I had a nightmare last night, but what else is new?
This time, I made a sweeping declaration that I would fly a hot air balloon from Brooklyn all the way to Panama. How I was planning on steering a hot air balloon is beyond my comprehension. And, if that weren’t enough of a twist as it is, I wouldn’t be in a basket, but in a ski-lift.
Yes, I was to fly 2,222 miles in a ski-lift chair propelled by a hot air balloon.
I brought nothing on the journey but 2 books—The Pianist, and No Country for Old Men. I don’t know why I opted to choose the two most upsetting books ever written, especially considering I have already read both of them.
Ah, yes. This is fixing to be quite an adventure.
Oh, no! What’s that?!
Halfway through Maryland, at a height of 9,000 feet, I dropped The Pianist. Horrified at the idea of never being able to return my library book, I dive after it.
After a few seconds of free-fall, I catch it. A few more seconds pass, and I become one with the concrete.
Normally, this is where I’d wake up, but no.
I did, in fact, wake up, but it turns out that I was actually in a nightmare, inside a dream.
I was two dream layers deep.
I fell asleep on the ski lift hot air balloon in Dream 1, and I just died in Dream 2.
After waking up in Dream 1, I look down and see that I do, in fact, still have both books.
A sigh of relief.
I sit up in the chair to stretch out my back.
The Pianist slips off my lap and into the abyss, plummeting towards the earth at an ever-increasing speed.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me!”
Again, I’m horrified that I won’t be able to return my book to the library, but this time, I don’t jump after it, thinking this is base-reality and not just the first layer of a two-tier dream.
Hours later, I’ve finished No Country for Old Men (yes, I read an entire book in my dream), and I’m in sight of the Panama Canal. As soon as I’m floating above it, I jump for the water.
Headfirst, my scalp cuts through the air as I race to the water.
Just seconds before hitting the water, I realize that I had jumped way too early. I should’ve lowered the power on the hot air balloon before jumping. I’m about to die.
I hit the water, hard. My body shatters into hundreds of pieces.
I wake up.
Until next time,
Michael J. Erickson, CEO & Co-Founder
