GVoice

This post is really for Aurash. Aurash and his new found love for Google Voice.

I had another vivid dream, which seemed like a fever dream, but I was only in deep sleep in the heat, which made it feel like one.

I'm at work in the bookstore. Behind the register, recommending books left and right, moving a line of people waiting impatiently with heavy books in their arms. My mom walks up from the line and asks me about which books in her stack she ought to get. As I begin to sort through them, the store's lights go out, and everyone ducks and disappears in the darkness of the store. My mom and I are the only ones left, it seemed. I wrench her behind the counter with me where we crouch, and I start dialing '911' on the store's phone; for some reason, it keeps reaching the intercom, despite using an outside line. No matter. I pull out my cell phone (which I never carry on the floor, dumb dream), and dial '911.' It runs straight to the store's intercom, and instead of getting someone nice and authoritative, I hear my own breathing all over the store. What the fuck? A dark shadow passes over our store's doors. Someone is trying to get in, and I can understand in the dream that this person isn't good. My mom hands off her phone to me; she is calm and doesn't share the anxiety over this dark foreboding presence that lingers inside and by the store's doors. In fact, she's talking about which books she'd rather buy when the store's lights are back up. I flip open her Samsung and dial '911.' The ring is dead. At least it isn't hooked up to the intercom. "Mom, your phone isn't working." "Try calling again." Her logic makes sense. I dial again. There is a tone. Success! This is no longer a nightmare! Then I hear a ringing. I look down at my phone. No. It isn't the store's phones. I strain my ears. The ringing comes from outside, right by the doors, where that someone menacing is struggling to break in. On the fourth ring, Menacing Someone picks up. He laughs into my ear. Heart racing, I drop my mom's phone. Frantically, I beckon my mom to follow me, and on our elbows and stomachs, we reach the back room, which has turned into a long and dark hallway, not unlike any horror movie I've seen before. I hear the man come into our store, and my fear is heightened. I spot a flickering screen in the corner of the room - it's a computer monitor. I leave my mom, flipping through her books (still) and scramble to reach help on the web. On the screen was my Google Voice inbox. I push back the keyboard with my palms, shocked. Every number that I have ever dialed with was hooked up to the account. And for some strange logic, this was the reason why every time I dial a number, it was either linked to the man at the door or the intercom in the store. I don't even attempt to dial '911' with the Google number. I am lost, no, we are lost already. This is when I realize that the walls are covered with my Action pictures a year ago - Walt Whitman's face peered down at me from yellowing paper, and I can see dying horses and mass Civil War graves, soldiers limbs poking up in greeting. This is the last straw. I grab my mom and scramble underneath a desk. Then he walked in.

The rest of the dream consisted of my mom being able to go home. My brothers had been away, and this affected my mom's ability to go the right home, but she was reunited with my dad, and that's all I ever wish for her. But I was stuck in that room with the flickering monitor, and three of my theatre professors. The dream also turned sexual, and I wasn't unwilling. Which is ... bizarre, seeing how my professors are old and so not attractive. But the point is - my cell phone SCARES me now. This is definitely one of those dumb horror flicks about the menaces of your mobile devices (and in this case, Google Voice), and I am freaked that it reached the movie screen of my feverish dreams.