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

 
New Year's Apocalypse
12-30-2001

I was with my friend K (last person I saw in Michigan last week, getting to be an "old" friend) in some dark town at night. We met up with M somewhere, and we all walked around the streets for a bit.

We finally go into some lounge-type establishment. K walks off. M and I get to talking (unfortunately I rarely remember conversations from dreams verbatim...but they're always so clever/hilarious...sigh). Facing M, I put my hands on her waist, and she dies laughing, as if M were so ticklish that I didn't even have to do anything. This causes me to laugh, and we crash into a couch.

Men in blue uniforms, rifles, and visored helmets enter (not a SWAT team, though). We decide to leave. It's raining out, and the fire escape above us provides little cover. I remember the umbrella in my car and suggest we go get it. It's only parked a couple blocks down. Keeping to the shops (since the storefronts often provide cover), we head down the sidewalk, which slopes down a steep hill after a block. The block below is close to a body of water, and at first, I fear my car has been flooded, but I notice that the rushing waters are "only" a foot or so deep yet. We run down, and M cuts to the other side of the street (no idea why). I don't see my car. I replay our steps to/from the lounge in my head, and determine that I was actually parked in the other direction. There are tons of people running around in some sort of panic. I run across the intersection to find M, but I miss her. Luckily she sees me and calls out to me. We join up again, forging back up the hill on the sidewalk, this time on the other side of the street.

Orange sparks fly at us from up ahead, far in the distance. Can't see anything, really, it's so dark and rainy. We shield ourselves with our arms as we make progress. The sparks become more like bottle rockets, and thus more of a threat. She moves onto the street, for they only seem to be coming down the sidewalk. I step onto the grass, and beckon M to join me over there. Many sparkley streaks of light whizz by with assumed purpose. The hill gets steeper and steeper, almost vertical and impossible to climb, but we somehow continue. A tree gets in my way (but not M's?!?), and I climb it...but it's more like struggling to get through a bush than climbing. I realize I have a 2-liter in my left hand (clear liquid), and another liquid container in the other...so no wonder it's difficult to "climb". I "drop" the 2-liter down to M (and she's also carrying something in her left hand), and I make it through.

I feel like a war has just begun, and we're in the middle of it. We try to navigate back to a familiar place, but it simply doesn't happen. With utterly no knowledge of the alleged conflict at hand, my mind wanders to what my role in it will be. In a twisted way, I'm looking forward to it with a sense of concrete purpose.

Get ride with two guys to a house. Takes turns too far, ends up in a yard once. Snowy. Some party. Right on time (early). Some good spicy celery. "I'm not even gonna make a side dish for this!" Don't know them that well. Start to show a video on hand-held camera of knocking some place over, but it has kids being shot and shit in it, so I cover it up. Shows parents hiding under bed and stuff, but kids going to investigate to get killed.

In jail, sitting at a bench, people around in cages. Basketball, throw it back up many times. Some other white guy coming in to pull something, people think I'm his partner. Such BS. Two girls/convicts supposedly know me. Watching me. All dressed up, dancing with a guard or something. See me take a digital picture and are like "oh shit". Don't know them, though.

Mom driving me to mall, gives me a handgun. I know how to use it, dammit. I cock it. Disagreement on the time, say I'll check in every 15 minutes (but don't). 12:28. Avoid security cars to get into protected area. Rest of mall still open. Get to a hole in a barb fence, but don't go into it cuz of a cop car. See some tourists, so I mosey over to them to blend in. See a robot (human), ask him how to get in. Says to shake this guy's hand coming out. I do, saying my name is Jeff. His name is Jake. I'm their man, he says, and I just go along, follow him in. Get into a room where I'm supposed to wire some video clips from my cell phone. I want them to take me to their main guy so I can get some vigilante justice. Girl shows up and says "I'm Kim-CHANG chun" again and again, until I get the hint that that's somehow a cue for me, so I shoot all these guys. Two still alive on the floor, saying about how I'm a dead man, need them for into, etc. "Shut up" I say, and shoot them both in the head. Two good guys with me now. I rummage through a wallet to find some ID, write down the guy's name whom I killed (for proof). His real name was something english, and his fake ID said "Uter Emmen-somethingGerman". The two guys got bulletproof jackets from these guys. I complain and continue to rely on my leather jacket.

Go through some cop checkpoint, but I set off the alarm cuz I have an envelope of some volatile compound in my pocket. We run through some rooms, then through a hotel and outside. I'm safe again. Go back into hotel lobby. Some family of one of my comrades are there, don't know his job. I just act cool. Other people who know me from some unknown past. I just nod at them. I look around, try to find the entrance to the level I need to get to to waste those guys, but I can't find it.



posted by Phlegm at 11/26/2003