This is my contribution to this week 's Wordzzle . Wordzzle is a game in which each week word lists , used to create stories , are given on the blog Views from Raven 's Nest . Participating users post their stories on their own blogs . This is the eighteenth time I 've played the game . Ten Word Challenge : fair warning , hormones , journalism , philanthropist , burgeoning , running the bulls , saturation , tossed in the towel , whine , indelicate details " I 'll give you fair warning , " the psychiatrist said . " This will probably end up costing you a lot . Each session , in fact , is too expensive for most people . " " That 's okay , " I said . " I 'm not wealthy enough to be a philanthropist , but I should be able to handle it , at least for a while . " " We should get started , then , to make the most use of your money . What seems to be your main concern right now ? " " I have had a lot of strange dreams . Sometimes of good things happening , but usually of very bad things . I feel that they are trying to tell me something . In fact , sometimes I am actively looking for things in the dreams . Sometimes I am going down corridors full of locked doors , and I try key after key in them but none of them work . Other times I am in a maze of rooms that I can 't get out of . And sometimes it 's a maze of mirrors , where I keep seeing my own reflection over and over . " " That is odd , but we all have things we hide from ourselves . What about the other dreams , the ones about the disasters ? " " They tend to be about battles being fought , in what is apparently a horrific worldwide war . I hear the whine of bullets and the sound of explosions . Sometimes I see , from somewhere in the air , saturation bombing . Sometimes I even see mushroom clouds . And sometimes I 'm just looking at a vast screen , watching the arcs of missiles going across a map . Sometimes I see refugees gathering outside ruined cities , some dying and the rest facing starvation . All I remember , though , is just fragments . I don 't know how it got that way , how things had deteriorated so much that something like that could happen . " " Whposted by Stephen at 7 / 31 / 2009 11 : 42 : 00 PM On Sunday , July 26 , 2009 , I was given the second Great Imagination Award by Akelamalu on her blog Everything And Nothing . This is also the second time I 've won it . She had written a short story for a Portrait of Words , and wanted readers to leave comments supplying the ending . She then had people vote , in another post , by leaving comments saying which one they liked the best . The ending I wrote received the most votes . The post below is the one in which the winner was revealed and the award handed out : Everything And Nothing : Who won . . . . I made a comment there thanking everyone , which I 'll repeat here : Thanks everybody . And thank you , Akelamalu , for having the contest and for the beautiful award . I am very happy to accept it . This is my winning entry : Dolly continued to work at the diner , waiting for Geoff to return . He sent her an occasional letter , which she cherished . She wrote him back , and sent letters much more frequently than she received them . He spoke about the strange places he was visiting , and about how much he missed her . She spoke about how nice it was to hear about such things , places and customs that she never dreamed existed , and told him about life there in the hills and about how much she missed him . Although he had said he would be back in a short time , months passed and then years , and still she waited . The hill people were starting to feel sorry for her , she knew , but she still kept waiting . She even turned down the men who wanted to date her . As time passed , her brothers and sisters grew up and all got married . Still she waited . Finally a man came in , a stranger , who still looked somehow familiar . Then she realized it was Geoff , years older , his hair streaked with gray . " I 'm sorry it took so long , " he said . " I meant to come back earlier , and almost did several times , but I was afraid that if I did I couldn 't bear to leave again . I was trying to save up enough money so that I could retire and stay here with you . We could still travel sometimes , but then it would be for fun , and we could go wherever posted by Stephen at 7 / 31 / 2009 01 : 18 : 00 PM We have a tan and white Pekingese , large for that type of dog but still small as dogs go , and a Boston terrier . One day the Pekingese found something out in the yard and started chewing on it . I went closer to see what it was and found it was an old wooden toilet paper holder , painted black with most of the paint gone . It was the part that goes inside the roll of toilet paper , with a spring inside so it could be pushed in to fit into the holes and then pop back out to lock in place . I thought it might not be a good thing to chew on , so I decided to try to take it away from him . He knew I wanted to get it , though , and kept looking at me while he softly crewed on it . Every time I started to get close he got up and ran to another part of the yard . Finally he was back by the cedar tree , laying down under the edge of it . I slowly got closer to him , talking softly while he eyed the hand I had way out in the air , slowly moving it closer to him . His mouth opened slightly , ready to bark or bite , his eyes looking to the side and upward at my hand . Suddenly I grabbed the toilet paper holder with my other hand , and flung it toward the side of a large bougainvillea bush . He gave a startled yap and walked over there to try