EPTI'm waiting to order at a small fast food restaurant. I don't remember much, but when my time to order comes, the cashier warns me that prices will be higher if I intend to linger. I take the hit, sit down with my food, and realize that I have fifteen minutes left. A girl enters and discusses her triumph over some exercise related task to someone else, reminding me that my appointment is similar. I
II:
I meet friends from my elementary school at a track and garden. We then relocate to some suburban neighborhood, where I sit on some bushes and watch them banter. One sits next to me. I greet him but he doesn't notice, perhaps because someone's van has pulled up, signaling that it's time to go. While we walk and drive towards our destination, one of my friends japes around by pretending to be old, senile, and embarrassingly loud. I don't mind since we are in the middle of a forest.
We also discuss upcoming plans, apparently there will be crucial events in the near future, one of which I can attend, the other of which I cannot. In a twist of semantics, somehow it becomes advantageous to be "busy."
As we near our destination, my old, senile friend continues his gags with a very bad, lewd one involving something "rock hard." I warn him that rocks are indeed very hard as they've been forged in the molten anvils of the Earth by Time, Pressure, and the Natural laws themselves.
We enter a booth in a small, narrow, dark Japanese restaurant. My friends become my friends from college. One borrows a jacket from another, and pays that other one dollar.
III:
I am patron to a concert. I cannot see the venue because I am either synesthetic or dreaming. There is one three-part piece on guilds whose final movement hearkens back to the medieval minstrels. It closes with harpsichord and bagpipe. I ponder the anachronism and exit.
It is raining. I am alone. I get in my car and drive. The road spirals down. I realize that I am descending a tower. There is far too much traffic. I almost die in a left turn.
As I continue to descend, the incline grows steeper. At one point, the incline forces traffic to accelerate and spread out. Witnessing several cars lose control and disappear into the rain and mist, I decide to instead drive along the parking garage that is adjacent to and following the road. For some reason this parking garage was constructed by Escher and affords me safe passage.
Every once in a while I return to the main road to see what's up. I reach a section of road that ascends at a 90 degree angle. Some drivers are standing on the right angle, parallel to the ground, and yelling at each other while discussing how to move their vehicles. I lack such fantastic powers, so I return to the parking garage.
The parking garage only proceeds horizontally, so I cannot descend further from here. I find a fellow chilling in his car and hale him. He explains that "they" were planning on destroying part of the road so that it would align correctly, but this is only possible once everyone evacuates. I lament the lack of foresight in civil engineering and board his car, as we are both in the same predicament. As he discusses ways down, I see with my third eye a rapid elevator that seats and plummets like an amusement park ride. We agree that this "elevator" is the place to be.
He traverses the garage, driving with his feet. I think to myself that automatic transmission is easy mode. We enter the tower proper, whose decor is reminiscent of an airport. Passing the security threshold, we come upon glass displays and an entrance to a store whose sign reads Mart. The sign features the same logo design and font as that of Best Buy. My buddy says something in English. The clerks reply, confused, in Japanese, making me realize that we are in Japan.
I pull him away because the Mart is irrelevant to us. We scan the floors. The tower begins on floor 1. We are on floor 10a2h. I search for some key as to where access points to the elevator are. I find a colorful poster with no Japanese, only Engrish. I am informed that while the journey from floors 1 to 10a2h is certainly grueling, the real journey begins here.
Unamused, I find a descending escalator. I decide to forego whatever perversions of space and time this incline has to offer. I realize that I should ask for directions. I spend several minutes rehearsing in my head what I intend to say when asking for directions. I find a stout, well-dressed man and have a nice little chat with him. He directs me towards an alcove that features a capacious restaurant.
It is cozy and welcoming. I somehow know it features finer cuisine than anything I've dreamt of yet, and that many of my friends await. Yet I still suspect the man lied to me in order to boost the tower's profits, until I spy the elevator access across the hall, next to a map of the floor plan, which shows that the ring I thought was the center of the tower was actually far removed.
Here I wake.
--
Having dreamt of restaurants three times in the same dream, I woke up thinking that it probably had something to do with my being hungry. I still haven't eaten since I felt the irresistible urge to chronicle this dream here.
So to anyone still reading, I'm curious: what do you do when you wake up after five hours of sleep practically famished and unable to fall back asleep because of hunger? Do you have any strategies to preemptively counter this?
