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

 
Think You Went Somewhere
12-13-1999

With a group of people robbing banks during the daytime. Already robbed two. I brought a bunch of t-shirts for everyone to wear. I was short by one, though, and one Asian guy didn't get one. I told him I'd give him mine later. We set to work outside some building, doing something to uncover some concrete slab. Hugh Q. was our stakeout inside. A female security guard went by a couple times, and we tried to look inconspicuous. The 2nd time she went by, she was giggling. We uncovered the artifact. I grabbed a shovel and started digging, as if the very dirt was worth something. Then I figured the guard was giggling cuz the cops were on the way. I started taking my t-shirt off as I ran for the back exit when a cop car drove in. I went through the hallway and out the back door. No cop cars there. Then I had a vision of the rest of my group getting arrested, and it was such a shame because they were all students. One of them was even a mother. Hugh Q. was talking his way out of it since he didn't have a t-shirt on, either, and was away from the main scene. Bastard. I had my leather jacket on, and black pants. My shirt was black, but I took it off to reveal a red one. That should throw off the cops. It was suddenly nighttime.

I tried to keep to the shadows, but the skylights on top of the building were so bright. There were empty fields of grass and trees on all sides. I made my way around to the side of the building where I was confronted by two guys playing frisbee. They tossed it to me. I tossed it back. They followed me and tossed it again. Each time I tried to throw it further and further away to shake them, because they kept following me, and eventually I got away, meeting up with Andrew. Apparently he'd escaped, too.

Daytime again, we went back to his house, even though it's not his real house. We walked by his mom. Then we opened the door to his room. The second we walked in, a bunch of red sticky marks sprung down upon us, and I immediately knew that the room had been rigged by the cops to catch us. I made this opinion known and we booked it out of there, except the cops were already pulling up. Just one, though, with a dog. We ran for the forest, and came to a creek. The cop was right behind me, a kinda old and overweight guy. But it was the dog that pissed me off. Andrew suddenly vanished, and I wondered if he'd crawled into one of those drainage pipes in the side of the creek. The cop told me that he'd catch me with a bunch of red fibers that would cut into my skin. He pulled out a knife and sliced up his arm to demonstrate how my entire body would look. I backup up against some powdery limestone deposits, grabbed a bunch, and threw it on him. He howled in pain. I took the lead, crossed over a hill, and came to the side of an abandoned elementary school. There were doors every few meters, all ajar, and normally unopenable from the outside. I went in and closed the door behind me, knowing that the cop would still enter from another door. I ran up the steps, figuring he'd never keep up since I was in such better shape. I pulled a fast one and tricked him into going all the way to the top while I made my way back down to the exit. I got outside and he confronted me from behind a bush. "How the..." I asked, and he said, "It's all about making the other guy think you went somewhere" or something like that.

Then I get a call on a payphone from Iceblink, saying how he's been hanging out in all these places. In describing his latest adventures, I notice he's describing my home town. He talks about the Raquetball Club. I hang up and run down the street. I see him crossing some railroad tracks. I call out his name. I get it wrong at first, but I finally yell "Keith!"

I found myself in "my" basement. There was someone on a platform firing rockets at me. I couldn't seem to return fire with a direct hit. I finally made it up to the platform and realized that it was a cardboard box thrown over a shopping cart. I pressed it against and wall and tossed a bunch of grenades between it and the wall, busting a spoke out of the front end. I opened the freezer and grabbed a little icecream cup, started eating it.

I went upstairs and called Aziz, who said John would be over soon. Then the door opened, and it was John, followed by Kim and some other people. I told them I didn't have any Coke, but there was icecream downstairs. I complained about how all my cardboard boxes and shopping carts were turning against me.

I also remember some part of the dream where I was shaving, and some girl said that more guys should shave at night.

posted by Phlegm at 11/25/2003