Weird Dream
So I’m down in the Loop, only it’s not really the Loop — it’s some kind of weird, ethereal place. Let me describe it this way: a few years ago I spent a great deal of time prepping a conspiracy thriller, and in one of the early drafts the protagonist discovers, not unlike The Truman Show, that his entire “new life” is a sham, up to and including a full-scale recreation of the city of Chicago — or, at least, the places he was likely to go in the city — that’s really nothing more than a backlot somewhere in Wyoming. And that is what it felt like — on the surface it seemed real, but somehow I could almost see the L-backings holding up the crappy building façades.
Point being, it’s the Loop, and it’s crowded as hell because it’s obviously rush hour. The sidewalks and streets are packed, and I’m trying to wade through the sea of people to get to the train, when out of the corner of my eye I spot a familiar face: my old friend Jive, who unbeknownst to me is in town for an undisclosed period of time. We exchange an extended, yammerful greeting and discover we’re both heading for the same train, so we walk up the stairs to the Adams & Wabash station. The platform, much like the sidewalk, is stuffed to the gills. People are overflowing to a dangerous extreme, so when the train comes it keeps bleeping its horn, but there’s nowhere for anybody to move so it just coasts in at about three miles an hour. And the train itself is packed — few people can get off, because where would they go? — and it doesn’t leave much room for anyone to get on.
“Come on,” Jive says, “I know a shortcut.”
One of those weird, dreamy smash-cuts, and suddenly we’re both in a dark, empty, wet-seeming subway tunnel. “Follow me,” Jive mutters, and he climbs up onto what appears to be an abandoned el train. It’s immobile and has no power, but apparently we have to walk through it in order to get to the real train. As we’re walking through it, I hear rats squeaking. About half a car ahead of us, I can see an older, stinking, bum-like gentleman using the same shortcut we’re using. We keep our distance.
Eventually we see the lights from the subway station (it looks like Clark & Lake to me), but we don’t actually hop up onto the platform. There’s no point, since the train is parked right there. Don’t ask me about the logic of an abandoned, immobile train on the same track as the train that’s moving.
We get on the train, and I’m rushing like hell to get a seat, but it’s pretty crowded. I leap to the only pair of seats left (and yet, for some reason, Jive is gone — he probably doesn’t mind standing since he’s not a lazy fatass), but for some reason as I sit down, an elderly woman in a bright-as-hell lime-green dress is sitting there. She pleasantly at me, and I nod awkwardly at her.
With that, I woke up. For some reason, I awoke with a sense of completion, like I had really finished the hell out of that dream, what with me getting to the train and getting a seat at rush hour.
Weird that I’m having train dreams since, aside from last week’s test, I haven’t ridden it in a long time, and I don’t plan to ride it for longer still.
Posted by Stan on February 24, 2006 7:37 PM | Permalink | Friends: Can’t Live with ‘Em | Digg It
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