The Exploding Gas Station

A dream I logged in May of 2008

The dream starts off, as best as I can remember, in a parking garage. I am in the car, it was definitely and initially the Element my parents just got about 2 weeks ago. My dad is driving, and now that I think about it, he seems younger than he is now, maybe in his 40’s, but I’m probably wrong. Of the background story that I inherently know about this dream at this stage in the dream is that it is summer vacation. It felt like late June, maybe early July. We are in the parking Garage to Thrailkill Hall, except this one is near 10 levels, instead of the 4-5 it actually is. A pretty large number of people have re-cultivated a community that will never be the same any of the following years by moving back into the Thrailkill Hall Dormitory. I hadn’t moved back in, I don’t think I was either, but I also didn’t know about this faction that had nested up in there until this day in the dream. It was something I just sensed was there. I don’t think the world was as it was today though, it was much more sparse, for whatever reasons. For these purposes, a group of 25 people or so was equivocal to about ten to fifteen fold.

We are driving around the parking garage, and my dad is taking his time on the parking. The capacity of the garage is surprisingly well met, with it being much more empty on the upper two levels. There is almost a video game aspect to things because we are trying, if I remember correctly, gather salvage of something that was left from other cars (hopefully abandoned cars). I don’t know if I just wanted to get into the building so bad or didn’t want to get into any sort of ‘jackpot’ that I really wanted my dad to quit looking for a car he could stick a water hose into the muffler to and gain whatever it was that is gained from it and just park, but I know I was really pressing him to hurry up and park. So from here on, the view of our car switch from inside the car, more of a first person view, to more of a third person outside of the car view, and furthermore, from us being in the Honda Element, to us being in my 2000 Camry. It fluctuated pretty randomly. It kind of skips ahead to right after he had tried to salvage some stuff from a car that he temporarily parked next to. He gets back in and I give in (let me note that this is a real scenario in the sense that my dad is always trying to do something ridiculous to gain any sort of bit of an advantage or discount etc. while I am always just trying to get things done and over with) I tell him we can get some from Kara or David’s car.

“Let’s just find Kara’s car, I know that she probably left extra in there in case I would need it. She won’t mind.”

My dad doesn’t really comply as a result, he is still slowly cruising around. Looking for her car with me, but also still looking for that one car which has a high bounty. We drive the main levels, miss some good parking spots and don’t find her car. I realize that because it is not on the levels she usually parks, she parked out front. I reason to my dad that because there are not as many people here, there must have been spots up front, and she has always tried to park out front. We drive around to the front and because the front lobby is mostly all glass, I see her, Jason Biddle and Britney Knoeck in there playing cards during the sun’s brightest moment on a hot summer afternoon. I pretty much jump out of the car and run in there. This was enough for my dad to follow suit and not even park the car; in effect, the car disappears at this point. They have to let us in because they keep the building locked off so the school can’t come in and ruin the community from the school year, which they have recreated. There are about seven other people I see when I walk in there, but the only one I really remember is David Morgan, who was at the desk. I have no clue where exactly my dad went at this point, but he pretty much vanished also. This isn’t uncharacteristic in his real life behavior either.

Everyone greets each other and they continue playing cards. I walked up to Kara and hugged her, I hadn’t seen her since school let out, and it was a great surprise to. I don’t know what card game they were playing, but Biddle and Knoeck were pretty close to this pile of cards where they had to discard their cards for game purposes, and Kara was in a grey single sofa chair about 10 feet removed from the pile and the other two players, yet she remained there with her cards being held close to her face with both hands, leaned over a little bit and hunching enough for her to peer over her cards and at the game. In other words, she was fully focused.

While I was close to her, I let her know, not in a whisper, but still quietly, that I had to go now, and that she needs to come and visit me at my house so we can spend some time together. When I told her this, it was in a “we’re supposed to” manner, even though I was surprised to run into her at all– furthermore, she had an, “I know, I will get out of this and leave” compliance, but she also didn’t really vocally respond. In fact, she didn’t even look at me once, she just remained focused on the card game; continually checking the cards in her hand and what was happening on the floor, ten feet away, while sometimes brushing the top of her cards lightly on her top lip as some sort of fidgety mechanism while she thought through the game, I suppose.

