Nap of August 18, 2009 Woke up at 4:20 PM

I remember the entire dream was like in Fallout 3. Stuff looked the same (only more realistic), there were the same voices, etc. The places I went were new and completely different. I was walking around some docking yards after wandering the Wasteland for a while. Some Brotherhood of Steel knights were rummaging through the post-apocalyptic ruins for old tech. The building we were in and around was huge. There was a wide, tall office building with empty large floors and all the furniture gone. A huge two-story tall bridge with windows and the works spanned 150 feet long, two stories above the ground. It connected to what looked like an old abandoned mall. I asked the Brotherhood of Steel people if I could just tag along with them for mutual security and because I was going through that area too. They agreed and we all proceeded to enter the office building. A lot of the doors were blocked and nearly all the furniture was either taken or burned away. The walls and windows were mostly missing making it look like a construction site. We proceeded onto the top level of the bridge. It was a bit like a really long attic built really just for access to the bridge's roof. I saw a large CD nearly the size of a record disc and so I picked it up, knowing it would unlock more background music (like in Super Smash Bros. Brawl). Although it all looked, felt, listened and smelled like real life, I think I perceived it a bit like a video game at the same time as know it was real life. Perhaps it was more like real life had video game characteristics, I don't know (or really care). Meanwhile, my new friends were being attacked by raiders, yelling their usual, annoying catchphrases and battle cries. I ran up, helped them in the gun fight and we continued across the bridge into the mall from where the raiders came out of. Inside, there were no raiders or other people. Fewer things were missing, the walls were intact, it was dark, the escalators which criss-crossed the middle of the building were still intact, there were consumer goods still on the shelves and it was pretty much in a well preserved condition. I walked out the doorway from the bridge and turned to the left and walked into a store with video games and ATV's. Homer Simpson was with me now, even dressed in the same dark, faded green Ranger's Battle Armor. He jumped on one of the display ATV's and started to ride in circles around the store floor. A gaunt, bony, very strict looking old woman at the counter asked Homer if he had taken classes on how to ride the ATV's. The question was not a hidden compliment but a verification that he should be allowed to ride at all. She had to ask several times until finally Homer turned off the ATV. The woman asked one more time very sternly and glared at him. Home beated around the bush and very slowly backed towards the door. Seeing what was coming, I ran up beside him. Swiftly, we turned and walked quickly out the door. The woman protested angrily, "You're not just going to run away, are you?" but we were already gone. Havin forgotten completely about the Brotherhood of Steel, I sat down at a kiosk where the two main characters from Schindler's List (I forget their names) were serving drinks to Natasha. As Homer sat down, he turned into Chuck Nolan from Cast Away. He ordered a drink. Natasha, who looked a little older but still certainly not of drinking age, ordered a small drink in a shot glass by wispering into the bartender's ear and gave it to me, saying she recommended it. She trying to supress a smile, I agreed. It tasted acidic and with a corrupted sweetness and on the whole very bad. She laughed to herself at her little prank and revealed it was, "Stale Ale". The drink wasn't that bad so I shrugged and looked at Tom Hanks. Music started playing. Heavy, dramatic, orchestral music of the kind played when the world is ending of a main character is dying of a heart attack and he dragging himself on the floor, two feet away from the dropped bottle of medication that would instantly cure him. That's exactly what Tom Hanks' situation looked like. Suddenly, people appeared out of nowhere as if there the entire time but invisible. They were dark and gloomy, like the ghosts on the train in Spirited Away. Tom Hanks was on the floor, slightly spasming, eyes wide open in terror of an unknown thing. Everyone else walking by saw him as a pathetic curiosity to swept up later or didn't see him at all. Somehow I knew it was the music bothering him and as it grew louder and the orchestra was reaching its climax, I explained to him, that that was all it was: music. Still scared, but coming to his senses, he looked at me, then slowly sat up as I said, "Listen, here is the part in the the would-be movie where the giant wave swells up and is about to hit the ship, and, hear, the hero's medicine is at his fingertips and the theater audience silence their heartbeats to listen and feel as they wait together, huddled in fright and anticipation, to see on their silver screen if he will live or die. In their frozen heads, they know the ending to all those sorts of movies, but in that sacred second, they forget and they wait." At that, I wake up.