Reality Shotgun

  • It's night, and I'm on campus at UC Santa Cruz, just getting into my car after visiting some friends in the dorms (where much pot smoking took place). My consciousness is definitely altered as I make a left turn onto the dark street. Suddenly, four cars come up the hill from behind me: two police cars with lights flashing and two civilian cars. In my decidedly paranoid state, I pull into the left-hand turn lane with the intention of getting off the road. As I make my turn into a gravel parking lot, one of the pursued cars goes into a ditch and rolls onto its side. The other pulls over on the other side of the road. I get out and run towards the rolled car and the policeman asks me to help him get the driver out. She's a dark-haired college student and she seems to be unhurt. As I come near the car she says, "I have two knives and three guns. Can I hand them out to you?" I say OK and she hands me the weapons one-by-one. I give them to the cop but he can't hold them all so I'm left carrying a large shotgun. When we get her out we all walk across the street to where the other policeman is talking to the other driver on the grassy shoulder. Something changes though and now the driver, a mad looking middle-aged woman, is holding a pistol of her own and is threatening to shoot herself if everyone doesn't back off. We all comply but she sticks the gun in her mouth and pulls the trigger. There's a loud bang but nothing happens to the woman who now leaps towards her car and pulls out a shotgun and points it in my direction. I run away as fast as I can and she pulls the trigger in a loud explosion and I see the bullets rush towards me in slow motion--they look like little digital squares with pixelated streamers coming off the back in many colors. Kind of Matrix-style, I'm able to lean back and dodge them as they skim by. Behind me, they hit the side of a building and magical portal opens up, glimmering and flashing. I don't want to get shot so I run and leap through the door into another reality.