I’ve always been a night owl, but the last week or so has found me in bed much later than usual.  The bad thing about it is. . .well, I guess there isn’t anything inherently bad about it, but it does become a cycle that’s difficult to break from.  My favorite thing about sleeping in that late is that that’s when I usually get some good dreams in, and today was no exception.  I had a couple of short ones, followed by a sprawling one that lasted an hour and a half. I’ll have to paraphrase and condense it a bit, because the story didn’t really unfold until the end.

It started at my last job.  Late in the afternoon, a woman came to my desk to deliver a big pile of paychecks that I was expected to ‘sign and mark’ with a yellow pen that she also gave me.  I told her I could have it done by tomorrow, and she said, “Okay, as long as it’s by one o’clock.”  Not a problem.  She walked away, and I got up to do something else, which is when I discovered that I was in my first Portland apartment.  I took off all of my clothes and crawled into bed.

A guy I knew in Yakima came into my room just then (we’ll call him Michael, since that’s his name) with his girlfriend, and he was holding a small gun.  He made a gesture for his girlfriend to get in bed too, so she took off her clothes and slid in next to me.  Each of us put an arm around the other, and Michael sat down on a chair along the wall next to the night stand.  He raised his arm just enough to point the gun in my direction.  “I need your car,” he said.

“What?  Why?”  I turned my head to look at him.  His girlfriend shifted a little bit, and I slid my hand down her back.

“I just need it.”

“You’re stealing my car?”

“Yeah.”

“But it’s a piece of shit.”

“We’ll see about that.”

“No, really.  if you’re gonna steal a car, you should steal something good.”  He lowered the gun, and I continued.  “What happened to you?  We used to be friends, hanging out and stuff.  I don’t get it.  Do you need a ride somewhere?  You don’t have to do all this, I can just. . .give you a ride.”

“Okay,” he said, sheepishly.

His girlfriend got up and stood around naked for a while before she got dressed again.  I stayed in bed and tried to figure out what to do next.  The two of them left the room, and a handful of people appeared and started milling around in my bedroom.  They were both men and women, all professionally dressed, and one woman had her young son with her.  The woman and her son sat on my bed, and I wondered how to get up without just being naked in front of everyone.  I decided that it didn’t matter, so I got up nonchalantly and put on my clothes.  My cat brushed against my leg repeatedly, which made dressing difficult.  Mom, Stepdad and Brother appeared, and told me it was time to get ready for the party.

“It’s a Christmas party,” Mom said.

“Why are we going to a Christmas party in April?” I asked.  “I mean June.”

“It’s more of a halfway-to-Christmas party,” she replied.  “Some people have a halfway-to-St.-Patrick’s-Day party, we have this.”

“Well, crap, if I’d known it was gonna be a Christmas party, I would’ve finished up my stuff at work.  I’m not too excited about a Christmas party in September.  I mean June.”

“You don’t need to go if you have things to do, I just thought it would be fun.”

“Okay,” I said, “I’ll come, just let me pack first.”  I started to throw a few things into a suitcase.  The walls of the room sort of dematerialized, and my furniture was now sitting on a perfectly manicured lawn next to a nondescript one-story stone building.  By this time, I had sensed that the unknown people were military personnel, and Stepdad was very agitated by their presence.  He and the rest of my family members left to go the party, and one of the military people came to talk to me.

“Good thing you’re a troop,” she said.  “If you weren’t, we’d have to search all your belongings.”

“But I’m not,” I said.  “A ‘troop’ or whatever.”

“What?”

“Yeah.  I’m not a troop.”

She looked dismayed.  A couple of the others heard what I’d said, and they came over to offer her some assistance.  “But how did you get in here, if you’re not military?”

“What do you mean?  I LIVE here.  I’ve been here for a week, and this military stuff just. . .appeared.”

She turned toward the others with a grimace.  “Let’s get to work,” she told them, “we have a lot of stuff to get through.”  They walked to my dresser and peered inside.  Each drawer was filled with a huge number of small gifts and trinkets, except one, which had underwear and socks in it.  Two of them started rifling through the trinkets, and the others went to explore other parts of what had, until recently, been my apartment.

One of them, a Hispanic man around thirty years old, took me aside and escorted me toward a parking garage in the building.  He asked me a bunch of nonsensical questions that I can’t recall, but then he asked, “Why do you hate relationships?”

“What?”

“Why do you think relationships suck?”

“I don’t; I totally want to be in one.”

He gave me a look of disbelief, and shook his head.  “Just be honest.”

“I am.  I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Gimme a break.”

“I don’t know what you’re saying, and I don’t see what this has to do with anything.”

He grabbed my arm and walked me briskly toward the door to the building.  Great, I thought, I’m about to be more thoroughly interrogated.

And then I woke up.