Just to dispel the idea that I always have dreams with sensible plots....

Last night, in my sleep, apparently I just couldn't take it any more. I was driving down 795 in my dream and, near the spot where I usually see the flock of crows, I pulled off the road, put my hazards on, secured the jeep and ran into the trees, screaming at the top of my lungs and waving my arms wildly. I ran and and ran, and screamed and screamed until I fell over. It felt great. Weirdly, I looked around and saw several other people, mostly white but a few asians and african-american's all in "professional" clothes kneeling on the forest floor, winded but happy looking.....

From the direction of the road I heard a high pitched wail growing nearer.

"Incoming!" announced a guy who looked a lot like an accountant, just as a woman wearing the distinctive uniform of a saleswoman from the Estee Lauder cosmetic counter crashed into the undergrowth, tearing her pantyhose all to hell. She had one of those clear handbags like the one I had to carry on the sales floor at Boscov's which were supposed to prevent shoplifting.

"Store rules. Bloody wankers" she said in a heavy British accent as I walked past her and she noticed me looking at it.

I nodded and then found myself at the checkout line of a grocery store, putting my last bag into my cart. The store was wildly busy, the checker didn't have a bagger. As I pushed my cart away I looked behing me and noticed that the next customer in line was seriously disabled. He was in a wheelchair which he controlled with one atrophied hand. His legs were twisted and atrophied, his free hand lay uselessly in his lap. He seemed to be aflicted by spasticity of his neck and his chair had pads on either side of his head to help keep him steady. There was something attached to the side of his wheelchair near the level of his mouth. His groceries began to come down the belt.

"Excuse me." I said to him. He looked at me and smiled brightly. He had dark hair and a handsome, sensitive face. "Would it help you for me to bag your groceries? I'd be glad to do it."

To my surprise he gave me a saucy wink by way of a positive answer ( I supposed that he might not have been able to nod his head) Evidently he was a regular customer of the male cashier who began to chat with him. The device near the man's mouth was not medical. It was a harmonica. And between his expressive face and notes on the harmonica he was able to convey all kinds of subtle meanings. He seemed to even tell a joke, which I had not caught by virtue of watching to snatch the bread out of the way of the canned goods.

A loose zuchinni began to ring. I picked it up and debated a moment before handing it to the cashier, "I think it's for you."

He held up one finger to request his customer's patience and answered the zuchinni. He frowned, and gave it back to me, "They hung up."

"If it's important they'll call back." I said, which seemed to lead to general agreement. The customer' s companion managed to maneuver the cart out into the general traffic of the market. The next customer was a cat, who clearly was not going to bag for herself since she lacked opposible thumbs, so I kept up with bagging.

"I think that might have been my lawyer." The cashier said, conversationally. "I've got to go to court for disturbing the peace, for running screaming into the trees."

"Really. I did that. I just got a ticket though."

"You ought to come to our group meeting. I bet you thought you were alone, huh?" the cashier said.

"Well, I did notice some other people the day I did it. I don't know if they got fines though. What's the purpose of your group?"

"We think it's a civil right, and cuts down on other social problems caused by stress. I mean, think about it. When I did it I was on a public road, but pulled off safely, and ran screaming into trees on state owned land. We pay taxes: everybody in our group does.We're not trying to convert anybody. Though of course," he said thoughtfully, "If you're just CONSIDERING running screaming into the trees or want to support someone who does it, you're also welcome."

"Oh great," said someone from the customer service desk."I suppose now we'll have to pay you. I hate it when people start whole jobs without even bothering to fill out applications. Pay's $7.50 an hour, review in six months, plus you gotta stock when we ask. What hours can you work?"

"Um. Well, just evenings." I said.

"Really? That's great, then. But you've been here four hours already. Come back tomorrow and pick up your smock and fill out an ap, okay? 6:30 okay for you? You another one of those Screamers?"

" I only did it once."

