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

 
Not Potent Enough
7-14-1998

I was at my high school subdivision, walking with a couple of dream friends...walking through the once-empty lots behind my house, which had grown up into a large field. A dirt path was beginning to form. In the lot next door was a mound with some targets on it. We talked about how the neighbor would practicing his shooting out here. I postulated that one day there would be many more dirt paths, and that the neighbor would be so extreme as to get bored with guns and resort to flame-throwers.

I went into the house, and somehow fell through time, ending up in a small bedroom in a house. It was supposed to be my sister's bedroom in our Aberdeen house, but it wasn't even in the right place in the house, nor of the right size. My sister was there, sittings amongst stuffed animals and other toys.

I thought she had lost it. She had a tube of yellow liquid, for I took to be urine, and she was squirting it all over the floor. I urged her to stop, and to clean it up, and she basically told me off. Then she squirted a bunch of it into a plastic Tupperware thing, which also had toys in it. Then I realized it might be soap, or just water. I went to look out the window and saw that the outside had changed from when I'd been out there a few minutes ago. It was practically a wasteland. I asked my sister why she insisted on living here (meaning not only this spatial location, but location in time as well), and she said she liked it here; it was simple to live here.

I went outside and further observed the surroundings. The house across the street was less a house than a kind of Egyptian monument. There were four pillars where the four corners of the house once were, and some cloth flaps hanging over the space in the middle of them. A few odds and ends of furniture in this space. An A.T.V. came screaming down the road, pulled up into their driveway, and drove right through the "house." I turned around and saw that the side of my old house had grown a LOT of grass, and indeed there were now THREE dirt tracks through the ridiculously high grass. I went down the one on the right for a bit and saw my old neighbor, leaning on on elbows against a rock. He was firing a flame-thrower at some targets on the old mound, melting them. I didn't bother him.

I walked away from the houses and found myself in line at a cafeteria, supposedly with people I knew. More dream friends, I guess. They were all older than I "remembered" them, while I remained the same age. One of them, a fat guy without a beard (like the obnoxious guy in "Herman's Head") asked me how old I was. I bent down into a drinking fountain and said, "What year is it, again?" I took a sip of water and glanced up. He and another guy looked at each other and chuckled, partly in disbelief and partly that I'm just a funny guy. "Two-thousand four." "Ah..." I thought about how old that would make me, then said, "...nineteen." I stuck my head into the drinking fountain again, but this time water squirted out from everywhere and I got my head wet. They couldn't believe how young I was! I got back in line and said, "Yep, I will have graduated by now, er, I'm graduating now," but this girl in front of me looked at me and didn't look like she believed me.

I made my way someplace else, where this kid demanded on challenging me to this game where you put all these little elastic, yet wooden balls into a big convoluted machine. They run down the machine, going through holes and tubes and strange contraptions, but there's flippers set all through the machine, which you can flip with two buttons at the top. The more points you score, by making the balls go to different places, by the time all the balls inevitably fall to the bottom, well, the better.

So the kid played, and got a horrible score of just over 60,000. I thought to myself how easy it would be to beat that, since I'd played the game earlier in the dream (like, a LONG time ago in the dream...so far back that I can't remember it...or maybe I only dreamt that I'd already dreamt about it) and scored over 200,000. But as I got to the head of the machine, I noticed a bunch of balls were stuck tumbling among some bumpers. I remarked, "Wow, you've still got balls up here!" He looked and said, "Damn, no, it's broken. Those are your balls, and they were released early." We banged on it, and some fell through, but one part of the machine got broken. A cord had snapped in some kind of pump. A couple other people came over to help, but we couldn't quite get it. I offered to just knock the balls off manually, but they insisted they would break if they hit the ground. I thought that was stupid since I knew they could bounce.

The kid offered another game. This time it was hand-held and electronic. A thug/skateboarding game. I made the guy travel down the hill by the Medical Center (on the sidewalk), dodging and jumping stuff, until he hit a wall and the thugs caught up with him. I lost a guy. I waited for the bus to take me (formerly my guy) back up the hill for my 2nd turn. I got on and sat in the front right seat, facing sideways. The bus was driving in a green-marked lane. I didn't know what this meant, but I did see a little person (can't say it was a kid) riding a dirt bike down the hill in this lane. I guess the bus driver felt he had the right-of-way, cuz he barreled over the bicycler, who had an extreme look of horror on his face as he went under. I was aghast. The bus stopped at the top of the hill, where the stop light was, and opened the doors. People got out. I pondered checking on that person. The more I pondered, the more I wanted to see if they'd made it, and how they were. Finally I jumped out of the open doors at the last moment and ran down the sidewalk.

I scanned the street and saw nothing but bicycle parts. No, not parts...scrap...for some distance. Further down the sidewalk I saw a small person in torn up, loose, black clothing, rolling around on the ground, trying to get up. He saw me approaching and an expression of terror came over his face. He ran away down the sidewalk toward the intersection. He was stopped by two people. A couple. Supposedly I knew them, too. I caught up. We all talked about the situation, then walked down the intersection street.

We reached our destination, which was a party. Everyone was dressed up, and I think it was a wedding reception, but I don't know whose it was. I told Keith (for some reason I feel like the man of this couple was Keith from Voltron), "I wasn't planning on coming to this party. It's a good thing I wore my suit today." Just then, Lisa L, an old friend (and more than that) from middle school approached us and said, "Hi Eric!" Somehow she wasn't as attractive as she used to be. I noticed she was with Jeremy L, and gathered she was now married. I went to hug her, but there was a huge patch of flowers between us. I stepped through them anyway, expecting her to sensually runs her hands around my waist like she used to, and embrace me warmly, but instead she just kinda leaned over and patted me on the shoulders. I tried to advance for a better hug, but she backed off. She and Jeremy left.

I glanced about and saw Reese up somewhere, and he bounded down to me. He greeted me. "Is Lisa pregnant?" I asked him. "Yeah, for the third time now." Yet, Lisa didn't have any kids. I gathered they were all miscarriages. Eric knew what I was thinking and said, "Guess Jeremy's just not potent enough," and chuckled to himself. I smirked.

People were starting to leave, and I found myself outside with Eileen. I'd been talking to her, but I don't remember what about. I looked at her for a long time, like I was going to kiss her, but I didn't.

I found Thaadd, and some other guy in combat boots, and we went walking. It had recently rained, so there were plenty of water puddles around. Surprisingly, I was splashing people more than anyone. It was evening. A lot happened...then we walked back to a train stop. The guy and myself tried splashing each other on the way. Thaadd stood around, and he took up a squatting position on a stone bench. It was still evening. The train came, and Thaadd said they were gonna get on the train. I waved goodbye and walked to my car. I had a mannequin of Thaadd in the back seat of my car. I was carrying a metal rod. For some reason I was going to stick it into a hole in the mannequin's arm. As the rod clicked into place, I glanced up and could see onto the part of the train where Thaadd and that guy had sat. They were kissing. For a split second I was hurt, but then I was enraged. I mused doing something about it, but I just stood there and fumed for a moment before waking up.


posted by Phlegm at 11/24/2003