Good morning Monkey Keys. I just had a dream that was so cool, and so vivid, I’m devoting a post to it rather that putting it in the log. Opening scene; mild mannered Dylan Marino living in New York City.
I was on my way to work at a new IT job I had acquired in NYC. My view panned down from a pink morning sky to me in the back of a cab. I was busily studying a book of Unix commands as we rolled through the crowded streets. We make it to my building at length. Externally, it’s a behemoth of a skyscraper. It’s an older model though, one of those mostly red brick-ish ones that is more representative of housing than a business. Soon, I’m at my desk talking to the new boss. I can’t remember what exactly he’s talking about, because it’s interrupted fairly quickly by Will Smith crashing through the window to my right. This is Will Smith super hero edition as his character Hancock, only competent and sober. An odd crab monster had thrown will into my office. I hardly had time to look up before, in mid tumble, his hand grabbed my shoulder, and the two of us went careening out what I would guesstimate to be the elevendy billionth story of the building.
At breakneck speeds, Will shot off straight into the air. I was handling it fairly well, and only screaming bloody murder a little. That was until I realised I was being carried by Will Smith (who I did, in fact, refer to as will smith for the duration of the dream.)
“Holy crap, Will Smith!” I shouted as we hit the upper ionosphere.
“Yep, it’s me,” He responded with a sigh. “Sorry I had to drag you into this, but my hand slipped”
“Well,” I shouted as we started dive bombing the earth again, “I’m pretty ok with it as long as you don’t spike me into the ground.” The earth was approaching horrifyingly quickly, and suddenly I saw the lobster creature pop into view.
“One sec…” Will said as he raised his arm behind his head. With one thunderous punch, the lobster was sent flying out to sea. We floated momentarily in the air. “Well,” Will said, “I suppose I should get you back to work.” At this point, I believe a man has one of two choices to make.
A: Go back to work and live a life of meaningless mediocrity; more than likely culminating in a midlife crisis at 45. Turning to booze, women and fast cars; spending your life savings on a casino pyramid scheme in Reno, Nevada. Ending up a penniless drunk on a park bench. Being waken up by kindly officer McDonald; only his tone is anything but kindly this time. This time, he’s taking you in, because he’s had enough of seeing your drunken arse on the curb stink’in up the flow’ers. His job ain’t the bloomin’ janitor o’ the city. Getting out of jail to realize everything started going wrong the second you didn’t become a superhero.
B: Become a superhero.
“Will,” I said, “Nuts to that. Let’s head back to my pad and chill a bit.” How or why he took the bait, I’ll never know. The next scene, however, was the two of us in my decisively straight apartment. (I use “straight” to describe the shape of my apartment, not the sexual orientation of its layout. However, the apartment was very straight in its sexuality as well. Will and I were just sharing some laughs, so don’t get any bad ideas Dirty Thoughts Key.) For whatever reason my apartment was something in the order of 5′ X 37′. All my furniture was against one wall, and a small kitchen, paintings and my TV were against the other.
I don’t rightly recall what Will and I were talking about. After a while though, it came up that Will was sick of being a superhero.
“Well, I would love to be a superhero!” I excitedly remarked.
“Nah, you don’t really, Dylan. I mean, it’s always some giant lobster trying to eat your skull, or a galactic hornet swarm all stinging up in your face.”
“…and the admiration of the entire world when you’re done!” I chimed in.
“I’m not saying it isn’t nice at times. You know what though? Maybe you can see for yourself. I can give you half of my power, and we can go around together for a bit.” I needed no second invitation. Will held his hands out and transferred some power to me. No sooner was this done than some weird ape looking beast slapped through my window.
“Ugule gron gurgle,” says the ape.
“Oh Crap!” says the Dylan.
“Figures…” says the Will. The monster proceeded to hurl a sofa at my face. My girly shriek wasn’t enough to stop it, but apparently my left arm was. When I opened my eyes again, I was holding the sofa in the air with one hand.
“Uh Uh Groblemogu!” Yelled the ape. It jumped straight at me, but Will caught it in mid air and fell through the wall. The two of them rolled right into an elevator shaft and plummeted downward. I did what anyone with superpowers would do. I jumped in after.
With a series of quick little wall kicks, I descended the elevator shaft. At the bottom where there should have been a floor, I found another gaping hole. In that were Will and the beast. The beast was slightly more dead than I had remembered it. So were the subway tracks the pair had fallen through.
