Games, politicians, a new hat, and a storm.

Barack Obama came to speak at a small community I was living in. I was supposed to have the series of TVs plugged in right so everybody could hear him. When he showed up, everybody was watching and could hear him but me. I looked around, and throughout this whole community (which lived in a kind of swamp cave, where there were small pools of water around, and little wooden shacks, but also a stone floor and stalagtites and such). There were TVs everywhere that were off and I couldn't see or hear him, but everybody else could. So I decided to switch two buttons, and then the TV screens were blasting He-Man instead of the speach. Everybody in the community turned around and looked at me, angry that I messed around with the wires. My parents were nearby and I was embarrassed. I quickly adjusted the buttons and wires, and the TVs went blank and silent to me again, and everybody else turned and watched the speech. Everybody could see and hear it except me.

After the speech I was in a friendly competition where everybody plays as little white dots that go around and shoot each other through various winding caves. At the end of the round, you would race to the finish and become a certain political leader based on where you finished. There was a long round that I did not bad in, and at the end we were all racing to the finish through a thin, winding cave. I would shoot the person ahead of me on the way, and found that the second time I did this I was receiving damage, too. So I stopped. I sped ahead as fast as I could, and ended up going into the fourth place circle of light, and became condellezza rice. We all sat in a circle and waited.

I was left with two other people. We were sitting in a large circle, except there were only three people. So it was like a large circle that a bunch of people left. The woman across the circle from me sat in a small red plane. Somebody left to get their retarded clone of George W. Bush, which it was going to be our job to take care of. We started to say things like "oh...no, that's alright...we can't..." but the person who made the clone had already went into a nearby barn and came out with the clone, who looked like a short and stocky woman. "Hi!", the retarded female George W. Bush greeted us. We gave half hearted hellos.

"Hey," she/he said, "you know where I can get some cancer?"

I started to say "Um...that's not something you really go out and get...uh"

Then the woman in the red plane repeated my statement for assertively.

Later, I found myself at a local high school, thinking I could just walk in and use their internet. I was limping for some reason. I had walked from my home nearby, and I wasn't sure if this was a high school or a junior high, but it soon became clear it was a high school. The students looked at me like I was a teacher, so if they were rough housing around me I would say "Guys, come on...cut it out." In a sort of way that said "I get it. It's funny. But not now, okay." Friendly but assertive. Not condescending. (In real life, I think people talk to kids like they're stupid. It's real annoying.) I was wearing my NASA hat, and it was in real bad shape. I started adjusting it as I walked through the hallway, and the plastic fastner on the back fell off. Frustrated, I took it off my head, and started to fiddle around with it. I saw what looked like some spots in the hat that would let me tear it in half, so I wanted to see if I could. I pulled on the hat and it was now in two halves. I tried to still wear it but it fell off my head. I tall student dropped a new hat in my hands that had a symbol I knew meant south Florida. I wore it, and decided it was my new hat I was always wearing.

The school was very big. In it, students even had their own mini stock trading center. There were stairs in the main entrance and a statue of something that looked like an egg cracked open with something wavey rising out of it.

I went into a computer lab, and a balding teacher saw me and asked where my student pass was. He was very gruff and walked with his forearms pointed inwards. I explained that I was old enough to be an employee of the school and not a student, and I was just leaving anyway. I walked outside and it looked like it was lunch time, or some sort of recreational time for the students to hang outside and talk. I limped past all the students, and then ran into my friend Cate Freedman, who in my dream was still in high school. She smiled when she saw me and gave me a big hug, and we spoke briefly. I told her what happened to my NASA hat. I told her I had to get going and I left.

As I started to walk away, I saw that a storm was coming. The wind was blowing very intensely, and I had to lean at a full 45 degree angle in order to just go forward. It was starting to rain a bit. I pushed forward, and saw that cars were trying to get a spot in a big parking garage for safety. They were in such a rush that I almost got hit by a van while crossing the street. Eventually the cars saw me and I was able to slowly push myself against the wind and cross the street.

I saw that there was a place offering refuge to people from the storm. In my mind I knew this was a Christian institution, but I wasn't bothered by that. There was a line where they would have you empty your pockets so they could see if you were godly enough to seek their shelter. Your belongings were checked by a man in a black suit and tie sitting on a stool. I got to the front of the line and told them I only had my wallet, keys and phone. The door man started to look at them. In my mind I hoped I didn't have some sort of atheist club card in my wallet that he might see. I also had a nerf gun with me and a long thin yellow nerf arrow with a suction cup at the end of it in my pockets, and I handed these over to be inspected. The door man said "hmmm...okay, good good. But what's this gun for?" I explained that it was from a friendly paintball type game I was playing earlier, and that we'd use the nerf guns for practice.

"Ah, okay. You can go in," he said, "but only if we can keep this. This is ungodly you know." I had no real attachment to it, so I said that's fine and I went inside. I was given a room with a bed. I removed my clothes, which were very wet, and I was given a laptop with internet access. I immediately looked up porn. A 70s porno came up, with two women and David Hassellhoff. David Hassellhoff was getting a handjob from one of the women while another put a butt plug in herself attached to a kind of harness and moved around. I noted that David Hassellhoff's boner was so big the camera couldn't capture the whole thing (snarky side note: obviously, this is true in real life.) I was facsinated by this, while unarosed and untitilated. I found myself thinking about how humans don't really change, and we all like sex.

Just then I heard somebody coming, I tried to close the window but I couldn't, so I minimized it. I right clicked the icon and kept trying to close the program but the computer was real slow so it wasn't closing. Just then, three male teenagers came into my room and sat on the bed with a "what's up." greeting. I was finally able to close the window. I closed the laptop for good measure. "Hello," I said, "may I help you?"

"Oh, we're just here to talk," one of them said. They were all carrying books.

"You're here to talk to me about god, aren't you?" I said.

"Yes, we are."

"Well, that's fine but you aren't going to like what I'm going to say to you."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I don't believe any of those things. God isn't real. And in fact I think it's complete nonsense. And I'm going to tell you that in a real straight forward way and I don't want you to get all offended and angry at me. Believe me, it's nothing personal. I'm sure you're still a good person, you just believe complete nonsense," I explained.

The three boys started to look at each other. One said, "Your time is almost up though. It's time to believe." I basically ignored this statement with a 'that doesn't make any sense' type statement, and the boys started to ignore me. Eventually they left, and I knew it was because they thought I was possessed by the devil. An older pastor came in and tried to talk to me, avoiding god talk. I knew the three boys had told him I was an atheist, and he was trying to be nice.

I slept in my room for 20 hours. And when I got up the storm had long since passed. I asked a church helper where I could get my clothes, and they were in a bad in the room next to mine. He started to talk to me about his plans to move to New York, even though it is an ungodly city, he wanted to live a life that wasn't so safe anymore. He said he wanted the excitement and danger of wondering whether he would live or die. I looked out the window and saw a tall office building that I knew was part of the high school. On the top floor, there was a large window through which I saw a bunch of computer banks and tickers showing stock prices. It was like a mini wall street. With six or seven high school students working the trade floor. I lit up billboard under their window showed stock prices.

I continued to briefly talk about New York with this teenage church helper as I got dressed. He seemed very excited to do something that he knew the church wouldn't necessarily approve of, and knew that I was somebody he could tell this about.

Then I woke up.