sometime in 1994 . . .
the fitness center
Three friends and I were at some kind of fitness center. An extremely long slide ran from one story of the building to the ground. The trip from the top to the bottom took several minutes. There were actually two parallel slides with a smooth dirt median between them. There were many steep drop-offs on the way down, and it was fun to go fast. Some people moved very slowly, but I discovered that I could avoid running into them by moving left and right between the slides. Crossing the dirt section created dust clouds but didn't slow my momentum at all.
My friends decided to go inside and do something else after a few times down, but I decided to try the slide at least once or twice more. Although it took a while to go down the slide, the way back up was much shorter. I had to enter the building at the ground floor, pass through a room with a television, a group of people dancing, and a small square pool in the center of the floor. I had to jump over the corner of the pool, and it seemed that each time I went through the room, the jump was a greater distance.
As I started down the slide again, I noticed a lot of old couples going down side by side on both slides holding hands. They sat up straight and moved very slowly. I realized that if I built up enough speed I could jump over them where the slide dropped off. I would fall about 15 feet and land on the slide again, maintaining my speed.
I entered the building to slide again, and saw my friends with many other people in the television room. Everyone was dressed formally, and it seemed that there was about to be a baptism in the pool. I tried to cross the corner of the pool as usual but the distance was much too great this time. I tried to walk along a small ledge against the wall, and some people even tried to help me across, but I couldn't make it without falling in the water. I finally gave up and walked into another room in the building, a video game arcade. The room was dark with a sort of reddish glow, and a lot of people stood around. They were talking about how they might get caught for something that they were about to do.
Suddenly, a large television in the center of the room turned on. it showed the arcade with lots of colored lights flashing and a rock and roll band on a stage playing to a crowd. A middle-aged man in a business suit stood out from the others. He was staring mindlessly. I knew he was some sort of official, maybe a mayor. A young man of about 19 walked up to the official and asked him something. Without turning his head or even changing his glazed expression, he held out a large keyring full of keys. This was somehow very bad.
the field (the next night)
I was standing with several other people in a huge field of tall brown grass. Cars and trucks slowly circled us. I had skis that hovered above the ground, and I let a friend use them. He preferred them to his car. After a while, the front of one of the circling cars was suddenly smashed flat by a large unknown object.
A group of small animals slept in the grass nearby. The scene changed to a chart of different animal lifespans, and a woman's voice narrated. She said that the amount of time an animal sleeps depends on the ratio of its age to its total lifespan. The scene then changed to a cage containing a rabbit wearing a bonnet. At first the rabbit looked real, but upon closer inspection it became a cartoon. It picked up a rock and threw it at a water bottle hanging on the wall of the cage.
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