Friday night I dreamt that I was in an arena filled with people waiting to enter an open martial arts tournament. My parents and siblings were there with me. There was a crush of people waiting to get in and my dad pressed the registration form and check into my hand and told me to go on ahead and they would catch up.
I ran down winding tiled hallways to the bank of doors, sliding through crowds of people at their weak points. I pushed my papers into the waiting hands of the form jockey manning the card table. Found my way into the dark room and waited for my family to catch up. They made their way over and sat on the ground. I watched the other contestants perform and realized that I was going up against people who’d been in training for months with nothing more than a mild idea of what would look cool and no idea if my body could actually perform the tasks.
I then noticed that everyone up there had a stick, sword or axe in hand. I’d signed up for the weapons competition. I had no weapon. And then it was in my hand. A tassel. My orange graduation tassel from my car’s rear view mirror. But longer. I went back into the tiled hallway to try and experiment (Fear my tassel!). On the way out there, I saw Erik Mann, a friend from freshman year. He was also in a gi.
“What’s your weapon?” I asked him.
“Tassel,” he said, holding up a red and blue one. I felt better.
In the hallway, I started spinning around, lashing the wall and air with my cat o bunch tails. I moved faster and faster and I felt the orange ropes turning wiry. The tassel grew hot. It glowed gold.
A man came out of the doors.
“You’re on deck,” he said.
I couldn’t go on like this. My flowing weapon was a scouring brush.
Erik said, “Cool it down.”
I put it onto a bowl of ice that had once held soft drinks. The tassel turned into a bunch of ice links. I tried to push them back together.
“You’re on,” the man said and I woke up.
Second one
Next dream was just last night. I dreamt that I was a summer camp counselor at a resort. Most of the buildings were built on stilts over blue water. A boardwalk connected them.
This dream was total flashback to this summer, except in a much more scenic location. Again I was sort of in charge. For some reason the camp was for budding doctors and I was lecturing on heart transplants. To fifth graders.
Did a lot of swimming too.