Prickly Parrots

So I had two particularly interesting dreams last night. My dreams are so vivid and real, like watching a movie - in my mind! A cliffhanger that doesn't make sense and doesn't transition well.

DREAM 1
So my uncle Billy owned a drive-through convenience store and pet shop, in the ghetto. Despite its location, he kept it pretty clean. Well I was down on my luck and had just moved in to his slummy apartment. On the way home one day, I stopped by his store to get a Dr. Pepper and was speechless when I got to the window. The store was in shambles, the window stood ajar, and the entire store was covered in grime and filth. His 5 large fancy bird cages were covered in poop, their doors also ajar. One two birds remained, and they were in bad shape. Both parrots were bald, one had a splotch of blood on the side of his beak, and they were listlessly walking around their cages with dead eyes. My uncle walked up and I asked what had happened to the birds. He said his employee had been feeding them strange things. I told him I had seen him feeding the birds cut up hot dogs but didn't think much about it. Uncle Billy looked at the birds and said their plumes used to be as long as a moon pie, while stretching his arms out to span 3 feet (I don't know where he finds these huge moon pies, maybe home-made?). He just handed me my Dr. Pepper and walked off. As I drove home the entire neighborhood was in shambles, as if it were a town in the middle east that had just suffered a bomb. Buildings were in shambles and everything was just a shade of brown or gray. As I went in to the apartment, my former manager and now neighbor Len came up to me. He told me he couldn't make his rent anymore and said I could be his roommate if I wanted to. So I went and toured the apartment. The walls were Tiffany's blue but looked patina-ed from all the nicotine clinging to them. The apartment was larger (and dirtier )than expected, but there was only one bedroom. Len said I could just move my bed in the room too and we would put a partition between them. On either end of the room were tri-fold mirrors on the wall, just high enough to put a desk underneath to have a make-shift vanity. I opened a door to the balcony, and put my baby in the car seat to walk down the fire escape stairs. As I turned to close the doors, my baby fell out and tumbled down the flight of stairs and landed on the concrete. I screamed at the top of my lungs and ran to where the child fell. As soon as I got to the spot, a magical chihuahua made the scene replay, but now I watched from the new vantage point. I had forgotten to strap the safety belts, but I dropped the whole car seat which protected the baby who was fine. When I looked down to get my baby, there was nothing, just barren concrete, like a dream. I asked the chihuahua to replay the scene again, but this time it stopped short and I couldn't find out where my baby went. A museum curator came to where I was crouching, and showed me a rattlesnake fang that was a foot long and hollow.

DREAM 2

I was back in high school, and asking this kid to show me where he had cut off the tip of his finger (this really did happen in hs). Then my friend was giving me a piggy back ride through the halls while I was waiting for my pizza to bake. Then the alarms started going off because there was a fire. As people were evacuating, I hopped off my friend's back and told her I was going to check on my pizza. The kitchen was at the other end of the campus so I would just grab it and run out. As I got to the oven I saw the pizza needed a few more minutes. I checked all the doors and saw no fire, so I waited. I was looking out of the glass doors upon the plains and saw fire race in front of the door and surrounded the kitchen! Inspired by a recent episode of Walker Texas Ranger, I kicked the door open (leaving the pizza) and ran full throttle through the fire. As soon as I was to cross the fire's path, God sent rain that put it out. Whew, close one - thanks God! I started running to find my parents, but they weren't in the parking lot with everyone else. I checked the procession of cars leaving, and didn't see their car there either. They must have left me! I hopped on a white and brown spotted horse to catch up to them. I rode through the hilly farmland in pursuit, looking at the beautiful houses and crops, feeling inspired by the overcast skies. It looked like a scene from a magazine, all the picture perfect houses with bright colors that really popped against the gray skies. All the sudden I had caught up to my parents who also seemed to be on horseback, being led by a small bearded man. The small man stopped and set a rock on the ground. The grass where the rock was disappeared and left a spot of rich, dark red dirt. He drew an X in the dirt, and vanished. As he did, a circle of ground caved in to reveal wooden railroad tracks. My parents got off their horses and hopped in to escape the fire. (the fire was no where in sight but was going to eventually consume the whole land) I had a funny feeling about it so I told them I would wait. Well my horse hopped in the hole, so I pulled on the reins, but he wouldn't budge. Taking aim, I leapt into the hole and right onto the horses back. We were in a person's house, and now there was a child on the horse in front of me. The horse took us to a corner of the house, with low-slung ceilings, where 2 steps led to a doorway. The paint was also the Tiffany's green, and the doorway and hand rail were painted white and flaking. The horse put his front feet up the two steps into the shadowy doorway. The child knocked, and the door cracked open just enough for me to see a hand emerge from the darkness within. The child passed several toys, including a plastic purple Easter egg, to the hand. Then it was just me in front of the cracked door, feeling compelled to enter. The child had paid my way in, and it was up to me to continue this journey. I pushed opened the door and took a step. I fell in to the room (kind of like Alice in Wonderland) and there were my parents, suspended in time. By the dim lighting of the oil lamps, I could see my mother sitting in a rocking chair and staring at the wall. They were under some sort of spell, and had forgotten all about the fire which would surely consume us if we didn't keep running. I knew I had to save us, but how could I break the spell? Did I want to break the spell? I am getting sleepy and this delusion is drawing me in, I feel like molasses, and my thinking is cloudy. What was I trying to do?