The Rembis Report And Other Fascinating Topics - Volume CXXXV

This essay is the fourth in a weekly series about the personal nature of thinking, thought progression, dreams, and ponderings on the subject of quantum entanglement.

I recommend reading this from the beginning.

CLICK HERE for Albatross - Part I

CLICK HERE for Albatross - Part II

CLICK HERE for Albatross - Part III

Right now, I am not sure how long it will take me to write this. I am fairly confident we are heading into five or six part territory on this subject, which I did not expect. But, creativity is a fluid endeavor.

I am not trying to come up with excuses, it is just that the more I think about my dreams, the more I recall. The more I recall, the more I have to say, and the more I have to say, the more I need to edit. Maybe that is just writing, but the point is that since I began relating the story of what is happening in Dreamland Four, when I leave waking life to sleep, I keep finding myself hanging around in Dreamland One. I haven’t been back to Dreamland Four since I started talking about it.

I spent this week walking through the neighborhoods. I don’t know why, or where I was going, but I know the streets in Dreamland One well enough to draw a map now. It is primarily residential. I don’t know of any city center, or how to find a busier area, other than the street I work on and the street down the block, but even at that, there is no heavy traffic. Nobody seems to be going anywhere. It is a quiet place.

Not like Dreamland Four, a.k.a. Mall City. That is a busy place,

Mall City has many more facets to it than I have already related. I am not going to get to all of them, that would take many more reports. But I should fill in a few extra details.

The more I think about it, now that I am writing it out, Mall City reminds me of Spokane, Washington. In waking life, my dear, sweet wife Ellen and I once opened an art gallery in Spokane. I also sold cars in Spokane, worked at an orange juice and corn dog manufacturer, sold promotional coupon books for the National Center For Missing & Exploited Children, and did a stint at an introductory dating service where we helped singles connect. Each of these places is a story unto itself, but I wonder if all of these things influence my impression of Dreamland Four. Is it live or is it Memorex?

No way to know for sure. Whether it is a real place or just something my brain put together in my sleep, doesn’t even matter, because whether I am there or I am here, I know where I am in the moment. I recall Mall City in waking life in detail. I wonder if, when I sleep in Mall City, I dream of my life and myself writing this. That is one thing I do not know.

The downtown section of Mall City is connected to the rural area to the north by 7th Street. This is the only street in all of the Dreamlands that I know the name of. Unlike Mrs. Song, who I have named for the sake of telling you the dream, 7th Street is definitely the name of this major north-south street in Mall City. I know where I am going when I drive there.

Having 7th Street lead north from Mall City, towards the rural area where I live, and then further on to the mall where I work is curious, because it makes me wonder if my mind has fabricated this place, or if it is a real place, somewhere out there where my doppelganger lives, on another plane of existence. The reason I wonder this, is because I lived in Bozeman, Montana for a couple of years, and drove through it many, many times when passing through, as I lived in neighboring areas. Bozeman has a major north-south street named 7th Avenue that heads off alongside interstate 90 in a northwesterly direction. That is as far as the similarities go. They do not look the same.

So, did my subconscious create 7th Street and Mall City by capturing and combining elements of both Spokane and Bozeman? Or, is Mall City a unique and real place unto itself, with similarities to these places?

In Dreamland Four, Ellen works in downtown Mall City. I am not sure what she does, but it seems to be a retail shop or office within one of the many hallways. It is upscale, appearing to have something to do with fashion or furniture design, or maybe architecture. She is always nicely dressed, and works with two young ladies who are not rude, but are also not particularly friendly towards me when I visit. They are not the same young women that I have seen in our house. They seem to direct their attention to their phones when I am there.

My dreams were vivid last night, I felt them, but upon awakening, the only detail I am able to recall is that I was looking at the tag on the collar of a shirt, and I think it read T-FAL, which happens to be a popular brand of cookware. Maybe it was something else, but that is all I can remember from my dreams last night. Now I have no idea which Dreamland that may have been in. Did that tag mean anything? Not in waking life. In Dreamland, who knows?