to find it . He nosed around the tall grass there for quite a while , looking disappointed but hopeful , and perhaps a little embarrassed at having fallen for the trick . He didn 't find it , though . A while later I looked for it too , but didn 't find it either . Over the years since then I 've kept an eye out for it as I 've cleared the grass away and raked the area , but I 've never seen it . Maybe it got raked up with some grass and leaves , and was hidden by them . Or maybe it 's still out there somewhere , in a place I haven 't looked . Several days ago I was telling the story again to my mother , and she suddenly looked very interested and said she was thinking about that toilet paper holder a few days ago and wondered what had happened to it . Labels : dogs , mother , personal Around June 7 - 8 , 2009 , I dreamed I was sometimes outside or in an open area , and I accessed at least twice some kind of computer or computer program out among the stars . It was night and the scene expanded to some stars and gas clouds / nebulas and / or large galaxies that spread across a significant portion of the sky , and the computer or program or web site was somehow encoded in the information there , in the arrangement of things , which were not quite static , but had a slow movement . I was smiling and pointing at it , showing it to people standing near me , and I was talking about it . I think my mother was there and maybe my sister , but I don 't remember who else . There might have been maybe four or five people in all . Other times in the dream I was inside a mostly empty dimly - lit building , a medium large building probably , probably not more than two stories and maybe only one . There was some sadness at times , something to do with accessing things on computers , old sites or places I used to go to years ago but didn 't much anymore , maybe something about old radio shows , too . A lot more happened but I 've forgotten most of it . Labels : computers , dream , dreams , mother , sister On November 29 , 2008 , Saturday morning going into early afternoon , I had a series of dreams . In one of the later ones I was driving back home , and later in the dream was also in a small plane , following the car . In the dream I was on a freeway , apparently in the dark blue 1987 Oldsmobile , driving back home from Nevada . I was in a city , or on the outskirts of one . I think I had already gotten to Arizona and was somewhere in the Phoenix area , somewhere on the north side . I got to where several sections of freeway were coming together , crossing in a mess of lanes . The road rose up and the car slowed down . I hit the cruise control button a couple of times to give it more power and increase the speed , seemingly reaching down and hitting it from way up in the air outside the car . Indeed , it was like I was watching the whole thing from high above . I wanted to get past some other cars in the right - hand lane , some of which were turning off to the freeway to the right , but some were going or might be going to merge with my lane . I got past them , or some of them . My speed , which had earlier been around 57 or 58 , and had been dropping to near 55 , now increased to near 60 as I approached the top of the rise in the road . I worried some about getting caught by the police , but it didn 't seem important or likely . Suddenly I saw where booths had been set up in the lanes , with policemen in them . They were there to catch speeders , but in fact people couldn 't get past them without slowing way down , whether they were speeders or not , and they seemed to be checking and processing almost everyone . I slowed way down . They were talking to each other and though I think I stopped there for a while , they didn 't seem to be concerned with or care about me so I went on , still wondering about the situation and whether they would decide to come after me . I was not alone in the car now . There was at least one other person there , maybe another , too . I 'm not sure if they were there before , but it seemed normal . The road turned left , then , and went into posted by Stephen at 7 / 30 / 2009 11 : 30 : 00 PM Late Tuesday afternoon , December 16 , 2008 , I fell asleep while sitting in a chair , and had a nightmare about driving while sleeping , unable to stay awake , with a presence in the passenger seat driving for me . In the dream it was night and I was in Nevada , driving back toward Arizona . It was late , perhaps the middle of the night . Earlier in the dream I had been driving more normally I think , and I think some other things had happened , maybe something in small rooms . Now , though , I was very tired and kept falling asleep . I was driving while sleeping , trying hard to wake up , but my eyes would close almost immediately and my head would fall forward and to the side , and I would droop over to the side . In a bend of the road where it curved sharply to the left and then back out again , I came across , on the left side , at the innermost part of the bend , two women in a very small open room sitting at a table . The room was an opening in a very large dark wall that went by that section of the road . The wall partly followed the contours of the road , but in straight , slightly angled sections . The road curved in close to the wall here , so I was right by the room where the women were . As I came up to them , they turned to each other and giggled . They seemed to be giggling at me and my situation . As I drove by , I leaned my head out of the window , my eyes pleading , and spoke to them . Even though I