it’s 4:40 am and I just had a VIVID dream.
I just woke up from a dream in which I was riding in the back of a car with Apple CEO Tim Cook driving and some random teenage boy of some ambiguous importance which I do not remember in the slightest in the passenger seat. The car is a cyber truck btw, but like one that Cook “stole/borrowed” to drive us into Boston for some fancypants tech-mogul meeting. At the moment, I don’t realise that I forgot to buckle myself in, but that’s only because my brain is wrestling with the feeling of guilt—from riding in a car with one of those social media dubbed “darn rich CEOs and 1%ers”. But after a bit of self-reflection, I determine that it’s non-functional guilt and push it aside.
After a few minutes of listening to Cook and Random Important Guy My Age talk about innocuous stuff like college courses/what not, I determine to myself that a) Tim Cook is a really good driver, b) Random Guy must be from my college or SOMETHING, and c) I am here like a sleeper agent, passively gathering intelligence to bring back to the top secret agency which is really just my mom and sister who, in the dreamworld, are leaders of a covert movement to “bring down the billionaires”.
I decide to look behind me through the rear window in time to see a car pull out from the travelling lane, from behind a civilian car, and merge INTO the car in the right lane, absorbing it light an amoeba. And oh my god, in the morphing/absorbing process, the car turn into a sporty, purple, mariokart-style cartoon race car and picks up a cluster of mariokart coins that were hovering in the street, waiting to be grabbed. I know who’s driving this car, and it’s Elon Musk.
Cook glances in the rear view mirror and says loudly into the car’s air to say over the car phone something to the effect of, “You can’t buy me off that easily.”
Cook’s car’s speakers suddenly come to life with Musk’s voice saying, with a chuckle, “Oh just you wait and see.” And then I watch him slide into the middle lane right behind us, and I instantly face forward again. I remind myself that I’m just undercover, that I just like to ‘get closer to my enemies’ and that’s why I’m here. To see what all those tech CEOs are up to these days, what things they are planning these days.
that’s when I remember I’m not buckled. I scramble to click down the buckle when — oh no! — there are two cars not moving ahead of us. One is perpendicular to the flow of traffic and smoking. Adrenaline and small fear spike my nerves. Finally I click my buckle in place. Cook expertly slows the car and navigates us through a gap between the two cars post-accident. But the car tire trips over the edge of the smoking car and gains air time. We arch high over the road. I think, oh no this is it! Then I realise my seat buckle hadn’t clicked in all the way so it starts to retract back. I scramble to shove it back in but it’s hard while simultaneously being thrown through the air.
Fortunately, Cook is a good driver (something I find myself internally marvelling at). I jam my belt buckle in, hear a click— finally actually safe again— and I look forward, in time to see us touch down our tires on asphalt and pull into a parking lot in a little enclosure right next to a rocky beach by an ocean. Cook stops us and next thing I know, he comes to sit in the backseat with me. Random Important Guy ((btw he has long, brown, surfer style hair — not important but I thought you should know because *vIbEs*)) gets out of the car to look around. I take out my water bottle to get a drink of water. Cook watches while Musk’s purple, animated sports car zips by on the highway, heading for some meeting in Boston (don’t ask me why there’s an ocean on the side of a highway smack dab in the middle of Massachusetts where we are driving). I feel a sense of relief because at least we aren’t being chased-ish by a weird tech man anymore.
Cook mumbles something about corporately betraying him one day, which I get a sense is more so some minor infraction like replacing his balogna sandwich for lunch with a peanut-butter-and-pickle sandwich. I try to take a sip of water but my water bottle is acting up, protesting, by making a squealing noise. Air is trying to escape the pressure inside through a badly sealed top. It’s freaking me out and I feel it’s going to explode soon, sending water all over me and the interior of this car (and I can’t risk someone being mad at me!!) so I push the door open and thrust the water bottle out over the asphalt. But, it doesn’t explode; in fact it altogether stops making the noise. I can quench my thirst now.
Random Important Guy leaves the car to explore the coastline.
I am just about to sit back and relax/recover from the near accident, airborne scare, when a man steps up to the side of our car and puts his hands on his hips. I can see him if I lean forward out of the car. And surprise! It’s Elon staring confidently at the horizon like he wants to buy and conquer the whole ocean. He says something dramatic but I don’t remember it anymore. I just feel my anxiety pick up a little because i have a really bad poker face and if he turns to me he’s going to find out that I’m a spy for my family in hopes of stealing his fortune and empire for ourselves, and if he finds out now it’s all going to be over and end in prison.
suddenly, he tears his gaze off the ocean and on me. He smiles in a really unnerving way at me, winks, and I wake up.
