Dream Journal

It was night, and there are all these Oberlin parties. At one, we’re off by some pine trees a little ways away from the party. Someone says “Didn’t I see your dad rubbing up against himself at the last party?” “Unlikely”, I said. Then Dan walks up from the road and says hello. I’m totally shocked. He tells me about himself recently, how he’s bought some vintage . . . like “WarCat” or “HellCat” missiles and other crazy stuff. He told me that he was shamed, and was going to kill himself tomorrow. Because of the divorce, he, a respectable man, is being searched wherever he goes — his bag on the plane, his hotel room broken into and searched. So he’s going to kill himself. I tried to play it off, to say “Oh, really? That’s nice.” I think it’s really weird and am really freaked out by his appearance at my college.

I might have gone inside to tell Rebecca, but end up outside with him again, on the docks. He uses all these manipulations and tries to get me to have sex with him and even takes on the image of a naked woman that looks kinda like Rebecca. Finally I escaped him and ran back towards the party yelling “Call the police! Call the police NOW!” I ran inside. There was a moment where it was clear to me that angels were trying as hard as anything to stop or destroy him because he was the antichrist. I was yelling to everyone “Leave the house immediately! Someone has a bomb! Get far away!” Only half of the people were leaving, due to their drugged-up state. Police arrived and pursued Dan. I ran and ran, seeing little groups of others running away off in the distance.

When I got far enough away, I turned and looked at the little house. I saw little lights, flames from Dan’s HellCat missiles, going up into the night sky. The first one I thought was headed for Finney Chapel (then I thought it was a different college), then one for another school and for different places where I had friends. . . . I knew I was going to be alone. Then one missile went straight up, half-lit like a firework as it hit a helicopter, which then fell to the earth and exploded. Everything turned black and white as the explosion slowly filled land and sky, rocketing outward, lifting huge chunks of earth into the sky. The explosion came closer and closer, with no sign of stopping. I knew I was nowhere NEAR far enough and began to run, then turned and resigned myself to my fate.

“But”, I thought, “here’s what would have happened in another version.” It was prelaunch time again. The missiles all went up, but not the Oberlin one, somehow, or it hadn’t killed everyone. There was dirt all over the somewhat diminished crowd outside the house. Then there was a scene in the town nearby where I was looking for survivors, but most people there were fine.

References: Finney Chapel is a building at Oberlin.