The other night I had a dream. Normally I don't remember my dreams, only once in a blue moon, and they are usually quite dull, as if to make up for my over-active imagination in real life.
This time I dreamed of the dystopian future!
I have always wanted a dream set in the dystopian future.
What was it like?
It wasn't actually all that different. The dream began in Safeway, which is the first clue that this was not the real world. Here a voice over the intercom targeted you by name and tried to influence you to buy things if you were a club member. It wasn't directly addressed how they knew if you were or not, but I am guessing by means of some sort of embedded electronic chip.
“Gregory, check out our savings on pumpkin bread in aisle five” the pleasant voice would say. Or: “Brandon, did you notice our two-for-one deal on frozen pizzas?”
Suddenly I was encouraging people in line not to cave and get a membership. This led to a few swift friendships with other “free-thinkers”, and we worried about being tracked down and silenced. Someone stuffed my shopping bag filled with serviettes, which was disconcerting but hardly threatening.
There were free watermelon samples on a platter, and I struck up a conversation with a young man over the watermelon, and on the way to the parking lot he gleefully murmured something about evening shopping trips having “worked out well” and then sped off in a taxi.
I found that I was in a very dark, faraway portion of the vast lot, facing into dark alleys. I saw a steroid-pumped criminal running along all muscular and creepy on the opposite side of the road, and then he started screaming at me, thinking I had witnessed his crime. Despite repeated, emphatic declarations that I was just looking for my car, he didn't believe me, as he was on meth and totally crazy.
Amazingly enough, the deserted back alley began roaring with freeway traffic just as he was about to cross to rip my head off. I ran for my life, ducking into strange carnival-esque alley cubbyholes with blinking lights and colourful posters, and I hid. Out of a nearby nook, I was surprised to see Napoleon stealthily leaning into the alley, hefting a watermelon bigger than his own head. Yes, Napoleon. He chucked the watermelon at the criminal's head, killing him.
Thoughts: On first glance it didn't seem very futuristic. Only the member club chips and the incredibly large parking lot really seemed out of place. But the presence of Napoleon led me to the conclusion: time machines! Napoleon had been transported, presumably from Elba, into the future to fight crime.
The boy who sped off in the taxi was perhaps a spy, and if the dream went on I would have been arrested for speaking out against Safeway club membership?
No idea why so much with the watermelons.
The symbolism of the serviettes escapes me as well.
Any thoughts?
3 comments:
I always use Daniel's phone number at Safeway
Hee hee hee! Good thinking!
i use mulvey #... which was under hil's name. so they all think i'm "miss kennedy" hehe.
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