Dream: Freefall Elevator

Up in the highest floor of the highest building, we get on the elevator. "This is going to take a while." I say to the guy pushing the button.

"Just wait." He says.

Ding.

The inside of the box is shaking and rotating like a dizzy person and then, as if flushed down a drain, we swirl and drop. Freefall. We are lifted off the floor--or rather the floor drops below us, like a cartoon. We hover only inches above as I look up to the ceiling, expecting to hit it. For a second, I worry about the inertia dampeners. Which floor will they trigger on? How long is the freefall? The elevator doesn't even try to render the floors as they whistle upward in front of the glass door. It's a meaningless blur. But from the floor to the outer walls, the rest of the world is a circle of diminishing velocity. I try to focus on the horizon, which seems to be moving slower than the ground just below.

"Caution," says a friendly female voice. It's the same voice used everywhere--that standard semi-british, might be sexy, but still comforting in a motherly way, vocals of a feminine machine. And, as always, it doesn't say the right thing.

"Grab on," says my friend. I grab the railing just in time as the inertia dampeners enable. Weight gradually comes back to my body as it slowly falls and pushes softly into the floor. "Textbook landing," says my friend.

We are running through a field in the middle of a freeway intersection. Our destination is the other side of the city but there is some kind of danger in the middle. We can hide in the tall grass if we lay down and as we run, we toggle between running upright and running squat like guerrillas. Long after the freeway dies down and the cars stop passing by, we start to hear gunshots. Several compacted bursts pop to my left. They might be firing at us. I drop into the grass, laying with my feet outstretched toward the sound of the shots. My friend also drops but not quite far enough to be unseen. I hear some talking from a young male voice, belonging to someone walking backward with an antiquated gun flimsily dangling from his right hand. He randomly fires as he walks, spraying bullets into the grass and into the air with no target in mind. I stay completely still as a bullet embeds into the dirt by my left leg. My friend makes a little noise and the boy with the gun flips around, startled, not prepared for the intrusion into his aimless stroll. I lunge forward, knocking him off his feet. My ego almost allows me to enjoy the victory but then I notice the group traveling with the boy: half a dozen, all armed, some kind of wandering youth army, the worst kind, eyes filled with fear and minds full of mayhem. We run, scattering into the grass, head over foot in a rumbling furry. Shots fire all around us, horribly aimed.

Soon, the weak gunslingers vanish in the distance. They don't even bother with the chase, the looks on our faces enough to satisfy their fancy. We press on out of the field. There's a suburb down here, populated with the excrement of American dreams. One of the houses contains our quarry, protected by a child with a machete. He'll never let us leave alive.