I fell asleep for like an hour and had this strange dream out of left field, like unrelated to anything that happened today, or recently.
It took place in a sort of composite of places back east, which for whatever reason has become the place where my interesting dreams happen. It was basically a composite of places I knew in econoically depressed central PA and the less rich coastal areas of New England (although I have not spent a lot of time in New England, so citing specifics is not possible).
The segue from reality to dreamland was me thinking about games, and the first "scene" of the dream was me looking through screenshots, and wiki-style documentation, of some sort of action RPG with upgradable weapons or attributes. I never saw the actual game, just the art work indicating the sorts of upgrades there were. It was a lot of text, and since text is rarely anything in dreams, I just remember colorful designs, abstract.
Eventually, I left the computer or came across a television indicating that there had been a local murder. A local youth had been killed, stabbed with a bottle, behind a local pool hall, in an area with dumpsters. The whole setting, behind a pool hall, made it sound drug or delinquency-related to me, but I couldn't be sure. You can never be sure of anything. Anyway, in magic dream land, the news mentioned a name, or showed a name on screen, and I used my WIKI KNOWLEDGE to look it up. Hmm, maybe this was influenced by that Spider-Man comic yesterday.
I don't recall discovering anything interesting, although I was kind of amazed that I had gotten any sort of hit on a new, local news item on the wiki-like site. Whatever I learned, I decided to walk down to that pool hall to see if there was anything interesting going on. Not sure if I was trying to crack the case or, well, not be bored.
I ended up at the scene of the crime fairly quickly. The pool hall had an abandoned house right next to it, and there were delinquents out front of both buildings. The pool hall had been shut down. Of the several characters loitering out front, one of them broke away and ran in a narrow alley that I assume lead behind the building. I didn't follow or anything. This wasn't an action dream. I talked to the people out front, and they told me that the kid that had been murdered was the nicest guy they all knew. The person I was speaking through seemed unable to say much more, not because he was being evasive or spitting out bullshit to look innocent or make his dead friend appear to be more than a thug, but he appeared to be at a genuine loss for words, as if he were a few questions away from breaking down. I noticed that there were bottles everywhere, some of them broken. Everything was pretty grey in nature there, and the wood on the buildings was a rotting, fungal green. Everything made me kind of depressed.
Blank spot, where I don't remember why I did something, but I ended up walking down the alley that went behind the building. It was not a fast-paced dream, so I do not think I was trying to follow the person that ran behind before. There isn't much of a point to this section, I think I just wanted to see where the death took place. Despite sharing the grey sky and the green wood, the back of the hall featured a lot of nice grass. The pool hall building had clearly been a house at one point, and it had a backyard from one, with some fencing removed in order to accomodate two, overfull dumpsters, forming a sort of V shape, with police tape indicating that the crime happened between them.
Another blank spot. Next thing I remember I was walking down a street on the waterfront. Small town, grey, aged wood everywhere. The murder was still on my mind, but I don't know in what capacity. I ended up walking into a sort of indoor playground.
Now, uh, things get strange here.
Inside, children were playing on swings, others were playing in sand boxes, others were playing baseball, others were playing tag, others with toys. Lots and lots of children doing lots and lots of things. More children than could possibly be in such a small town. I remember the streets being deserted, but not in here. Anyway, I slowly walked to the back, behind a big a sand pit into an area where there were rows, like you'd see in a supermarket, designed for kids to run around and chase each other in an orderly manner.
And on the ground, in that area, was sea life, out of water. There were some dolphins, just on the ground, still alive, still fine. There were a few seals, running around the area like puppy dogs. Also, there were a few strang V shaped creatures on the ground, grey, the exact same shade as a dolpin, and they looked to me made of the same sort of leathery material as a dolphin. I nudgded one of the Vs with my foot, and it moved a bit, wiggled. I gathered that it was some sort of starfish type of creature that had gotten on land by hanging onto a dolphin or seal. After a little more investigating, I broke the creature in half (its strange texture seemed to say "break me"), and then I tried to lure a seal over to see if it would eat the animal. It did not. After this, I went up to a dolphin. They were immobile on land, but they seemed cool with the situation, singing every so often. I dragged a dolphin to the V to again see if there would be some eatin', and there was none. But just then I noticed that there was a bit more water on the ground by the V than there was by where the dolphin originally was, and it seemed really happy with that.
The whole setup had me puzzled. I started walking out of the joint, and I ran into the person that owned it. He mentioned that the sea life comes to the park because they are all mammals, and they like playing with the kids because they have sort of comparable levels of intelligence. He said that every few hours, they call the local SPCA chapter to drag em back into the water, since, well, they are water creatures. I asked about the V, and he told me the name of the creature. Which I now forget. And some other details about it. Which I also not forget. They seemed like a revelation when I did wake up, though; odd how you forget things.
Finally, he said that he kept the park open because it was really the only show in town for kids. As we talked, we walked over to a big water tank, filled with plants, sand, gravel, and clams and oysters. He said that he was never a hugely successful man in life, but one day, while diving, he brought home a load of clams, one of which ended up having an extremely valuable electronics design within that made him rich, and made this wonderful little park a reality. He then said that in honor of what fate had bestown upon him, he kept this big tank in his park, and every day he would draw one clam and open it. It was like fortune telling to him. He invited me to take part in his ritual that day.
We both rolled up our pants, took off our shoes and socks, and got in the tank. We each grabbed as many clams as we could. I'm no pro with the fish life, so I grabbed a few oysters, and every time he would chide me wth, "just clams," and I would drop the oyster. After doing this for a few minutes, we each had a bag of clams. We got out of the tank, put on our shoes and socks again, and walked into a room with a sink.
He said to pull one clam out of the bagfull I had collected, and open it using a tool, which was now in his hand. He said he would show me first. He selected his clam, looked around the edges of it, briefly, inserted the tool just under the lip of it, and popped it open. Inside was. . .well, clam, and lots of it. It was like a water baloon filled with clam and it splashed all over him. He laughed it off and handed me the tool. "I think it's going to be one of those days," he said.
Just like he showed me, I slipped the knife-like tool underneath the lip of the clam I had selected. At this point, I only remember the clam, not the room I was in, not the other character. It was like the clam was full frame, front and center, in the film of my mind's eye. The clam opened very slowly, and as more and more of its inside was revealed, I was kind of. . .puzzled. It wasn't filled with clam like the other guys, and it wasn't empty, like I would expect in a metaphoric dream. There was something small inside. Small and brown, and it had a little plastic bubble around it.
"Nothing?" I said. The other guy looked in the clam and said, "Oh, no, you know when you've got nothing." He reached inside and pulled out the brown object, and it was. . .some sort of stick figure made with matches, with a plastic bubble for a head, with a penny inside the head.
Then I woke up, confused, as is typical for these sorts of dreams.
