Fear the Crab

I was attending a Japanese school, replete with uniformage, except I was granted some exemption because I was in jeans. Probably because I was a foreigner. I still had to wear the jacket. I was in a mixed classroom of boys and girls, probably younger than me, and we were going over some kind of philosophical question. The problem was, while I could gather that it was a philosophical question, I had no idea what the question was nor what anybody was saying. I couldn’t read the questions, I couldn’t read the responses written on the board, and I sure as hell couldn’t read what people were writing. My teammates seemed to be moving along pretty well despite my lack of performance, and I was overcome with a sense of guilt.

For some odd reason, class was dismissed, and I felt I had to catch a school bus because I had to attend another school (maybe a cram school?). During the bus ride, then the walk to this new campus, I kept thinking that everybody was talking rather badly about me. Like, why is this foreign idiot here.

I never made it to the new campus, but the neighborhood looked oddly familiar, like the back streets of Kaimuki.

I was playing left field for some baseball team, and I think I was back in little league. But it was a strange little league because we were using a ball that was about half the size of a regular softball, yet still larger than a regular baseball. I was wearing a white uniform with blue trim, and after our warm-ups on the field we had some kind of pre-game ceremony where they play the national anthem. They unfurled this huge fan-shaped flag and all of us on the field were required to hold our portion of it. So since the flag was shaped like a baseball field, I had to hold the left corner. I kept thinking this was probably the stupidest thing I had ever done on a baseball field.

When it (the pre-game show) was over, we all retired to the dugout, which was some kind of wooden shack, almost like a tool shed. Only now we weren’t in our uniforms, and everyone sat around in regular clothes. It was almost like we were done playing, the way we hung out, drank soda and juice (as is the wont of little leaguers).

I got bored, so I left the shed and walked around, and I saw my co-workers from The Lab. I was very surprised to see them, because they were probably the last people I expected to see at my baseball game. Then I figured that if they were there, Maile was there, too. So I started looking for her.

I ended up at an extravagant mansion that was actually right next door to the tool shed. And my extravagant I mean it was posh, with wide open spaces and impeccable taste. And it was clean. There were a lot of people there, and I felt that they were all involved in the baseball game somehow, but I couldn’t figure out what their involvement was. Perhaps the parents of one of the players owned the house. Perhaps it was the league. I don’t know.

I began to feel very uncomfortable at that house, so I left and tried to find my way back to the tool shed, to be with people of my own tax bracket. I heard someone call my name, and it was Maile. She was very happy, to the point of tears, and when I asked her why she gave me this small device that looked like a miniature shoe horn, but it was some kind of recording device. She played the message on there, and while I couldn’t make out all the words, she had apparently received a gift in the form of a brand new car. We had to drive out to the place to pick it up, so we hopped into her car and she drove.

The area was very unfamiliar to us, and we kept getting lost. At some point we both realized that we needed to bring along one of those rubbery fishing lures and.. something else. So we had to find a place that sold them. We kept driving, looking around for either the place we had to get to, or a store that sold bait.

What stood out to me was that I was getting very frustrated, because Maile was not following the rules of the road. Not staying in the lane, speeding around corners, stuff like that. We finally decided to park, and walk around. Except now I had to sit in a wheelchair, apparently I had some kind of injury. So Maile would push me around, and I’d try to help by wheeling myself at times, while we looked for fishing lures.

What was odd was that at several points I found myself standing next to her, and thinking that I probably shouldn’t leave my wheelchair out where someone could steal it. We had just been given directions to a store that sold what we needed, but when we left, Maile decided to stop searching and go home. It looked late, nighttime, and it would be a while before we got to the store and to wherever we were supposed to receive the car.

We never did find the car.

