Act 1
My dream starts out in some evangelical church where I've
already been sentenced to death and I'm about to be executed. I don't remember what I supposedly did to deserve this,
or even why they have the authority or ability to execute me, but I'm not
surprised by it and I'm more angry that they think they can do this to me since
I'm innocent of wrongdoing than I am about how a church is doing the executing.
I'm in a regular looking church- a bunch of pews with a
stage up front and a microphone. The
place is packed, and there are a few people there who are on my side. The only people I remember clearly are Bishop
Murray, who was my bishop during my high school years, and his wife.
Even though I've been sentenced to death already, I'm
allowed to speak in my own defense and I can still possibly avoid execution if
the audience likes what I have to say. The
person in charge is an old, short, gray-haired woman who is at the podium
riling up the crowd. She shouts, "And now we invite the accused to speak
in his own defense!" I don't know
why I'm "the accused," since I had already been accused, convicted, and sentenced, but whatever. The crowd
stands and loudly boos me as I stand and start walking down the aisle. She then shouts over the crowd, "But not
before I've had MY say about this creature!" The crowd loves that and they start going
crazy. She starts off on some tirade,
but I'm not paying attention because now I have some time to prepare my
defense.
I'm still not scared, I'm just furious that they would have
the nerve to do this to me. I also don't
see how I can possibly get out of it since they've already sentenced me, which
makes me even more angry. I see a Book
of Mormon in front of me, and I decide I'm going to read some scriptures from
it during my defense just to piss the evangelical crowd off and verbally spit
in their faces before I die. I find one
really good passage. I don't remember
what it was. I don't think it was even a
real scripture, it was just something that talks about how evil they are and
how they all suck.
The old lady is finished with her tirade. The crowd, which has been cheering loudly
during the whole thing, quiets down. The
old woman repeats, "And now we invite the accused to speak in his own
defense!" I stand and start down
the aisle while the crowd boos again, when the old lady shouts, "But
first!" Ugh, what now? "We
have a musical number!" You've got
to be freaking kidding me. So this teenage
girl that I don't know gets up and starts singing a song. I don't care though, I'm done with this. I don't even bother sitting back down in my
seat. I just lay down in the aisle,
close my eyes, and go to sleep.
I wake up and it's dead quiet. Everyone is staring at me as I'm laying down
in the aisle. The girl looks like she's been
done with her song for a while and is standing off near a window on the
stage. They're all waiting uncomfortably
as they stare at me. A man in his 40's,
who appears to be second in command here, stands up on the stage and goes to
the microphone. "Mike, we're all
waiting for you to-"
"Yeah, yeah, I got it," I snap as I stand up and
stride quickly to the stage. I briskly
walk up the microphone. I hate all these
people for what they're doing and I can't wait to read some Book of Mormon
passages that will just piss them off even more.
Right when I'm about to speak, the girl who sang the song
and is now standing off to the side screams in surprise. She is staring down at her hands, and then
she shakingly turns them and lifts them up for everyone to see. Stigmata.
She freaks out. She's going hysterical and tries to leave through an open
window next to her. Just then the wounds
on her hands explode in fountains of blood.
A shower of blood 20 feet long starts flying everywhere from each palm
as she starts freaking out even more.
The whole crowd goes nuts, people in the front rows are being covered
with blood, everyone is screaming that it's a sign that I shouldn't be
executed, and everyone runs out besides a few of my supporters and the old
woman who's in charge.
The old lady and I are the only ones left on the stage, and a
few of my supporters are still in the pews, including Bishop Murray and his
wife. Bishop Murray and his wife take
turns berating her for being evil and thinking she has the right to execute
people. I'm so angry, and I want to join
in too, so I start, "Yeah, and if you want to be taken seriously in the
future, maybe think about wiping the Cheetos dust off your face." And she did have it on her face. Not just around her mouth, but on her ears,
cheeks, and up above her eyebrows. The
Murrays continued their assault, and I noticed she had a very thick layer of
white makeup that, now that I was close and had a good look, was all dry and
cracked. I cracked (ha!) that her face
looked like a muddy stream bed that had dried up and become a bad tile job in a
dirty bathroom. "And seriously, who
has Cheetos dust on their EYEBROWS?" I yelled.
This lady had just tried to kill me, the Murrays were busy chastising
her on the moral and legal consequences of her actions, and all I could do was
make fun of her makeup and Cheetos dust on her face.
