Trainroad

Last night I had a dream that I was down in the ditch alongside the railroad tracks, down there in the ditch out in the country alongside the trainroad. And now a train was coming by, with smoke billowing out of its smokestack, and I saw this fellow run up out of the brush and jump on the train. So I thought I would do so too. And I ran up out of the ditch, and I jumped up in through the open door of a boxcar.

Only when I got to my feet and stood up, I found that this other fellow and I were really standing in an area at the back of the locomotive, and all the train people, engineer and brakeman and conductor and all, were sitting ahead of us inside the locomotive, facing away from us. And after a minute of uneasy silence, one of the "train people" up front began speaking to us without turning his head back to us, "We can see you, and we often get people jumping on this train, and now you have three choices," and basically the choices were (1) go to jail, or (2) pay a fine of several hundred dollars, or (3) be let off the train out here halfway to Dubuque, even though that would mean leaving us stranded in the countryside with no way to get home.

So I chose to be let off the train, and they stopped the train (still without any of them turning their heads back to look at us) and I got off the train in the brush out here in the middle of the countryside. And wondering how I was going to get home, from halfway to Dubuque. Only I walked a bit, and I came to a village, only this village seemed to be not in Iowa but somehow "amidst the mountains" up in Alaska.

(And it also came to me that the fellow who jumped on the train was a confederate of the railroad, used over and over again to jump on the train and lure other people like me to follow his example.)

And then I was in the sheriff's office, and it was evil Sheriff Buck off of American Gothic, and he was sitting there in his oak office chair at his oak desk. And I was standing there, and then this guy came sauntering in, looking like a gambler ne'er-do-well from old New Orleans, wearing a raincoat overcoat slicker, and it was made clear to me as if in a word of knowledge that this gambler man was coming to the village in evil, and to get back at me for jumping on the train. And I said hi to him as he walked by, and he said hi to me.

Then next time it was a scene in the village where I was being asked to leave, on pain of great disasters breaking forth. And somewhere down the valley amidst the mountains suddenly a house exploded roaring up in flames. And then after a little while another house exploded. And it was well but darkly understood that I'd better snap to it, or else. Only I wouldn't, because that would be giving in to evil, and to the evil New Orleans gambler dude.

And now the next scene, and I'm standing next to the dirt runway of the local airstrip, and suddenly in a flash without warning a small single-engine plane comes streaking in for a landing, kablammm!!!, and the plane goes tearing at high speed down the runway in flames balanced on its nose. And as it goes by, several houses in a row alongside the runway are all exploding in flames at high speed, kablamm, kablammm, kablammmm, KABLAMMMMM!!! And then a kid comes flying through the air screaming, right up against the side of a house, and suddenly a UPS truck flying through the air and its rear end smashes right into the kid and the side of the house.

And I realize, in horror, that this is an escalation of the efforts to get me out of this village and to surrender to the New Orleans gambler who is in with evil Sheriff Buck.

So then I decide to fight back. And I run everything in reverse like a movie film going backwards, the UPS truck flies away from the house, the kid is being carried off on a stretcher ("Only one little chip out of a bone in my toe"), the houses are de-exploding and returning to normal, the plane is streaking backwards down the runway and backwards up into the sky. And now I'm running a trace on this evil power, tracing it back to find where it's coming from.

And sure enough, it's that evil New Orleans gambler man in his rain slicker, and suddenly I'm right there, teleported to about ten yards away from him, and his back is turned to me, and between us is his evil hot-coal brazier tripod with smoke billowing up out of it, which he uses to cause disasters, and so I levitate the brazier tripod up in the air ("Use the Force, Luke!") and I overturn it and bring it right down on his shoulders and the back of his head, and he's screaming in agony and evil at the burning hot coals being brought down right on top of him, and I know this is only the beginning of our epic battle to the death, each of us wielding great powers beyond comprehension.

Only then I woke up.