up a small  hill to another building in the distance. The day was brightish and grey.

A large group of soldiers (in white uniforms?) marched down from the back building. Possibly some heavy vehicles were also in the procession. I had been walking toward the back building. I walked on the right side of the road (on the edge of some lawn at the other edge of which was a fence) to avoid the troops.

A vehicle like an SUV drove by with the first lady (Nancy Reagan?) in the front passenger (?) seat. I stood back and saluted. I then decided to hold my salute for everybody that passed.

A female soldier walked up to me and asked who my general (?) was. I stumbled and fumbled with my words before saying I wasn't in the military. She said, "Then relax! Don't salute. It doesn't make sense."

The soldier was now a slightly overweight girl, blonde, nice, still a soldier. We walked with everybody else into the boxy building, through a loading-dock-like opening at the bottom of a small slope. Inside was a broken up museum. Most of the relics were musty and dusty. Just a few of us were here.

A pretty, blonde girl rushed past me and the other girl rudely. The other girl had been trying to set me up with this blonde girl, but the blond girl had been very shy. It was now like we knew each other, and she had gone somewhere where I couldn't reach her.

Eight years had passed. I saw (was not in) a tech room of some sort. It had an old, bluish feel to it.

A tall, strong soldier sat in a chair and said something like, "I'm engaged to her, you know."

A young man with long hair stood up (from somewhere near the soldier's chair, as if from the same chair?) and said, "Oh -- I'm, sorry."

The soldier faded away, first into black and white, then stretching out of view like an old TV turning off.

The long-haired man stood at a desk, packing boxes. Two other young men who were clean-cut but looked like the long-haired man stood at another desk, packing boxes as well. They were each putting shoes (more like fire boots) into the boxes.

The long-haired man poured shredded boots, shredded into tiny bits, into his box. He said, "Eight years. That makes a lot of shoes. But I guess we had to go some time." Apparently the three men had to leave their jobs, or had made the decision to do so.

But one of the men, folding a boot to fit around the rest of the stuff in his box, said, "So -- what are we going to do tomorrow? Where are we going to go, after work, I mean?"

The long-haired man understood that his friends weren't leaving or planning on going anywhere. They were planning on living their regular lives, which included him, and getting stoned.

The long-haired man sat down in his desk, overwhelmed by how much of a child he had remained. He cried, "If I had only gone after her, how would my life have been different?"

The world faded to black. Now I was the man, in a trashy gym full of technical equipment. Strips of cloth were streaming everywhere, and the room would flash with a thick, blue-white light.

I was supposed to imagine three different scenarios. I had gone through the first. Now I was doing the second. I went after some skinny, bald man in a pink shirt. I wwas to see what life would have been like if I had spent my life with him.

I "woke up" in a house I owned. I thought, I'm still doing well in life, but I'm still immature. This isn't who I wanted to go after. I wanted to go after her, and see what my life would have been like.

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