I had a dream that I was flying to L.A. to see Isaac and Anand. Some other people were flying, but we bought our tickets separately and ended up arriving a couple hours apart. As a result, I was supposed to wait at LAX for a couple hours for the second wave to arrive, and then we’d all get picked up together.

So I was sitting there. Apparently, LAX has a policy of “hall monitors” in addition to the regular security guards. They deputize citizens, by giving them red vests. They then watch for “suspicious activity” and are equipped with a whistle and a radio.

Somebody saw me sitting there and was like “Hey, I gotta catch my plane. You wanna take over my hall monitorship?” I said okay, because I thought it would be a good excuse to talk to people – I could talk to other hall monitors about hall monitoring. I didn’t think anything actually ever happened to these people.

So I talk to some hall monitors hanging around. “What’s up?” that kind of stuff.

Just then, this real shifty looking guy comes over and starts to talk to us. He’s pretty incoherent, and sounds kinda threatening. We’re like “Wha?” and “Huh?”. Then he pulls a gun. We do our best “Okay, cool it, man. Everybody be cool.” Then, I see him be distracted, so I grab the gun out of his hand and point it at him. The other hall monitor is like “do you have any other guns?” and he pulls four or five more out from various hiding spots and hands them over. Dude radios the actual security people, and I’ve still got the gun pointed at shifty dude.

The other hall monitor told me that help was on the way. I turned to say “good”, and shifty dude took that opportunity to pull yet another gun out. Somehow, he missed. I fire a shot at him and I miss. I fire another shot and I hit him right in the forehead. Holy crap! What the hell?

I went over to him to see if he was okay and stuff. Certainly not. Blood is everywhere. Crap, where are those security guards?

Soon, they arrive. We explain the situation. They call in the real police.

The police thank me for my service. I am angry about that. I don’t think this is a laudatory situation at all. Somebody makes an insensitive crack about my shooting ability, saying “Heh heh, right between the eyes”. That pisses me off as well. This is not something to make light of.

Then I notice that I’ve placed my backpack down in what subsequently became a puddle of blood. The police say that I should buy new clothes and send them the bill. Sounds fine to me. I just wanna get out of there.

Well, the second crew arrives in their plane and we’re off. We go down to Anand’s house where we’ll be staying. Then me and a small crew go off to the mall to get me some new clothes, courtesy of the police.

I decided that I could get a whole new look, because all my clothes were in that bag. I found a shiny corduroy green shirt that I liked.

Some of the other kids were also shopping, so I was waiting for them. I overheard some ladies who were trying on shoes, and they were badmouthing the police. I went over because I wanted to tell them my story (I hadn’t had time to process it. That’s what I do, even in real life, when there’s stuff stuck in my craw that I haven’t had time to process – I talk about it incessantly, even with strangers).

In the middle of me telling them my story, one of the ladies was like “Wait, did this really happen to you, or was this a dream?” That question really threw me for a loop. It’s true, those events did have something of an unreal quality about them. Could it have been a dream? I don’t feel like how I think I should feel if I had shot someone to death. Maybe it was a dream? And yet, it’s as real as I’m standing here right now. I told them, “I’m telling you how I came to be standing here right now.”

I woke up shortly after that. After I woke up, I understood the source of my confusion.