Bringing Dreamland into full view in waking life is difficult. You must know from your own experience that when you wake up, you know your dream, you think about it, and it slips away, and you wonder what it was. It was right there. You just had it. On the edge of your brain, the tip of your tongue, and it was important. It felt important. You ask yourself, what does it mean?

If only there were a way to record dreams, then we could watch them and fill in the blanks of what we missed, like a TV show that put us to sleep, but could see later.

That is the trouble I have in completing the story of what happened in my quest to find Mrs. Song. I know that people were talking about me, watching me, and that it had to do with those soft, paper-bound packages in the trunk of my car. Instead of knowing what happened after dinner, my memory flickers to another time within Mall City, and I am driving away from downtown on 7th Street, heading home, alone, in the daytime.

I drive into the farm roads that lead to my house, gaining elevation as I get toward the hill. I see my neighbors farm style homes and big fields. Some have horses. I get home and I am in my house, but not alone. There are two men confronting me. They know that I have not delivered my packages to Mrs. Song.

I can’t recall the full conversation, but I know they said that I broke the chain of custody, just like the blond kid in the yellow car who gives me the packages told me. So, I lie to them. I gave them to the old lady, and have been every time. There is nothing I can do for them.

Why I do not just give them the packages, I don’t know. We argue and they threaten me. They say they are going to search my house. I tell them to go ahead. Search.

But they do not know my house as I do. They go into the back rooms, behind the bunker, where there are no windows, and the only way out is at either end. So, I lock them in.

They are trapped. I shut off the lights from outside. I listen for screaming, but don’t hear it. I leave the house.

The next thing I know is that I am at my mall, by my parking area, and the kid in the yellow car drives up. He has been beaten badly. He is scared. He tells me that they think he broke the chain, when he knows good and well, I was the one who did not deliver the packages.

But without Mrs. Song to give them to, I did not know where they should go.

The kid asks for my help. He needs to hide and asks me to drive him someplace. He knows if he drives his car they will be looking for it.

“Who?” I ask.

“Them.” he says.

I tell him to park it on the other side of the loading dock, by the forest, where the security guard hangs out. He does.

He gets in my car and we drive. We converse, but all I know is that I am taking him home to his parent’s house, where he will be safe. It is far, a couple of hours to get there. We drive from the mall south, past my neighborhood and the men locked in my house, down 7th Street, and into Mall City. Then across town toward the municipal buildings, and over the hills onto the coast to head north again. There are no shortcuts through the hills to get to the coast, you must go through Mall City. The road turns north and weaves through hills and rocky shoreline.

After a while, there is a wide shallow river, like a floodplain. The road runs alongside until we get to another small town that is built up into the hills above the coast. It is a pretty town. Quaint. It is in a different municipality, like we crossed a border into another county or state. There is no graffiti here, like I sometimes see in Mall City.

It gets dark while we are there. The sun sets on the other side of the hill. I drop the kid off. He gets out of the car and goes inside his parent’s house.

I drive away, and I think about the packages. I drive back up to the house and entertain the thought of putting all the packages on the front porch. But, I don’t.

Instead, I drive back to my mall, and put all the packages in the trunk of the kid’s car.

That is all I remember.

What next? I don’t know. Maybe the car will be stolen, or I will have it towed off the property.

What about the guys in my house? I don’t know that either, but if Ellen finds them, she will kick their asses, I am confident of that.

Where is Mrs. Song? Will I ever find her? Why didn’t I ever open the packages? Are those girls our daughters?

So many more questions than answers when you awake from Dreamland, right?

If there were more to tell you, a solid story about what else happened, I would. But I don’t have that. Not yet, anyway. I have a complete mental picture of the place, yet only vague memories of what happened there.

But I am probably not done with it.

If I go back to sleep and find myself embroiled in whatever drama awaits me with brown paper packages and the missing old Chinese lady, I will let you know.

Thanks for reading.

CLICK HERE to read Albatross - Part V

If you are new to the Rembis Report and would like to read any of the previous issues, PLEASE CLICK HERE to access the archives. To read it from the beginning, PLEASE GET A COPY of The Rembis Report: An Observation.

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