So I’m walking to class in one of my old Junior High Schools (they call them Middle Schools these days…).  The bad one.  The one I got bullied in so much I actually skipped out some days.  I had a hideout in the corner of one of the apartment building basements where the tenants could store things.  I’d found a storage bin that wasn’t being used and set up a bunch of big old cardboard boxes and some carpet and a flashlight in it, and brought in some books to read and on days when it was really bad I went and hid there until after school let out.  That was the only time in my life I ever skipped school, but some days it was just too much.  Surprisingly, nobody at the school ever questioned my occasional unexcused absences either.  In retrospect, it was of a piece with the administration’s lackadaisical attitude toward discipline.  Bullies at that school essentially had free reign.  Nobody was ever punished for picking on the smaller kids.  And sometimes I saw the smaller ones dragged into the principle’s office for fighting back.

Anyway…  So I’m walking to class in this Junior High School.  At least…I think it’s that one.  Something about it is different.  Odd.  The halls seem the same, and yet different somehow.  And then I realize I’m naked.  

You’ve all had this dream…right?  You’re in school and you’re naked and suddenly you realize that fact and you spend the rest of the dream dying of embarrassment.  I’m walking to class and I realize I’ve forgotten, somehow, to put my clothes on (maybe I’d just left gym class and forgot to dress after showering or something…) and now I’m trying hard to find my locker so I can put something on and then maybe…I dunno…flee the school or something.

But then I realize I’m dreaming and it gets odder.  Somehow I know that I’m dreaming and I’m walking in the geek wing of the school…where all the geek kids go.  And what is more, it’s the geek wing in a school where everyone goes when they’re dreaming about being back in school.  So I’m walking down the hall without a stitch on and trying not to make eye contact with anyone, and I see another kid walk past me the other way also trying not to make eye contact, and he’s only wearing his pajamas, and I’m thinking Okay…that kid’s having an "I’m in school in my pajamas" dream.  Then along comes another kid with her hair a really gross shade of green and I’m thinking She’s having her Bad Hair Day In School dream.  Another kid is struggling with his locker door and I think He’s having a Can’t Remember My Locker Combination And I Have A Final In Two Minutes dream…

Eventually I get to the door to my classroom and I see a rack of towels beside it with a sign that says Naked Dream – Self Serve, and I grab one and wrap it around my waist, walk inside and sit down to take a test.  Nobody pays me the slightest attention as I walk to my desk.  After I woke up I couldn’t recall what the test was about.

My dreams get like this sometimes.  Really.  In some Twilight Zone dream school there is a wing where all the geek kids go to have their tormented dreams about school.  But the administration provides towels.  So maybe it’s where uncaring school principles and teachers are sent to try and make amends.