(Note: I had this dream a few
days after watching Fallen
and buying Mario Kart 64)

---

Like most dreams, it's hard to say exactly how it started, but I remember being on a sidewalk in a city, possibly New York, and I was looking for my shoes. I was getting ready for some sort of event in the building across the street, and my casual shoes, which I had taken off and left on the sidewalk while I put on my formal shoes, were missing. I figured they had been stolen, and I was pissed. I looked around frantically and asked the people I was with if they had seen them. There were a bunch of cars parked along the edge of the street near us. They were mostly cabs, I think, but there was this one big black van, and Elton John leaned his head out and said something to us. Maybe he was asking what was wrong, since we went over, got in the van, and started talking to him. The girl I was with was flirting with him, and I think it was clear to all of us that she was interested in exploiting his influence in the music industry. They started making out, which pissed me off, so I decided to leave.

I walked to a little park thing nearby. In the center of it was a little chapel, sort of a fancy tower-thing. I found one of my formal shoes on the ground, but it was in really bad shape, as if it had been run over by a car and soaked in a puddle. This was strange, since I thought I had been wearing my formal shoes, but I looked down and realized that I was, in fact, wearing my casual shoes. I sat down, and started retying my laces or something, and a couple of menacing looking guys walked up to me. I was worried that they were thinking about mugging me or something. They were talking to each other, and one of them mentioned something about a friend of his named Molly 5 or something.

"You guys know Molly 5?" I asked, realizing that they were talking about my friend whom I had left in Elton John's van. They were surprised to hear that I knew her, and asked how she was doing. I explained that she was still pursuing her musical ambitions, and that her career was now in the fuck-Elton John-for-his-industry-contacts phase. They asked me to wish her luck, and went away without mugging me.

It was about that time that Satan showed up.

He looked like a normal person, except for his evil grin and occasionally glowing eyes. For a little while he looked like that "Randall Flag" character from Stephen King's made-for-TV movie, The Stand. But I don't think he looked like that most of the time. Actually, I think his appearance changed a lot during the course of the dream. Also, rather than just appearing out of nowhere, Satan might have just possessed one of Molly 5's friends, but I don't remember for sure.

So Satan had come for me, and I figured that was pretty bad, so I quickly ducked into the chapel thing, where I saw a young nun cleaning up, and maybe dismantling parts of the chapel. I explained to her that I was in a bit of a pickle, what with the living incarnation of evil chasing me and such. She obligingly detached a little cart thing from the chapel for my getaway. It had holy water and stuff, so it could keep the Devil at bay while I coasted to safety.

I stood on the cart and the nun gave me a push, and then I was just rolling along streets for a while, which was a lot of fun. At this point, the setting really didn't seem much like New York, because there were lots of hills and I remember crossing a few sets of train or trolley tracks. As my cart slowed, the nun passed me in a smaller cart and told me to grab onto it. I guess her cart was motorized or something, because she was able to tug me and my cart along at a pretty good pace. It was a bit awkward to hold onto her cart with one hand while bracing myself in my own cart with the other, but I managed.

The nun turned onto some upscale, trendy street and steered us into this sculpture gallery, an airy space with very high ceilings and white walls. It was pretty tasteful, but there were so many sculptures that the room was very cluttered. Most of the pieces were made of wood, and the place reminded me of my Dad's studio.

I was still in my cart from the chapel, being pulled by the nun in her cart. She was doing a good job of dodging sculptures, but I she must have taken a turn too sharply or something, because my cart was headed straight for one of the sculptures. I jumped out of the cart and went way the hell up in the air, about 25 or 30 feet. I had some crazy hang time too, and as I was up there I could see the nun, still riding on the cart.

"Just a second - I'll dump this thing," she said, referring to her cart. Without slowing down, she rolled down the steps at the back of the gallery. By the time I landed, she was out of her cart and back up the steps. She was pretty impressed by the height of my jump. I hadn't really though about that yet; I was more concerned with avoiding sculptures as I came down. She asked to see another jump, and I jumped way the hell up high and touched the ceiling. At this point I realized that what the nun had said about "dumping this thing" indicated that the Devil was currently possessing her.

Yeah, I know that sounds pretty stupid, but it made a lot of sense at the time.

I also somehow knew that my jump-really-high-power was a result of whatever connection I had with the Devil, and this connection was the reason he was seeking me out. He was giving me the old "turn to the dark side" routine, but I wasn't buying it. I hopped the railing and went down the stairs, hoping to find an exit. There wasn't one. There was only an open supply closet into which the nun's chapel-cart had been hastily crammed. Satan, who was male again, rather than posing as the nun, followed me down, and I was cornered. I grabbed a sports bottle filled with holy water from the cart, and splashed it in his face. There was lots of steam and smoke, like when the witch dies in The Wizard of Oz. Unfortunately, there was no visible injury to Satan.

"Oww," he said. "That was really uncalled for."

I apologized sincerely and dug around in the supply closet until I found him some napkins so he could wipe his face.

Then some other guy showed up behind Satan. He looked familiar, and maybe he was supposed to have been one of the people I was with on the sidewalk at the beginning of the dream, or maybe one of Molly 5's friends from the park. Anyway, the implication was that through his service to Satan, he was getting some of the power that Satan was offering me.

This other guy had a glowing-hot metal pole, which he used to burn my eyes out.

Fortunately, this didn't impede my vision much. But it really pissed me off, so I grabbed Satan and flew up in the air with him, smoke trailing from my charred eye sockets. I think maybe I even started shooting Superman beams at him from where my eyes used to be. He was delighted at these displays of power, and I think he even complimented me before he flayed the skin from my body and I started falling. At that point I pretty much gave up. The Devil put his finger in my nose or mouth and my skin began to grow back. I didn't try to stop him anymore. He had won.

Then I realized that that was probably pretty bad, so I basically rewound the dream to just after I started falling, so that I could do something other than give up. I don't remember what I did next, because I woke up soon afterwards.

• MAIN
• MISCELLANEOUS

Elton John and Spider-man's
nemesis, Dr.Octopus.
Coincidence? I think not.