second (third? fourth?) time I’ve had this dream.
I’m a guy , detective I think. It’s a period piece, 30s, 40s. Very noir.
I go, do a snoop job or something. Come have dinner at a diner. Get a call on their phone to come back to my place. My office is out of a front room of my house.
I’m home. I meet with my business partner, Joe. Don’t remember exactly what happens. Have a fight I think. I storm off. Phone rings, or I try to call someone. I woke up around here the last time so I don’t remember much. At some point I’m with Joe in the hall and he has a heart attack. I cry, I attempt to give CPR, but I’m reduce to beating on his chest blindly. It works. But Joe wakes up different. Then I hear the car. Some guys arrive in their car, and kill us (see below), and then I woke up. Went back to sleep.
Same thing. Except this time I’m aware it’s the same dream. That happens when I wake up and go back to sleep sometimes. I’m concious not only that it’s a dream, but that it’s one I’ve recently (just?) had.
Same events happen, up to where Joe dies. People keep calling. (Could be because my phone at home keeps ringing?). Joe is dead, Jamie calls on my cellphone. I didn’t even realize I had a cell phone. (Note: There are three phones here, my cell phone with Jamie, the real phone I tried calling for help on, and another phone I thought was a real phone but turns out to be a direct line to the diner. Why do I have a direct line to the diner?) I answer the cell phone without thinking. I tell her I can’t talk Joe’s dead. She asks who’s Joe? I say “Oh that’s right, you wouldn’t know Joe.” and I hang up. This is where I beat on Joe’s chest again. This time I’m not crying, I’m doint it because it’s the thing to do here.
The car noise happens again outside. It’s the guys from before. I remember the previous fight clearly. Including the parts that went wrong. Two black kids, 20 something, big, get out of a car, van, dream thing. I dunno what it was, it had wheels and was big enough to carry more in the back. I think it did in previous versions, this time it had the two punks. I remember being suprised that they only sent two this time.
One guy has a bat, he get’s out first. I manage to get the bat away from him and whack him with it once. He pulls a gun. It’s a 38 special type of thing, small round, very noir. He fires a round at me and misses, or hits but not badly, or something. This time I remember what I did wrong the last time (though I can’t remember right now exactly what it was … things are starting to fade) and I manage to beat him.
While all this was happening the second kid got out of the car with some kind of machine gun thing. Why am I having dreams about guns? When he aims at me while I’m not paying attention Joe jumps him and they struggle into the garage. I managed to beat my guy and turn around to see Joe pulling out of the garage and fire back into it. Killing the kid in there.
I walk over to him. I’m worried about him because he was dead just a little bit ago. I see the body in the garage. I turn around to see where my kid was, the kid who was attacking me, and he’s walking toward us. I think he still has the gun. I tell him to stop, stay where he was. He wanders under a lamp, or a light or something. He holds his hands up at us. I think it’s a gun, I warn him not to do it. Joe pulls up his gun, but I stop Joe. I don’t like the killing.
The kid doesn’t have a gun though. It’s some kind of projector thing. One of those things they use for watching Rushes, and Dailies. With a backlight and a small screen, in this case very small … like a penny arcade piece. Also it’s very retro, very 1930s, very noir.
I walk over to where the kid is, not understanding exactly what’s going on. I walk around the kids shoulder to see what he’s watching. It’s a movie of a small town somewhere. I’m facinated. The kid slides out of my way and I sit down to watch. Then there’s a slide cut thing and I’m in the movie. Like when the camera moves from Dorothy’s house to the Munchkin land. I’m there. Then I woke up again.
Written on August 2nd , 2005 by Chris Prather