So once I had a dream and forgot about it- then, an amazing friend of mine with an incredible memory told me a snippet; it sparked a fuse, and a dream redeveloped.
I have many many cinemascope sort of, larger than life, century long epic dreams. Most of them involve me trying to save the lives of a large to medium sized group of a mixture of my friends from different eras. The endings are always unknown, but there are different Act II templates. Act II templates include They Wouldn’t Believe Me, They’re Gonna Kill Us, We Gotta Get Outta Here, It’s Gonna Kill Us and the classic What is Trying to Kill Us? I once saved a high school friend along side an old roommate and my sister in an epic fight against robots; we were at the bottom of a slide in an amusement park run by the undead… but that’s a different story.
Anyway- in this dream we insert the Act II template of They Wouldn’t Believe Me with light amounts of They’re Gonna Kill Us. This one took place in present day Los Angeles, more specifically Silver Lake where I lived in a lovely sunny apartment near the reservoir, and a bar called the Cha Cha Lounge.
From our apartment you could see the drunken bar flies zipping back and forth in front of our building. I was right there on the sidewalk that I saw the first murder in my dream. Now – don’t be worried about my mental health, because this was more of a comically frustrating dream. Think, Bill Murray in Groundhog’s Day. So anyway, I see the murder right? But it’s kinda dark and hard to see, all I can make out is a giant bird-like creature rush up behind a bearded hipster dude, grab his neck and pull him down out of sight. You could see all this going on through the window of our dim living room scene. The room had an old television which had been converted into a fish tank; but the murky tank hadn’t had fish in years.
So, I see this guy get taken down outside and quickly inform my roomies, “woah, did anyone else see that?” a sea of all the faces of everyone I’ve ever lived with looked up at me from various books/laptop screens and give me a “huh?” look.
Nobody seemed to know what I was talking about so I shrugged it off and didn’t mention it to anyone again. Later I thought to myself “that bird-guy thing creeps me out, I’m gonna see what’s up…” and decide to google ‘missing persons in Los Angeles.’
There’s a part missing here in my memory but the next scene begins with me coming home to the apartment after work a few days later. There is a shared omniscient knowledge that people have been going missing throughout L.A. without anyone knowing why or how, yet I don’t remember how this knowledge manifested itself in my dream… facebook maybe? Also, I’ve been telling my roomies about it for days and no one believes me. Don’t forget, that by roomies I mean an endless cavalcade of roommates, friends and family from the past and present; “Intervention” style.
So I come home from work a few days later, walk in and everyone is sitting in my living room laughing and eating GIANT tacos with little tacos on top. Amongst them, with his own giant taco with lil tacos on top was a Skeksis.
If you aren’t familiar with the Skeksis or Jim Henson’s Dark Fantasy Sci-Fi piece, The Dark Crystal then you’re missing out- I won’t ruin it for you but the Skeksis are a race of gigantic vulture like bird kings who harshly and lavishly struggle to stay in power, while their robes turn to rags. They steal souls, sack villages, commit genocide… they are EVIL. They also worship this dark sort of crystal… hence the name.
Here’s another photo, it kinda looks like his headshot:
*My dramaturgy for this piece (I goggled “Skeksis,” -I love you internet/wikipedia) lead me to this fun fact, “Most of the philosophical undertones of the film were inspired from “Seth Material“. The Seth Material is a collection of metaphysical texts dictated by the American psychic Jane Roberts. Which Henson kept copies of in his office and had his production staff read.”
ANYway so I enter the apartment and everyone’s eating these oversized cartoon looking tacos with little tacos on top and my jaw drops to the floor as I recognize the murderer I had seen the other night. Little bits of taco spewed out of his mouth as he gargle/laughed along with all my friends.
“Who is this?” I awkwardly blurted out, still holding my purse in one hand, my laptop bag slung over my shoulder.
“Oh this is Skeksis – he’s our new roomie, hope you don’t mind! We said it was cool for him to move in.” everyone smiled and chewed.
“Well, no one asked me… but,” I felt myself trailing off as the Skeksis stared at me, his eye twinkling. I didn’t want to be the only one who said it wasn’t ok… but there was definitely something wrong with this guy; besides the fact that he was a 8 foot tall, pterodactyl with a mischievous look and torn victorian robes. I tried to pull one of my roommates aside to explain, but they wouldn’t listen, “No I SWEAR that’s the guy who’s been killing people!” I pointed to Skeksis as I whispered from the kitchen, looking at him looking at me.
“Skeks? Naw man, he’s new to LA.” the room laughs at a joke Skeksis has made and everything seems to be fine, my friends pats my arm and goes back to eating her giant taco with little tacos on top. After a beat ‘Skeks’ excuses himself, putting down his giant taco, and walks out the front door to the street where the hipsters will soon be going by. I can see him out the window, past the couch where my friends are stuffing themselves with Disney tacos. I sit and watch, thinking “maybe he’s alright…” but suddenly, I see Skeksis grab an innocent girl in high waisted polka dot shorts and drag her down out of sight.
“See! LOOK!” I said and sprang up, knocking into someone’s taco and sending lettuce everywhere, “did you guys see that?” I pointed right out the window past everyone’s head, but by the time their taco stuffed mouths turned to look, there was nothing there- in true slapsticky Abbott and Costello fashion.
“What?” my friend angrily wiped lettuce off her lap, “I don’t see shit Viv, why don’t you chill out yeh?” I stared out the window, blinking and hoping that the dark would somehow clear itself out to become the picture I wanted them to see. Everyone was looking at me like I was nuts ,so I decided to relax and put my stuff down in my room. By the time I came back out Skeksis was back, eating his giant taco with little tacos on top, as if nothing had happened. I half smiled and his grin greased up the side of his face as I walked by to go to the kitchen.
“Hey, so where’s my taco? Did you guys make me one?”
There was a super awkward silence, “Oh shit sorry dude, I guess we forgot and gave yours to Skeksis!” my friend shrugged and everyone continued eating, a little guiltily, but no one slowed down.
“Oh thats ok, no worries” I said, trying not to sound so hurt. Skeksis’ eyes burned into me. I was starving so I asked, “can I have one of the little tacos on someone’s big taco?” and that’s when everyone stopped eating to look at me; my roommate looked up and me, sneered and said, “how are we supposed to eat our giant tacos without the little ones on top?” I heard a round of, “yeah, c’mon,” “duh” and “seriously?” from around the room.
“I suppose you’re right- ha…” I trailed off as my roomies’ faces disappeared behind the tacos again. Skeksis stared at me through the eyes of an alligator and then went out the front door again.
I shuffled back to my room, hungry and heard a sound like, someone screaming.
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