Nightmare

It was a dream, and in dreams you have no choices: either there are no decisions to be made, or they were made for you long before ever the dream began. -- Neil Gaiman


I dreamt last night that Chrissa and I were at a casino/penny arcade. I've been to this place before in other dreams. Usually I'm scrounging for quarters in broken change return slots -- or looking for free games.

Only today we're playing the nickel slots. We win. 17,500 nickels. In my dream-tainted state I figure this out to be $40,000 somehow. I decide Chrissa and I are rich. That we'll never have to work again. We go on the road, taking Champ with us.

We stop at a roadside bathroom. It's a mixed-gender bathroom, reminiscent of a Roman bath. I've been to this place before in other dreams, only now it's dank and germ-infested. I walk into a stall and there's an oversized, torpid man sitting on a toilet. He seems almost dead. A punk chick walks in and announces the man has HIV and doesn't deserve to live. She throws gas on him and sets him on fire. Champ gets too close and catches fire as well.

I'm horrified but don't move. I give Champ up for dead. Chrissa, however, doesn't. She scrambles and grabs him, smothering the flames with a blanket. He howls in pain. He's been blinded and badly singed. We take him outside into the fresh air and I decide we need to put him out of his misery. All we have is a rake. I hit him with it twice and stun him but don't kill him. Chrissa grabs the rake from me, angry, and is about to throw it away. Champ turns into a young boy, then, and tells her it's ok -- that he needs to die.

That's when I woke up. Champ was lying on my feet at the foot of the bed. I nudged him to make sure he was still alive.

I told Chrissa to buy a lotto ticket, if she gets the chance, and to keep Champ away from any open flames.