09.23.08 - 1:45 am

i was starring in the movie version of the road, the cormac mccarthy tale of a father and son in post apocalyptic america. my boss joel was the director. we were out in the woods. camera equipment, dried leaves, cables, lights and people everywhere beyond the eyes of the lens. i had been filming scenes day after day with out dialogue and without direction. i merely acted out the scenes from what i could remember of the book. no one seemed to notice i had no idea what i was doing. and while during the day of filming, the book was just a story and there were people everywhere, at night the story somehow became real. julie and i slept in a sleeping bag on the side of the road, fifty or so yards from a large hotel building. abandoned hotel building. no electricity. no tenants. empty cars outfront. in the middle of the night i would watch the darkened silhouettes of people breaking in and shifting room to room, searching for food or valuable items. just a single beeping alarm would break the silence of night. and then in the morning filming would begin and it would be like....i hadnt just spent the night in a sleeping bag on the side of the road.
when the scene came where i was to actually hold dialogue with robert duvalls character, i choked. i couldnt think of any lines. joel was upset. robert was confused and getting frustrated. it then occurred to me that the whole time i was filming this movie, i didnt even have a script. everyone else did. so i pleaded with joel to trust that i would memorize all my lines in just a day. i assured him i wouldnt ruin his film. so he called off filming for a day, blaming me for costing him millions.
that night, i awoke to a stranger rummaging through my belongings beside my sleeping bag. i sat up and startled him and he scurried off back into the forests. when i awoke again later that night, there was a hideous woman bent over me, going through my clothing and pockets. i shouted at her and she too disappeared into the darkness.
i clutched my knife tightly. the old woman had been close to grabbing it. i knew this was all i had to protect julie and i while we slept, and that eventually these people would be desperate enough to kill us for our belongings.

i woke up before i had to kill anyone. and before i could finish my scene with robert duvall.

but as it were, outside julies window and across the small entrance courtyard, an alarm clock had been going off and thus entered my dream as the tireless hotel alarm.

funny how that happens.