A mayor, a cutie, an old man

Last night--rather, this morning--I had a strange dream. What made it strange was that, while I can usually tell that I am dreaming while the dream is in process, this was one of those rare times when I was just taken along for the ride.

I am in a large, well-lit conference room, sitting at the end of the conference table. I look at my watch; it is six-something in the evening. My eyes wander to the other end of the table, and who is sitting there but Rudolph Giuliani, pouring over some figures in a large book. As luck should have it, all of the four or five seats between us are empty; there must only be six or seven people in the room, total. I stand up and make my way towards Giuliani, settling two seats away from him. As soon as I sit down, two or three people step into the room and turn off all the lights. I look out the window, and the view of the city is breathtaking. We are in New York, and, from this window in front of me, I can see lights upon lights upon lights, as well as the Towers, fully intact. Giuliani turns to me and says, "Looks like you got here right on time, huh?" I nod; I am now at the understanding that this is something that happens every night, at this exact time, in this same place. I was not expecting this. The room is silent.

Without warning, the room starts to spin around, faster and faster. My chair's back is now facing the table, so I grab onto the table, now behind me, for support. I am getting nauseous, but the spinning doesn't last all that long. I look at the guy across from me, sitting in some chairs that are part of a row of chairs that covers the length of the same wall that contains the entrance to the room. This guy, who's taking up three seats by lying across them, looks up to me. He's kind of cute, sort of GQ-like. He's laughing. "Isn't this so fun??!" he exclaims. I look back at him.

"Not really," I respond, deadpan.

"Hey," he says, "At least you didn't have to work for the past five days straight." The spinning slows down.

"Uh, yes Kato, I did, in fact." The spinning has now stopped entirely.

"No," he begins to clarify, "I mean, in double-shifts."

"Why the hell would you do that?" I inquire.

"Well, I've been working lots of overtime so I could go somewhere nice for a vacation. That's why I'm on this train."

Train? I ask myself. But we are no longer in a conference room. We are, in fact, now on a train. It isn't a nice train. It's one of those el trains that I'd take to work every morning in Chicago. "Where are you on your way to?" I ask the stranger.

"Somewhere warm."

"Yeah, but, where?"

"I don't know, actually. It's one of those one-time-only last-minute package deals. They told me which train to get on, but I won't know where I'm going until I see the people after I arrive."

"That doesn't sound right," I speculate. "Once you arrive there, you shouldn't have to ask anybody where you are. You should just know." I don't stop to question where it is that I myself am going.

Suddenly, I get this feeling that our train is about to crash into another train. It does. I feel fortunate that we are in the second cart, because it is only the first cart that gets damaged. Miraculously, everyone from the first cart is fine. My mind is working frantically to see how I can get this guy's phone number.

He interrupts my thoughts. "I think that's the train I'm supposed to connect on to finish up my trip," he says.

I read the lit-up sign above the conductor's window: FL 630. "Hey, I think you're going to Florida," I tell him. "Look at the sign." He smiles.

Suddenly, I am in somebody's kitchen, holding some little boy's urine sample. There is an old man cooking at the stove. He says something to me to the effect of, "We need to see if he's doing drugs. Put that petri dish away because we're about to eat dinner. I want you to try both plates of food, even though they're the same thing, because I want to know which meal is better."

He places two plates of food in front of me as I take a seat at the table. Both plates contain steamed broccoli and carrots. I eat from one plate, knowing that I'll like this plate of food more because the food looks fresher. The vegetables are delicious; the carrots are sweeter than they should be, but I like this. I hesitantly place my fork tines into the second plate's food, starting with the broccoli, but the broccoli won't stay on the fork this time, because it's too watered-down. I place the second plate's broccoli into my mouth, but it only tastes like hot water. Too hot--it burns my mouth.

But I don't get any further into the dream because I am awakened. Jehovah's Witnesses are knocking on my door.