One Step Left

Posted 12:44 AM
Open to interpretation

Most of you who know me know I'm a vivid, lucid dreamer...either because I've told you, or you've had to listen to the 10 minute recounts of my eyes' rapid movements throughout the night.

Most of you who know me also know that sleep comes at a premium for me. I sacrifice a lot of it just so I can live a normal life of sporting events, concerts, and porch sitting.

But when it comes time for the suicide shift...two days of doubleshifting...my body gets so out of whack, it doesn't know when to get tired.

Usually, sometime during this shift...it hits. The point where my body says, plain and simple, "I give up".

My eyelids droop so severely you'd think they were being clothespinned to my cheeks. My legs ache, just above my knees. I get as parched as an Upstate lake in the middle of a 5 year drought.

And the second my head hits the pillow...the acid trip begins. Or at least what I've come to imagine an acid trip is like. (I've managed to keep myself away from those tiny postage stamps...but thanks to a slight Codeine intolerance, I've experienced something close to it.) The sleep-deprived mind falls immediately into vivid vignettes...pieces of dreams...almost flashy images from which I wake with a jolt through my body like a spike of electricity.

Then, as the minutes tick by...the dreams get calmer...and longer...but still very vivid. One from last night is significant. It's the first of the "prediction" dreams I've had in awhile. I'm no Nostradamus, but 2 years in a row when I was 14 and 15...I had dreams about tornadoes and specific dates they would strike in the beginning of the long, unpredictable Illinois summers. And two years in a row, I was right. I was heralded by the White Eagle pool staff as a "somewhat clairvoyant thinker with a penchance for Snickers Ice Cream bars". That's a big title to uphold.

Anyhow, last night's dream is summarized like this: I was in Vegas, in a casino. Many of you were there -- Gdill, T, etc. It had been 3 days, I remember thinking to myself. 3 days where things hadn't gone as well as we'd all hoped. I was sitting at a crowded blackjack table, wondering if I was ever going to turn my luck around. I remember glancing around the room at other casinogoers happily rejoicing in their newfound riches.

I got up from the table and walked by a craps table. To the left of it were 2 slot machines. There were people crowded around them, watching intently. I wanted in. Badly.

I realized you needed coins to play the slots...and conveniently, to the immediate left of the two slot machines, was a change machine. It looked only slightly different than the everyday change machines you remember putting dollar bills in at the bowling alley for quarters to play "Mr. Do" and "Galaga".

I put a dollar in. And coins came out. Lots of them. It equaled a lot more than the meager bill I put in. There were 10s of dollars worth of coins.

I did it again. More coins than should be. Did anyone notice? Not hardly.

Again, and again...more money.

(Note: I know what your'e thinking here. If you watched "Vegas Vacation", Rusty's "I put a dollar in, I get a car" line is going through your head. And there's also some sitcom or comic strip that showed a guy putting money in a change machine because, as he puts it, he's always a winner)

I digress. I got a lot money out of this machine. I was happy. Very happy. And, somewhat wealthy.

What's this mean? A He-Con premonition? Or just the silly inner-workings of an over-worked mind?

I should tell you...shortly after the part where I got wealthy, the dream ended with me walking over to a table full of sorority girls watching a beauty pageant, me commenting on how the top 3 winners were all named "Debby", me asking a hot blond girl to go get married right now because 'We're in Vegas!', and her telling me 'No way' and leaving.

I need sleep.