Concerning Magic: Not Illusions...Nor Tricks, Which Are What Whores Do For Money

    We were at war or, rather, the enemy was.  The peaceful kingdom didn't stand a chance, especially not when dark magic was at play.  I suppose you need a little background; you see, we lived in a world that was pretty much a standard fantasy book setting.  You've got your one really powerful kingdom that had recently gone on hard times, there's an evil force that had been gathering support from the surrounding lesser kingdoms and was prepping to take the former down, and one cannot forget that, of course, magic was a real thing.

Magic.  Not to be confused with illusions...or tricks, which are what whores do for money.

   As real as magic may have been it was also a pretty rare to be good at it; everyone could do simple magic like lifting small items, basically a lazy person's dream, but there were some who were quite powerful and helped each other learn more as a group; in classic dream style I was naturally part of that group.  Surprisingly (because my dreams never allow this sort of thing), I quickly went through the ranks and became the most talented and powerful with magic; I experimented with magic quite often and even found a way to be able to fly in a controlled hover sort of way.  I wasn't a magic miser so I, of course, shared the things that I learned on my own and we turned into a sort of flying, magical team for good which would eventually come in handy when the great and evil sorcerer Magnar decided he wanted to take over absolutely everything.

Not to be confused with Magmar, no matter how similar.

    And so Magnar created a massive following of evil henchmen and even created his own primitive, magical powered robots.  He did all of this in secret and so came completely out of nowhere; it was a huge, horrible surprise for the kingdom.  The peaceful qualities of the kingdom really did nothing for them in this situation and the war was more like a hostile takeover than anything else.  The kingdom's army wasn't remotely formidable and the king would rather surrender than lose thousands of lives.  But Magnar really reveled in killing people so the kingdom lived in terror while some brave few fought back with little to no success.  Then one day a huge shadow was cast across the capital of our kingdom; above was a giant chunk of land just floating in the air.  Upon further inspection by our magical group of do-gooders, what lay on top of the chunk of land was a huge city topped with a castle that Magnar had somehow built for himself.

Like this but on a much bigger scale.  Where's Link when you need him?

    We decided that this was as good a time as any to launch a massive attack.  We split up into smaller groups and went off in different directions to wreak havoc on the general evil population; I, however, went to take on Magnar.  I flew to the castle and battled my way throughout it, but Magnar was nowhere to be found.  I took a sword from one of the expired minions and used a spell that would track strong sources of magic; as it turned out Magnar was in the back courtyard.  He was looking through a book that I recognized, anyone could have by its appearance, as a book of dark magic.  The book was dark red and had symbols carved all over it that glowed an acidic green.  Instead of doing the typical thing and talking at him, I opted to just hurl a spell at him while his nose was in the book.  He caught on fire for a second but then appeared to absorb it as he stood up and threw the book to the ground.  Then the magic battle ensued.

I wanted to use Gandalf and Saruman, but let's be honest, their fight didn't have the visual panache
that Dumbledore and Voldemort provide.  

    I wasn't familiar with Magnar's spells and could really only defend myself with my own magic since he seemed to be just absorbing my spells.  I quickly decided that going on my own was a mistake; fatigue was taking over and I just didn't know what do to until I remembered that I had a sword and we were getting quite close to each other in order to use spells that weren't ranged.  So, I stabbed him; everything was over and Magnar and I didn't even have to say a word to each other.  I magically communicated with the rest of the group the incredible victory that we had just won and they informed me that everything was under control in the rest of the floating city.
    Then the city started shaking, like in any classic video game, the the evil city was falling to pieces as soon as the evil guy in charge was dead; not really a big deal if everyone steered clear of buildings.  But then the whole ground started rocking violently as well and I hovered above it to avoid wobbling.  Horrified, I sensed the magic that held up the piece of land suddenly let go.  The ground fell away beneath me; the entire chunk of land and city and screaming people plummeted downward.  Right on top of the city I was saving below.  My horror slowed everything down; I held my hands out in a useless gesture and saw the no longer floating city tumble over and over downward until it smashed into the capital, completely engulfing it in rock and dirt.  My city was gone, mostly everyone had to be dead, and it was my fault.

My brain does not give me a break; and that's when I woke up.

The Dream All Customer Service Employees Share

    Before you read this next post you should have a little background information.  My expensive BA  degree opened up many doors for me, doors that led to the glamorous world of retail;  I'm positive that many of you are in the exact same boat.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with the working lives of those in the customer service industry, you should know that we pretty much see people at their worst; apparently most people think "service" is the same thing as "servant".  Long story short, working as customer service of any kind is rather soul crushing.  The following dream appears to be a manifestation of my unconscious desires.

    Marshall and I owned a decent sized, modern house that had a smaller, second house attached.  Apparently we were starved for more torture than our customer service jobs could provide us, so we decided to open up our own clothing store in the smaller house.  The small house was one floor and actually didn't have a kitchen, which made converting it into a store much easier.  We made some alterations so that we had a hall full of fitting rooms; the hall itself was very wide and at the end of the hall was a wall of windows with a clear door in the middle, but that door was always locked.
    One evening we were technically already closed but, of course, we still had two people in the fitting rooms.    Anyone who works in retail knows exactly how annoying that can be; so I was straightening things and grumbling about the customers when I heard some strange noises.

I like to think this references either the fate of rude customers or what working in retail actually is.

At first I assumed the noises were just regular obnoxious customers noises but then there was screaming.  I looked around but Marshall had already left the store to go do some studying.  I walked hesitantly toward the fitting rooms and the scream became two screams, so I ran.  The scene that unfolded before me was both baffling and horrific; the glass door was open, one customer was standing in front of his room screaming and pointing,  and fleeing the scene was a huge bear with the other customer in its mouth.  I stood there, doing nothing, and completely in shock as the oddly polite bear shut the door behind it.  

We tracked down the bear and had a conversation with him later over a picnic lunch.

    As the bear disappeared into the night so did the customer disappear into his fitting room; suddenly composed I metaphorically shrugged my shoulders and went back to straightening the store.  The remaining customer came out of the fitting rooms and asked me for some different sizes of various articles of clothing and I gently reminded him that we were closed while still grabbing the clothes for him.  He went back to his fitting room and I impatiently waited behind the cash register, furiously willing him to spend at least one hundred dollars.  As I mused upon my life's mistake of opening up my own clothing store to forever spend my life doing customer service I heard screams again.  This time I ran as fast as I could, right away, to the fitting rooms and a more grisly scene awaited me.  Heh heh, grisly.  

    There was blood everywhere.  The bear was back and held the top half of the customer in its jaws; it stared at me for a moment before loping out the door, this time leaving it open.  That's about when I lost it.  I ran to the main house and, in hysterics, told Marshall what happened.  What was I supposed to do in this situation?  Who do I call? 911?  But the people were missing except for two legs.  The police?  Animal control?!?  We ran back over to the fitting rooms and the first thing we noticed was that the glass door was shut again, the blood was gone, and so was the rest of the customer.  

    Marshall decided I must have dozed off and dreamed the whole thing, and he went back to studying.  I saw small specks of blood still on the floor and the customers' clothes were still in the fitting rooms.  Nonplussed, I sat down in front of the glass door and peered into the night; all I could think about was why the bear was so polite.  Does that make my dream self a sociopath?

And that's when I woke up.