Last night I was lost at sea

A dream.

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I was trying to board an airplane, a very nice and fancy aircraft. We were on a rolling stairwell that had rolled right up to the outer doors. The night was menacing. There was a storm brewing; it was windy and starting to rain. You could see through the clear clear windows inside the plane, watch the few people filing their carryons and the flight attendants shuffling past them. There were many empty seats. This was the first-class boarding area.

Each passenger was let on one by one. Amy was in front of me. They brought her inside and I tried to follow, but a flight attendant behind me grabbed me by the ankles so that I tripped. He said, "No! This flight is full." I lay there on this corrugated metal grating, struggling, kicking at his hand. The plane began firing its engines, and I shouted over it. The flight attendant couldn't hear. I watched as the plane began taking off. There was still a line of people behind me. As the sound of engines moved on, I told the flight attendant, "That's my wife." He and some of the others in the line gave me a blank stare. "I know she's a lot prettier than me, but she's still me wife."

At this, the attendant grabbed me--I had my backpack on--and we somehow caught part of the plane. We had jumped the plane, and were now dangling on the outside. The plane dipped up and down and I saw the black sea coming towards me and then away, like I was a flying fish, gyrating in the air. The wind blew my hair slick back against my head. I felt it also pulling against my pants and so I took them off for fear of getting blown off, and watched them flutter down to the dark ocean. Then somehow the attendant got us inside. I was in boxers, so he found me a pair of jeans, waist 33 Rustlers or something. There were a little big but fit fine, and I remember thinking that I shouldn't have dropped my jeans in the ocean. When I looked in the mirror I realized I had a different button-up shirt on, so he must have provided me with a new shirt as well.

Well I didn't stay with the plane. I was left in the ocean, floating far and wide and swimming and trying to find my way back home to southern California. I'd wake up and smell salt and drift back to sleep again. The one constant was the thought and voice of my flight attendant. He was like my guardian angel. I remember how he had tried to do his job, then tried to help me. I knew he was still trying to help me, direct me along the right currents. After days--and I knew it was days due to the rising and falling of the sun--I finally found myself soaked with not saltwater but freshwater and I realized I was in a river. I floated past some reeds and an airport, and I saw the plane that I had been on. I knew at that point that the plane had been landed for days now. I also knew right then that I no longer had my backpack. [The camera zooms in on a black backpack floating in the ocean far away from the protagonist. It then zooms out to show calm, empty waves in all directions and some squawking seagulls circling around it.]

So I did some amazing business. I turned around. I was able to backtrack through the currents and the freshwater and saltwater until I discovered my lonely lost backpack. This took more days. I lost track of all time, but still had the overseeing watch of the attendant to keep me going. Once I found the backpack, I suspected that once I dried it out, everything within it, including all electronics, would still work.

I floated again past the reeds and the airport. This time I kept going, further and further until I ended up in a foreign but somehow recognizable upscale LA neighborhood. It was on a hill. The river flowed like a road, straight to it. The chimneys of nearby homes were made of strange objects, like couches and large red bottles perched on top. I began walking.

I walked through automatic gates into a beautiful mansion-home with a rock facade. This was where I was supposed to go. Everyone knew I was coming. I came inside, exhausted, hungry, and strangely dry. I sat on a couch. There were six or eight people lining the couches: media people, my agent, etc. No family.

"You've been gone for nine days."

It was like I was lost and sea, recovered into another life. I didn't recognize anyone. Then some woman showed up, dressed in black, with a handsome new boyfriend. What was she doing here? She came rushing in like a mother coming to rescue her long-lost son. Did these media people think she was my wife, and notified her?

So I stumbled back to work. I had a workstation on a long, faux-wooden church table. But I when I came back, there were workers lining many church tables. Two girls were sitting there in my old spot, staring at the same monitor. They looked up at me. It seemed we had become a call center.

I took a seat at the opposite church table, where there was an opening. I decided to make some spaghetti. I was hungry. I had this very interesting broiling-inspired method, where I had steam from one pot rise up to cook the base of another, white colander-looking pot. I burnt the spaghetti very quickly. It looked awful. People were staring at me. But I mixed it around with the sauce and it ended up looking better. It tasted fine.

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I awoke.