I started out at Mike's House. I was there with Em's parents. They had come to visit, but while they were there, Em's mom kept going around and trying to "improve" everything. I think after the initial "Hello" and such, we suddenly found Em's mom outside the back door (by the new kitchen) and up on a ladder. She was scraping away at the stucco on the siding of the house, claiming that it wasn't smooth enough. I didn't think that was a good idea at all because it wasn't my house, and I knew that if she kept doing that, something bad was going to happen, such as pulling off all the stucco, leaving the wire lathe exposed. Even though the door was shut, I think that if we spoke loudly enough, she could hear us, because I think that we were yelling to her to stop what she was doing (We, meaning Em and I. Paul was just watching and grinning, kind of like "Hey, would you look at that!")
It took a bit, but we finally convinced her that whether or not she liked it or thought it looked right, she needed to stop, and so she did. She wound up kind of walking or hopping the ladder away from the side of the house. I guess she gave it too much "oomph" because at one point she started to go too far backwards, nearly falling back, and when she did so, the ladder folded up under her (no longer forming the A frame shape) and the far legs caught the ground closer to her, actually knocking her back harder, and caused her to fall right back on her butt from about 6 feet up. We knew that she was alright, and we were snickering about it.
Then after that I went outside, and I was going around the perimeter of the yard. I was going around by the back corner of the yard where the neighbor's trailer used to be (around "the swamp") and looking at the plants growing there beyond our mowing boundary. I found some of those "poke" plants that have the purple berries on them that stain your fingers when squished. I think Em picked some first, and then her mom did, before I could even get a chance to tell them not to because of how it would stain their fingers. Em looked at her fingers and was kind of like, "oh, yeah... I see". I don't think that Em's mom had any response to it.
Then I left that area and I walked down through the middle of the yard by the end of the chicken house and the garage. While I was walking through there, there was something being talked about that I don't remember. We finally wound up walking around to the front of the house to go in. Just as we were ready to go in, someone said something about "the dead dog". I didn't know what they were talking about, but I knew that the people living in the trailer recently had a dog to die out in the yard.
I thought they were talking about that at first, but then Em pointed out by the road and said, "No, that one!" There was a little tan chihuahua out by the road that was turned over on it's back and was attached to a pink leash. It was quite dead, and the neighbors in the house didn't seem to know about it. I think Paul (Em's dad) went to go tell the neighbors and see what they wanted to do about it. The other three of us went inside.
After we got inside, Paul finally came back, and he said that he wound up having to bury the dog in the middle of the front yard. I thought that was great of him to do so, and I felt bad that he had to do it rather than the neighbor doing it.
Then I went inside. When I got in there, things were quite a bit different. It was as if I was coming out of this huge hallway, almost like a mall, and going into a very small store, but the store was actually a military style (as far as I can tell) bunking room. There were minimalist bunk beds in there, but only about 5 of them, and they were on the left wall, with only a little bit of room to walk past the foot of the beds on the right side. I was told that the first bed on top was mine. That was the "guest" or "newbie in training" bed. I accepted it and somehow set up my stuff around/in it. The room was very dark. It pretty much seemed that the only light coming into the room was through the open end of the room that went into the hallway. There were other people in there that I knew at the time, but I don't remember now. I think I may have taken a brief nap there just to get myself settled in, but then I was up shortly after, and we all went to the bathroom.
The bathroom was set up very similar to the bunking quarters in that it was small and narrow, and had about 5 toilet stalls on the left side. The first one, again, was mine, and so I went in. When I stepped in, someone had put one of those big rolls of toilet tissue (the cheap ones that are a foot in diameter used for public restrooms) down in my toilet. I had some sort of stick or rod there to get it out with, so I picked it out and flung it up and over the left hand wall. There was supposed to be a big trash can just on the other side of the wall, but as I flung it over, I got sprayed with a lot of toilet water.
After getting all disgusted, I looked down and realized that whoever had been there previously had not even flushed, so I got drenched with quit a bit of urine, too. I came out and was trying to dry/clean myself off, and a couple of my bunk mates were commenting to me about it and asking if I was okay. I think I wound up going back to the bunk to change, and while I was there, the person in charge (Sergeant?) came by and told me that after I served out my "testing time" and got to be accepted as a permanent member, I would be able to have someone move into my bottom bunk who would be my significant other. I said, "Oh! Good! Thank you!" and he left.
I then left turned right and headed up the hallway to the end of the facility. At that end was where everything was happening. There was a cafeteria, shopping, and this large maze or obstacle course where people were competing to finish it and do it in the quickest time possible. I watched this going on for a while. There were people inside the labyrinth that were part of it all, and they were supposed to do things like ask trivia questions or physically block the passage of the person going through the maze. Each person had a number of "misses" that they could take, one for each letter of the alphabet, and tally was kept by labeling it as a/z or f/z or x/z, showing that they were at letter 'x' out of 'z', or 26. I finally decided that I was going to go through it.
So after the main meal time, I got ready and went upstairs to the beginning. Loy (from Mercedes) from work was there, and I think at first he was actually going to do it, but then I was kind of taking his place. We talked briefly, and then once enough people were watching, I started. I went through these glass doors and into this hallway that only went right. It was like walking through the customer service dept. of JCPenny's or something. There were people just sitting by the walls with their knees drawn up. Some looked like they were sleeping, but mostly they were waiting for their turns at the maze. I then went got through and started meeting my challenges.
I made it through the first few, answering the questions or getting by the physical obstacles. It was almost like a huge church at this point, all junked with lots of marble statues, dividers, pews, candelabras, and all sorts of stuff that looked like it was from an antique store. I started getting tired of taking every challenge, so I quickly started running past and around all of them, avoiding everyone I could. I soon made it to the end with a score of y/z, meaning that I only had one chance left. (all that skipping of stuff hurt my score and took my "misses") I wound up in this room that still had a bunch of stuff in it, but the only person there was Mrs. Yager(biology teacher from high school). She had the final question for me. I had to answer it correctly, and if I did so in a timely manner, not only would I win, but I'd be the one person who got through the labyrinth the fastest.
It suddenly got dark outside, and somewhat inside, too, and I said a couple of times, "Pleeeeeease be something I know." Mrs. Yager just smiled, asked if I was ready, and then asked the question. She gave a little bit of background, saying that a certain bridge (golden gate or Brooklyn?) had been built in a certain year. Then with the changes to peoples traffic patterns because of technological increase caused the need for another bridge to be built, and to connect to the end of the previously mentioned bridge. It was to be called the Keystone Bridge. The question was, "What one thing would have to die before the bridge could be built?"
I was stumped, but I thought long on it. I asked her a few questions, some she could answer, and others she couldn't, while I looked outside the windows. I was way up in the mountains of New York, and it was all forest, streams, mountains, and a couple of smaller roads and then the first bridge mentioned. I was almost watching as the keystone bridge was being built. It was night time, and the lighting was all pinks, oranges, blues, greens, and yellows, depending on the area and source. No white light.
Somehow I had gotten out of her that the Death of Meat was part of the answer, but I couldn't see how a butcher shop would fit into the answer. I thought and thought, and eventually I woke up, still thinking about it, and I still don't have an answer...
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