I was standing in a lush valley, surrounded on three sides by high mountains and overlooking a large calm lake. The floor of the valley was claimed by two kingdoms, splitting the valley into equal halves. On the left were humans, on the right were elves. And suddenly it seemed this valley was populated by some LotR characters such as Legolas and Theoden, and even Liv Tyler’s character had a cameo. It seemed someone opened a Pandora’s Box and let all this nasty stuff loose, which proceeded to coagulate into a single entity that ran amok eating all the vegetation in the valley and covering the hills in yellow dirt. For some reason, it felt like I was the one who opened the box and that I actually wanted this to happen. I’m watching the progress of this vegetarian evil when it suddenly occured to me that if I were simply standing around doing nothing, I’d be suspected of causing this. So I ran around alerting people that something bad was happening, and I had started in the human area and ended up in the elven area. At this point I became an observer, like I was supposed to be there, and all the elves were talking amongst each other and to me. Legolas had just returned from a scouting mission and seemed quite gloomy, thus Elrond appeared to act as a psychiatrist and counsel the lad. As Legolas began to open up to Elrond, I was at a sink rinsing out some kind of.. metal cup thing. I didn’t stay too long to listen to what Legolas was saying, because I found myself standing on a large patio-type area, covered by a ceiling but no windows, facing the lake. Then a man in armor appeared, armed with a bow and equipped with a full quiver, and he proceeded to stand on this dias-looking thing and aimed an arrow at this falcon that was carrying some type of small prey (weasel, perhaps). At first I thought he was going to shoot the dead weasel in the falcon’s talons, but instead he fired at the falcon itself, bringing it down with a splash into the lake. None of the other elves saw this except for Legolas, whom I can only assume finished his therapy session with Elrond and was standing next to me. I rushed up and tackled the armored man, and discovered that he was some bloke name Lord Hoggoth, or something to that effect. The commotion finally brought the attention of everyone present, and after a quick explanation all decided it was the right thing to do. However, no one could decide on a punishment, so they all went into this dining hall to discuss things over breakfast. I decided to take matters into my own hands, so I called Legolas over, and told him to take this Lord Hoggoth over the lake while I held the bow and quiver. Legolas immediately understood and transformed himself into a giant dragon-bird, snatched up Lord Hoggoth and flew over the lake. I then spend the last few minutes of the dream firing the bow at Lord Hoggoth and trying not to hit him. It was a bit difficult, because the arrows would never fly straight and would curve and dive around like paper airplanes. I did manage to scare the guy, though, with a few near misses. The other elves turned a blind eye to this, even though it was obvious they were aware of it. I was having a lot of fun trying to shoot arrows as close as possible to Lord Hoggoth without actually hitting him, and of course avoiding the bird-Legolas, until I realized that I had not set my alarm and had overslept and was late for work.

I dreamt I was in my brother’s old room, and it was arranged how it was more than a decade ago. Against the wall was a small fish tank, a rectangular one, and rather flat as well. Not in a bowl-y type of way, but like a Phillips Magnavox flat screen monitor kind of design (4 inches thick, I believe). Anyway, there were fish in this fishtank, three small goldfish in clear water with the usual plants and rocks. But as the dream progressed, the fish kept changing. It became two goldfish and a weird white fish. Then it was one gold fish and four tiny blue fish. Perhaps it was that Dr Seuss book in my dream. But it felt like I had this fishtank for years, and I don’t remember ever feeding them. I did remember, however, that there was this box, which used to contain a self-feeding apparatus that worked on a timer. So I looked into the fishtank and there it was, a long glass tube that dispensed food to the fish so you wouldn’t have to remember to feed them. I was staring at this tube, trying to figure out how it worked, when one of the blue fish went up and nudged this thing loose, which was underneath the tube. When this thing came loose, all the food started to spill out into the water, and I thought, “Damn, that’s not going to go well.” And then the food turned into tiny tiny fish, like the size of an ant, and I realized that the tube actually contained fish which were meant for food, and these food fish were kept alive by tiny tiny plants which were also in the tube. But these food fish got out, and all the other fish, of which now there were two sturgeons, one goldfish, and about half a million tiny Kermit the Frogs (yes, all in this fishtank), they all starting gobbling up the fish and I thought, “Damn, that’s really not going to go well.” The Kermits all swam up to the top of the fish tank to say “hi ho” while the rest of the fish busied themselves by doing fishy things.

