JON RIKI KARAMATSU

Today, April 17, 2019, I had an adventurous and weird dream. After pulling an all-nighter of work, I was extremely tired and filled with tremendous anxiety about my taxes, finances, DUI, and business projects.

My dream begins with my mom and I in a small one-story building. The facility had the feel and look of an office with white walls and gray carpets. The Honolulu Prosecutor’s office built it to support their attorneys and staff. It was open for many people to visit, like an open house for everyone to see. We entered a small but spacious room where children of the department could be babysitted. The babysitting staff explained what services would be provided.

I whispered to my mom, “Maybe I could work as a babysitter if Keith asked me.” My mom grinned at me, which was a sign that I shouldn’t do such a job because whenever she supported any of my ideas, she would tell me, “Yeah, you should try.”
You see, the Honolulu Prosecuting Attorney had asked me to come back to the department in 2016 as a Legislative Liaison and Deputy Prosecuting Attorney but I declined because I wanted to run far away from politics. I was tired of the cold bashing people in power do to one another. Pursuing my passions and curiosity in the private sector seemed to be a better route. Honestly, I wanted to be alone. I needed to find peace within myself before I could help others again.
I suddenly appeared outside in a huge and oversized playground under the darkened skies that had eery shades of maroon and brown. There were many kids running around and enjoying the slides that were five times larger and taller than normal ones. I mean these things were like as high as a three-story building. The crowd of children and various over-sized play structures made the scene look like a small carnival packed with people. I could feel the energetic vibe emulating from all the excited children running and laughing! They were totally ecstatic!
Mari, a cute young woman of Japanese descent who I worked with when we were deputy prosecuting attorneys greeted me, “Hey Jon, you enjoying playing out there?” She was smiling at me.
“You mean what I’m trying to do with my career?”
“Yeah. I left too. I know how you felt. I’m doing my own stuff now and I enjoy it.” She looked up at the towering ladder-like structure that slanted towards the gigantic slide but nowhere close to the largest slide.
Mari led the way and climbed up. I followed right behind her. After much climbing, it felt nice to be near the top. However, a young blonde girl of about eleven or twelve years old blocked the way and wouldn’t let Mari pass.
“Could you get out of the way?” asked Mari. This wasn’t a question but a stern and direct order that was very unlike her usual sweet-sounding voice that was melodic to my ears.
The girl stubbornly resisted and held her ground at the middle of the opening of the slide.
Looking up at them, I could see the girl’s expressions but I couldn’t see Mari’s face, just her backside. Then the girl moved to the side for us. I wondered why? I wondered what type of facial expression Mari had given to the girl? Regardless, the girl obeyed.
Upon reaching the top of the slide, there was another smaller girl about seven years old with dark brown hair and of Caucasian ethnicity who crouched to the side. We had climbed so high but strangely, the way down the slide actually didn’t look too far down. Nor did it look as scary as I thought it would be. Mari gleamed brightly and pushed off, sliding down the slide with joy. She squealed with delight as her straight black hair blew away from the middle of her back. I pushed myself off the top and slid down after her. It felt nice, not just the ride with the cool breeze blowing against me but to be able to share this moment with her.
Mari and I walked through the swarm of kids towards the largest slide in the playground.
“Hey Jon,” greeted Danny, another former deputy prosecuting attorney with an ethnicity of Japanese and I believe Korean. He was younger than me. I also worked with him at the Honolulu Prosecutor’s office. He smiled brightly, showing his white teeth. From my time with him, he was always smiling and full of positive energy. “Let’s go to the back of it,” he suggested as he pointed to an area behind the largest slide attraction. I agreed. We proceeded on our trek towards the back of the largest slide where a big crowd gathered in front, either waiting to ride it or cheering their friends sliding down it.
On our way there, I saw a current deputy prosecuting attorney watching some type of show on a stage that blasted a bright glow of orange that was uncomfortable to look at, so I never saw the stage. The thirty-something year-old attorney had a brown beard that matched his wavy brown hair. He acted overly confident and a bit arrogant. He was one of those overzealous prosecutors who acted tough to cover-up his insecure personality. I had never met him before, yet I somehow knew who he was. He made an animal-like sound while keeping his mouth closed. The audience became distracted by his noise and looked around to see where it was coming from. After a few moments, he made the noise again. The crowd, once again disturbed, tried to figure out where that sound was coming from.
I approached him. “I know it’s coming from you.”
He snickered. “You do,” he answered. He walked past me with his chest puffed up and a cocky smile spread across his face.