"That's okay, I'm not prejudiced. In fact, Art's referred a lot of our best workers" the manager, who looked a lot like the recently deceased "Mr. Whipple" of the Charmin ads, waved his hand at the cashier. "Ya'll're real polite to the customers, don't take it out on them. We're glad to have your kind here."

I walked out of the grocery store and into Joseph's, which was a restaurant we used to go to when we lived in MA. The front room had been set up as an elaborate buffett, and there were all kinds of people milling around, socializing and drinking soda. Underneath the "Kiwanas Meets Here Last Saturday of the Month" on the white board was "Welcome Society for People Who Run Screaming Into the Trees." printed in lurid purple ink. Then some artistically challenged person had drawn a tree. Or maybe it was a brocolli. It was hard to tell.

"Wow, this is quite a spread." I said to Art, who had appeared behind me.

"Courtesy of Mr. M'Bekki, our first president. He also handles all our legal work. He's a very well respected attorney." Art pointed out a tall, dark man with the regal bearing of people I've met who come from various places on the continent of Africa. He was wearing a sober business suit and a ten gallon hat with an armadillo perched on the brim. "He's also a devout Muslim. After his haj to Mecca he claims an angel appeared to him and told him to feed as many people as possible in his lifetime. But he's devoted to our cause because he feels people in this country just don't understand it. In his country, they do something called 'Running Amuck' which is where we get the term from. They're actually a lot more destructive, he says. But they have like, virtually, no crime there."

"What's with the hat?" I asked, as he shook hands with a thin, patrician white woman who had tiny snapping alligators charmed, somehow as shoes, on her feet. "Oh, hell, is that armadillo going to get angry?"

"I don't think so. After all, we're into non-violent protest. Yeah, the hat. See, Mr. M'Bekki came to the U.S. via Texas. He's totally into his adopted home state: loves everything about it. Just don't bring up Bush." he advised me. "Grab a plate, we're about to start."

Not feeling hungry, and also noticing that my cane (which I hadn't noticed I was carrying) decided to turn into a snake, though still a rigid one, I decided to just sit down in case it didn't get along with the alligators and the armadillo.

Mr. M'Bekki called the meeting to order and immediately gave the floor to the accountant looking guy I'd seen earlier.

"Okay, so here's where we are. At this point the city of Owings Mills is proposing three options. One, they're proposing that there be a designated Running Screaming Into the Trees Zone somewhere near Soldiers Delight park. While centrally located, the steering committee still feels this is unworkable, as many of us have the need to Run Screaming Into the Trees when we are nowhere near New Town-."

"Though almost all of us feel like doing when we have to go into New Town." a woman in flamboyent "hippie" attire sitting next to me said.

"Good Lord, in that location we'd be driving wildlife into the beltway left and right. Do they want us to create an environmental hazzard?" someone else spoke up.

"Excellent point." the speaker said, "We feel that this is a sop, designed to make us look bad at the same time, because you're absolutely right - it would conflict with our environmental stand. Look, it would save us all time if we could just vote on this right now?"

"Second!" Somebody yelled while my cane slithered off under the buffet. I excused myself to crawl after it on my hands and knees. I finally grasped it, and it turned back into a cane, albiet the same bright green as the snake had been.

By the time I was able to regain my seat there was a new speaker, more of a firebrand, who looked a lot like Steven Cobert. " ---Nevermind that studies have shown that people who Run Screaming Into The Trees have lower blood pressure, are able to quit smoking more easily, and are otherwise, with few exceptions, law abiding tax paying citizens! We hold that this is our civil right! We are adults! We are not harming any other person and we don't harm ourselves or the environment! This is our choice, and the government has no right to decide who can Run Screaming Into the Trees or where they can do it! We are not yelling fire in a crowded theatre people! Our founding fathers would be appalled if they knew how we were being treated. It's as simple as the right to free speech, and we need to protect it!"

And then I woke up.

If anybody has any insight into what any of this might mean ?!? ......

"