said only a few words to them , asking for help I think , I got the impression that they were already aware of me and had been following my situation , monitoring me in a way , though I 'm not sure for what purpose . I was quickly past them , then , and turned my attention back to driving , trying desperately to wake up . For a while , a thick ridge a couple of feet high ran by the side of the road . I sometimes reached out my hand and hung onto it , my hand rapidly sliding along its rough , lumpy surface in the darkness . I was able to see the wall - like ridge but not much else , and was driving almost totally blind . At some point , I became aware that someoneposted by Stephen at 7 / 30 / 2009 10 : 48 : 00 PM Early on Sunday , December 7 , 2008 , I had a strange dream in which we were invaded by aliens from outer space . In the dream , it was night and I was at home . The rest of the family was there , including my father and everyone else , as far I can remember . Some other people were there , too . We were about to be invaded by extraterrestrial aliens . It had happened earlier and somehow we had gotten out of it , or it was perhaps just a preliminary thing , but now they were coming back and it was going to be very difficult , almost impossible to escape them . We were going to be totally controlled by them . They had machines to control our minds , and I think drugs too . I was loading boxes of stuff from the back yard into the station wagon , which was parked in the side yard by the fence . Other cars were there , too , and the rest of the family was also working at loading things . The other people were , too . We were also loading food . Time seemed to be getting desperately short . We were going to my younger sister 's house , because they were expecting us to be here instead and it would give us a little more time until they figured it out . We were going to make our last stand there at her house . Then we got word they were coming . They came before we had totally left , though I think some of the cars were gone . They were strange figures that seemed to be part of the darkness , that would partially melt into view . They didn 't seem to understand about the leaving . Cars could drive away right in front of them and they didn 't understand what was happening . They seemed to be just concerned about what was there . I went around to the opposite side yard , toward the back , and hid . It was getting light now . The back yard was much bigger now than in real life and was huge , though earlier it had been the same size . The house was much bigger now , too , and might have even been two story . There was an electrical line that went to a house evaporative cooler out in the yard , a line that was taken down by someone , perhaps even me , to try to delay the alien takeposted by Stephen at 7 / 30 / 2009 10 : 40 : 00 PM This is my contribution to this week 's Wordzzle . Wordzzle is a game in which each week word lists , used to create stories , are given on the blog Views from Raven 's Nest . Participating users post their stories on their own blogs . This is the seventeenth time I 've played the game . Ten Word Challenge : riverboat , procrastinaton , drank , demons , invisible , candle , enough , film stars , summer job , computerThe film stars on the riverboat drank heavily , haunted by demons visible and invisible . The movie was supposed to take just a few weeks to film , just a short summer job , but it was dragging on forever . The director kept reshooting scenes , and having new ones written , and then demanding the rewrite of half the script , but it never seemed to be enough . When it came time to shoot the scenes , though , many times he would just sit there , looking like he was afraid to do anything . It was starting to seem like it would never be finished . Even the stars were getting late to show up now , not caring much about it any longer . Procrastination was rampant . Then the computers and all the electronic equipment got flooded when the riverboat hit a rock . The movie was being shot digitally and all the scenes that were shot were lost . Even the latest versions of the script were lost . All that remained were paper copies that were largely outdated . The scriptwriter sat on a rock on the river bank in the darkness , frantically trying to write down all he could remember . Beside him , a few candles burned , giving off a dim light . Nearby , the director paced . Every now and then he would say , " Why don 't we do this instead . . . " and the scriptwriter would write down the new suggestion , then try to come up with a way to work it in that seemed halfway believable . From somewhere in the darkness , surrounded by a greater darkness , a hand , or something like a hand , reached up toward the sky . It began to rain . The candles went out . The scriptwriter began to weep , silently , the tears mixing with the rain . The director continued to pace . " You know , we could work someposted by Stephen at 7 / 24 / 2009 11 : 48 : 00 PM We moved back to Missouri in late 1965 , and moved back to Arizona in the summer of 1966 . While we were in Missouri , in the spring or summer , one time the kids in the neighborhood got together and played a game of Red Rover . The game is played by choosing up sides , which then stand in two opposing lines , holding hands , with two or two and a half feet of space , more or less , between each person . The two sides stand a good distance apart . Then one side , after some discussion about who to pick , calls out to the other side , " Red Rover , Red Rover , send [ chosen kid 's name ] right over , " and the chosen one would then leave the opposing line and run across to try to break through the line that was asking for him { or her } . If he broke through , running into the hands that were being held and causing them to separate , his side won , if the line held and didn 't break then that side won . Beyond that , I 'm not sure now what the rules were . It may be that a score was kept , and it may be that if the person broke through the line , his side could keep sending people over until someone failed to break the line . I don 't know anymore . In the game , the neighborhood kids were of various ages , with two long lines of them . I was near the left end of my line , perhaps two or three kids from the end . I was in the seventh grade and tall for my age , and overweight . I was bigger than all the other kids , much bigger than almost all of them . Nobody tried to break through where I was , which was understandable but a little disappointing . I had been kind of hoping someone would try to break through where I was , but at the same time a little unsure about it , since there was a chance that I could lose . Then one of the larger kids , somewhat athletic looking but a few inches shorter and much lighter than I was , was called . He looked at me with kind of an evil grin and started running toward me , toward where my right hand held the hand of a much smaller kid . If anyone on the other side could break through where I was , it was him , and he looked like he regardedposted by Stephen at 7 / 23 / 2009 09 : 32 : 00 AM Late in the evening on Tuesday , January 6 , 2009 , I had a strange dream about a vampire woman who loved me very much . In the dream , there was something about a large low building . A few people had been there earlier , but most had left . It was dark . Earlier the dream had been about other things , but that part is almost entirely forgotten . Now , a woman with dark hair stood in the building , wearing a grayish purple dress that went straight across the front with the shoulders bare , and a lighter colored small jacket that was mostly open at the front . She was a vampire and was in love with me . The others had found out who she was and she was afraid that they would try to kill her because she was a vampire . Apparently I hadn 't known , either , and may still not have known . She decided to take a thick round wooden peg , maybe eight inches long , and push it in her chest . I wasn 't there but watched as a bodiless dream observer . She was trying to make herself into a sympathetic character and show that she really loved me and wasn 't going to do me any harm . I wondered if she was faking it , if she was really shoving it into her heart . There was an earlier version of the scene , where she shoved it in and then pulled out the top of her dress a little and looked and you could see a little blood between her breasts . Now , she had pushed it in some , looking upset and worried , her lips sometimes trembling a little , then she would shove it in some more . She pulled out the top of her dress and looked , but there was no visible blood , just an little area of thick clear fluid between her breasts , like seepage from an injury . She pushed the stake in some more , until only an inch or two stuck out , her head tilted back a little . She didn 't die , though . It seemed she had a few minutes , in spite of the vampire legends . She was strong enough to last that long , maybe even over half an hour . I needed to show up soon , though . The other people were somehow aware of what was done , or maybe it was just people in general , or the collective unconscious , with posted by Stephen at 7 / 22 / 2009 09 : 27 : 00 AM On February 21 , 2009 , I had a dream about Superman and two Superboys , and a superhero hideaway that was created in another dimension . In the dream , I was with some other people , in the parking lot of a large shopping center . I think some of them were relatives , family members . My mother and father might have been there , not necessarily together , and perhaps a brother or sister . The light was dim , either evening or very early morning . A lot had already happened , but only vague impressions of it remain . I went across to the other side of the shopping center , past a road going through the parking lot to the shopping center , past the landscaping along it that had small trees , into a smaller area of the shopping center that was surrounded by landscaped areas with small trees . Perhaps trees were even being sold there , maybe even Christmas trees . Some other people were there . We had been about to leave earlier , but I felt called over to this area , that I had to go there . Maybe I felt I had to check on something or there was something I had to somehow do there before we left . It seemed then that they were doing some filming there for a new Superman show or movie . I watched , but also became associated with the Superman character . He probably looked more like the one in the new " Superman Returns " movie than any of the others , though he didn 't look precisely like him . I think I might have said something to the people there , or at least one or more of them that I was with earlier , or tried to do so or at least thought about it , about the Superman scenes they were filming . They lifted the Superman actor straight up in a standing position with a bunch of strings attached to him , then he turned so that his body was more face down and flew around a little bit , but the area was criss - crossed with low power lines and they