In the dream, I'm visiting Vancouver Island to visit my girlfriend. I actually do have a girlfriend on Vancouver Island, but the dream somewhat fudges her identity, I think. It gets various details wrong, as my dreams always do: for instance, instead of her working where she actually does, in the dream, she was working at a high-end restaurant in a shopping mall, owned and run by a Chinese guy: all of these details are completely fictitious, wrong, etc.
Anyhow, in the dream, she's showing me around her place of work and explaining that the Chinese guy is a bit of an obnoxious boss - he says socially awkward things. I get a firsthand example of this, when he passes, and my girlfriend briefly introduces me, and he instructs us, with an odd smirk, not to steal any silverware. I take offence at this comment. She tries to calm me down, explain away his behaviour - he's just like that - but I am offended both for myself, and on a chivalrous level, for her, and my anger festers. She has to go to her other job for awhile, and we're going to meet later; I see her off - then I go back to the restaurant and deliberately steal two knives from a table, to "pay the guy back" for his remark.
I wander around the mall where the restaurant is located and kill time in various ways, the knives hidden in my pocket. When I speak to my girlfriend on the phone during one of her breaks, I tell her what I've done, and she urges me to please put the knives back. I walk back to the restaurant - I get a bit lost and end up detouring by the houses of parliament - but eventually arrive there; however, I'm nervous now, that in returning the knives, I will be noticed. I chicken out and keep the knives in my pocket, where they remain.
Later, I'm riding the bus with my girlfriend. We are now apparently in Maple Ridge - the dream takes place when the bus pulls over at 207th and Dewdney, or at least models itself on the layout of that bus stop, which borders a parking lot where a Value Village is. The driver of the bus we are on and a passenger get into an ugly altercation while pulled over. The passenger takes offence at something and says harsh words to the driver - he seems chilly and competent and somewhat scary in a way the bus driver (who seems a self-righteous hothead) doesn't; the driver gets physical about it, and they scuffle in the aisle for a bit. After righteously putting down the driver and "winning" the fight, the passenger leaves the bus and is walking away; the bus driver, the loser, rallies his resources and pulls a gun - not a real gun, but some sort of toy, and - against the advice of his passengers, who cry out things like "no, don't do it," leaves the bus himself and follows the guy, whom he proposes to shoot. The passenger sees him creeping up and turns on him, knocks the gun out of his hand, and - from the bus - I witness the passenger beating the holy shit out of the driver.
My identity in all this is as an observer, but two things should be mentioned: I do have a temper and sometimes, when treated rudely in a store or such, can get kind of nasty, which occasionally has been known to escalate, though never quite as extremely as it does in the above. On the other hand, though my character traits match the passenger, at some point in the dream, I believe I have a thought from the point of view of the bus driver, who thinks something about the knives hidden in his pocket (the ones supposedly still hidden in mine). It's like the dream wants me to be able to imagine myself in the position of both men.
Anyhow, after the passenger beats the shit out of the driver, my girlfriend and I take action - she phones the paramedics and I get off the bus to make sure the driver is still alive and that he'll be okay. At that point, for reasons unclear, we decide we're going to separate - she has to carry on on the bus, when the new driver arrives, while I elect to wait for the ambulance to show up. The driver is alive, but in really rough shape. I tell my girlfriend I'll see her later and am still kneeling over the inert body when the ambulance pulls into the parking lot. They take over... and I wake up.
No comments:
Post a Comment