Let me tell you about this fucked up dream I had.
I didn't really know where I was but it seemed vaguely familiar. Doesn't it always? It was some kind of high-rise building, I know that much. Not a hotel, so probably a luxury apartment type of situation. Someplace the rent was high. What I was doing in the middle of nice property is anyone's guess. I didn't seem to be vandalizing it, or choking its toilets with Viking-level shits so I can't imagine why I was there.
My friend Suzanne was with me. Or maybe I ran into her on accident. Or maybe she was more successful than I remembered and I was visiting her at her swank apartment. That particular plot element never became very clear. My wife wasn't there but I felt like I had talked to her on the phone recently. No idea where she was, of course. She could've been at the monkey track betting on the monkey races. Maybe.
Suzanne was excited. It seems she'd just gotten back from vacation. I don't know where it was, but, in light of what happened next, it must have been somewhere hot and arid. Someplace desert-y. Would Suzanne vacation in a desert? Considering she had brought back the world's deadliest scorpion as a present for me, it seems like maybe Suzanne was a little fucked in the head. That crazy bitch may indeed have been stumbling around Arizona picking up random arachnids to give as gifts.
However it happened, Suzanne was excited to give me my present. Which was the world's deadliest scorpion. She mentioned that. I was not, um...enthused. My wife doesn't like spiders, and what's a scorpion but a jacked-up supervillian spider with lobster claws and a barbed tail? Suzanne did not seem to be intimating that she'd brought me this scorpion so I could gleefully kill it. Maybe set up some scenario where I "save" my wife from its murderous sting by stomping it into dust and then receive glorious sex in return.
Nope. She seemed to think that I was going to keep this heinous creature as a pet. As I've mentioned, Suzanne may have been Kim Jong Il-level nuts. I realize, of course, that a lot of people keep venomous creatures as pets. These people are morons. Eventually, they are bitten or stung to death by their cold, devilish companions. Which is what they deserve.
So there I was, following this recently sun-stroked broad around some mysterious building. I was uncomfortable. And not just because I was obviously much too bearded and tattooed to be on the premises. Sooner or later I was going to have to tell Suzanne I couldn't take a goddamn scorpion home as a pet. And you never know how crazy people are going to take bad news. What if she flipped out? What if she tied me down, stripped me naked, and covered my whole BODY in scorpions?
While I was pondering all this, Suzanne suddenly turned around and held out her hand. "Here it is."
Wait, what...fuck. Really? I thought. I was too taken aback to be afraid right then. Fear seems like the normal reaction, though, doesn't it? I mean, when someone has been blathering on about giving me the world's deadliest scorpion and then they spin around with their hand extended saying "Here it is", I mean...FUCK, right?
But, alas. I was too dumbfounded to be scared. I had been expecting the creature to be presented to me in some sort of terrarium. A glass or plastic enclosure with the bug's implements of homicide sealed safely away from my delicate nervous system.
Turns out, Suzanne didn't have a scorpion actually sitting on her palm. Instead, there was what looked like a small leather packet. It was almost like a small front pocket wallet that a man would carry. It had a clear plastic window like the kind you'd slide your ID into.
There was no ID in it, however. There didn't seem to be anything in it. I certainly wasn't going to get any closer for a more thorough examination, though.
"It's in here," Suzanne said. "Did I mention it's really tiny?"
She squeezed the two long sides of the little wallet and the ID slit gaped open like the vagina of a dead Korean prostitute. Something the size of a rice grain buzzed out much, much faster than an insect should. It zigged and zagged through the air so quickly it seemed to be teleporting. My eyes couldn't even begin to follow it but terror demanded they try. I looked like a Parkinson's patient watching a fireworks display.
"Also, it can fly," Suzanne mentioned, somewhat unnecessarily, I thought.
The aerial demon-bastard disappeared in about two seconds.
I flattened myself against the nearest wall and began squeaking like a Twitard being sodomized with an Edward Cullen action figure. My head snapped from side to side, searching fruitlessly for a creature only slightly larger than my masculinity.
"Huh," Suzanne muttered, looking around like someone who's misplaced a postage stamp.