Act 2
So that eventually ended and I walked out of the
church. I found myself on a street in a
very small town from my mission, only it was very different now. What used to be a very sparse old coal mining
town that had one gas station and a single road going through it now had rows
of old west style stores on the sides, but a modern paved street in the
middle. The church incident all but
forgotten now, my family was there and we split up to look at all the
stores. They were mostly museums about
the history of the town, but the museums also had freak show displays. Interspersed throughout all these were
different snack stores like cotton candy and kettle corn. It was a bit like a fair or carnival, but
with permanent buildings instead of tents.
I was just by myself looking at the windows for these
places, and I got some kettle corn. As I
was eating it, Jen saw me from down the road and came up and asked why I hadn't
gotten her any kettle corn. I told her I
just hadn't thought about it, but that we could go get some. So we go back to the kettle corn store, but
they don't sell kettle corn anymore, they only sell taffy and hard candy. Jen is disappointed but starts looking around
to see if there's something she would want.
While she's looking, I notice there's some old style saloon doors in the
back that open up to a bar, only this bar only serves soda pop. Jason Curtis is there at the bar, so we greet
each other. In the middle of the bar is
this self serve area where there is a machine that looks like a soda fountain,
but instead of putting your soda in a paper or plastic cup, you take any used soda can you
have and hook it right up to the spout and fill up your can. Jason has three empty cans so I go to fill
them up for me, him, and some stranger sitting next to him.
One of the empty cans is for Crystal Pepsi, and they happen
to have Crystal Pepsi on tap, so that's what I choose. I don't remember what the other two
were. After I've filled them, I can't
carry all three cans at once, so I leave my Crystal Pepsi on the counter next
to the soda fountain, and walk 3 or 4 steps over to Jason and the stranger and
hand them their cans of soda. I turn
back around to get my can of Crystal Pepsi and it's gone. Someone stole it! I'd only been gone for 5 seconds and someone
swiped it!
So I'm super angry because they don't have cups in this
place, and it's not like I can go find another Crystal Pepsi can, so I start
walking around the bar, trying to stay nonchalant while I scout everyone's
drinks to find my can. I walk the whole
bar and find nothing, so that's when I approach the owner and try to get his
help. The owner is Tim Blake
Nelson. You'll have to look him up on
imdb. I didn't even know his name until
I looked it up, I just recognized his face.
Anyway, he gets on a microphone and announces that he knows someone
stole my can and that he'll give them one chance to fess up. No one speaks up, so he presses a button and
a huge tv on the wall lights up, and it's the owner in a pre-recorded video. He's talking like he's hosting one of those
"shocking video" tv shows, only he's introducing a video of a guy who
thought he could steal a drink in his bar and get away with it. It cuts to security footage of just a few
minutes ago. It shows me turning around
and a guy with gray hair in his 50s immediately running over and swiping my can,
and then hiding it on a nearby cart a lady was using to bus tables. Then he walked away to his own table, and
when the lady walked by with the cart he swiped it back off the cart.
We had him caught, but he still wouldn't fess up, so I
walked around the bar until I found him.
He was sitting in a wheelchair, which is weird because he wasn't in a
wheelchair in the video. I walked up to
him and told him to give me the Crystal Pepsi can. He knew he was caught and sheepishly handed
it over. The whole bar was watching and
erupted in cheers. Everyone was high
fiving and clinking their cans together in celebration. While this was going on I took the can and
handed it to Jason. I then walked back
to the man and joined the celebration by just staring at him from about 5 feet
away and slow clapping. You know that
part in The Dark Knight when Gordon gets promoted to Commissioner in the jail,
and Joker is sitting there in his cell clapping? It was like that. As the bar died down, I just kept staring and
slow clapping. Eventually everyone
stopped their celebration and went silent while I just stood there and kept
slow clapping with my stare. It was
making him visibly uncomfortable, and he said, "Ok, ok. You got your drink back, now leave me
alone." I just kept staring and
clapping. After a few more seconds he
started getting angry and started yelling and swearing at me to go sit
down. I just kept staring and clapping
for like 10 more seconds. Then I
stopped, turned around, and walked back to the bar where Jason and the stranger
were sitting. The whole bar had been
watching and everyone was silent. All
except Jason and the stranger who were laughing hysterically under their
breath. They were covering their mouths
trying to stifle their laughter, but it wasn't working very well. I sat down and grabbed my Crystal Pepsi, and
I was trying not to smile but their laughing was starting to make me laugh a
little, so I was cracking a grin and told them to shut up.
The End.