Next thing I know, I am at my house, in the living room. The color of everything is very blue. There aren’t really any lights on, but the TV is on. It is actually on the side of the wall where my couch is right now, and the couch is on the opposite side. It isn’t dark outside, but it is nothing close to bright either, so it is just very dim and blue in the house as all I remember was that I was watching the television with Josh Bennett. It was only field goal (football) kicking. I got a call from Kara that she was on her way down at 4 pm as I watched this guy kick one in from about 60 yards. They called this 4x length in the dream though. They replayed it and showed the trajectory of the ball and the technique of kicking it longer but not as high to get the distance he needed. The TV kept chiming on as they showed a demonstration from only 20 yards out to outline the differences yet again. Josh was enthralled, and my mom was in the other room. She kept talking to us, having to yell a bit so we could hear her, but she never said anything distinguishable, I was just hearing her voice as if she were talking to me from the other room. I remember watching the television but only being excited that Kara was coming down to visit me.

Then, the dream used its trickery and made 30-40 minutes pass while staying in what was seemingly the same moment the entire time. I heard a car door close from outside and saw her car in my driveway, so I ran out there. I remember how the dream transitioned. They are always so hoppy, but I remember how this one transitioned pretty well. It was as if it were on film, and the film had gradually began to melt at a rapid pace. I saw myself run out there and great her with arms wide open. I heard the two voices become distant and muffled, but the two keys were this; she actually paid attention to me this time, as opposed to 45 minutes prior and she was excited to see me too.

Flash forward now, I am suddenly on a motorized scooter, wearing a motorcycle helmet. I’m in traffic, kind of in the Franklin area, when I remembered that my car didn’t have much gas in it to begin with. I look at the gauge and see that I am pretty much on Empty, even though I’m on my motorized scooter(like a Razer scooter) that goes fast enough to keep up with actual cars. I apparently (inherent knowledge) had to leave for a short while to go to Franklin and back, and told Kara to wait at my house, I would be returning shortly. I am on Franklin Rd., near BGA and that Golf course is to the left of me, which means that I am coming up to the light and four-way intersection of Franklin Rd. and Mack Hatcher. The light was barely in my favor as it turns green so I have a wide-open yield as I merged right. The road was totally clear and empty, perfect for me to book it to Mapco right down the street and fill up so I can get home and spend time with Madame Norman.

I don’t know why, but the dream hung with me as I drove down Mack Hatcher and past BGA and the Mormon Temple, past the Rec Center and to my Right Turn onto Hillsboro, and down to Mapco. Though deviation returned soon enough.

I arrive at Mapco, and it is pretty much evening time at this point. Not only this, but it doesn’t look like it actually does. They have their sign on, it is flickering and dim, but that is about it. I pull into it, or what I thought was it and there is nothing there, just chipped up asphalt littered with black pebbles of road and parking lot. I stood there looking around for a minute. It was mostly silent, aside from the breeze and one or two passing cars. I then saw it. It was only a 4 pump gas station in the dream, and they were next to a brick hut of sorts, making this Mapco a lot tinier than what it is in real life. Furthermore, the pumps appear to be encased in cement molds covering the pumps, or better yet, I realize now that it is more like carbonite a la Star Wars (Han Solo). What I garnered from these pumps, based off of their encasement molds, was that they were old, like 1950’s style pumps, and that they were out of order. I can connect this from reality though. I went to McDonalds the day before and they closed at 8. The manager walked by me, remarking..

“We closed at 8. We’re closed for construction.”

I heard the part about being closed for construction sift through the air, got an unpleasant feeling, and left. At this point, my entire grasp and navigational sense of the Franklin area pretty much vanished; at least for the part of Franklin I was going to. I apparently hadn’t been here in ages. I knew that I couldn’t screw up though because if I got lost and missed a gas station, I wouldn’t make it home in the near future.

I embarked left, towards Franklin High, and a little further on, Wendy’s. This area was drastically different though. I took a few turns and I ended up in what looked mostly like an older European town; perhaps a Spanish or Italian port town. There wasn’t exactly any road to speak of. It was sort of cobble stone, but the stones were less together and a little more spread out. Everything had a yellow or sandstone hue to it, even the buildings, which looked like pueblo homes. I just got a bad feeling, and I was in the center of this townlet, as I am going to call it, surrounded by these buildings.

I turned off my motor scooter for the time being and walked it up these steps of some building. Next thing I know, I was back at the normal road again. In real Franklin navigation, I just would have stayed on Hillsboro and ran into several gas stations, which is what I tried to do in the dream, but it wasn’t as easy as staying on the road I was already on. I had to weave through roads as if I were a blind man trying to stitch a baseball. I don’t remember much in detail except that I was completely lost. Things were blurry and look like they do when you trail frames in video. I turned around and decided I had just enough gas to go to another area where I am confident I can find a gas station. That place was Green Hills.

