shanmonster | The Dream

I am playing a strange variation of Battleship in my house (a fictional building which exists only in many of my dreams). The game is played in water, and instead of plastic boats, I'm using small, blue, scaled wyrms. Without warning, a portal opens on the back of one of my wyrms, and up shoots an enormous red mast, complete with crow's nest and Jolly Roger. It is so big and grows so tall that it smashes through the ceiling and punctures a hole in the roof.

"Oh shit!" I say. "We can't afford to fix that, and winter's almost here. We're going to freeze. And who's boneheaded idea was it to make a game piece do something like that, anyhow?"

The person I was playing the game with shrugs. "The designer is rich and crazy. He plays his games outside, where the masthead can't do any damage."

Pissed off, I climb up the wall, push aside a couple of tiles, and clamber into the ceiling. The tiles are made of fuzzy blue carpetting. I know it won't be easy to replace the damaged ones. They just don't make tiles like this anymore. The mast is bobbing slightly since it's attached to the wyrm floating in the water. I look down through the hole and see a full-sized swimming pool has developed in my living room. As I watch, a hoard of giggling teenagers roll a gigantic, painted, misshapen pumpkin into the pool where it lands with a tsunami-like splash. The kids then jump in and take seats on the pumpkin, tipping it back and forth in the water, and laughing whenever someone falls into the water.

A few minutes later, f00's sister climbs up into the ceiling with me and gives me a few puffs on a marijuana pipe. I'm flying high, and decide to dive through the hole into the swimming pool. When I land, a lifeguard whistles at me and gives me a stern look. "No high diving," she says.

I laugh at the pun. "But this pool is in my own house!"

"You're right," she says. "Want a beer?"

"I'd love a beer!" I swim over to the edge of the pool and take the bottle from her. "Actually, I can't stand beer, but on a day like today, I'll make exceptions." I drink the beer, and then I wake up.