So, I had this weird dream

[Terez]

I worked at a placed called Waffle House (link for you non-US folk, particularly non-DeepSouthUS) for 14 years (it was a family job) and it was so awful that I still have nightmares about it even 3 years after I quit. So, when the nightmare started - the part I remember - it had something to do with WH, and I was in trouble for something yet again, and I overheard (from outside the building - dreams are weird like that) some waitresses inside talking about how I should go to JAIL for whatever it was I did. And then my boss - some upper management type, division or area manager - came back from vacation right at that moment. And it was Moiraine.

 

I was so scared of her wrath that I ran away, and in the way of dreams I ended up standing outside some building that looked like a courthouse or something downtown in a big city - new architecture, but official-looking with sand-colored stone and huge glass windows reaching high above me. And there was Brandon, standing in front of the building, and he was somehow acting like Brandon but also like one of my old district managers named Mark (it goes area > division > district > store manager). Anyway, I went to high school with Mark - he was my brother's age, two years older than me; they played baseball together - but we weren't friends, and one of his defining characteristics was that he was always on his freaking phone. So there is Brandon, on his phone, khakis and tucked-in polo and looking corporate and like he would really rather be playing golf, and I'm like (crying) "Brandon, what did I do?? Moiraine's going to kill me and I don't know why!"

 

So, Brandon proceeds to console me in the same way that Mark would have, which is to say in a very annoying manner, but since he's actually Brandon it makes me feel better anyway. So he tells me that I should walk with him to Somewhere which ended up being Nowhere because all I remember was the trip there and the trip back, which sort of merged into one piece because it was uphill both ways. But uphill really isn't the right word, because we were like giants climbing up steppes made of huge buildings made of what seemed like clay and glass which were only partially crushed beneath our feet as we trampled over them. And Brandon is on the phone with Moiraine, who is of course his boss (presumably at the WH), but somehow I can't hear what he's saying to her and he's talking to me at the same time, about what I don't remember. I think it had something to do with how awesome I was at my job - I remember being comforted by his words. He was my friend.

 

At some point I excused myself to go find a restroom while Brandon went in the opposite direction to do the same, and I ended up in a place that somehow looked like the insurance company where my mom worked for 11 years, but there was a woman I worked with at WH who looked very natural as the receptionist, like I knew her through my mom as a child. And when I saw her horrified face, I realized as I was telling her I'd just come to use the bathroom that in the manner of dreams I wasn't wearing any pants, and ladies were screaming, and she hastened to show me where to find it (though I already knew where it was). So when I got back out (I was wearing pants again somehow) Brandon asks me what the screams were about so I told him what happened and that it seemed to me like a good way to get people to let you use their bathroom. And he was like, "Right."

 

So we went back to trampling buildings and Brandon says, "Okay, here's the deal." That's what Mark always said, especially when I was in trouble and he was telling me how it was going to be. "Moiraine said that in your essay," and here my mind is like essay? What essay? And then I remembered this really horrible exam essay I'd written, and Moiraine was no longer my boss at WH but a professor who had graded my exam essay. (I just took one last week for philosophy, and it was pretty awful, but I wasn't thinking about that in the dream.) So Brandon is making uncomfortable noises, and he says something that sounds suspiciously like "d*** tulips" and then I remembered this awful and ludicrous stuff I'd written on my exam essay, and my mind was aghast at my brazenness, and I thought to myself that I wouldn't have written it if Moiraine hadn't been on vacation. So then I was all in a rush to explain myself, that I was feeling stressed out and also how I didn't have time to go over what I'd written, and that if I'd had more time I would have crossed it all out, and I said "Have you ever seen the things I've written where I cross things out so much that it's like solid black?" I have been known to do that, but really I was thinking about Chopin who did that with his compositions when he made a correction so that no one could see what was underneath, and he did it in his letters and diaries, too (I have been reading a lot of Chopin books lately). And I was like "If I'd had time to go over it I would have done that."

 

And Brandon was no longer my friend. He regarded me with contempt as he tramped back over the steppes of skyscrapers, and in his wake I watched as water filled his footprint in the rust-colored clay. And then I woke up, and had to go to the bathroom.

 

The End

[WhiskyJack]

Got waffles?

[Mrs. Cindy Gill]

before i read your last line i was going to suggest that you had to go to the bathroom, because i have similar dreams, which seems to be my brain's way of getting me to wake up and go. . . i search in vain for something (often a bathroom) and when i find one, events stop me from being able to use it. then i wake up and go.

 

but i'm struck by your waffle house history, and must now watch dead like me for a few months.

 

thank you.

[Samhain]

And lets be honest. There are quite a few Waffle Houses in Ohio.

 

;)

[Terez]

Yeah, they're branching out - there are even some in New England - but in the Deep South they're freaking everywhere. There are usually more of them than McDonald's.

[WhiskyJack]

And lets be honest. There are quite a few Waffle Houses in Ohio.

 

;)

 

 

or Kentucky...

[Auld Manriva]

Please Miss .... Put the WoT doorstop on the floor in front of you, kick it towards me and step away .... NOW!

[ineedfourberfs]

I see what's happening here.

 

Brandon has told Terez the ending to AMoL, and she has codified it here because it's impossible NOT to talk about something like that. The code is to honour non-disclosure agreements and such.

 

*nod*

[FarShainMael]

'In the Way of Dreams'. Not being sarky, but what a wonderful title for a fantasy series.