1.29.2008

Shocking

I'm making my way through an old house. It's large and filthy, and has the distinct feeling to it that it's been through some sort of natural disaster. The carpet feels formerly waterlogged, the walls dingy, and as though they're now parched. There are lots of kitchens. None of them come equipped with appliances, oddly, and all of them feature strange and varied layouts. The surfaces inside every room are coated in black dust. There are computer towers sitting around scattershot. I am surprised and kind of freaked out when I realize that they are plugged in and running. I can see their tiny green lights peeking out from beneath the caked-on black dust.

There's some kind of computer hooked up to an outlet that has begun sparking periodically. I try to call everyone's attention to it (though I can't exactly tell who I'm talking to). There is an older guy there — my brain wants to think of him as Mel freaking Gibson, oddly — and he reaches for the plug and it shocks him. He flinches, but I suppose he figures he can take the pain, because he does it again, and when he really grips it and yanks it out of the wall, a big yellow band of electric current zig-zags its way around his person and I start freaking out and trying to find a phone to call 911. My mom picks up and starts trying to have a light-hearted conversation about my sister. And I'm terrified that we've got a dying man on our hands: "Mom! MEL JUST GOT ELECTROCUTED and I'm trying to call 911!"

I don't know if Mel ever recovered because I woke up.

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