I'm in an old church that looks just like the one from my grandmother's funeral. But this is the wedding of my friend Alyssa (whose wedding I did actually attend last weekend). Some of us have pondered the wisdom of her decision to marry a fellow BYU student after knowing him only a year. She converted to Mormonism a few years ago and we haven't seen much of her since. But today is her wedding day and I sit in the dark wooden church pew, waiting for the groom to arrive. Yet I feel that something is wrong as I watch Alyssa pace at the front of the sanctuary. At first I think I'm going to object to the marriage at the appropriate moment during the ceremony. Then I realize this is a dream and see that something more subtle is going to happen. For a moment I feel like I'm going to wake up but I look at my palm as a technique for staying in my dream body. Then I stand and walk up to Alyssa in her long white dress. "Something is wrong," I tell her. "I'm sorry but I don't think it's going to happen." We wait a few more minutes until it becomes obvious the groom is not showing. "Alone Again (Naturally)" starts playing over the loudspeaker and I sing along with the part that goes "...left standing in the lurch, in a church with people saying 'My God, that's tough, she's stood him up. No point in us remaining.'" Alyssa begins to cry and moan and I run over and hold her as she her body shudders. A few minutes of this and she runs out the side door.
I follow her out and we are now at her house by her swimming pool. She's no longer wearing her dress and jumps into the pool. I'm afraid she's going to drown so I jump in after her, still in my clothes. She's on the bottom of the pool and I join her there. She doesn't seem sad anymore and actually smiles and looks relieved. I show her how to breathe underwater and we talk for a while, sitting on the bottom in the blue pool light. When we get out, it's a couple of months later and her house looks like my friend August's property up in the Siskiyou wilderness. Alyssa walks into the main house near the pond while I go over to the music studio. I climb a ladder to the roof where there are chairs set up. Alyssa's younger brother and his friend are there. We smoke some pot and hang out, looking at the scenery. I make a brief trip down the ladder and into the big parking lot that looks like it's from my high school. I return to the studio roof and we smoke some more. I see Alyssa walking along the deck by the house and her father with long blonde hair comes out and joins us on the roof. We smoke a bit more and I wake up.