Then the dream turned weird, but I don’t remember too much of it. I am haunted by images of a bottom-feeder trying to disguise itself as a crab, and not doing that well a job of it.

I dreamt I had long hair, except this time it was colored brown and only fell to my shoulders. I remember trying to put it into a ponytail, and that’s about when I woke up.

I dreamt I was watching George play a video game, when it seemed as though I were watching it up close and personal. I was in the game, and the characters were moving around me in a Mario-esque type of way as they tried to get to a certain location while monsters flew by and around and dropped nasty things. One of the monsters dropped something in my direction, and then I saw a medical team arrive to treat any infections incurred by what the monsters dropped. As the characters were being treated, I looked down at my right forearm and saw what looked like two gray slimy earthworms sticking out of my skin. I tried to pull them out, but they was embedded deep as I could feel the tugging within my arm. I went up to that medical team, and one of them assisted me by literally hooking both earthworm-type thingies with small wires, and pulling them out with some device. The ends of those things popped off with no pain, but now it meant that I could remove the parts inside my arm. Even though my mind was telling me not to do it, I squeezed out my right arm like a toothpaste tube, and this black sticky substance oozed out, followed by six small rubbery nubs, like pencil erasers. I remarked to the medical team that the stupid things left six roots in me, and they seemed pretty surprised.

There was a second part to my dream, that of me being incarcerated in a strange prison. My dad worked at the prison, which meant he had to watch his son spend time in jail. My mom and my sister visited me, and my sister wanted me to help her with her doll collection by getting and sending out the various dolls I would be able to get from prison. What’s weird is that we were all haole, and I don’t have a sister. It felt pretty real, though.

I dreamt that I was getting ready to go out, and I was running a brush through my hair. Instead of the usual crop-cut that I have, my hair was as long as it used to be back in high school, that sort of local boy surfer style. I tried to get it to look nice, but there were bulges I couldn’t get down in my hair, so I decided to go for that bed-head look and use some gel. Then the dream changed a bit, and I was sitting inside a salon and I was going to have my hair colored. However, the person doing the coloring used the wrong oil. Instead of using the FN brand of oil required for a lustrous deep and rich color, by mistake she used a bottle of fn dandruff shampoo. After she was finished, my hair was as long as it was during college, and it was dyed blonde. She was very apologetic, especially when she explained that I couldn’t wash my hair and it wouldn’t cut, so I was stuck with that hair forever. I met Maile afterwards and tried to explain the situation to her, but she didn’t seem to quite understand it all.

I had a nightmare about my truck. I dreamt that it finally came in, but when it did, everyone, including the sales manager and my parents, thought it wasn’t a very good truck at all. I had gone to Toyota City to have my trade-in appraised, and while I was there, the sales manager took me to where they were servicing the truck. I asked where I was supposed to drive my trade-in, and he told me to just leave it somewhere and he’d find it. I though that answer was rather strange, and wanted to get more information out of him, but he went into a building and grabbed some material of different colors. We went across the street, and my parents were in the service area looking over the design specs of the truck. That was when they all started to say aloud that it wasn’t a very good truck at all.

