For as long as I can remember I've had really vivid dreams. Sometimes it's good, but a lot of times it's not so good because with vivid dreams come vivid nightmares. Sometimes my dreams are just strange. The other night I had this really strange dream. In my dream we were on some sort of road trip probably through the backroads of Texas. I say that because everything was flat - you could see for miles. There weren't any mountains or any bright casino lights. My mother was driving a van, my sister was sitting on the passenger side and I was in back wth my nephew and my niece. We stopped at this little store in a little country town that had a little dinner next to it. I don’t think we even got gas, just some snacks. My niece got some sort of hard candy that she almost chocked on - that was all I remember of the snacks. As we were getting back in the car when we saw a stray cat playing in front of the store. Somehow I knew that my sister had decided that she was going to take it home with us. She was looking for a bag to put it in  when we all saw two small gray and white puppies come around the corner and start playing with the cat.

“oh look at the puppies” my sister says and then looks at my mom and my niece. “we should take them.”

“No” I say. “don’t take the puppies. No one will take care of them.”

At that point my niece starts to choke on the hard candy again and I put my hand out for her to spit the candy out. I look at the slobber covered candy in my hand and think about putting it in my mouth and eating it, but then think better of it and throw it out the window.

“what do you say, mom?” My sister asks putting on he own puppy dog face that she has perfected throughout the years to get anything she wants from my mom and dad. "I promise we'll take care of them."

“I guess  we’re getting new dogs.” My mom says.

"I ain't taking care of anything." I say.

My little eight year old nephew looks at me says, "You know 'ain't' ain't a word"

Even in my dreams someone has to be a smart-ass.

My sister gets off the car but for some reason can’t bring herself to capture the puppies. “there’s too many people, how about we park next to the dinner and I’ll get them when it gets a little darker.”

We park next to the dinner. A really big, dark woman leans out of the dinner window and asks us what she can get for us. I try to tell her that we don’t want anything because we had gotten some burritois from the dinner earlier, but she can’t hear me so my sister gets off and goes to the window.

“I’ll tell her and I’ll ask her about the puppies.”

As my sister gets in line these two big black girls get in line behind her and start talking about some dance at the high school the following week. As my sister is about to ask the lady at the window about the puppies when a Chinese woman walks up and blurts out, “do you have change?” she's holding up a twenty dollar bill. The lady at the window tells her that she doesn’t have any change. My sister holds up some five dollar bills. The Chinese lady pulls out another twenty and my sister looks over to where my mom and I are, then pulls out more five dollar bills. We nod at her as if giving her permission to exchange the money.

I walk into the dinner and buy a can of Coke and start to drink it. As I look outside I see a lot of people suddenly pulling up and I wonder if they are here for the dogs. I know it’s a strange thing to think but that’s what the dream Tony was thinking. I sat my can of Coke down on the counter and walk outside to see what’s going on.

I see the puppies playing in front of the store and notice that everyone else is just sort of making their way into the dinner talking about the economy and how bad it was. I walk by a huge guy with long black hair and a beard and goatee. He’s looking at me with evil eyes in a mean face, as if I had just insulted his mother or something. I was still looking at him when I caught the sight of the high school kid who was a big football player wearing a football letterman jacket. He looked down at me when we ran into each other and he almost knocked me down to the ground.

“I’m sorry sir.” He says and he reaches out his big hands to help steady me and keep me from falling.

I looked up at him. He’s a good head and shoulders taller than me and simply said, “thanks kid.” I walked on and can't help thinking "he called me sir. I'm not old enough to be a Sir"

Through the corner of my eye I see my sister grab the puppies and go back to the van, so I head back into the dinner for my can of Coke because even in dreams a cold Coke is a cold Coke. I notice that my Coke is now hot so I grab a new one and walk out the dinner leaving my hot can of soda there. As I’m walking out the big lady at the window yells out, “I left you a new can of Ice cold Coke as a thank you for waiting around gift.”

I looked back and saw the new, unopened can of Coke next to my hot one “She left me a new coke, but I took one anyway” I said to my mom as we walked back to the van. “Should I go back and get it?”

“No,” my mom says. “You already got one. Don’t be greedy.”

“yeah, you’re right.” I say getting back into the van where my niece and nephew are both playing happily with their new puppies. “besides I’m ready to go.” I look around at all the people filling the dinner. “something about this palce gives me the creeps.”

We drive off in the van and I notice a big white sign with black letters by road that reads, “Pray every day”

The next thing I know I’m standing in the dinner again, but this time it’s full of people. I look around but something is not right. I can see everyone but no one can see me. It’s one of those dream things. I see the big man with the long dark hair and beard and for some reason I can’t take my eyes off him. He looks over to where I am, and for a second I feel as if he can see me, but I know he can’t. I watch as everything suddenly goes into slow motion. The man pulls out a shotgun and aims it at the guy to his left, the guy standing next to me. He fires and blows the man’s chest away. People start to yell and try to run out the door, but they can’t. They are all pushing against the door but the door opens inward and no one wants to move back to open it so they're stuck pushing against each other. The man starts shooting over and over again. He shoots the Chinese lady that is holding the five dollar bills my sister just gave her  right in the middle of her head. One second she’s standing there about to scream, the next her head is blown across the wall of the dinner. The football player tries to run to the window, but the guy turns and fires the shotgun blowing a hole in his back big enough that I could see through it. I see the girl who moments ago was talking about the school dance. She’s screaming, crying, begging for some sort of mercy. There’s a flash of light and the girl is gone. I try to look away but I can’t. I watch as the man kills everyone in the dinner, then sits at the counter where my hot Coke was still sitting. The man begins to eat his final meal which consists of an onion omlet, hash browns and a cup of coffee. He then blew his own head away.

I don't know how I know this but somehow I know that he had come back to the store looking for his beloved puppies and when he couldn’t find them, something inside him snapped and his mind went crazy with rage.

Then…I woke up