EXECUTING CLASSMATES

Ok, in the early morning hours of Monday, January 29th, 2007, I had an odd dream – seriously odd. I had a job in a department store of some kind. What was my profession? Did I work at the checkout? Did I stock items? Oh no… I was an executioner.

Every store has one, don’t they?

And I wasn’t just in charge of executing nameless, faceless criminals. No, I was in charge of strapping former classmates into the electric chair. I think I killed four or five people. I can’t recall all of them. But two of the departed were fellow “Class Of 1989” blog entries of mine, Stacey Erickson and Markus Petkevicious. What had they done? I don’t know. But I strapped them in, and gave them the juice.

And then it got weird.

The next person to get strapped in was Jason Anderson. So I did my job. I put the strap on his skull, and pulled the switch. A few moments later, Jason slumped to the floor. Then I went to check on him. He was still alive! So he got up, completely out of breath, and in obvious pain. I commended him on his ability to stay alive. Then he wandered around the store a bit. And not unexpectedly, he received a lot of sympathy from people – people including his friend and fellow classmate, Jay Rozmarynoski. Becky Koeppel also showed up to give her support. I of course hovered next to Jason for the most part – so he wouldn’t run away, I imagine. I happened to have my digital camera on me. And not wanting to miss a photo opportunity, I asked Becky if I could take a picture of her, as I didn’t (and don’t) have a recent one of her for my class blog. But she declined. When I asked her why, she said she didn’t approve of my blog because of some of the negative aspects of it. Specifically, she pointed out that Stacey Erickson had left some bad comments about Kevin Dehne. For the record, she hasn’t.

Well, as the dream continued, I myself was pretty shook up about it. I was torn. In one aspect, I too was moved by Jason’s experience and wanted him to live. On the other hand, I felt I was duty-bound to do my job. I was very upset. And at one point, I started crying. For the record, Jason was crying too. I even asked him if he had some place he could disappear to, if I happened to let him go. He said he did.

In the end, my duty ethics won out. I sort of lead Jason back to the electric chair. At one point he decided to bolt. For a brief second, I thought about appealing to Jason’s pride, and had thought about saying something like, “Jason, it’s time to man up. Be a man and don’t run away.” But I didn’t have to go that route. Jason’s run lasted for only a second or two. He happened to run right toward the electric chair. And once he saw it, he stopped. He even put the electric strap on his own head.

As Jason sat down in the chair, the coroner showed up. He had come to take the body away. He was 45 minutes late. But since Jason survived the first shock, it all worked out. Once the coroner was there, I knew there was no way I could let Jason go now.

So anyway, I placed the hood over Jason’s head, and flipped the switch. As I looked back at Jason, I saw that he had somehow managed to get the hood off. So he was looking right at me. Knowing that the jolts of electricity could cause his eyes to come out of their sockets, I pleaded with him to close his eyes tight. It was really loud. So I had to scream it at him. I was thinking that there would be less pain if his eyes stayed in his head. I was genuinely motivated to have his suffering as painless as possible. Jason obliged and shut his eyes. Determined not to have a repeat performance, I let the electricity flow through him longer than normal. Eventually, Jason’s body slumped to the floor. After I turned off the juice, the coroner confirmed that Jason was in fact dead.

After Jason was dead, I decided that I was going to quit my job, effective immediately. It was too horrible to go on any further.

And that’s pretty much how my dream ended.

I must admit, when I woke up, I was a bit disturbed at this dream. Killing these classmates was an absolutely awful feeling. I don’t recall ever having a dream like this before.

So my question is this. What does this dream mean? Can anyone interpret it? I’m too lazy to check the internet myself. I’m not sure I want the “answer.” I’d like to know what others think.

Anyone?