Add a score and more and more in Book Seven: Reconstruction 2020

I am now more convinced than ever that my nightmares may be me traversing the multiverse to see how other Christophers have fared. Is this the darkest timeline or are there worse timelines? I’ll explain. (NOTE: This is one entry of multiple today. Dividing by topic).

My nightmare last night involved two elements from recurring dreams that I’ve not had for years and an element from a traditionally recurring dream that I’m not sure I’ve ever had. I once had recurring dreams about my time at Best Buy. For better or for worse, I worked there from the October after my College Graduation 2007 to the Summer of my Law School entrance 2011. So dreams of that place aren’t ultimately that surprising. Further, I used to constantly have bizarre dreams about car accidents. Typically the dream is that I was in the backseat and expected to drive from that position somehow. I haven’t had those dreams in a year or more. The final element? Falling. I know everybody allegedly has vivid falling dreams but I honestly can’t remember a single time where that has happened to me. Until last night.

THE DREAM:
It was 2017 and I had been working at Best Buy for ten years. I’d overseen a lot of changes. The renovation on the floor; the rearrange of All Media; the attempt to turn Home Theater/Surround Sound into more “Experiential Immersive Demos”… a lot of work. I was in a position of leadership but as I’d worked at the same store for so long… my team knew my expectations, my demands, and my time table. The problem was the other departments. As I chatted with the security guard at the front of the building, I realized that my job was largely to simply… babysit corporate’s products while trying to motivate under-fortunate people to sell luxury items to folks that can’t afford them. And I got really depressed. Figured I was probably just tired since I’d closed the night before and my first of two shifts that day started at 6 a.m. As the store opened, I did the customer thing. Trying to start conversations. Asking if they were looking for something specific. If I could help them find just the right thing to make their day. Mostly fruitless which is not surprising. At around 10:00 a.m., I sauntered back to the warehouse to clock out. But on my way, I saw that 1/3 of a row of video games had been emptied out and in its place… just product laying there. Toys, movies, video games. UF! Lazy damned employees. So I started putting all of that product away. Until I saw an XBox ONe X, a PS4, and strangely a PS Vita copy of “7 Deadly Sins: Demon Wars”. This… isn’t supposed to come out yet, I thought to myself. So I ran to the warehouse to scan the game for release date information. Of course… the computers were slow and half shutting down. A true element of Best Buy. Sell tech, don’t spend money on tech. Old shitty computers for those trying to sell new shiny computers. Finally, I got the computer to work and… yeah. Oddly, the game release date was June 11, 2017! So… just needed to put it on the New Release Wall. (Side Note: I just checked that date to see if the date makes sense.... eerily it does. New Release Walls were filled on Sundays and Tuesdays and June 11, 2017 was a Sunday!) After taking care of all of that, I was beat. I clocked out. Drove to my parents place to have Sunday Brunch with them and then crashed on their couch reminding them to wake me up at 2 p.m. since I had to go back to work from 3 to 7. Fast forward to me waking up; going to my car (the same 1990 white Ford I had when I worked at Best Buy in this world line) and tried to start it. DON’T ASK BECAUSE I DON’T GET IT EITHER… but for some reason the key alone no longer worked and I had to use a plastic thick bristle comb in conjunction with the key to get the engine to turn over. And the engine would cut out frequently. SO the drive? Car rolled down the driveway… stalled. I got the engine going but only after the car somehow rolled into an unfamiliar neighborhood. In attempting to get out of that neighborhood; I wound up on a bizarre and broken portion of highway. Where on a large, steep, downward incline… the car stalled again. Now barreling down the road; I’m fighting my keys and a comb trying to get the engine to turn on. But as the car picked up more speed, it flew across traffic, crashed through a bridge barrier, and I started a 90 foot descent. I had this mixed feeling of awed weightlessness and pit-wrenching dread. As the two back tires were about to hit the pavement below… I woke up.

SO.... that was last night’s dream!

And it brings to mind an interesting argument.
If you are dead by this age in every other timeline; can it be true that THIS is the darkest possible timeline? To which my argument would be both yes and no.
While it is easy to understand that “being the version that lives longest” isn’t the darkest timeline… there are other things to consider. While it is true that the longer you live, the more chances you have to make something good happen; but so is the opposite. Plus, consider dystopian realities. Who’s life is darker? The timeline where you died peacefully in bed when the nuclear bomb exploded… or the timeline where you have to struggle through nuclear fallout? All of this goes into the calculation. But ultimately, my “easy answer” is… if every other multiverse version of YOU dies before the age you’ve reached now? This is both the darkest and best timeline… as it is (for you, at this age) the ONLY timeline. Despite your existence in multiple timelines before; if none of them made it to your age… then their existence and subsequent termination means that YOU ALONE exist. Meh. Getting too snake’s tail, now. Multiverse theory and time travel can do that, y’know. :)