I am backstage at a recording of some famous daytime
talk show host's show. I'm not a guest, I'm simply
wandering around the back as everyone who keeps the show going run around me. In my wandering I come across a box filled with small metal containers. Each is small and
bullet shaped, and has a strange little pull-tab at the wide end. A stage-person sees me handling them and explains that they are the host's
moods is liquid form. I open the one I'm holding a drink it down. It's very
sweet and I begin to feel
thoughtfully
ebullient.
I am making a
trip I have made thousands of times before but all the roads have
changed and I soon become hopelessly
lost. After pulling into a gas station I notice that my car appears to have been
beaten up quite badly. It looked fine when I left, I have no idea what happened.
The large
parking lot outside where I live has been converted into a swimming pool. Anywhere where there was asphalt there is now chlorinated water. Even the walkways are water, in the place of
sidewalks are brightly colored canvas strips that one can walk on and not sink.
A man that I seem to know is acting like a television cliché of a domineering father and husband, telling his teenaged son that there is something wrong with his swim suit and that he is a disgrace. In passing I tell the man to lighten up and he says that when he gets done with laps he's going to break my face. I think about deep-sixing him while he swims but decide against it.
I'm
driving again. The road suddenly turns to dirt from blacktop and I am in a brightly lit forest. The road keeps getting
worse, and soon the hills become too tall to surmount. I pull into the dirt lot of what appears to be a furniture store. The store is on the shore of a beautiful river, and as I watch a
Mississippi paddle boat steams by. In the shop I run into my
girlfriend's
father, who says he's been waiting for me. I tell him that I pulled in just by chance, but he dismisses this with a nod and asks if I still have the bed frame. I go out to the car and sure enough, there is a disassembled bed frame behind the front seats. He remarks that my
car looks really
beat up. I look again and the car actually looks
better than it did the last time I looked. There are still dents everywhere and the bumper is splintered, though.