kept getting in the way . He had trouble and kept having to go lower to get under them . Sometimes he was beside them , even sometimes touching them , even sometimes with his hand resting on them . I was concerned , but he posted by Stephen at 7 / 22 / 2009 09 : 19 : 00 AM On January 30 , 2009 , I had a dream in which I met my grandmother in a hardware store . She had died long ago , and I was very happy to see her , and managed to get a hairpin from her as a keepsake . In the dream , I was at a shopping center , looking at toilets and toilet repair parts , including hinge pieces . My mother was there , too . She wandered off looking at other things , though we sometimes met up again . It was mainly two big stores with a doorway between them . Both had hardware , but the one on the right was an actual home improvement / hardware store . After looking for a while in the store on the left , near the doorway to the other store , I went through the doorway and looked some there . There was a high counter near the doorway , back in the store a ways . One or two people were behind it and a bunch of people were in front . There were also a bunch of things on display around the area by and on the counter and on the shelves that formed a somewhat narrow aisle leading to it . I looked at things for a while . A lot of stuff was in boxes , but some little things hung from wire racks . Suddenly I saw my mother 's mother , my grandmother , who died in late 1984 . She was in the crowd around the doorway , leaving , trying to work her way through it to the other side . I called out to her and quickly tried to make my way toward her . She turned and looked back at me , head lowered slightly , with a very sad and slightly guilty look on her face . I followed her through to the other side , talking to her , saying how glad I was to see her again after so long , thinking not of the time since her death but the time since I had a significant interaction with her in dreams . She didn 't respond , but kept trying to turn away from me . We were in the other store now , having crossed over , and were in a little aisle near the doorway . She was carrying something like a long hairpin . It had a big square plastic head perhaps half an inch across , a very light purple in color with molded designs like flower petals in it , with two long wires maybe three or four iposted by Stephen at 7 / 22 / 2009 09 : 11 : 00 AM On Monday , April 21 , 2008 , I dreamed I was at a place that was partly like a grade school I used to attend , with long rows of buildings , and partly like a mall . I was a Spider - Man - like character , but generally or always dressed in Peter Parker fashion with brown clothes and white shirt . I went up and down a corridor like the grade school had between buildings , but which had stores in the dream . It seemed also to be some kind of school . It was night . I turned into a broad aisle going through the buildings , and around the middle of the school found some silvery metal horizontal fins set in a square high in a recessed corner . They disturbed me in some way , and I kept going back to look at them . Someone I knew came by , a man , and talked to me a bit , saying something about a meeting in the multipurpose room . I said something brief and quickly turned away , not wanting to talk and not really wanting to be seen . I quickly walked back over to the high square of fins and looked at it some more . I had thought that something was hidden behind it , but it just seemed to be composed of layers of fins . I had a general sad feeling , then and earlier . I also had some feelings of worry about people , about doing something , and a need to be partly hidden , at least as far as powers and maybe my true nature went . I went forward then through the aisle under the building , then turned back to a restaurant about halfway down the aisle . A man there remembered me from earlier , out in the countryside , far away where I fought a strange Nessie - like beast and killed it . He had the beast again and it wasn 't dead . A flashback showed that the original beast was killed by me , along with others like it ( though the dream originally only featured the one beast ) , but he found a baby or juvenile one and took it and raised it to adulthood . It was now in the restaurant and was used as an attraction . People rode it , trying to outlast it or beat it in some way . Business was down for some reason . He wanted me to ride it and try to beat it . He hoped it would attractposted by Stephen at 7 / 21 / 2009 04 : 11 : 00 AM This is my contribution to this week 's Wordzzle . Wordzzle is a game in which each week word lists , used to create stories , are given on the blog Views from Raven 's Nest . Participating users post their stories on their own blogs . This is the sixteenth time I 've played the game . Ten Word Challenge : corn pone , delegation , nectarines , happiness , 12 going on 13 , prancing horses , magenta , butterflies , fragmentary , arthritisI was eating corn pone and nectarines , when magenta prancing horses , accompanied by a cloud of butterflies , came up . They weren 't young horses either , maybe 12 going on 13 , and some of them seemed hampered by arthritis . Nevertheless , they continued prancing , radiating happiness . After a time they finished , and one of them , evidently their leader , came toward me . He began to speak , in broken , fragmentary English . It was hard to interpret what he was saying , and I had to ask him to repeat it several times . He kept eyeing my food , too , which made me nervous . I finally