I was a youngish Arab man, who growing up had been very close friends with an older Arab man. This older Arab man, as it turns out (though I didn’t know it when I was growing up) was a major terrorist (he even looked like Saddam Hussein). I only found out what he was involved with when he was arrested by US troops. There was no doubt in my mind that he really was guilty.

I decided to rescue him anyway - he meant a lot to me. Somehow I got him out of the US military base (where he was being treated very kindly) and smuggled him to his family compound in some desert village.

As a side note, I also went to get my god daughter out of the boarding school she was at. When I arrived, she was being punished for not wearing the hajib correctly. I got mad, and started yelling at the teachers - she’s only 5 for goodness sake! Show some mercy.

There were about 300 people in Mr. Terrorist’s compound. My friend was extremely old, and nearing death. As we made plans for his death, and the inevitable US attack, I kept having flashbacks about my friendship with this guy - how kind and wise he was, and all he had taught me.

He died and we had him cremated. I was to sprinkle the ashes from my balcony during the attack. We knew that the people in charge at the compound would release all the chemical and biological weapons (an unbelievable amount) when the attack began. I was given a really cool high-tech gas mask, but there weren’t enough to go around. Many of the women and children in my family were going to have to go without.

They did release the weapons. First we could see gasses, then the unportected people began to get sick - breaking out in lesions. Then, as a result of the weapons, it began to rain over the compound - a deadly rain. This was my cue, and I went out to the balcony, and cried, and sprinkled the ashes.

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note: since I seem to be going through a spell of having difficulty remembering my dreams, I thought I’d try posting some really old dreams that I have in a notebook beside my bed. Hence, the Flashback series. Enjoy!

August 13, 1992

I had a dream that I was in the forest taking a class in bracelet making at night when Suzanne broke my anklet and some of the beads fell off. When I tried to replace them, I found that they were the size of Michelin LX steel-belted radial tires, and the string from which they had come would more rightly be called a cable. I was having difficulty with the flowered pattern when a sense of urgency caused me to abandon the entire project.

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Pastor Wayne had recently purchased a large white 18-wheeler that was in need of washing. Seeing the truck, I offered to clean it. I didn’t have exactly what I thought would be best to most effeiciantly clean the truck, but I started anyway. I vigorously sprayed the truck with water, trying to remove what I could, and then I thoroughly wiped every spot that I could with what I had. I was going to wash the top when I woke up.

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Dave was staying with us. Somehow he convinced us that we all needed to drive to Cuba to go to the beach, and that the best way to get there was to go through Jamaica. So we all piled into the car, and started driving. When we arrived at the border between Jamaica and Cuba (hey, it’s a dream, OK?), we were stopped by the police. They told us that in order to go into Cuba, we had to get rid of all our illegal drugs. Dave refused. His logic was “if we’re going to have to get rid of all our drugs, why did we bother to go through Jamaica?”

In the end, the police won. We trashed our drugs, and arrived at the beach in Cuba. Since it was such a spur-of-the-moment trip, I somehow arrived with no bathing suit, no shorts, in need of a leg shaving, etc, so I had to pay a visit to the local version of Wal-Mart, where I picked out the ugliest outfit. The beach wasn’t all that impressive, either.

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Chloe and I were going for a meeting with Merlin (our set/projection design company). The meeting was in the evening, and we made the long trek to Tel Aviv. They, however, had forgotten the meeting with us, and when we arrived they were in the middle of a huge staff meeting. So we walk in and 50 eyes turn to stare at us. Our contacts were like, “uh, what are you doing here.” When we reminded them that we had a scheduled meeting, they were very embarassed, cancelled the meeting and started offering us coffee, tea, whatever.

For the Feast we were all scheduled to stay in a hostel on the way out of Jerusalem. Instead of having individual rooms, the hostel had set aside 4 or 5 very large empty rooms for us. The logistics team brought our beds from our houses, and there were several families staying in each room. One night, after a long session at the BHU, I returned to the hostel and crashed hard. Logistics woke me up in the middle of the night because they needed to move my bed over a bit in order to get another bed in the room. I was really grumpy, and they just couldn’t understand why.

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There was a hotel on the coast of Israel that for some reason was offering apartments to everyone at King of Kings. The apartments were all 1 bedroom, kitchen, bath; most were underground and very small, but they were free to KOKA members. To keep things fair, King of Kings had all its members bussed to the hotel one day, and they unleashed us on the hotel all at once. Each availible room had a slip of paper inside. When you picked a room, you took the piece of paper, put your name on it, and brought it to the realtors, who were set up in a special room. The rooms weren’t normal hotel rooms at all, and you had to travel down twisty back hallways to find them.

Somehow I had rooms picked out ahead of time that I wanted. You were really lucky if you managed a room with windows, and I knew where some of them were. But when I got to one, it would inevitably be taken by someone else (usually one of our stranger members). After the first 2 or 3, I gave up and just went to hang out.

Towards the end of the day, I went to see the realtors. I told the head guy that i didn’t want to look, I just wanted him to find me something really nice. I was flirting heavily, trying to get him to help me out (knowing that whatever apartments didn’t go to KOKA people, the realtors would sell for commission, it was in his best interests to save the nicest apartments for himself).

He found one on his list that he was going to give me, but then for some reason he reconsidered. He put me in another one, and to demonstrate that it was a nice one, he showed me that Malcolm Hedding had taken the one next door. I took it.

To add to my absolute chutzpah, shortly thereafter I asked him to take me to see the room. The lottery room was full of people (I remember the Kings, in particular), and they heard me ask. When he agreed, most of the people in the room went with us.

We had to travel the twistiest maze of corridors, but we finally arrived. The room was absolutely incredible. The living-room was huge, with one whole wall that was glass and had a bay window effect. Looking straight you looked out over the sea, to the right was a wooded area, and the view from the left portion of window you could see the city, shining in all its picturesque glory. It was breathtaking. The fittings in the apartment were very classy - wood floors, triple pane windows, marble, fine paint. I think there was even a little indoor garden. And it was quite spacious. I was embarassed that so many people had tagged along to see the apartment.

Back in the common room, Jared was getting ready to return to New Zealand, and we were all very sad to see him go. I gave him a huge hug, and I think we both cried. After he left, Ann Hilsden commented about what a nice guy Jared is, and how we’ll miss him.

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