Air Guitar Testing Center

I had my guitar with me, and I was walking along a narrow mountain pass overlooking a lake. It was a windy day, and the guitar kept getting tugged out out of my hand by the wind. Held to my chest only by the strap, the wind kept trying to pull it skyward like a kite. A particularly strong gust threatened to lift us both off of the mountain, and I had no choice but to disconnect the strap and watch the guitar go sailing. 

It landed in the lake. Immediately I regretted the decision to release the guitar, and I went down to the lake to retrieve it. Some kids were swimming with their dad, and I asked them to please push the guitar towards shore. They complied, grudgingly, and I got the guitar back. It was already waterlogged and had become almost unrecognizable. All the electronics were gone, the finish was faded, and it had a  cardboard like appearance.

 

 

The testing center was a sprawling complex of buildings, some single level and others four and five stories high. The floors were a highly polished industrial linoleum, and the hallways were a labyrinth like affair, laid out like a hospital, with lots of switchbacks and dead ends, guaranteed to make anyone lose their sense of direction.

Finding one’s correct homeroom is never easy, and of course I was late for the intake exam, having struggled to navigate the maze-like structure. The teacher had already handed out the tests, so I silently slunk into my seat, a standard metal folding chair in a long row of chairs, filled with tittering, gossiping students, smirking with satisfaction at my discomfort. As punishment for being late, the teacher seated me next to a girl who was contagious with some kind of infectious disease.

“I hope you don’t mind getting sick,” he said.

The girl was pretty, a blonde with a round, smiling face. She moved her seat so that her chair was touching mine, and she was practically in my lap.

“I don’t mind in the least,” I said. “But if you want to make sure that I get sick, there are ways…” I said suggestively.

At that, the girl nuzzled closer and laid a gentle kiss on my lips, catching me pleasantly by surprise. I gazed back into her eyes, and we exchanged a few more more kisses.

“To ensure the contamination is complete,” I said, winking.

Things got hazy at this point, and I spent much of the dream walking through the hallways, going from building to building, looking for the girl from the exam room. I found myself in many different situations, sometimes alone and sometimes with large groups of students. Everyone was waiting for their test results, trying to get to the next level. 

Still carrying the guitar from the previous dream, eventually I set it against the wall and climbed to the top of a small building to get a better view. Another guy climbed up the building after me, and the two of us sat there on the roof, talking about logistics and purpose. Neither of us had much of a clue as to why we were there. It just seemed like this was the game, and we were bound to play.