I arrived on the road of the gas station I had in mind. There was a Chinese shop, that looked more like an old fashioned, wooden garden house (it even had a garden in the back, surrounded by a wooden pen) just before the gas station. I got to the Chinese joint, the problem was the road from the point was blocked off. It was blocked off by a construction crew of sorts, except this crew decided they would just pile wreckage all over the road as if some catastrophic accident had occurred there. I thought to turn back at this point, and just hope I can make it to a station in Fairview. I was going back down the road a bit, towards home, when I knew I just couldn’t make it, so I went back towards the road blockade. I had to get gasoline from the station beyond it.

I arrived back at the pile and shut down my scooter. I pulled out my phone real quick and left Kara a message, telling her that I was having trouble with fuel and that I hoped to be home within an hour.

“I feel really terrible about all of this, just don’t leave please ok? I know you left your card game for this, but,”¦ Don’t leave, please? Call me back.”

That is something along the lines of what I said at the end of the message. I closed the phone and slipped it in my pocket. I once again picked up the scooter and walked with it. I climbed atop the wreckage and made my ascent. Upon finishing, I slid down the other side and arrived at what used to be a gas station, was a commercial building, kind of like what strip malls look like, but it also had an industrial feel to it. There was a ramp that began to my left and didn’t reach the door until it was all the way to the other side of the road. So I took the ramp.

I got inside the building, it was quiet, dark and vacant. It was also freshly carpeted. Once again, carpet you’d expect in a commercial building, not a house. I manually scootered down the hall and arrived at what was a still standing gas station. Because of the ramp entrance, I was on a floor that was about 8 feet above the area the gas pumps were at. There were two ramps on each side leading down.

This was the entire layout of this place. A hallway, which lead from store to store, as the store was a ramp’s height below the navigational hall. I don’t think whoever did this had permission to do this; it was hostile takeover in one of the most literal forms.

I got down there and the ceiling was suddenly very low. There were some tubes above me that had looked like they were roughly cut, and one of which had sparks periodically. I was about to take a look at the pumps when I heard voices coming from the other side of the hallway that I came from. I hit the ramp I originally came down with the scooter and crouched down near the top of the ramp, behind the railing and several feet away from my exit. These two guys had suits on. These suits looked a lot like the Pyro from Team Fortress 2. The proportions were, of course, more realistic, and they had more black in the suits, but other than that, they are pretty similar. They were working on the gas station they had “˜hi-jacked.’ Behind me, a security and safety door slammed shut from the top of the hallway, as did the other end. I was pretty much stuck, although the walls that surrounded the gas station were glass, so I could at least see outside.

Eventually, I rolled back down the ramp on my scooter and went to talk to the guys who were just standing stationary holding welding torches on random areas. They ended up telling me it would be about 4 more hours until the station was safe enough to use and said they could open the doors enough to let me out if I wanted to leave. One of them went up my ramp to open the door, as I stood down there with the other one who set his torch down for a moment and waited for his partner to return. Suddenly, the tube that had been sparking started to drip tons of sparks and the man (who had taken off his helmet-mask) wore a face of terror. He started shouting for us all to get out and began to head towards the ramp as one of the pumps exploded, right next to myself. The pump flew through the glass as flames and sparks erupted from beneath me and went to work on my legs. All I could hear was screaming from the other two men as they were sure that, at the least, I was losing both of my legs. I don’t know how, but I managed to get away from the blast and flames. I remember grabbing the scooter, and with charred legs, scootering off, up the ramp and out of the building. The other two men were behind me as they were running out, still yelling. You could hear distant explosions approaching as it sounded like the building had become Hell’s firstborn. They got out and we stood on top of the wreckage, between the giant commercial building and the small Chinese restaurant, listening to the explosions until suddenly the entire building exploded, with the shockwaves sending us into the air, speeding along with the millions of shards of glass.

We landed. It was on my street at sometime between 1 and 3 AM. Everyone was asleep and the street was perfectly still. The men kept yelling though.

“Take cover!,” exclaimed one. ”Run away! Run away!,” his companion shouted.

They each scattered off as suddenly bright flashing lights came skidding toward me at an instant’s pace. I ducked one and ran down into my cul-de-sac, thinking I was far enough away. The other two men ran up the street and out of sight, although one of them got hit by one of these burning lights and fell down for a while. They were basically fireworks, kind of like some suped up Roman Candles. I had been lucking out and barely dodging some of them when I saw them on the ground. Two round cylinders, perhaps a foot in diameter each, covered with white wrapping paper with colored dots spaced throughout. I circled around quickly and kicked the second one so it faced in the same direction; down towards the cul-de-sac, then began to walk back to my house.

I don’t remember any more of this dream after that.