“Will, the tracks…” I managed to get out before we both heard a train coming.
“Put these on,” Will said as he threw me a pair of roller skates. The tracks were elevated off the ground by about five feet. Beneath them was another set of tracks. (It’s an odd setup for a subway, but it’s my dream so just deal.) The pair’s crash had caused a hole nearly 25 feet long in the track. “Ok, follow me.”
The two of us skated toward the train on the service tracks below. “Dylan,” Will said as he skidded to a halt. “I’ll go first. Now when the train comes, I’ll grab hold of the front and carry it over the hole. You have to grab the back. Got it?” The train was about 13 seconds away. What choice did I have? I got it.
I crouched at the ready as Will grabbed the roaring engine flying overhead. He went tearing down the track with it right to the chasm. I winced as the weight of the train hit his arms, but without so much as a dip, he carried the thing to the other side and let go. Then, it was my turn.
The end of the train came thundering toward me. With a deep breath, I threw my arms up and grabbed the thing. My hands dug into the metal, and I was off. The wind was biting my face as the train and I rocketed toward what should have been doom for us both. I braced for the sudden weight of the train. Even with my super strength, the thing was heavy. I felt my body sink a few inches. Not good enough. A few inches would cause the back of the train to tear into the tracks and derail the whole thing. Mustering a second wind, I let out a howl and pushed the thing back up just as we hit the other side. I let go, and the train sailed on into the night.
Moments later, Will and I were back on the surface. “You did good back there kid,” he said with a smile. I was still catching my breath, but was happy to have earned his acceptance. “Come on, I want to show you something.” Will took flight, and I instinctively followed.
Flying over NYC was simply awesome. It was dusk now, and as we went higher and higher the meandering traffic below became a blur. We flew out over the bay, past some aging industrial sights. At length, we came to a tremendously tall building. We flew a few feet from its exterior wall and went straight up. Higher and higher we went, until I looked down and actually became scared. I couldn’t see anything below. If I suddenly couldn’t fly, I would die in a horrific long fall. The top of the building was only ten feet away, but I suddenly felt myself grow weak. Scared for my life, I grabbed the building side.
“Dylan, get up here!” Will called from the top.
“Well… um, I don’t think I can fly anymore!” I panted sliding back a few inches. I began breathing faster as I looked down.
“You already made it here Dylan! What makes you think you can’t fly the last ten feet?”
“I don’t know, it was just getting hard, and I realized how far there was to fall…” Will just smiled.
“Dylan, let go of the wall.” I was almost in tears, but I did as the man said. I began to fall. Ten feet into it, I snapped to attention and began to hover. I shook my head hard, and drifted to the rooftop. “See, you just have to know you can.” I sniffled once, and looked back down to where we had come from. “Besides, I would never let you fall. That is my job you know?” I let out a halfhearted chuckle.
“Will,” I said after I regained composure. “Is it scary… knowing there isn’t anyone to save you?” Will didn’t answer my question. He just stared off at the sunset. The sun was creeping behind the cityscape now. As high as we were, there were still buildings in the distance towering over us.
“This building we’re on is where I grew up.” Will said gazing off. “It was a terrible neighborhood. We were always getting robbed. Somehow, my mom and I got by. But one day…” Will trailed off. “She was killed, Dylan. After I got my powers, I realized it wasn’t about me at all. It’s all about them.” Will gestured out over the city. “I can help myself. Those people can’t.” He turned to me with a deathly serious stare. “If you’re going to do this, that’s what you have to understand. I could make you even more powerful, but I would become normal, and you would have to do this alone. You would have no one to turn to.” I stared back for a moment.
“Will… what will you do?”
“You know, I always wanted to do something in IT?” The two of us laughed. “I guess we should be getting you back to work.” With that, Will took to the skies, and I followed. I tried to fully grasp what Will was saying, but it seemed beyond me. He was beyond me. How he had gotten his powers, why he did what he did, it was all a mystery. It wasn’t important though. It was all in a past I would never be a part of.
We landed back in my office to a cornucopia of activity. Police were rushing around, and as everyone saw us float in, a great cheer went up.
“I guess you should greet your people,” Will said with a smile. “Think about what I said, and if you really want this.”
“I will…” People began rushing around me. There was only one thing for it. I started flying through the office. I looked down over flabbergasted people, many from my childhood.
“Coming through,” I said smiling. “I’m learning to fly here.” I soared out through the hole in the wall, and off into the night.
