I went back to Christendom, as is my usual weekend fare. But the campus has changed. The only thing consistent in the dreams that has changed is that the layout of the campus has changed, and gotten much more expansive with more trees, more hills, more valleys, and bigger buildings.
The last time I had this dream, the weather was beautiful. The hills were so radiantly green, and the sky was as blue as blue could be, with a couple pure white clouds in the sky. Such a day couldn't be enjoyed by oneself, so I went around looking for people. No one was around. None of the guys were in their dorms, and none of the girls seemed to be there. Any. Not even people that I didn't know. The place was there, people's stuff was there -- but there was not a soul on campus. It looked like they were all there, somewhere, but I couldn't figure out where. It looked like all the cars and all the vans were there. Where could they be?
Had the rapture happened?
I don't know. I woke up shortly after giving up the search and lying down on a huge green hill to wait for them to show up...
This time, I started off by going to the gym. The gym was much nicer than the current one. It had three levels, an indoor swimming pool, indoor tennis courts, racquetball courts, indoor basketball courts, enormous weight room, a track, showers, saunas--you name it, the gym had it. A young man was giving me a tour, saying (essentially), "Look at how great we are." He was about 18, Mexican, and had a fluffy, white, stereotypical-gym towel draped over his shoulder. Mike P. went jogging by as we were exploring the lower level. We went into the racquetball courts, and he showed me what they could be used for: in one, there was a group therapy session. In another, Dr. Poterack was conducting Madrigals. In another, a group of students (weird looking students -- weird: think of me, and you'll have an idea of what they look like) were in there smoking all sorts of stuff, from cigarettes to weed to pot. As he saw people, he would go up to them, say their name Italian style ("TONYYYYY!!" for instance), and they'd exchange the brief guy hug (right handshake, bringing the right shoulder in to the chest of the other, pat the other guy on the back twice), and then they'd talk for a minute, he'd introduce me, and then they'd say farewell, and we'd keep going. Tyler McA. was there, bigger then ever, still pumping iron.
Mary W. was there -- yes, the same one that's in CA. What was she doing back? I don't know, but it was very good to see her. Since I haven't seen her since graduation, I wanted to chat with her and figure out how she was doing.
It did not seem weird to me that she was in her interview suit, the black suit with a black, knee-length skirt, and the shirt she always wore with the brooch around the neckpiece. What was it all called? You got me... The shirt wasn't violet, wasn't exactly purple. It seemed a lot redder than violet, and a lot brighter, too. I seem to remember that color quite vividly. The neckpiece looked like an ascot, but I knew it wasn't. It was of the same material, but it looked more like it just came around the front, and was pinned together with the brooch.
In any case, she was singing with the choir as an alto. I could hear a distinct alto line coming from her mouth, and it sounded really good, like I remember. (A bit of context: Based on the way that Mary talks about her singing abilities, she can't sing worth a flip. Maybe I'm just wacko, but I think she has a great voice, and I've heard her sing...)
The song they were singing sounded like, "My Little Buttercup", but instead of such innocent lyrics, the song was called, "Mr. Sedevacantist." But since the title needed to be shortened to fit the melody, the group was singing,
"My Little Sedev-ist,
Sweet little Sedev-ist..."
Ken, and everyone else who considers me a Traddy, eat your heart out...
Mike P. was also singing with them -- even though I just saw him running the opposite direction...
Well, we finished exploring the gym, and I left. I got in my car, and drove to the other side of campus. The weather had now changed, and it was getting really cloudy and windy, as though a big storm was coming. I parked the Acura outside in the parking lot, and I was going to go see the guys. I walked in the direction that the guys dorms were, only they weren't there anymore. It was getting darker, the wind started blowing harder, and I suddenly realized that I was walking into a bit of a forest. The trees were mostly branches, and there were vines all over the place. I circled through the forest, hoping to maybe find where the dorms were, but I was only making a large loop back to the car. I noticed a run-down building in the distance, so I went to investigate. As I approached, I heard familiar voices inside, and suddenly they started singing,
"My Little Sedev-ist,
Sweet little Sedev-ist..."
