I'm driving with my best friend and someone else -- whom I know but can't determine...a wild card, if you will, possibly any one of my friends, but not any one in particular -- at a school I've never been to before, but for some reason I know it well. It's snowing and everything is eerily covered in white dust, and the sky is very dark and everything has a bluish gray tint, as everything in my dreams always does. We drive into the parking lot and get out of the car. There are a group of people standing around, and they're all dressed as though they are from the 50s. Although it is obviously cold, many of the girls are wearing sleeveless dresses, and all of them have their hair pulled up into a neat ponytail. Apparently, we know them, and we go to where they are standing and begin talking to them.
A boy named Mike beseeches us to help him. His girlfriend, whose name I don't know, broke up with him for no reason, and he wants us to talk to her to find out what happened and to see if we can fix it. We're pissed off that she broke up with him, and get back into the car and leave the parking lot to find her.
It is at this point in the dream that the strange, familiar feeling begins to creep in. That spooky notion that I have already done this exact thing and that I already know what to do and what will happen because I have already been there. This is common in my dreams, but what disturbs me is that this dream is very different...
I get out and talk to the girl, whose name I still don't know. She is wearing a white sundress with orange polka dots, orange trim on the sleeveless top of the dress, and an orange bow around her middle. The bodice is tight but the skirt flairs out as though she were wearing a tutu underneath. Her hair is sprinkled with snow and it glitters a bit as we approach her.
You have to stay with Mike, I try to whisper in her ear. Whispers in dreams are not like whispers in the waking world.
I can't. She looks frightened.
Why not? You love him... I am pleading with her, in front of so many others whom I don't even know, however I do feel as though I am older than they. My friends watch me, not sure of how they should help.
I can't, she urges, and I see a man who looks exactly like Victor Garber, the actor who plays Thomas Andrews in James Cameron's Titanic. He looks as though there is a white haze to his complexion, like his skin has been frozen for some time. I know he is her father, and I can feel hatred rise up in me.
He is the chairman of the board of some kind of science institute or even the school board, I am not sure, and he is a very sleazy type of man. He walks over and takes his daughter's arm. She looks as though she might faint, and I become sick knowing what he does to her. I know why she can't be with Mike -- her father molests her, and is a jealous prick.
The feeling that I know the outcome becomes stronger, and it makes me bolder.
I know what you do, you dirty child molester. There are daggers shooting from my eyes.
He merely smiles his sleazy smile and pulls his daughter away, as she stares back at my friends and me, terrified.
We need a better chairman of the board to outvote him, I remark to my friends.
Too bad he is the chairman, my best friend says through her teeth. We should fix him. Fix him good. She is glaring in the direction of the man's exit.
So let's.
We both smile wickedly, and get back in the car.
This is where the dream gets disturbing.
We drive back into the parking lot, and choose the first student parking space before the few staff spaces begin, on the side of the parking lot directly facing the entrance to the school, which, at this point, begins to seem not so much like a school anymore.
We enter and go into the man's office, which is the first door inside the building. It is a big office, set up as though he were some kind of corporate executive. We begin searching his desk. Although all of the drawers have locks, none of them are secured, so there is no need to search for a key.
We search his computer files, every file on and in his desk, and at the first drawer, we find a picture that almost makes me vomit. It is a picture of a young Asian boy, possibly Vietnamese or Thai, who has been mutilated and brutally raped. There are several copies of this same picture, as well as what is known to photographers as a contact sheet. I rip the pictures and restrain myself from vomiting into the garbage can.
In another drawer, we find a briefcase containing two vials; one black and one red, an icepick, a roll of tape, and rope. Our eyes grow huge -- we had found this earlier in the trunk of my car, after the sleazy man helped me fix my tire. This did not happen in the dream, but the memory of it returned as soon as we found this kit in his desk. We promptly throw that away. Upon finding nothing else in his desk, we take the trash and the files we were looking for (I'm still not sure what they were) and return to the car.
A janitor watches us throw the garbage bags away, and we are pulling out in the car when a group of cops stop us.
What can they do to us, anyway? I am full of confidence and a bravado I have never known in reality.
Actually, they can do a lot to us. What we've done is a felony offense. My best friend is very tense, and so is the third ally in my car.
I immediately feel that something is wrong. I have done this before, but this is not the right ending. I cannot help feeling, this is not supposed to happen.
The cops ask us questions, and are very sure they have us where they want us.
You have no proof. I am seething with anger and fear, trying desperately to steer the course of the dream back to the way I know it is supposed to go.
We found this in your car, the cop sneers. He pulls out a small black flashlight and hands it to me. This is a computer flashlight, only used by extreme programmers. I know it doesn't belong to you.
I resent his tone. Maybe it is mine, I practically growl at him. I have a laptop, and sometimes I don't feel like turning on the light.
He snickers. He can tell I am fishing, but still can't prove it. The sleazy man comes over to talk to him. My friends and I look at each other, and then he comes over to us. I feel horribly sick as he tries to touch me. I spit at him, and he walks away.
I wish my boyfriend was fucking here, I mumble angrily under my breath. He'd show them.
That would be worse for you, my best friend says gently. You'd both be in more trouble, and would probably be separated for good. They'll never believe us.
And suddenly I am awake, blinking in the warm flashing of Saturday Night Live on Comedy Central. A sick feeling stirs in my stomach. What the fuck was that?