gathered that they were a delegation of some kind , on their way to something , though I was never able to determine what . The horse was looking more and more upset and frustrated . Finally it backed up , its eyes looking strained and a little wild , and rejoined the others . The others gathered around him and he talked to them , evidently about what had happened , though I couldn 't hear anything from where I was . Some of them turned toward me , though , giving me hurt looks . Then they all galloped away , to wherever else they were going , I guess . One of the butterflies came and settled on my shoulder . " You could have at least offered them part of your food . " " I don 't have enough for a herd of horses . Divided up that much , there wouldn 't even be enough to taste . " " You could have offered the leader something . There would have been enough for him to taste . " " Perhaps , but then he would have eaten it in front of the others . I wouldn 't have had anything to offer them . " " Well , I 'm here . Are you going to refuse to offer me part of your nectarines , because you 're afrposted by Stephen at 7 / 17 / 2009 11 : 40 : 00 PM Perhaps 25 or 30 years ago , I went back to the grade school I used to attend . Someone was with me , most likely my youngest sister . I don 't remember now what the purpose of the visit was . The school had gone through quite a bit of changes since I had been there , especially to the playground , and perhaps the visit was to look at those changes . The school wasn 't open at the time . It was either a weekend or during summer vacation , or both . We were leaving then , slowly walking back in the broad aisle that ran between the buildings . The school was set up in long rows of buildings , with classrooms on each side . Between the buildings were wide aisles , with broad sidewalks by each building and large square blocks of landscaping in the middle , with walks that crossed over to each side . Halfway along the buildings was a large opening , allowing a wide walkway that went from one side of the school to the other . We were leaving , but were still closer to the back than the front . We walked along , talking , separated by a bit , sometimes as much as 15 feet or so , with me lagging behind . As I walked , I looked at the shadows cast by metal structures , lattice - like , that periodically crossed by overhead from building to building , and at the shadows cast by the objects in the planter areas , and at the shadows of the thick brick pillars that supported the roofs over the sidewalks . It was late afternoon . I noticed that as the shadow of my head approached the other shadows , frequently just before they contacted each other the shadow of my head would elongate out in a bump , usually on the left side , just before the shadows merged . When they did merge , they rounded into each other , at least for a while . It seemed much more common if the shadow of my head was about to contact the shadow of something slanted , like a metal bar in the lattice . It was probably more often on the left side of my head because that was the side that tended to be closer to the shadow being crossed . I thought about why it could be happening , but the most I could come up witposted by Stephen at 7 / 15 / 2009 04 : 35 : 00 AM Maybe four years or so ago , I had a strange dream about traveling to a small town with a dense downtown area with a lot of things to do there , some of it touristy stuff . There also seemed to be some kind of festival going on in which costumes were worn and people were walking around in them , in the streets even , no big crowds though . There was some kind of movie theater on one side , that had a big plastic flattened 3 - D internally lit - up clown face with a big exaggerated smile on it , the face sticking out high above the sidewalk . There was some kind of competing business across the street and down a little ways . I think one or more of the businesses might have been satanic . I think even part of the people wandering around were controlled by people who ran the town and were sinister in some way and sometimes out to get us . I was staying at a motel with someone else , maybe my father . It was dark outside , night . It seemed that the whole town was enclosed in something , some kind of curved ribbed structure where the part between the ribs was some kind of flexible plastic , maybe even clear plastic , that was high up and had lower branches going to and covering side streets . The structure blended into a kind of gray fog and was mostly hidden by it , especially the lower portions . There was also a gigantic figure sometimes seen leaning over , face and shoulders above the ribbed covering , peering down at us , a clown figure , Joker - like , the mouth open in a big exaggerated smile , the eyes interested . I 'm not certain if the figure was actually alive , at least at times it seemed to be a robot . I think I was there a few days . Labels : dream , dreams , father , robots , superheroes Perhaps ten or fifteen years ago , I dreamed of driving home to Arizona from Nevada , and driving back and forth from Arizona to Nevada , and finally walking back home from around the Arizona - Nevada border . I walked along a road through the desert that went through a long section where a lot of road construction was going on . They were building a four - lane divided highway , though it was just dirt now . Then eventually the road became more primitive , one paved lane going each way , with a dirt road / path off to the side . Beyond the road was a fence that was wire on