Dreamland

Your Money or Your Life

I'm living in a cheap apartment on the second floor of a ratty tenement building. I do maintenance work for the landlord in exchange for a discount on my rent.

He calls me up, tells me to come out to the front of the complex. "Take a look at this roof over my garage, it's all rotten, the rain leaks in on my car. I'll give you a free month's rent if you redo the roof."

I look at it, not only are the shingles bad, but the panels below are rotten, as well as half the beams. It's lucky the whole damn thing hasn't fallen down on top of his car.

"Sorry dude, that roof's wasted. I wouldn't know where to begin to fix it."

"Come on, Steve-o, I don't expect nothin' fancy, just reinforce it a little and put some new shingles on. I'm buyin' all the materials, and it's a free month's rent to you. I know you're low on cash..."

"No, sorry, I gotta pass, that roof's so rotten I'd probably fall through and break my neck."

"Well OK Steve, I guess I can get the Mexicans in seventeen to do it..."

I go back to my apartment, realize I'm getting pretty low on clean clothes, guess it's laundry time. I grab the basket and scoop up my dirty clothes, throw the basket in the back of my old Chevy van and head over to the laundromat.

Inside, I walk over to the vending machine to buy some soap. A ragged looking woman approaches me, says "Hey, excuse me sir, I left my detergent home, can you spare me a couple bucks so I can buy some?"

I look at her, she's obviously a street person, maybe in her twenties but looks like she's in her forties. Her hands are shaking, most likely a meth addict trying to scrape up enough money for her next fix. I feel sorry for her. "Just a minute, let me see what I got," I say.

I pull out my wallet and look inside, trying not to let her see the money. I've got a couple twenties and a ten, no small bills. "Sorry, I gotta go get some change, " I say, planning on walking over to the liquor store next door.

She pulls a gun out of her purse and waves it in the air. It's a cheap small caliber revolver with cracked plastic grips, looks more like a broken toy than a real gun. "Give me all your money!" she shouts, pointing the gun over my head and pulling the trigger.

Her hand is shaking and she pulls the trigger a couple times, nothing happens, the gun clicks like it doesn't have any bullets. I rush towards her to take the gun away but she jumps back away from me and pulls the trigger again, and this time a bullet whizzes past the side of my head.

Instead of giving up and handing her my money I get mad as hell and try to rush her again to try to take the gun away. But again she evades me.

Then I'm looking straight down the barrel of the gun as she pulls on the trigger. The first couple times the gun just clicks, like before, then I hear the explosion...

And then I wake up.