I dreamt I was a football player, as well as a sports journalist. I was walking up Red Hill, Ewa-bound, but the time it took for me to get to the top was the same amount of time it would have taken me driving. I met up with a bunch of other journalists, and we all had these question guides. Our task was to fill in all the questions based on what the players and/or coaches said. This time it was Dave Shoji and the womens volleyball team that we were “interviewing.” The people around me were asking stupid questions, trying to fill in their papers, while I just kept writing. About the only question I had to ask was what date the game was. Then once I was finished, I was supposed to go to the stadium. All the journalists went to the top of the hill, and there we were in a room where we had to wait and they had to issue us these press passes. I walked down to the stadium as soon as I got my pass, and when I entered the field I saw that the football team was already warming up, and I was late. I hurried into the locker rooms to change, and strangely it seemed I wore my old aikido gi under my uniform and pads. It also seemed that I was the kicker, and I had just finished putting on my outfit when the game started. I hadn’t warmed up, a voice in the back of my head was saying that I was wearing the wrong shoes, and I was supposed to kick off. I rushed onto the field, tipping my baseball cap (why I was wearing that and not a helmet I don’t know) in apology to my teammates and referees. As expected, I didn’t kick the ball that far, but something happened and I ended up tackling the return man close to the goal line on his side of the field.

I first dreamt that I had my new truck, and everyone from the dental lab wanted to come down and check it out. The only problem was, they came very late at night, when we were asleep. I woke up to show them the truck and give them all a ride, because I didn’t want my dad to get upset at them, and instead of being a pickup it was one of those multi-passenger trucks, lifted, with leather seats. I remember trying to drive it and I was having a hard time because the steering wouldn’t respond and the suspension was just too loose. Suddenly I became embarrassed because these were Maile’s friends and co-workers, and here I was making a fool of myself for getting a truck and not being able to handle it. At the same time I was getting upset at her co-workers because they kept wanting me to drive like an off-road maniac, going down dirt paths and bumps and rises. I felt the truck go off-balance and tip over, rolling end over end until it crashed against a hill. I asked if everyone was okay, and nobody responded. Then I found myself in a prison of sorts, except I was a third-person amorphous entity that was just watching. Each cell was made of concrete stone slabs with a single window, and I was visiting each one in turn and looking at its occupants. I heard a voice saying that these criminals were those that could not function properly in society, and so were condemned here for the rest of their immortal lives. The word immortal stood out, and I realized that this was an elven community, and these criminals were spending eternity locked up in cold dark cells. The voice that was speaking was one of the jailers, who was checking each cell to make sure the criminals were behaving properly. In one cell, a bunch of criminals were talking to one guard, and when the jailer checked on that cell, he asked what the guard was doing inside. There was a brief conversation, and then guard left the cell. As the two walked away, the leader of that cell’s occupants reached forward, and plucked the door key that was still inside the lock, courtesy of the guard. Then the elven criminals turned into these jelly-like, blob-shaped aliens, armed with devastating weapons. They broke out of the cells (for there were more than a few) and unleashed havoc upon the elves. I watched and moved among them as they rounded up elves and tortured, maimed and killed them all. Then I began to control the actions of one person in particular, a woman with the powers of Superman, who was busy finding stragglers and hiders. Here it turned into a roleplaying session, as I would speak the moves she would make, the words she would say, where she would go, and the woman would act it out as though I were directing a show. There was one straggler left, and he put up some resistance, and here it seemed like he wasn’t “playing by the rules” because he kept ignoring the fact that the woman had Superman powers and he was just ordinary. Yet I couldn’t do anything about his uncooperation because the game just continued. I (controlling the woman) chased the straggler around the complex, and he led me to a strange room, a training room, where he had summoned the real Superman, and I thought o shit I’m dead. I had the woman retreat full speed out of there, and Superman flew after her, just as fast down the corridors. I remember the anxiety of the chase, and thinking that the alarm should be sounded so that Superman can play with all those aliens instead of beating me up. The alarm did sound, and while Superman was distracted, I had the woman go to an area I (we) had visited earlier, which was the “end of the level.” The woman grabbed two magazines and entered into the next area, but she had to hide the magazines somewhere for later retrieval. Inside the women’s restroom, I checked various places where she could hide it, and also remember where she hid it. There was a noise outside, and I thought crap Superman and his cronies have entered this area and are going to begin a search and they’re going to find us and I’m going to be in trouble. I tried to open a locker as quietly as possible, and when I got it opened I saw that it was just a door leading to nowhere, only a blank wall with metal-like pipes. And no place to hide magazines.