23 May 2024
Dream
I was walking around town and ran into a homeless man I used to know. He was being harassed and I intervened. He was really happy to see me, I hadn’t seen him in a couple years. We were walking for a little while and I asked him if he was hungry. He said yeah, and got really excited and said he knew a place he would love to go. I told him I would get him anything he wanted and we started to walk toward the river. As we walked in began to get worried about the time, and told him I couldn’t take too long because I might get in trouble if my absence from work was noticed, even though I secretly knew it was my day off. He assured me that the place was nearby, so we kept walking.
We came to a bridge that was like an overpass but there was no road underneath it, just a grassy ravine. I looked down and saw pandas living down there, but immediately noticed that many were also dead and in various states of decay. I asked aloud what so many pandas were doing living in the city like this and wondered how I had never seen them before. I also wondered why so many of them were dead and wanted to do something to save the remaining ones. Before my friend could answer, I noticed a momma panda with her baby that were near me at the top of the ravine. There was a third, dead panda laying next to them. Behind them I could see a tan truck that had another dead panda in it and watched for a little while as they loaded another dead on into the truck. I thought it was really weird and wanted to know why they were loading up dead pandas, so I took out my phone and began recording them. They must have seen me record them, because they started to drive away but I followed them, with my homeless friend following behind me. They pulled some sneaky maneuvers and pulled into a gas station behind a red truck, and then as I tried to catch up they sped away in the other direction. I was still recording them on my phone and running now, trying to catch up to them. They eventually lost me, and I was angry at this point at what they might be doing with all those pandas. My friend told me it was best not to get involved, but as a biker gang slowly passed, I asked one of them if they knew anything about the pandas and the men that were taking them. They told me the men were dangerous and I should stay away if I cared about my safety. I decided I was going to try to get to the bottom of this and what was going on, but pretended I wouldn’t go back there again. I couldn’t wait to tell my boyfriend about this when I got home, and hoped the video would be clear enough to make out. I also remembered that it would have to location where I had filmed it, and that if it wasn’t clear enough to see what was going on, I could bring him back here and just show him.
I told my friend I was sorry for keeping him from getting food, and we resumed our walk to the restaurant. I realized that I may have put him in danger and expressed to him that I was worried he might not be safe on the streets after being seen with me while I was recording those men. He told me he was never safe, and kept leading the way to the restaurant, unfazed. We eventually came to a lobster restaurant, and I got worried about how much money this was going to cost. We walked right through a bunch of people playing bingo, and as I tried to follow I kept bumping into the people and getting elbowed. I eventually turned around and found a different route that was less crowded. I saw him at the host stand and as I went to catch up to him, I saw that some people were looking at me wide-eyed and shaking their heads, as if to warn me of something. We got to the host stand and I asked the waiter how his day was. He shrugged and replied “you know, just slinging burgers” in an unexcited tone. I asked him what was good on the menu, and again he shrugged. I kind of laughed and asked if he had ever worked customer service before. A waitress nearby perked up and said that she had, and the waiter we had been following pulled a baked potato out of his pocket and told me the potato’s were good as he squished it in his hand. As he squished it, some bacon popped out of the potato onto his shirt. I laughed and told him that was a funny trick, but he didn’t look pleased. Then I was woken up by a truck’s back-up beeping outside my window.