For some reason, this relaxed me. Suzanne didn't seem concerned in the least. That must not have really been the world's deadliest, tiniest, fucking flying scorpion.
I unglued my sweaty ass from the wall and tried to remember how to stand there like a man. "So what was that, really?" I asked. "Some kind of gnat or fly or something?"
"No," Suzanne answered. "No, no. That was the world's deadliest scorpion. I told you that. It was your present. One tiny little sting that you'd never even feel. Ten minutes later you're blowing bubbles and then you're dead."
"Really? Blowing bubbles? What in Satan's pajamas does that mean?"
Suzanne looked at me like I'd just confessed I didn't know what the Internet was. "You blow bubbles. From your mouth. Then you die."
"Oh," I said. "Perfect. Bubbly arachnid death. I can name my first band that."
"Whatever." Suzanne dropped the wee leather packet on the floor. "It's gone now. Let's go."
We left. The area, I mean. Not the building. For some reason we kept wandering around. I still didn't know why we were there. Also, I still didn't know where my wife was. Monkey races, maybe?
Several minutes later I turned to Suzanne to say something. Probably something either very sexy or terribly witty. But, when I opened my mouth, bubbles streamed out. Darkness crushed the edges of my vision and my body felt suddenly distant. It was like my soul had rolled up, passed out, turned gay and was now flowing out of my yapper in a torrent of delicate spheres.
I collapsed to my knees, the darkness rushing in faster and deeper. "Tell my wife I completely adore her," I said, bubbles skidding along my breath. "Nothing else has ever mattered."
Then I collapsed the rest of the way and died. Immediately, some part of me that felt almost as substantial as the old, alive part of me stood up. I looked down at the dead me on the floor and felt lost. I wasn't zooming toward heaven or hell or rebirth, but, whatever was next, that meat on the floor was no longer me.
The next little bit is a blur. Maybe I was confused because all of this contradicted my basic understanding of life. Mind and body are not separate. To some extent, mind is rooted in every cell. And, despite my earlier, cavalier reference to my soul, there's obviously no such thing. So I couldn't be walking around as some sort of spirit if my body was dead.
Nonetheless, walk around I did. I don't remember what Suzanne did. Hopefully, she lost her shit and learned a really valuable lesson about giving people deadly creatures as fucking presents.
The very next thing I remember is hearing my wife's voice come wailing out of a cell phone. I wasn't using the phone. No one was actually using it. It was just sitting there with my wife's anguished screams coming from it. Clearly, she had just been told what had happened to me. I couldn't pick up the phone to reassure her. I couldn't speak to her at all. All I could do was stand there like some phantom idiot hearing her voice a sorrow I hope I never feel.
Next, I was in the same room with her. I have no idea how much time had passed. She was just sitting there, sobbing. All I wanted to do was let her know I was there, to put my hands on her and bury my face in her hair, telling her it was OK. The need to offer her comfort was overwhelming but I wasn't solid. I couldn't touch her, couldn't make her hear me. I was forced to stay put and listen to all of the grief and pain pour out of her. There is no way any pain could be worse. No torture could ever come close to this. It was ineffable agony.
I don't know how long I followed her around. It seemed as if I couldn't leave. She drifted around her life with no happiness or peace and I was right there with her, watching her suffer. She didn't seem to be getting over it. It didn't feel like she could move on and I certainly couldn't. Every minute was the worst minute of my existence. She cried all the time. Sometimes she screamed and raged and beat her hands bloody on the walls.
Then I woke up. In my bed. In OUR bed, because she was right next to me and we were both safe. She was moving around, about ready to get up and get ready for work. I rolled over and touched her on the shoulder. She glanced at me and muttered some sleepy morning-talk. I couldn't stop myself. I still felt so horrified from what I had just been through I poured the whole story out to her. It was still so real that I felt like crying.
She lay there and listened to every word. Then she stood up and looked at me. There were no tears brimming in her eyes, no look of compassion on her face for what I had just not gone through. She didn't give me a reassuring touch to let me know all was well.
"You dumbass," she said. "That was the movie Ghost."
Oh, yeah.
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