March 1, 1997 Saturday
What a weird dream. I can’t believe Sidney dies again. I’m starting to fear for her safety when I’m asleep.
Hoke, myself, and a few others are standing in the high school parking lot and before us is a brand new car. My. car. We get in, and Hoke is acting just like Mr. Webster, who was out Driver’s Ed teacher. I start to drive around town until we come to the four-way stop uptown. We are coming from the west, on Main Street, and suddenly there appears a very long semi truck from the west, on Magnolia. The problem became quickly apparent: the truck is too long, having so many trailers hooked up to it that it continually needs more and more room turn, until it sideswipes us as we sit there.
Luckily Mr. Beres is on the scene. He looks at us, and the car is pretty much a lost cause. Then, out of the blue, he says, “You better buy a gun.” Then everyone starts running away, seeking shelter (no one tells me anything in these dreams). I ask why I should, and Mr. Beres replies, “Cincinatti is attacking.”
Horrified, I down Magnolia Street, and no less than a million people are invading Elmwood… and they want us all dead.
I run across the street to McGwire Shoes, but by that time they’re on me. I struggle to get into any door, and I finally get myself free, and into the building that houses Whoppers bar. It’s not over though, and people are trying to push the door in. I try to lock the door, but that doesn’t work (locks never work in dreams). The door finally comes off its hinges, and there is Sidney, also trying to escape and them and fight her way inside. I shove the lose door into her, which knocks off one of her shoes, and I run further into the barroom. I desperately ask if they have any guns. A older female bartender behind the bar says yes, and takes me down a secret passage behind the bar. She leads me down turning, rickety wooden steps and into a dark room. There, next to the stairs, she then lets down a rope ladder from the cellar’s ceiling. From my vantage point, now half-way up the rope, I can see the lower half of a person with only one shoe coming slowly down the stairs. I quickly reach for Sidney’s ankle, and trip her so I can continue to climb.
I finally make it to the floor, and before me is a bunk bed, four or five levels high. I begin to climb, knowing Sidney is not far behind. I reach the top of the bed structure, and the female bartender is already there. I yell, “Well, where are the guns?” Amazingly, she hands me a slip of paper and a pencil. I had to draw the darn thing! So I drew a really quick one. Sidney has arrived by now and is climbing the structure.
I wildly point the drawing in Sidney’s general direction and begin yelling, “Bang, bang, bang!” For all I know in this dream she will kill me too if I don’t. I slowly descend to her, who’s laying limply on the third bed up. And now in my hand is a real gun. I begin to draw more guns, and as I do I hear a voice in my head, giving sort of a eulogy. I say, among other things, “She was one of the greatest people I ever knew.”
There were several dreams I had last night, but none left the kind of mark on me this one did. Sidney should have life insurance if she ever wants to be in one of my dreams again.
Cleveland’s been eyeing us suspiciously too,
No One Will Believe You 