I guess this dream takes a little bit of explaining before I dive in. See, I always figured that dreams were half-prophetic outbursts of your subconscious trying to push some enlightenment your way, and half your brain, spewing mental vomit that was some combination of mental-garbage/pop media /mundane real-life events you’d been experiencing lately. Last Saturday night, getting ready to leave a movie theater, I was in my parked car when an SUV backed in to me. No one was hurt, shrapnel did not go flying everywhere, no one ran in front of my car screaming “FREEDOM!”, “NOOOOOOOO!” or something equally as trite and Hollywood as they tried to cap me with a pair of model 84FS Beretta Cheetahs. Nothing exploded. In summation, I needed a new bumper and headlight for my Toyota, and they needed a new Jesus Fish. My calmness surprised them, I’d been through a lot worse with my car. This was nothing. During the next week I played more Final Fantasy VII then I should have, and flung rubber bands around my cubical. The company made another two million dollars, I got a promotion. It was keen.
Another Easter passed by and the blooming Mulberries reminded me that not only was it spring, but the cursed allergy season would soon be upon me. I decided to make the most of the night and stay up enjoying a bit of Everclear and rainwater and catching up on the last few episodes of Samurai Champloo I hadn’t seen. I enjoyed the ending,] I cried, but in a good way]. Decided to take off three days of the two weeks the company owes me, which works out since that’s about how long the repairs will take. Dropped off the car around 7 AM and got a friend to give me a lift home. When I got there I didn’t feel tired, so sat down to write. I hit page fifty of the novel at about 1 PM. With a certain feeling of self-satisfaction, I decided I’d be really sinful and grab an afternoon nap. It took awhile to drift off. In the background Conjure One was playing softly and some incense burned. The scent was called “Stranded in the Moonlight”, it smelt like vanilla.
I found myself at a star-gazing party, the sort I went to back in college. It was a clear night and I looked through the over-sized, optically-impossible telescope that is only feasible in dreams. It was a good thousand feet high and had about 30 lenses, the largest being a mile in diameter. It was supported by a tiny, two bedroom house. It didn’t seem strange at all. After gazing at the stars for awhile I wondered outside. As I watched the night sky wondering, as I have many times before, what is out there? the heavens erupted in blue fire. Golden meteors the size of the Lincoln Memorial’s head fell from the skies in hundreds, blue tails trailing behind them like flaming goldfish. I watched as they decimated the nearby mountain ranges. I was rather resigned to the idea that I would die, but that at least the last look was pretty. I sipped my drink just as a flaming rock took out a tree maybe thirty feet away. Near my car.
I watched with this impending sense of doom that millions of rabbits must have felt in their last moments as spinning, black things bear down upon them. The tree toppled over onto my car in what was gut-wrenching slow-motion. I was screaming “NOOOOOOOO!” and rushing forward, even though there was nothing I could obviously do. As I reached my stricken vehicle I raised my and shook my fist in defiance of any gods that may be watching. In the background huge flaming meteors continued to rain down. The night sky was lit up the way they always show fire bombing in WWII-inspired movies. With a grunt and mighty heft I dislodged the tree from my car and looked in horror at the damage.
The hood was completely smashed, underneath the car was the ominous sound of leaking vital-fluids and the windshield had shattered. With both arms raised to the sky I leapt atop my car and screamed out a challenge to whatever forces were at work.
I would not be fate’s play thing! The forces of nature may try to kill me but they’d gone after my car and now they would face my wrath. They’d messed with the wrong girl, and I was super-pissed.
Where I stood an angel appeared before me dressed in flowing white robes with huge glowing wings. Yes, it even carried a golden hard and had one of those oh-so-smug serene expressions all the Renaissance artists gave angels. I knew he was going to say something that involved peace, humility or self-control, so I did the moral thing and tackled his punk-ass. He even made that satisfying “Ooof!” noise as I lunged at him and grabbed him around the middle.
“You will fix my car!” I informed him as we fell to the ground in a tangle of robes, limbs and feathers.
I wrestled the angel to the ground triumphantly as another meteor crashed somewhere behind me and to the left. I was sort of sprawled on top of it. The smug expression was gone and the angel just looked rather bewildered. I had knocked off its halo. I was glaring down at the angel before it finally said, in a voice like a million sparkling bells, “Okay.”
I climbed off the angel and it stood up. Its robes weren’t even dirty, bastard. With a wave of its hand the meteors stopped falling. The angel surveyed the damage to my car, then magiced us up some cold beer. I don’t really like beer, but I drank it just to be polite. This was an angel, after all. We spoke for awhile and the angel decided to drive us down to a repair shop. I woke up all at once to the sound of my cell-phone playing “Trans Europe Express” by Kraftwerk. It was my mother. She wanted to know if I was enjoying my time off. We had a pleasant chat. I didn’t tell her I’d stopped the apocalypse to save my car. It seemed like an odd thing to work into a conversation.