Danny and I hiked across the grounds and proceeded behind the gigantic slide. We walked on a clay path that was cut into the gray hill. We stopped at the middle of the hill where we had a nice view of the festivities below us. It was much quieter there. It was the most peaceful moment in my dream.
“We’re the first in line for an amazing ride,” said Danny.
There was nothing around us. “What ride?” I asked.
“An amazing ride will be built here,” he replied. He was so excited for something that didn’t exist yet. Upon noticing the disappointment on my face, Danny’s smile subsided.
In an instant, I appeared back in the Prosecutor’s building again with my mom and Mari near me. Mari was again leading the way. To our right, like props were two nurses holding babies on their laps. The first baby looked more like a kid about eight years old but scrawny and frail with a thin torso, thin legs, thin everything. He seemed to be mentally ill because of his uncontrolled talk that sounded like babbling and unusual body movements. He ended up pooping a green liquid on the nurse. It was then that I realized that he wasn’t wearing a diaper.
“I don’t think I want to work as a babysitter here,” I whispered to Mari.
We proceeded on. “Come!” Mari yelled as she dashed into a room filled with puppet-like workers that moved and bounced. I ran after her. There were so many of them, giving us very little space to go through. Some of the puppets were pulled up and down by strings attached to the ceiling. The rest were moving by something attached to the ground. They moved crazily around as we ran through them. I swear I heard these evil puppets laughing at us.
Mari and I ran into an exercise room where all the gym equipment were moving and bending like they were the ones exercising! Living gym equipment. This is so weird.
Then we entered the main room with a large open space where a mass of people were sitting on the floor, as if waiting for a speaker to appear before them.
Mari disappeared from this scene. I was a bit sad. I wanted to spend more time with her, talk with her, at least tell her what an amazing time I had with her.
I found my mom again in front of the entrance of another room. We entered an empty room with more people in it. It was at this point the building started to shake. The walls moved in and out so strongly that you would get glimpses of the gloomy outside when the walls separated from one another momentarily.
“We gotta get out of here,” I told my mom. We ran out of the room. People were scrambling everywhere in the main area. We kept running until we found a door for us to exit.
Outside, I saw people walking up a cemented stairway further away. Among them, I saw former Congresswoman Colleen Hanabusa. Above all of us, the brown and maroon skies were swirling like a storm was being mixed violently.
When we were further away from the building, I looked back and realized that the large facility we were in was just a little house.
My mom and I ended up sitting on the middle of a bench seat in the back of a very wide bus that doesn’t exist in the real world. We were surrounded by a pack of people, all sitting shoulder-to-shoulder. In the middle of the bus, I saw the cocky attorney with the beard sitting on a bench seat. Near him were about three African American gang members. They were standing against the side of the bus. The attorney said something to them that outraged them. Consequently, they jumped the attorney and began punching him with all they had.
“Stop!” I yelled at them. The crowd in the bus was too thick for me to move forward to help the poor attorney.
“Stop it!” I shouted again. The gang stopped beating him. I thought the gang was now going to the attack me. However, strangely, they either pretended like I didn’t exist or they they actually didn’t know I was present in the back of the bus. The attorney put a blanket over his head and started to bawl loudly like a child.
That’s how my dream ended. When I woke up, my anxiety had subsided. I felt more at peace. The dream was so strange but interesting. I wonder if there’s a meaning behind it? I feel like it is encouraging me to keep pursuing my out-of-the-box ideas to build a new me and leave my unhappiness behind. It’s also telling me to stick with positive people who will help guide me through my madness.

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