wooden posts . I walked along the road , spending a lot of time on the other side of the fence , endless walking through a day that turned into night . Tall dead yellow grass covered large areas , especially later in the journey , and shone silver in the moonlight . The grass was especially tall and especially common by the fence . As I approached the edge of Phoenix I met up with someone , maybe my brother , maybe my father , maybe both . I got on a small three - wheeled motorcycle that was in a small dirt lot with fences around it , more wire strung on wooden poles . The others were riding them , too . I think the motorcycles might have been waiting for us or perhaps they had arranged for them to be there , or perhaps we just took them . I think a problem might have occurred in that some of the motorcycles started going by themselves and following us , chasing us in a haphazard way . We were riding around , going all over the place and doing wheelies sometimes . I think we had a general plan to make it toward home , but we went in a lot of different directions , going in circles even , probably in part to elude pursuit . I think we did make it home , or at least I did . It seemed that the ending repeated itself several times . Labels : brother , dream , dreams , father , nevada A few years ago , I had a very long and what seemed like an important dream . I was going to write it down , but I didn 't , not for a long time , writing most of it last year and some of it now . In the long time between the dream and the writing , most of it was largely forgotten , but some parts of it remained . In the dream , I was traveling by foot . Several people were with me at some point , fellow adventurers and heroes . We had many adventures , and many things happened . Some got killed along the way . At some point , far along in the dream , I went into a large multistory building . I think some kind of party was going on , maybe one with foreign dignitaries . The room was crowded , and people were milling around and dancing . People were also shopping , though perhaps more on other levels . My father and mother were there , along with a lot of other people . After a while , I started going up and down between floors . I used an odd method of travel . Instead of an elevator , it seemed to be just a large square hole with ropes that moved up and down . Several ropes hung down , and some other people used them , too . I think I volunteered to do something for my father , to go to a different floor and do something so he wouldn 't have to . I think part of it was showing off , though . Initially I was going up , but then I had to go to the bottom floor or basement . I saw a lot of toys in there , some of them Christmas toys I think , including toy horses large enough to ride on . The room had a lot fewer people than the place I came from , hardly any at all . I was doing something important there for someone . It seems I was supposed to meet someone , too , and maybe save someone who was being held there . There was some danger involved . I went carefully through the area , going one way and then another , going through section after section . I came upon a person or two who helped me , going with me or conducting their own searches . Further on in the room I heard something , some noise or voice , from something hidden by the blocks of displays , or perhaps around a waposted by Stephen at 7 / 14 / 2009 04 : 01 : 00 AM This is my contribution to this week 's Wordzzle . Wordzzle is a game in which each week word lists , used to create stories , are given on the blog Views from Raven 's Nest . Participating users post their stories on their own blogs . This is the fifteenth time I 've played the game . Ten Word Challenge : sober , spoilage , knight , laugh and the world laughs with you , peak , blueberries , owl , drugstore , lampshade , keyboardThe blueberries are definitely past their peak , he thought , as he picked through the fruits and vegetables . In fact , most of them had passed over the line into spoilage , which was undoubtedly why they had been thrown out . He managed to find a few , though , that hadn 't yet molded , as well as a few pounds of wilted grapes . He sniffed them all , then held them up so that they could be better illuminated by the parking lot lights . It was important to stay away from things that had actually fermented , too . He had to stay sober in his line of work . He moved off to another section of the dumpster , and started looking through things there . This section had various household and office objects that had gotten broken somehow . He was behind a giant supermarket / discount store / drugstore , and sometimes he found things he could use . He guessed a lot of it was floor models or stuff that had fallen off of shelves or had otherwise gotten damaged . For all he knew the employees engaged in fights with them in the back rooms . He was about to give up on finding anything this time when he came upon a computer keyboard with a big crack running through it . He took it out and examined it . Chances were it still worked . His old keyboard was having trouble with a few letters now , so it was worth trying it out . Suddenly he heard a scream . He quickly went behind the dumpster and changed into his costume , then went running toward the source of the continuing screams . He found a man trying to steal a woman 's purse , while the woman gripped it in both hands , refusing to let it go . The man was dressed in a bright purple suit and was wearing a yellowposted by Stephen at 7 / 10 / 2009 11 : 58 : 00 PM