A Most Outrageous Game

Last night I had the strangest dream: it was weird variation on O Henry’s

The most Dangerous Game. You know the short story where two guys are required to hunt each other in forest setting? Any way in my variation I am told I am going to have to hunt a friend of mine while he is going to try to be hunting me down at the same time. Hunting a good friend is bad enough but add to the challenge that my friend I have to hunt down like a dog, is a my good friend Johnny who, also has cerebral palsy. Johnny’s cerebral palsy is pretty involved impacting his speech and ability to ambulate. I can understand Johnny most of the time, and many times after asking to repeat himself a number of time which he always does with out issue. John uses a electric scooter as his main form of transportation. Now I am , if everyone remembers correctly, a quadriplegic which is now referred to as a tetraplegic( a greek latin thing). I am partially paralyzed from my shoulders down and I use a power chair for mobility.

In this dream Johnny and I are ro hunt each other and in this dream the idea of us hunting each other terrified me. Like how would we know when to start, where the hunt was going to be and what was the winner going to get besides not getting killed. Though the territory was never stated I gathered the “killing zone” would be somewhere in Salt Lake City, downtown Salt Lake.

The fear is always so focused in a dram, so irrational so end of the world.

If common sense or rationality help up or on second in this dream-since Johnny and I are both significantly paralyzed neither of us could aim a rifle and pull the trigger at the same time with enough efficiency to actually harm each other. Maybe the success of the hunt depended on who had he best charged batteries. If I could manage to get Johnny to expend his batteries before I did, maybe I could get a shot off at him. It would still be iffy. We would probably end up having to club one or the other to death.

I have been trying to figure out what was the stimulus for such a violent dream. I spent the evening catching up on episodes of Eli Stone and though there was some scenes of violence in these programs nothing to equate the level of violence depicted in my dream. I come up zeros. I hate thinking of this kind of stuff anyway. I like Johnny I always have I cannot think of why my subconscious picked him unless it knew neither could pull the trigger (physically) if we had to so we would essentially be safe The more I have thought of the dream today, the more I wonder if we could set something up at the mall , after hours, with full battery charges, helmets with visors, vests and paintball guns for a most outrageous game.