I was flying a plane--like a real passenger jet--over Nebraska This was my return flight home for Christmas. We got above Nemaha county, and Brent Shelton, one of the passengers on the plane, said to me "My seat is full of tickets with all of our numbers on them. Does that mean we're going to crash?" At that point I split into Neal the Pilot and Neal the Passenger. Neal the passenger sat in the front passenger seat and watched as Neal the Pilot talked to Brent. Neal the Pilot said "What?" Brent pulled out some little pink tickets, each with a number on it, from his seat cushion. He again said "My seat is full of tickets with all of our numbers on them. Does that mean we're going to crash?" Neal the Pilot said "You weren't supposed to know, but yes, this plance is going to crash."

My focus then switched back to Neal the Pilot. Up in the cockpit, I could see nothing but clouds in front of us, so I didn't know if this was a good place to send the plane into a dive. I couldn't take that chance of not crashing though, so I pushed the steering thing all the way forward, and we began to plummet. As we drew nearer to the surface, the clouds were no longer a visual impediment, and it was clear that we were going to crash into the practice fields of Auburn High School, where football practice was taking place at that very moment, despite the fact that it was almost sunset. I couldn't knowingly crash straight into people, so I pulled up a bit so that we would make a gradual crash into the earth.

Switch back to Neal the Passenger. The roof of the plane had flipped up on a hinge, much like a pencil box would if the hinge were on the short side instead of the long side, and people were launching out one by one. From behind me, Neal the Pilot yelled "Release your parachutes!" People were doing just that--firing up through the open ceiling, and then drifting down safely courtesy of the parachuutes installed into tehir seats. At this point, I hollared for help, as I wasn't paying attention when we were shown how to activate our parachutes. Pilot Neal came out of the cockpit and showed me the two handle-straps that came out of the seat cushion. II slipped my hands through them and pulled, and the next thing I knew I was up in the middle of the air. I was coming down towards someone on my left that looked like Matt Knipe. I couldn't tell, because the sun was so close to setting I could hardly see. I gestured towards them with my leg and asked who they were. It was Matt. Then someone started coming down at me from above, and I recognized her as Mrs. Allen. It was a very relaxed atmosphere, as we all drifted to the ground with the plane sliding beneath us and then exploding to the south. It was assumed that Pilot Neal perished in the crash.

The next thing I remember, I was at home and all in a rush because I was running a bit late for work. I had decided to work at the Dink again over my break, and this was to be my first day back. I took off in my car, and I remember thinking "Wow, this is the first time I've driven my car since September! I hope I can stay on the right side of the road." That wouldn't have been too difficult, except for the fact that it was raining terribly, and there were gushing "rivers" everywhere, especially on the road coming down the hill from my grandparents' house. My car was doing a reasonably good job of handling the currents on the flat land, but when I turned north to go up the hill, it simply couldn't fight the waters coming at it. So I got out and hopped on my bike and started pedaling up the hill. I outsmarted the flood waters by not riding on the road itself, but beside it, in the ditch. Somehow the ditch was fairly dry, I don't know, doesn't make sense to me either.

I got about 3/4 up the hill when an old brown car came flying over the top and down the flooded road. When it got closer, I could see that it was Danny Davis. He slammed on his brakes, and by doing so, his car spun around 180 degrees. I then saw that he was being followed, and that car flew over the top of the hill and smashed into his car head first. I just muttered something like "Kids..." and pedaled on. I got up to the top of the hill when I saw my dad and grandma. I hollared to them both to please call the Dink and tell them I will be a bit late. I still had about 6 miles of river to bike through.

Abrupt switch to a dark room. I was lying on the floor. I opened my eyes and saw a terrible mess, but I wasn't sure what the mess was. I think a mouse scampered across the floor. I shut my eyes again.

I was still biking...I had gone about a mile when Gabe Holtzman sped past me in an old car. He was driving just as recklessly as Danny was, but Gabe didn't wreck. He just splashed a lot of water on to me. I kept going...

I was in that room again, only it looked different. There was light coming in from somewhere, and there were people in the room with me, sleeping on the floor. They had very box-like cushions under their heads. I could tell that I had one under my head too, but I was still lying in the same position on my left side. I thought I heard voices, and I thought I recognized them, but I didn't know who it was.

Instead of biking to work, I went to the high school because I was convinced that I was late for cross country practice (even though I graduated 2 years earlier and this was taking place in December...). I got dressed into my running clothes and found out that today's route was going to take us right by my house to Lover's Lane. This was going to be extremely convenient, because I could just go home at the end of the run. It seems like almost as soon as we started, we were at the hilltop by my grandparents' house. I was running with two people, about halfway down the hill was a group of 3 guys, and almost to the bottom of the hill was a group of the fastest girls. I thought that in a race, this would be about the point where you start to "kick in" (which was incorrect--there would have still been a mile left at the point in my dream, whereas the general strategy was to start the stride-out about a half mile from the finish). I picked up my pace, and thought of how proud Mr. Brady would be to see that I was doing well. I approached the finish, where the top guys and girls had already made it, after having passed five varsity guys (in the dream, varsity was the top 8). I don't even remember seeing Mr. Brady though. I just remember noticing that there was another row of trees about 50 feet to the north of Lovers Lane. There was also a wooden barricade attempting to block off that new 50 foot wide "lane" between the two. It was only 8 feet wide at the most, though, so it wouldn't have been effective. Andrew and Bryce were leaning on it, though.

I woke up in that room again. Brian McConnell, Mike Fass, and Josh Able were wandering around in the room. They were drinking Cokes and using little plastic cups instead of drinking them out of the can. They were also commenting on how it's not so bad to be unemployed, because at least they're not homeless. Josh was sitting on a stack of 3 cushions. Brian was lying down beside him on some others, and Mike was sitting at my feet. I don't know if they knew I was awake--I was looking around at them, but I was still lying there on my left side. I could see a doorway between Mike and Brian, and light was shining in from through that doorway. And there was just a bunch of littered scrap--glass, plastic, metal--just uncategorizable junk--all over the floor. I closed my eyes again.

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