Dream in The Amalgamated Aggromulator

I was with the family, somewhat younger than I am now. We were on a trip, and we had pulled into a hotel somewhere on the coast, somewhere in the warm half of the year where the water wasn’t too cold. I went out walking alone, and I betook myself a couple of streets shoreward and then a few more to the left and then out onto the long jetty I had seen on the drive in.

There was no one else on the jetty. It was a quiet day, hardly any waves, and not even any seagulls. The only boat I could see, some sort of utility vessel, was anchored not too far from shore a little way to my right.

At the end of the jetty there was a swimmer’s access ladder.

Well, okay. Why not? I really wished I had a snorkel and swimfins, but I didn’t. I stripped down to my underwear and left my clothes haphazardly piled on top of my shoes. Down the ladder and in. The water was really clear.

I swam around the pilings and then made my way a bit over to the right of the jetty, along the front of the town; there was nothing on the other side but a bit too much ocean for comfort. I spent almost all of my time swimming underwater, only coming up for breaths when I needed to. What the heck, I wasn’t in a hurry, and I wasn’t really going anywhere.

I had noticed an odd round white bulge barely breaking the water some distance over along the town front. As I approached I saw that what I had seen was the uppermost of four geodesic domes semi-stacked along the sloping bottom, with wetsuited divers doing something around them. The divers saw me and started waving me off, with unusual energy, I thought.

That was unexpected, but no problem. The boat I had seen could be seen above only a little way off. I was ready for my next breath anyway, so I went up and surfaced next to it - and found myself next to a low platform covered with people, half of them in wetsuits that looked just like the ones below. I waved, but if anything they looked alarmed at the idea that I might come aboard (which I had no thought of doing) - I confronted a wall of discouraging looks and gestures.

All right, I was clearly in the middle of something, I could see that. I smiled and made the closest to an acquiescent shrug as I could make above water, and then I departed by sinking straight down.
Or I tried to! The surface above me erupted with splashes and several divers were suddenly around me and grabbing me and manhandling me up and onto the low platform!
Make up your mind!

There was no pause for conversation - straight into a plan of action. I was bundled straight into an outboard-motored dinghy with three other people, one of them a man in an expensive-looking striped suit, and taken straight in to shore.
They didn’t stop there. I was led, more like frogmarched, up the narrow beach, up the steps along the short seawall, and then I was stuffed into the back of a bleeping town car that was parked there, almost a limousine. Two guys piled in, one on each side of me, the man in the suit and a guy who looked more like muscle.

The car took off. My two seatmates looked at me with something like professional exasperation with a touch of hurry. The guy in the suit asked me something like what I thought I was doing. The answer would have been what do you think I was doing, I was swimming, you asshole, but I’m not sure if I vocalized it; it’s possible that I was just a tad intimidated by unspooling events at this point.

And what they did was they stopped somewhere in town a long way from the beach and I thought a good way rightward of where I had been and just ejected me from the car. Good riddance apparently. Then they took off fast. Getting back to whatever an innocent swimmer had interrupted.

And there I was, in unfamiliar surroundings, in denser town, with an upscale-looking mall on one side of me - feeling a bit chilly - and of course my clothes were still stacked atop my shoes far away at the end of that jetty. I was in my underwear… and I suddenly realized that this was rather old underwear. This was not the blinding white go-to-the-doctor underwear. This was the what-if-you-get-hit-by-a-car underwear, overdue for trashcan.
With the imperfections darker what with the residual dampness, naturally. I folded the waistband down over one of the more prominent stains. You do what you can. Then I was off.

It’s easy to run like a gazelle in a dream. I headed notionally back in the direction in which the jetty and our hotel had to be. For a while this was easy, with the shading of the evening sky. Then it was full dark from horizon to horizon, with only memory for a cue, and I kept running and hoping.