I walked inside. Emma F. was one of three sopranos. There were no altos -- Mary hadn't shown up yet. There were two tenors, Mike P. and Dr. Davidson. There were no basses. The freakiest thing about this: I heard basses. TRUE basses. I opened the door expecting to see Julian A. or John E., but there neither. I looked at Dr. Poterack, assuming that he had sung the bass line, but he somehow knew what I was thinking and shook his head, smiling in his mysterious/mischievous/impish way...
As I went to greet them, they all huddled together in a football huddle. I looked quizzically at them, expecting something, but they stayed there, talking. As I watched, Emma popped her head out, and, in mockery, winked at me. Then, without smiling, laughing or turning red like she does when I wink at her, she ducked back into the huddle. I checked the time, and saw that it was not getting any earlier, and figured I should leave.
Just then, the choir assumed their places, and began the same song again. Mary burst through the door, as though she had just run from the gym in her nice clothes, already singing the alto line.
As I left, I heard the bass line, in particular, really loud, in perfect balance with everything. The invisible true bass was going lower than any bass I've ever heard. It sounded good, but almost mechanical. It went all the way down to the C below the bass clef, and kept going, at least down to the A -- at least. (My lowest note on a really good day is the E-b -- F on a normal day.)
I headed back to my car. I wasn't going to have any luck finding the guy's dorms. As I walked back to the parking lot, I noticed that it, too, had become overrun with vines. That, and my Acura wasn't there anymore. "What if" thoughts filled my head, and I wondered to myself, "What if it got stolen? What if it got blown away? After all, the wind is blowing really hard now..." I looked around, and saw an abandoned old-fashioned burger stand/joint, also covered in vines.
The Acura was nose-first into it. The driver's side door glass had been punched through twice -- the glass was still up, but you could see where the hand went through it. The person who did this tried to open the door like you would in a Lamborghini, and, in the process, had torn the door off it's hinges, and reattached it to the top of the car. I mean "reattached" in the loose sense. They had bent the top of the door, so that it would cling to the top part of the door frame, but upside down. They had also found my toolbox and stolen my radio. The car was still running, the lights were on, and the toolkit was left out, as though in mockery.As I was standing there, dumbfounded, shocked that my radio had been stolen again, I woke up, realized it was a dream, and fell back asleep.
At this point, I realized that I was hearing my driving music playing, but it was coming from inside my car. I looked carefully at the car, and the interior looked like a hybrid between the Sentra and the Acura. There was indeed a hole where my radio was, but my speakers were still cranking out the tunes. I looked into the hole, and saw what appeared to be a 5.25" disk drive in there, but it was an OLD 5.25" drive. It looked oddly reminiscent of a Mac. I couldn't tell if this new thing had replaced my radio, or not.
I checked my pocket. I still had my keys. The car must have been hot-wired. I didn't check to see if it had. I didn't really want to.
In frustration, I walked away from the car. I wasn't going to abandon it there, I just needed a minute. After all, my alma mater was not being taken care of, my car had been ravaged, my friends could not be found (and when I did find them, they kept singing the same song -- I get the feeling it was being directed at me), and I was --well, generally lost, to be honest. I had no idea where I was. I was at Christendom, but the Christendom I knew didn't have the room to expand like this, so the chances of it being in the same place were slim to none.
I walked back to my car, still buried pathetically into the side of the stand, when I started waking up. I felt reality start to come into focus. The car disappeared, as did my surroundings. I was laying flat on my back, and having a hard time breathing (I've been having asthma problems all day). I checked the time: 03:45. Since I wasn't going back to sleep any time soon, and since I thought that you are all dying to know what else runs through the mind of this weirdo, I thought that I'd post this... It's now 05:31, and I'm about to hit the hay again.
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