dream!
the flip side of reality
Mike Crowe: sunday, october 26, 2003
adventures in colorado
I go to a job interview at an insurance company in Colorado. I enter a typical office environment- a tall receptionist station at the front, floors covered by padding-free, bluish carpet, and some mediocre art work hanging on the walls. Soon I’m greeted by John Goodman. Yes, the actor, but this has no impact on me during the dream. We shake hands, introduce ourselves and begin a tour of the facilities. He gives me some basics about the company and the job I might do some day. Next he opens a door that leads to an open forest full of tall pine trees that race toward a night-time sky. Rows of cubicles sit ensconced between the trees. Most are unoccupied, but I see a few faces. John introduces me to a few people. One is a guy with spiky, platinum-blonde hair named Fred, I think. We walk a small, but healthy distance away from Fred’s desk when John lowers his voice and tells me that Fred shot him in the stomach in the company break room a couple weeks ago. Naturally, I’m taken aback but I restrain from asking why Fred remains employed, out of politeness, maybe fear, I don’t really know.
Now we exit the forest and walk into an enclosed cafeteria/ break room. It’s full of large Formica-laden tables, 1970’s style, rounded, quasi-spaceship looking chairs, and white tiles with faded black speckles on them. John scans the perimeter of the room. I notice his eyes. His pupils grow into wide reservoirs of fear. He makes a fist and bangs it against his chest. “Fuck. Shit,” He yells. I realize he’s experiencing a shooting flashback. I make sure he’s all right and then ask why Fred still has a job at this company, a question to which I get no immediate answer. John takes a deep breath and recovers. He asks me what I think of the job. I shrug my shoulders, and then exhale a deep but narrow stream of air. I don’t want to hurt his feelings so I say, “I’ll think about it.” “I’ll tell you what . . .” he says. “You give it some thought, and I’ll talk with H.R. You seem like a trustworthy guy and I get the feeling with you in here that we can take the company back.” I feel unnerved and know I don’t want this job. This marks the end of face-to-face conversations with John.
Next I find myself in a hallway and see a girl I know from San Diego named Lisa- not my sister, however. She’s sitting and has her head in one of those beauty shop machines that gives people's hair permanents. Apparently that’s one of the company perks- they have machines that give you a do, though I recall that it required coins to activate it. She asks me what I think of the job and I tell her I think that there are some shitty politics.
I exit the building and walk through an atrium. I get a call on my cell and it’s John Goodman, again. He asks for me, but I deepen my voice and pretend to be someone else. He buys it and asks Michael to call him back.
Now I find myself in a forest again, very similar to the last one, except no cubicles. Instead, people are camping. I see Simon Graves and Pat Switzer. I think maybe they came with me to Colorado. I explain that I had a really weird job interview. All of sudden we notice shit, actual feces, exploding through the sky like fireworks. I see a tall machine that has a similar structure to the stair carts that service commercial airplanes. It has a conveyor belt that hauls the shit up a 45 degree incline which then falls into a small depression. A rain-bird sprinkler sits in the depression and flings out copious amounts of crap. We begin running and I yell that we should seek refuge in my truck since it has a camper shell. Fear digs its claws into us as we realize that my truck stands a considerable distance away. Miraculously, no shit lands on us, though the sky has become imbued with a brown sheen and it’s pretty much shitting cats and dogs. Pat notices a group of girls basking under a small patch of blue sky. They stand under a small, but safe region that sort of acts as the complete antithesis to the proverbial black cloud. We begin running in their direction but Simon becomes distracted by this small, old, Asian man who’s clumsily performing ballet twirls with child-like glee. Simon grabs our shoulders and stops us. He says, “Dude, I gotta lasso this guy.” Simon somehow procures a rope and throws a small lasso that grabs the old man’s head. He gently pulls him forward, lets go of the rope and then places his hands on the old man’s cranium and twirls him a couple times. Simon then gives that awkward sort of smile that people display when they want to borrow a chair from a stranger in a restaurant. Simon says to the bewildered old man, “Sorry, but I just had to do it.”
End of dream.