Here I am, sitting. My ass is warming up this cold bench that’s made of...I dunno, kinda seems like aluminum or something. I wouldn’t really have a clue. That’s me, clueless. My posture is pretty pathetic too, in truth, my ass is barely on this bench. It allows for me to arch my back, somewhat comfortably, though I think it’s supposed to be unhealthy. My head is drooping too. All in all, I’m a pretty pathetic sight. My baggy jeans, my old button shirt. Skate shoes too, everyone wears ‘em these days. Oh, there’s my prepaid mobile phone, my ripcurl wallet, and my watch that I got for my birthday. It tells the time, other than that, pretty average.
Now, I could've said that all differently. I could’ve said, ‘It’s a nice sunny day and I’m sitting at the bus stop, waiting for the bus.’ Though that wouldn’t really describe my mood at all. That would make it seem like everything is alright...but it’s not. No sir, life sucks for me. It just does. Sigh.
I think I’ll put my left ankle on my right knee now, that’s a fairly comfortable way to sit. Yep, that’s nice...waiting for the bus. I hate waiting for the bus. Staring down the road, there’s no sign of it. Cars, there are plenty of cars. It’s a four lane highway, middle of the morning, everyone is going to work, or just into town. That’s where I’m going. Off to centrelink to hand in my fortnightly form, so that I can get paid for being a bum. That’s the good thing about Australia. You don’t have to do work. You can go for six months, getting paid every fortnight, by just pretending to look for work. I don’t have my driver’s license yet, so I only have to apply for eight jobs a fortnight. It’s easy, buy the paper, find eight email addresses, attach my resume to all the emails, fill in my job seeker diary, fill in my fortnightly form, go and hand it in. Then I get paid. It’s not much, but I don’t need much. My parents give me all I need to live.
Wow, I am pretty pathetic. Look down the road, still no bus. Hmm...there’s a girl walking this way. She looks pretty nice from here. Dark black hair, falling below her shoulders, nice bod’. Now look down as she passes...look into her face, almost when she’s past.
...
...Umm...
Okay, this is weird. Why can’t I hear the cars going by anymore? Woah, I don’t think they’re even moving. I can feel something moving up my back. It’s this strange feeling, my skin feels strange. Now I’m holding my breath. All of a sudden I realize I’m looking into her eyes, and she’s looking into mine. This is like on those movies, when they go into slow mo’...except this is slower.
Then all returns to normal and as she continues walking down the road I glance her way a few more times, and then I miss my bus. “Stupid bus.”
You know, I have a confession to make. I have a really overdeveloped imagination. It’s like, I’m going about my day-to-day activities, and all of a sudden something will trigger my imagination, and off I go. Okay…I’m going to have to properly explain now, aren’t I? Let’s see. Say, I see some really nice looking (as in hot!) girl during the day…straight away my imagination will formulate scenarios in which we meet again. Then we might get to know each other, something interesting will happen, and we’ll end up…ah…well. No, perhaps I don’t like that scenario, so I’ll change it just to amuse myself. Say it ends and she’s in my debt. Then I realize that my imagination has gotten the better of me, and how stupid it all is. Then I bring myself back to reality.
In fact sometimes I wake up just before properly finishing one of my dreams, so I use my imagination to finish the dream. It’s better than not knowing how it ends, right? I’m going to give you another example. I’m a hero/victim in a future world. The world is controlled by a computer corporation that builds lots of robots to do menial tasks that humans would rather not. I hope that doesn’t sound too familiar. Anyway, I’m a previous employee of this corporation. My job is to “take care” of all the robots that go rouge…kind of like an exterminator, but for dysfunctional robots. It seems I know too much or something, so they are now trying to exterminate me. Big bummer. But see I am so supa-dupa, that they can’t touch me. I avoid all their attacks and escape their main complex. Outside I find a prototype car they were working on. I don’t know much about it, but I want to get out of there, so I take my chances and get in. Then I find that there is no steering wheel. Now, what would you do if you were being chased by a bunch of robots and corporate guards that were trying to kill you and you just happened to find a get away car but realize that there is no steering wheel…hell, there’s not even an ignition?!
I’ll tell you what I do. I sit back, relax and prepare to enjoy the ride. Then I say, “Go.” Hehe…be well aware that this is my dream we’re talking about. As soon as I saw there was no steering wheel I knew how the car was going to start. It’s all in my subconscious or something like that right? Yeah, something like that. Anyway, I’ll continue. Sure enough, the car starts and I’m off, bye-bye killer robots and blood-thirsty corporate guards. Pretty cool dream huh? Wait, you don’t know what color the car is! It’s a groovy yellow, with purple accents! It’s true, you can’t get any better than that.
Now blink, and we’ve got a change of scenes. You know those first person shooter video games? Yeah, that’s right, with the metal, funky looking walls, and doors that make a, “Pssshhh,” sound when they open? That’s the scene, it’s even got those weapons and ammo that seem to float in a shining aura that are placed in convenient places. Okay, now I want you to do a bit of cut and paste (that’s when you take something from one place and put it in another place). Cut out an Olympic sprinter crouched and ready to speed of to a new world record, and also cut out a nice solid picture of Rambo (including the groovy bandana!). Take the pose of the Olympian and the costume of Rambo (with the bandana), add a few high tech looking, electronic gizmos to my belt, and that’s me.
