This is long. I'm trying to keep recall of all the details. There were many specific details.
***
I am waiting at a bus stop. It's more like a large parking lot. I watch this pale white teen/20s kid kind of talk-humming to himself out loud riding a strange vertical body length skateboard. He was behind it, and moving his hands in the air like he had a ship's wheel, and on the bottom was a single wheel that would turn for direction.
He made a sharp turn through the gate where tires were piled up and was gone. But then I noticed a black older man on a similar device, also talking to himself out loud, and it seemed he wanted to perform for a crowd ... but there was no crowd. He kept on going as if there was.
The bus finally comes, and the driver is grousing about coming "all this way for one passenger". I go on the bus and it's this big long boxy thing that goes on forever, it even has an accordion section. I see lots of people that I know, but they are all either actively in conversations or actively ignoring me or actively making fun of me and making elaborate efforts to cover their seats ... so I go through all the many people like that until I find an unoccupied seat at the very back, people around me actually get up and move and they are let in seats that are suddenly uncovered.
We go through to the outskirts of town. It looks run down and starting to be abandoned, with derelict buildings and fields of lots.
All except for a gas station on the corner and this large complex. We go in the complex. It is blocks long.
***
Now we are waiting for food. We didn't go down to the eating area until told, and the food isn't here. It's still not here! So, I sit down to wait with others. This woman sits down next to me, all smiles and nice conversation but it didn't take very long for another guy to plop himself down next to me and butt in on the conversation, taking it over.
She said something about Peter, and Buttinsky said that was his cousin. I asked for Peter's last name and realized that was MY cousin! But the butt in made a point of saying that WE were not cousins (me and the butt in guy). Which didn't make any sense to me, but soon he was shooing me away and sitting next to the girl and I couldn't get a word in edgewise so I just left. I tried to meet the eye of other friends, but .. nobody.
So, it was like a hallway, with an entry into a room with windows on that side in the middle, and on the other side of that room there was another hallway. There was no one in the other hallway, so I just sat there.
FINALLY the food was wheeled in. I managed to find a place in line and was trying to get food but it was ... there was no tray! So I tried to just grab a plate for now.
I tried to find a place to sit, but they all were taken by people or objects. I finally found an empty spot. I put my plate there and hung my jacket on the chair.
I went back to get a salad or soup. I couldn't fin the soup. It was buried in clam chowder like crackers. I try a bite it seems ok. I dig through the crackers to get to the soup and the soup is like a chicken broth with these big stars in it. SO I get that. And I balance a plate of salad on top. I go back to my seat to see my jacket on the floor, in a dirty puddle no less, and someone sat there eating from my plate.
***
Suddenly I'm stood at the end of the food line with no plates of food staring at a strange phone. It says DROID on it, it's a smart phone, the bottom 1/4 pops down and turns so it is a triangle. I try to find out who's phone it is. I accidentally turn it on and it is set to a complex construction game like Age of War Fire Age.
I can't seem to find the owner ... but where is MY phone? And where is my food? I try to get back in line to at least get a salad but these stacks of things are blocking my way.
There are people there, but they aren't helpful. They way where they ask and talk, but don't actually offer any real help or care. Great.
***
Now it's time to go. I can catch a city bus back, but I don't have my cell phone. I head out to the spot. Across the street the gas station is putting up a sign that says opening soon they are going to have Popeye's Chicken.
I panic and feel like I missed the bus, so I want to get a ride home from the place I was at. So I run and run and run back. I run into a running group led by a man.
I get back and I see people in comical cartoon like foam masks full head. One is trying to drive with one on, including cartoon foam hands! With the white gloves? But he has backed into another car. He keeps on backing into them! I lightly tap on his hood to get his attention, and that just pisses him off so he is yelling at me and revving his engine and backing up even more!! So I just walk away. I see a client and he's waving at me, but then a large group of people obscure us.
***
I finally find a bus and I get on, it is packed, I try to ask where it is going but no one not even the driver will tell me! SO, I am nervous and anxious. I finally find a seat at the front of the back section behind the accordion middle and in front of me is a couple females I thought were friends. I asked them where this bus was stopping. "Payne, and um ...." But then they weren't interested in talking to me, so I just tried to sit back. Someone told me the bus is going where it is going, to just relax. But how can I? I have no idea where we are going, and it seems to be going AWAY from my home!
At one point in the drive we have to slow down to drive through a narrow place between buildings where people are lined up outside. We get a little further with people moving out of the way of the slowly moving bus, but then we have to stop because people engrossed on their phones are not budging!
***
Meanwhile, I look out the window, and new Popeye's chickens are opening up all over the place, many miles apart, but still. All new. "They are doing that to overcompensate. There was a nasty shooting in one, one town over, and so they are trying to overshadow that with news of all of these opening up here."
I don't know who said this. I can't turn my head to see for some reason. I ask "what?"
"Yeah, everybody is saying it's a Muslim terrorist. It's becoming this big conspiracy theory. But really it is more likely he is just one of the witnesses in the drive through. The person helping him wanted to get out, so the guy heard the gun fire and pulled forward a bit rolled down a window and they worker managed to get into the car. The worker held his hand out to a girl but, she got riddled with bullets right in front of him so he told the driver to go and they left. But the worker was hit with bullets too and is in ICU now."
And that's when the bus stops and I decide to get off, I am the only one. The bus driver grumbles, manages somehow to slam the door closed, and screeches off.
I am in a resulting dust cloud, hacking. I'm looking around. It looks both familiar and not familiar at the same time, which is really bizarre! Where is my home? Where is everybody? I realize even if I do find my home, I have nobody there waiting for me ... and I remember I had a break in and everything even the bed (not the sheets, which was odd) was taken, and so I literally have nothing to go back to. Nobody is helping me!
***
And I have woken up by now and the images are fading but the dream continues without the images. To try to escape this I open finally manage to open my eyes. But it's too late, I am left with the horrible crushing feelings from the dream .... stuck with taking buses going to and fro, surrounded but lonely.
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