The half-forgotten
Other half of my short life
In short story form

 
Favorite Spot to Stand
11-12-1998

I'm on a baseball team for my graduate class, even though I hadn't played in years, and I'm somehow in charge of everything. It's ultra-black dark out, but we have practice anyway at this old scary-looking house. Every several minutes, a girl comes to the door, as if trying out for the team, but they're confused as to what they're trying out for, and they always start stripping before I tell them, "Ok, you're in, just go take a seat over there." They remain confused. One had light blue hair. We're sitting on some steps by the house that serve as bleachers, I guess, as I look out over the field. I remember the saying, "Those who can't play, coach." I wonder if I could play after all, if I really tried.

I've been making trips back and forth from a very dismal library, collecting books on cats. The librarian looks just like Death, and I stay out of his way and let him do his own thing. I need to put the books I've found in a safe place so I can find them later. A friend of mine tells me to put them by the Egypt section. I crawl over there, trying not to be seen by another guy who I know will take the books if he sees where I put them. I lift up part of a bookcase, like a hidden niche, to place the books there, but Death sees me do this and I figure that's no good, cuz then HE will find them and reorganize them into their appropriate categories. I move on and see a music section, marveling at their selection and making a mental note to come back and check out some music. Every Time I think I've found a spot to put the books, I never feel sure about doing it, even when the one guy is distracted and not looking, as if I can't move fast enough.

I leave lab and put on my sparring helmet and gloves. Chris said he would meet me at the arcade. I walked around the arcade a bit. Many people had their sparring gear on, too, but not everyone. Dina was playing "Bugertime" with some black kid who yelled out to me, "Hey, you know how to get the radish and cheese?" I walked over and said, "If I ever did, I've forgotten by now. It's been at least ten years since I've played this game. Wow, probably more. You know how time flies." Dina politely giggled.

I walked around some more, not finding Chris, and wondering if he thought were were going to meet someplace ELSE first before coming here. I also wondered why everyone was skipping out on lab to play arcade games. I saw some guy I knew (not), playing some game, and he said something about Chris I don't remember.

I fiddled with my helmet, taking it on and off, cuz I was getting hot, but I kept it on. I lied down on a couch and just watched the scene. Two kids decided to cram into the area by my feet, so I had to sit up. This girl I now remember as Shilo (half-Indian girl) sat down by me, too. We started wrestling around or something, and my head got trapped between her thighs. I said, "Tis a fair thought to lie between a maiden's legs," though I'm rather sure that's not a correct quote, heh. She wouldn't let go. Then I noticed she didn't have underwear on. I finally pulled loose and tried to get her to pull some panties on.

A robot vehicle has run amuck on the Ann Arbor North Campus, housing a ferocious gorilla creature and a girl. The gorilla, confused by the machinery, tears it apart from the inside, disabling it. The girl tries to escape, but isn't fast enough, and gets torn apart. I didn't like that ending, and though of something she could do, so instead she jumps out the back and shines a laser in the gorilla's face, momentarily hypnotizing it. She jumps out of the vehicle and in a first-person view, runs across the street, putting four lanes of traffic between her and it. It is, of course, still nighttime.

A parapsychologist and a black SWAT-team-lookin' police officer are standing outside of a recently busted-in house. Nasty green slime drips down over the doorway, and piles of it lie all over, in addition to some rancid piles of feces. "I think you ought to steer clear, Dr. S--," says the officer. "Nonsense, I'm Dr. S-- and I investigate these things no matter what. Nothing can happen to me." And so they enter. I guess more policemen are inside, investigating. I arrive on a red motorcycle, still wearing my headgear and gloves, eating a green-colored ice-cream cone, and followed by some other people in a red car. We try to enter the house, but we're stopped by an officer. We find a rickety old fire escape off to the side. My main friend (the car driver) stars up the stairs. I follow, seeing a big pile of dung. As I turn around to tell the girl behind me to watch out for it, I realize I've stepped in it, and commence to scrape it off at every step. I also notice the green slime dripping down, and that if any falls into my ice-cream, I won't know the difference, so I throw it away.

We arrive at an attic, with huge gobs of slime dripping down over the doorway. My friend enters, pausing underneath it, getting covered in the disgusting goop. I can't dodge it, and refuse to ruin my leather jacket, so I return back down the steps. "I've been here before anyway," I tell them (in another dream, perhaps. heh). At the bottom of the steps, I wonder where that gorilla is.

I have a 3rd person view of my friends in the attic, exploring the debris. They find a record player and play it. For a good few minutes it's blank, but then finally the parapsychologist's voice breaks in. It's a personal journal of observations, and it's his final recording, as it breaks off in the midst of some unspeakable horror. I'd KNOWN something was weird about this circumstance, because I KNEW that this house was his house, so the "doctor" downstairs....might not really be the doctor!

We regroup at the car, and I look at my gloves. One is red and one is black. "Hey, who took my other red glove!" I asked. Somehow one of the girls had mismatched gloves on, too, so we switched back. "What's this?" says my friend as he pulls a silver shiny glove from my front pocket (a Michael Jackson glove, actually). Somehow he's careless and it gets ripped in half. "You jerk! That was my William Shatner glove! That was worth so much money!"

We decide to go kick some ass. I attach my motorcycle to the hood of the car and jump into the passenger seat. We take off. It turns to daytime as we enter my childhood subdivision. I make a mental note how the real subdivision looks different in real life. Indeed, it's a very glorious subdivision, many houses built with marble in the same likeness of real life, with vines and other Greek-like gardening and architecture. At the end of Antoinette St. is a driveway so long it's more like a road, and I note that there should be nothing there at all. There's a big archway leading into it. We scream a right-hand turn and continue through a different archway. The road has turned into bright yellow brick, broken up by flowers and such. The road is now broken up into square sections, each with four pillars and a domed roof, yet somehow the sun still brightly shines through. Some arches lead to homes, and others continue the street. We follow the street as it normally would go, down, uh, Rollins I think, and then a left on Fern, and a few more turns (and this reminds me of another dream I didn't type up, where one of these roads no longer existed, but that's all I remember of it now) before we exit the arches and emerge back into nighttime darkness, parking before a grandiose mansion.

We exit the car, and I grab the cannon off my motorcycle. None too soon, either, cuz four zombie-like people approach us. I blow two of them away with my cannon, and my friend cuts the rest up with a single swipe from his laser-string. My friend Matt F shows up as a guide, and I wonder how he can survive in such a bad part of town. We walk down the street, get jumped a couple times, win of course...one time even sparing one of their lives for a few minutes before cutting his head off when he's not looking.

We enter a coffee house or something. Maybe it was a bar. I dunno. Two guys comment on what funky women we have, like they're dressed weird or something. I hadn't noticed. I'd hardly noticed the women at all. We kill them, too, anyway.

Back the spooky house, a journalist arrives and decides to make a movie about the doctor's life. It's still dark and dismal out, raining, and it's not like it's even safe to be there, but there he is with a movie camera. He convinces the black policeman guy to hold the camera while he goes over to a broken wooden fence. "This was his favorite spot to stand," he says. Then for some reason, the policeman decides to run for it, and all I see is a sideways shot of the muddy ground.


posted by Phlegm at 11/24/2003