Now that you can see everything it’s time for the action! I dash forward and run over the weapons and ammo, automatically equipping everything (with that handy little “k-chick” sound from the video games). Then I dash around a corner into a longish corridor. Equipping my electro sword I take a big leap and then slice through a few of those killer, dysfunctional robots (yes, now they are killer and dysfunctional). Now you’re wondering, ‘What the hell happened to the awesome, yellow car with purple accents?!” I’m trying to recreate a dream I had, OKAY? Give me a little slack, but don’t worry…we’ll see the car again soon.
So all these robot parts are falling to the ground with little electrical sparks in the wake of my awesome presence (I’m just so skilled!). Eventually I change weapons and start mowing them down with rapid fire laser guns (I think they’re lasers…what else could they be?). After my subconscious is satisfied with the destruction caused it decides to throw an exit into this dream scene and I’m outside. I can sense that they are still after me, that psycho computer corporation. There’s a construction site and I head toward it.
Surprise, surprise, I meet two other people there who are also running from the corp. it would seem. We meet and make friends, though this part of the dream is a little sketchy so you’ll have to bear with me. So it happens we make it to the road and I stand there looking nice and calm…confident…etc. You know how it is for us heroes. My newly acquired friends ask…no, wait, I’ll describe these two dudes to you. Let’s say one is a guy, he wears a bandana like me (all of us hardcore-rebels-running-from-computer-corporation hero types do, though he isn’t as hardcore as me!), and sports nice long dread-locks. Okay, and the other is this chick. Excuse me if I take a little longer describing her…
She has a sporty physique, nice rack, nice buns, it’s all good. Then over this killer body, she wears this tight, white leather suite, with purple accents(!), and showing a fair amount of skin. Her hair is a dark red and her eyes are a bright fluro green. If you don’t like red hair, too bad, and just in case you don’t like green eyes (believe it or not, I know someone who doesn’t), too bad also. Around her neck she is wearing one of those USB hard drives. Yeah, admit it, you know what they are. It doesn’t take a computer-nerd to know what a USB is, and everyone knows what a hard drive is. Anyway, did I mention that this chick is a bit of a tomboy? Oh, and she’s really joy looking!
So she asks me, “What are you doing? They’re coming!”
I stare ahead, acting like I don’t notice how really, really good looking she is. Slowly I raise my left wrist in front of my face, and say, “Come.” You see, on my wrist is this high-tech cool thing that does cool things like, well…tell the time. But I found it in the car, you see? So obviously it has some kind of satellite connection or…something like that, hehe. Yeah, you think I’m smart now, don’t you? The thing is, by now, the dream is over and my imagination has taken over. That whole, “Come,” thing, and ‘I found it in the car’…that’s my imagination.
So you see, finally I’ve gotten to the part where I start illustrating my point about my imagination. Though by now you’ve probably learnt a bit about the wild kind of dreams I have (yeah, I can hear you saying, no…I’ve had and heard wilder dreams that that…but I don’t care…shut up). Oh, and that part about her being all sexy like, I made that up when I was awake too. So we all get in the car, I’m in the drivers seat with my seatbelt on (safety first people), and my arms folded. My passengers are in the back, first amazed at my amazing slickness and cool car, then looking out the back window at all the killer robots and blood-thirsty corporate guards that we are leaving behind. After that, they look over my shoulder and start being amazed all over again. Me, I just sit there with my arms folded, still pretending I haven’t noticed how really, really, good looking this chick is.
It’s obvious that they are not lovers, you can just tell by the way they act. This means that she’s free. All this, I calculate while at the same time, looking like I know where we’re going. When the dream starts getting boring, I just skip to another part. Though, sometimes I get interrupted by that early-morning need to pee, and so I have to get up. After that it’s pretty much all over.
I guess what I was trying to say was I’ve been thinking about that girl I saw while I was sitting at the bus stop. Okay, so here’s what I’ve got figured out. Next time we meet, we’ll be walking along the footpath and when I see her, I’ll stop. Then she’ll notice me, and she’ll stop as well. Then we’ll be standing about three meters apart, looking at each other in the eyes.
After what seems an eternity, I’ll say, “Well, fancy meeting you again. Ever since we looked into each other’s eyes that time, I’ve been wondering if I’ll ever see such beauty again as long as I live.” Then she’ll blush and look down and I’ll continue as I take a few steps forward, “Hi, I’m Rick.” Then I’ll stare into her face and wait for her to say something.
She’ll say, “Um…my name’s [her name],” and she’ll look innocently up into my eyes.
And I’ll say, “It suites you perfectly.” She’ll smile shyly and I’ll take her hand and say, “Allow me to accompany you to your destination.” We’ll walk off into the…well, wherever she’s going. I’ll say a few more smart things like, “That sounds brillian,” and, “I don’t think that could ever happen to you.” You know, while she’s telling me things, pouring out her heart to me. Yeah, we’ll be awesome. Now I’ve been lying here for hours and I just can’t seem to get to sleep. Maybe I should start counting, sometimes that works.
1…2…3…