#1
I am in the living room of my home, except it isn't, and my non-home would appear to now exist somewhere along the Louisiana bayou, which it doesn't. The darkness outside is so complete that it seems to be almost leaking into the room around the edges of the window panes. The room is simultaneously well lit and dark, cast in eerie shadows. Several of my friends are there, and it becomes apparent that it is my birthday.
"Happy birthday." says one of them. The dialogue is unclear, but the ideas represented come across quite well. My birthday present--either from This Individual himself, or from a collection of my friends captained by This Individual--is a gunshot wound. I feel, at the time, that this is a generous and well thought out present. This Individual has with him a black bag, from which he draws a short stock .22 calibre hunting rifle. It is decided that I will clasp my hands to my chest and he will shoot me through them, so that the bullet will be slowed, and I will not be killed. I cross my hands, and hold them against my chest. My feet are shoulder width apart, one in front of the other, to absorb the impact. The Individual takes his time, and aims for my hands. The gunshot is unsettlingly quiet. The bullet passes easily through the fingers on my left hand, and into my chest.
"Whoops." I say.
We laugh.
Later, they go boating.
#2
I am lying on the bed of either an El Camino or an old pickup truck. The vehicle is moving quickly, faster than it should be able to, along a road in a deserted city; I am made aware by either the radio in the cab or by some magical-dream-commentator that an international terrorist organization has begun a series of car bombings, and I am then aware that the vehicle I am in is a part of these plots. I am also aware that if I were to sit up or in anyway compromise my position, Bad ThingsTM would happen. The truck veers onto another road, and I know, somehow, that there is a massive chain link gate blocking our path--the sort of thing you would expect to see at a prison checkpoint--it is comprised of two individual pieces of fence, hinged at their exterior edges, which swing outwards in the French style. That they swing out and not in, I realize, means that these gates are protecting something, rather than imprisoning it. The area around the gate is secured with concrete highway barriers and accordions of razor wire, and on the other side I am dimly aware of several men and a military vehicle. The truck smashes through the gate with relative ease, and I am not aware of there being any defensive fire or signs of life from the troops on the other side. Somewhere directly after the impact with the gate, the truck begins to roll to its left; I'm tossed around in the bed of the truck, and eventually my neck comes to rest on the lip of the bed-wall, and as the vehicle rolls, (still traveling at around 120kph), my head is pinned between the truck and the asphalt. At this point, the scene fades to black. I should note that for the duration of this dream, there has been no sensation of pain or discomfort, so I cannot be sure if the blackness is due to a concussion, a stylistic-dream-device, or my having just had my face ground off on an impromptu belt-sander; with neither light nor pain to guide me, I cannot tell if the truck has shattered my vertebrae and spinal column, or if it has severed my head entirely. This, at the time, is a point of confusion; I am quite certain, in my dream, that it is imperative that I learn whether or not I still have a body. It should be noted that all of this internal dialogue is occurring at a single point in what promises to be one of many roles this truck will be making in the imminent future. The debate over the state of my extremities is cut short by the stunning realization that no matter what happens, there is absolutely no way I am surviving this one.
"Huh. I'm dead." I think to myself.
#3
I am carnally engaged to a pair of nubile young women. It is suddenly revealed that they are vampires.
I perish.
#4
I am very hungry. It is near the lunch hour, and I am sitting in the corner of a small restaurant, examining a tepid cup of coffee. My hunger is painful, and pronounced in a sense I have never found real hunger to be. A little girl two tables down is being read what would appear to be Curious George books, except all the stories I overhear end with George's triumphant conclusion that the proletariat will never again struggle under the weight of decadent capitalist excess. A young man arrives, carrying my food: a lobster club, pickle on the side. Before I am able to begin my meal, a woman enters the café. Her eyes quickly scan the room; when she sees me, she hurries over to my table. She begins to talk, hands gesturing elaborately. I come to understand that she is using a complex and cryptic system of sign language to convey punctuation; however, the particulars of her code are lost on me. Suddenly, two other women push confidently into the room. The woman in front of me dives under my table and acts, I feel quite convincingly, like a cat. The women at the door scan the room and talk briefly with the man at the counter before leaving again. On their exit, the woman under the table jumps to her feet.
"You can't let them go save the children." She says, gesturing wildly.
As I am oblivious to her flailed punctuation, I fail to realize that what she has really said is, "You can't let them go; save the children!"
I stare at her dumbfounded while she, growing increasingly frantic, repeats her message. This does nothing to lessen my confusion; exasperated, she storms out of the room, but not before acquainting me intimately with the contents of my coffee cup. Embarrassed, I refocus my attentions towards my sandwich. In my eagerness to distance myself from the woman even now pushing for the exit, I forget to remove the toothpicks.
The rest of the café seems oblivious to my struggle as I clasp my throat and fight for breath.
#5
I am sitting in on a lively town hall meeting. It seems a group of concerned citizens have decided that the road signs that designate an upcoming intersection bear an upsetting (and, it is purported, malicious) resemblance to Christ on the cross. I am stunned to find that not only is this opinion respected, it is supported and applauded by all present. The scene turns ugly when I stand to object, and the crowd's seething contempt for civic iconographers is channeled fully onto me. In what I can see only as a masterful example of situational irony, I am taken outside and stoned.