BoldUlysses.com

I have had the most vivid dream ever just now. I woke up very surprised to have been dreaming.

All the details were there–fully-formed personalities, details, times, conversations–but in profoundly surreal constructions like orange skies and sudden electrical storms and strange reactions. There were many, many more details than this, but it’s all I can record before losing it all to the steamrolling effect of mental ramping up for the day.

I remember tripping about the house. My father’s hobbies had gotten out of control and I had to thread my way through boxes upon boxes in the living room. I remember recommending to him that he place all the small boxes in larger plastic boxes, since that way he would be better organized.

I departed for a sculpture class for several hours, around seven in the evening. Upon leaving the class later on I remember little except to have noticed that my car had been vandalized, the roof rack stolen, among other small items. I was very disturbed by this and found myself wishing, as I always do, that I had been there when the deed was performed.

I drove to an art supply store. It sold other trinkets as well and after what seemed like several hours of browsing I bought a miniature tape rack, holding a few dozen of the kinds of small audio tapes that go in handheld recording devices. I approached the cashier and said, “Bonsoir,” as I knew somehow she spoke French. She said the same back to me and we muttered a few things in French to one another, for my part trying to appear as much like a native as I could. I walked out to my car and was shocked.

The wheels were gone. But not only the wheels, but the whole suspension behind the wheels–shock absorber, spring, control arm, everything, and the car was propped on four cinder blocks. The seats were missing too, as were other assorted bits from the interior. I walked around the car a couple of times in disbelief and mounting anger. The vandals must have followed me.

I rushed back inside and called the police. The cashier was very obliging and I did not tell her the particulars of why I needed the phone so urgently. Having called, I walked back out to the car again to wait for the authorities. As soon as I was out the door, though, I saw that there were people around the car. I ducked behind an obstruction and watched. They were three, male, and looked fairly able-bodied as they removed more pieces from my car. I went back inside. Somehow my floor jack had shown up in that very place. So deciding to take matters into my own hands, as I had always wanted to do when it was a matter of vandalism against my car, I removed the four-foot pipe handle from the floor jack and unscrewed the bolt that held the two equal-length halves together. With one two-foot length of pipe in each hand I walked out to the car.

While en route I decided that perhaps the one longer pipe might be easier to manage, so I refastened the two halves. The vandals saw me approach a while off, and strangely did not run. My adrenaline rose, I saw red and for all intents and purposes cursed them out, dropping a few choice f-bombs, as I walked up. They readied themselves for the skirmish.

I approached the first vandal. He had nothing, but the second vandal had a length of small pipe, so I went after him first. I swung with full force but he ducked and it whizzed over his head. I came around again and connected. He thudded to the ground. I then went after the first while the third crouched on the other side of a car. For some reason in this instance I did not use the pipe but instead my fist, planted full in his face, and he went down too, face hitting hard against the curb. The third vandal came out from around the car and we had a scuffle. A couple of body blows later and he was on the ground as well.

By this time, for some reason my brother Paul had shown up and I used him to keep an eye on the vandals, preventing their escape while I called the authorities again. While on the phone I kicked the second one a few times for good measure. Paul sat on the third and watched them all. The police came and took them away. I went back inside and somehow posted on LiveJournal that I had been “taking names and kicking ass” (it took me a while to remember the order of those two) and that I would tell you more later when I returned and wrote out the whole event. And somehow I drove away in my car, all the parts having been restored, except for a peculiar hole in the radio area.

It was very late, close to midnight, and the weather was turning very strange and frightening indeed. The wind picked up and blew leaves about. The sky was some unnaturally light hue even at that late hour, and not just from the city’s light pollution. I stopped at the top of the hill at a gas station. Having done what I stopped to do, I climbed back in the car only to find that it would not start. It cranked and cranked but wouldn’t catch. I thus tried popping the clutch while the car rolled down the hill in reverse and the car sputtered to life, but not without an array of warning lights on the dash.

I drove on. But this time I had started to notice the presence of a small fire on the dash, presumably electrical. The wiring must have shorted out from when the vandals tried to steal the radio. But it did not seem to grow any larger, so I drove on. Daylight returned and as I found myself on a highway again I heard sirens behind me. Thinking it to be an ambulance I pulled over only to find the trooper on my bumper. He got out and was the picture of friendliness, lending me a fire extinguisher with which to put out the fire. Having done so, we chatted about my experience with the vandals. Two or three more cars pulled up, and all their drivers had heard about my experience too. I marveled that news had traveled so quickly.

The policeman drove away and I tried to start the car again, to no avail. I asked some of the people who had come if they would be willing to give me a push so that I could get home, but none of them were willing. I poked around in the dash with the hope of finding the electrical fault. I found the starter relay, which oddly seemed to be in the form of a circuit breaker, and reset it. I tried starting the car with an eye on the relay/circuit breaker. It tripped again. Seeing no other way to the start the car besides a push, I looked up from the dash around the car. Somehow the road on which I had been driving was now a slight incline, so I let the car roll forward for a while, picking up speed, and popped the clutch. To my satisfaction the car started, and this time there was no fire.

I arrived home amid the boxes and talked to my mother and father before ascending the staircase with the intention of recording the whole event somehow.

After this there were a few more inconsequential dreams of which I remember little.