ehowton ◾ Speeding in Reverse, Pt. VII (Reply)

Two dreams, a week apart (or there about).

First dream, I was Mormon. It was weird to be sure, but the girls were hot and I was working the room like I was on fire - my sexual advances were magic - had several lined up and couldn't have been more excited about it. Unfortunately, due to my lack of subtlety (and the fact that many of these gorgeous ladies were indeed already married), this was not ingratiating me with the menfolk who attended, nor, it would seem, their leader dude. I mean, it was almost funny because it was obvious the leader dude was grooming these women for himself, but was not making any headway as far as I could tell, and the ease at which I was able to pluck them surely clouded his already skewed judgement.

In fact the men folk, headed by the leader dude, was quickly turning into an angry mob, with their sights set on me as the source of their ire. I knew I should have been paying attention to the sermon instead of feeling up the girl in the audio/visual room where the sermons were being recorded, as it was a call-to-arms to oust me. All the ladies there were in these gossamer laced white dresses which were just adorable in addition to their stunning good looks, but I had to go, and quickly.

Like Heaven's gate, every member wore white shoes; the ladies with their white dresses, and the men with their dark suits and ties. Thankfully the stacks of white shoes were in the A/V room, placed into little shelves like bowling shoes, complete with a numbered valet system so everyone who took their shoes off prior to entering the worship portion of the temple could retrieve them after services. But some of the angry mob had broken into the A/V room in their stocking feet and upended the shelves to slow my escape. It worked. I was now staring at unkempt piles of dozens of similar-looking white shoes trying to pick out my white leather New Balance - I thought it would be easier to find with the logo embroidered on them, something the true members seemed to shy away from. I finally saw one, and had it half on before the mob descended upon me. I don't remember anything after that save this - NO REGRETS!

The second dream was just as odd as far as the setting - the WorldWide Church of God. I was mortified to be back, and honestly had no idea what I was doing there. To my surprise, older versions of everyone I had interacted with in my youth was there, and not a one of them had ever garnered the courage to question anything, ever - that much was obvious by their expressions; frozen, insincere smiles belying an intense inverse attitude I could see clearly behind their eyes - they hated it - all of it, every single one of them, but were trapped by their belief, their routine, their worldview. Each person I had known was a common, overused trope - something I'd never before noticed, but realized at that exact moment that it had always been that way, and I'd just never seen it until then. They just all had so much righteous judgement for things they were told to hate without any other reason. I was very uncomfortable all of a sudden, quickly excused myself, and bolted outside.

The air was cooler and I'd caught my breath. I saw the long, white 1960 Cadillac convertible in the parking lot and remembered why I was there: I was the driver of the mob. The same gangsters who ran the WorldWide Church of God. They would be coming out soon, so I needed to ready the car. I lowered the top despite it already being dark outside and a cool night. The car started right away and I swung it to the curb by the front door. That part was a little tricky because the curb was slightly curved; not quite a cul-de-sac. I pulled further up, past the door so I could turn the wheels to backup and straighten out even with the curb.

I put the car in reverse, placed my arm across the front seat, and turned to look behind me before applying very little pressure to the gas, as I did not need to go far, and lining up without hitting the curb with the tires didn't take much maneuvering. I moved my foot to the brake and depressed the pedal. Nothing happened. I just kept rolling backward. I pumped the brakes a few times to ensure there was pressure and feedback; pressure, yes. Feedback, no. I was dismayed that I would have to readjust the car once I finally brought it to a stop, but I knew what this was - this was my recurring speeding in reverse dream, so I was not panicked and I knew what to do. I simply pressed the emergency brake to the floor, embarrassed I'd never thought of that in the past (I have thought of that before and recorded it in Parts II, III & V).

As you can imagine, that didn't work. I pulled the parking brake release, and depressed the little petal once again. Again, nothing. I knew of one other trick when your speed is slow enough, and pulled the column shifter toward me, and all the way to the left to force it into Park which would hopefully bring the car to an abrupt jarring stop. It did not. And as usual, I was both picking up speed, and running out of parking lot.

^{Speeding in Reverse, Part I
Speeding in Reverse, Part II
Speeding in Reverse, Part III
Speeding in Reverse, Part IV
Speeding in Reverse, Part V
Speeding in Reverse, Part VI}