Dreamin'

I had this dream last night. I was driving down Greenback avenue a couple of blocks from my house when a police car heading straight for me turned on his emergency lights. I slowed down and he pulled to a stop diagonally in front of me. For a second I thought I was in trouble until he backed up and made a u-turn. Then he turned around again and suddenly the police car was a fire engine. He hit the gas and drove directly into the Dairy Queen. I pulled into the gas station next door and tried to dial 911 but I couldn't get through. Suddenly the guy who was driving the fire engine, now apparently just an average joe out being a bastard, runs out of the DQ with a gun and a baby. There are people screaming behind him and I run across the street in front of him. I don't remember what I said but I convince him to take me as a hostage instead of the baby who he sets down in the middle of the street.

I do remember looking at that baby while I was talking to him and suddenly seeing my sons faces, much older than they are now. I knew they were angry and it was because their mom did not prioritize motherhood at that moment. The reason I switched was not for my kids or for the baby's mother, or even really for the baby. I ran out into that street because I knew if the guy left and killed that child I could not bare the rest of my life having witnessed it and allowing it to happen. So he takes me and I convince him to go back into the DQ and then I convince him we need double cheeseburgers and shakes. The DQ guy starts to try and get the kitchen working even though the fire engine is still inside the restaurant. We stay there for a long time. There are other customers sitting quietly the way hostages do. Not much happens for awhile, but after we eat the guy pulls out his gun and decides to kill me and swap me for another hostage. A couple of the customers scream, at this point they see me as a hero, but he shoots me anyway square in the chest. I fall backward onto a table in front of him and somebody yells 'do something' and out of nowhere comes this young kid, maybe 21. He grabs a pair of those meat tongs with the really sharp edges and something that looks like a Lincoln Log. The thought that everyone has, or so it seems, is that this kid is some kind of med student who is going to do one of those crazy ER moments. But as he walks up to me he quickly turns and rams both objects directly into the chest of the bad guy, right in his heart. The bad guy leans against the counter, dead and still standing straight up. Then the kid turns to me and delivers a swift heimlich-like karate chop to my chest. I sit up like a reflex and spit out a mounthful of sauceless spaghetti that apparently was blocking my airway. I also apparently have not been shot. But the best part is as I sit up like a shot, I'm holding a fork full of spaghetti I was about to eat when I went down and as I sit up from the blow the hero very casually opens his mouth and I deliver that bite directly to him. The subconscious: psyche vomit, tragedy and comedy all rolled into one.