Wow, I Had A Dream

I rarely remember the dreams I have, so it’s always pretty weird to me when I do wake up having had a dream. In this particular dream, I was back in highschool, only it was one of those amalgam schools made up of physical elements of my elementary, junior high and high school, all combined into one “proto-school”. It’s next door neighbor was a small office for NASA that was currently undergoing a recruitment drive to find the one lucky person that was going to be selected for the new lunar mission using advances in technology to automate the flight so much that only one astronaut was required. Rumor had it in the school it was down to one of two teachers, the young social studies teacher that was heart throb of all the girls, and the physics teacher, who was fat, insecure sort that phoned in his moves to Magic: The Gathering on his cel phone in a game that seemingly never ended, and periodically interrupted his attempts to teach us Newtonian physics.

I had an arch-nemesis. I don’t remember what her name was, but she was the progressive, young, new teacher that was set to change the way education was done, and wanted to “reach out and really make a difference” to the kids. For whatever reason, she thought I was an amazing kid, but I really couldn’t stand her, and was too busy being astonished by her earnest but idiotic teaching policies and the fact that she no grasp of reality. The other kids were pretty much what I remember from high school; the girls were pretty, vapid and cruel, while the boys were athletic, sadistic and moronic.

Well, except for this one kid. No one really liked him much, and they were all afraid of him. They kept calling him a freak. Probably because of his black body armor, and the fact that he was a little over six feet tall, and had asthma, because he had this really, really bad breathing problem, and he spoke with a very deep voice, and brought a knife to school, only it wasn’t a knife, it looked like some kind of sex toy until he turned it on and a focused beam of light erupted from it, making a dangerous humming sound. He was foreign or something, because his name was Darth Vader and all the kids made fun of him because of that.

He kept following me around like some kind of loyal puppy and calling me his “Master” which really freaked me out. I kept saying, “Look, you don’t get it. I’m just trying to survive here, I got no influence, okay?” And he would nod and say stuff like, “I see, my Master. To arouse suspicion before it is the proper time is unwise. I am learning much from you.”

And I would roll my eyes and mutter “Whatever” and just try not to get harrassed too much that day.

Still, he had his uses, like when we were playing dodge ball, and all the kids, as usual, started throwing their balls at me, he waved his hand around and the balls started flying back at the throwers so fast it was knocking their teeth out of their mouths. That was cool.

The progressive teacher was extremely worried about me. She’d do stuff like make me hang back after class, while Darth Vader watched from the window, and she’d lean on the desk beside me, saying things like, “I’m worried about you. You’re a good kid, you’ve got a lot of potential, I just don’t want to see you throwing it away.”

“Like how?”

“You know, like falling in with the wrong crowd.”

Then she’d go on and on about the future of the world, and how politics was so important, and did I ever stop to think that maybe the socialists were right, and what did I know about a black robe with a hood that had gone missing from the school laundry?

Of course, when I came out of the class, the freaky foreign kid produced said black robe and said, “I hope you find these raiments worthy of you, my Master…”

I rolled it up into a ball and tried carrying the robes around with me like that, and tried to lose the foreign kid fast.

I had a spare class (meaning I had no class at that time) so I went over to the NASA offices to see how they were doing. They were happy because they’d picked the social studies teacher. The physics teacher was all bitter about this, and kept claiming it was because of Magic: The Gathering prejudice that they’d passed him over. They ignored him and kept showing their new astronaut all the high tech equipment he was going to be using, and gushed with pride over how the new ship was going to be able to reach the moon in a record 2 days. I was starting to feel hungry when I realized I’d forgotten my lunch that day.

This huge rumbling occurred outside, and everyone went to see what it was. It turned out to be a MASSIVE triangular ship that was descending from the clouds. A contingent of jocks in white body armor came out of it, and the one in the lead was carrying a brown paper bag. He got on one knee and held it up in front of me saying, “Take this, sire.”

The NASA guys blinked a lot and looked at me, and the white armored guys. I shrugged and said, “Uh… It’s for that foreign kid.”

They closed their eyes, smiling, nodded, said “Oh, okay!” and went back inside.

At this point there was some rumor going around that I was actually an Emperor, and all the girls who’d scorned me so much suddenly started paying a lot more attention to me. They kept asking me to have talks with them that coincided with their gym class when they’d try and hold the conversation while they were changing. Most of these conversations consisted of them stripping while asking, “So… what are you doing Friday night?”

“Playing video games.”

“Oh… cool! I never told this to anyone before, but I love video games! Especially that new one, Pac-Man? With the little fat guy jumping over the barrels and the big monkey? That’s sooooo cute!”

“Uh… Yeaaaaaaaaaah… right.”

Then, for no apparent reason whatsoever, we were called out to the field where Sarah MacLachlan had set up a stage for a concert. She grabbed the microphone, we all went wild, and she said, “This is dedicated to a very special guy out there. Lead us to a new order, my master, it is your destiny!”

All
the kids looked around wondering who she was talking about.

She got into a couple of songs, the kids were all dancing (Except for me and the foreign kid), everyone was having a great time until my arch-nemesis teacher stopped the proceedings to take the microphone and lecture us about how upset she was about the missing robe, and how she tried to reach out to us, and how she couldn’t helpt it if the teacher was sometimes overwhelmed by the woman who just wanted to bring out the light in each and everyone one of us and make it shine.

I realized at this point with a clarity I have never had, that in a few months she was going to die in an accident. I also heard strange music playing, like old men chanting, followed by an amazing explosion of horns in a dark, militaristic theme.

After the concert was over, the foreign kid and I were walking past her office, and she was looking at us. I hid the robe I was still carrying behind a bag, carefully making sure it was manuevered behind the bag as we passed the teacher.

“Why don’t we elminate her, my Master?” the foreign kid asked.

“That would cause all kinds of hell,” I said. “I think we should wait. She’s going to die on her own anyway, I’ve foreseen it.”

He nodded. “Yes. Remain the shadows, use ignorance as strength. I am learning much from you, my Master.”

Hey, I never said this dream made sense, did I?